by Tushar Mangl
“So, I am now getting allotted precious minutes now. 30 minutes. Great.” I wanted to give up but then, how could I?
“Please, Pushkie don’t do this.” Her eyes were sad and unhappy. She hated the way I reacted in a mean tone.
“This is your decision Neelima, not mine. Just talk to me. You know you can talk to me. If there is any problem we will sort it out. I will fix it. I promise you.” I cajoled her.
“Okay then, see you tomorrow,” she said, still not answering my question.
**
Neelima
Remember the time when you were young and rebellious? Remember how you had an imaginary friend. Someone who would always be there. Someone you can just have to yourself and share with none. Your best friend in the world.
At times, I now feel whether that was what Pushkie meant to me. One day, he was there, other he would go, poof. I would see him only on occasions and since he lived in another city, we mostly just talked over phone or chat. His presence was always around me. His strong and assertive voice was always giving me a secure feeling. He knew me so well, that at times, it really felt that I was talking to my own self. He brought out the best and the worst in me.
But what happens when your imaginary and real world collides? When one day he is there mingling with your real friends, the same friends from whom you wanted to hide him. What happens when people find out about your imaginary friend? How do you explain it to the society whose approval you are constantly fighting for?
I know Pushkie won’t understand this. He won’t understand why every time I see a public comment from him on any of my social media posts, my heart squirms. What will my other friends think of this? He does not understand that we cannot have any pictures taken together. He is not supposed to be there on the reel. He is an apparition my mind conjured up. He is there and will always be in my thoughts. I would always crave for his company. But you can’t provide intimacy to someone who exists in your mind. You can’t acknowledge your imaginary best friend. Ever.
When my friends who knew about him, grunted about their disapproval of Pushkie, I was both glad and relieved by the fact. For, he was mine and that no one else was interested in him, gave me a distinct comfort. On the other hand, there was always a foreboding that if meant chose one, I would always choose my real friends. Obviously, you would have done the same. Right? Then why does it feel all wrong?
I loved Pushkie with all my heart and mind. A part of me still does. But the thing with imaginary friends is that there comes a time when you simply outgrow them. He still thinks that we are bonded by our hearts. But he does not understand that what I wanted was an illusion whereas he was out there chasing reality.
We may love our fantasies and never want to let them go, but we have to. Don’t we?
Pushkar
The next day we met again. I was supposed to meet her after her friend had left the Metro station. I had no idea where should we go? Do we head to a food court at the mall, a coffee shop or the market where we had lunch once? Where do people meet discuss end of the World? Her constant reminder of the short time she had did not help either. Here we were two very sad people on a cold November evening no idea where they were headed to.
I tried again. I tried hard, to make her speak. To get her to talk. But all in vain. She looked at me with her big black eyes with sadness that makes me hate myself even today when I recall that day. I had made her sad. How can I forgive myself? Only if she would tell me. I would fix it. But if I won’t stop seeing her, I would go completely mad. That wall of miscommunication will be always there between us. We will fight more and argue more. And I won’t be at peace until I knew whatever it was, that was bothering her. Her silence aggravated things.
She told me she understood that. I suggested a newly opened tea shop which served excellent tea in posh ambiance. I knew she would love this tea. We went to the tea shop and I ordered tea for myself and a masala chai for her, the way she likes it. I asked the guy to pour the tea in the old school, roadside tea stall glasses. I know Neelima will prefer glass to disposable cups. When I took the tray with the tea to our table, Neelima was on phone asking her friend to wait for her.
“You like this place, don’t you?” I asked sweeping my eyes over the well-decorated walls and fancy lighting.
“Yes.” She warmed her hands around the hot glass.
“I always wanted to bring you here. But not under these circumstances.” I murmured, trying not to let a deep sigh run out. I had also ordered tea cake for us and passed the plate to her. It reminded me too much of the times we would share cakes made by her. This would be the last we would ever share. Sometime in future, another guy would be fawning over her culinary skills. The very thought made my heart heavy.
She nodded and we sat there in silence neither of us, knowing what to say. Her phone kept buzzing, reminding that her friend had finished her chore and wanted Neelima to join her.
“I don’t want to go”, she spoke to a distant building.
“Then stay,” was all that I could say. What else could I have said, when I was informed beforehand that I would have just 30 minutes? It’s like meeting with some hot shot CEO or a politician.
“Come and drop me to the metro.” She looked at me and I moved eyes to the floor.
“No, my home is the other way. You go, your friend is waiting.” Our paths had already diverged, and this was way too painful for me. You don’t ask a man to walk to his own funeral. But she did.
“Come na.” I shook my head and asked her to finish the cake. In another era, she would have saved the last bite for me and fed it to me herself. In another era, I would have happily walked her back home.
She coerced me, literally dragging a beaten, barely alive man to the metro station. She said she wanted me to accompany her to the station where she would meet her friend and head back home. They both would be taking the metro to her place. I could then go back to my place. My throat was so full; I could hardly muster a word. But I protested not knowing how to.
We took an auto and when we reached, I could already see her friend. Neelima hugged me and asked for a kiss. She was crying and I wanted to kill everyone at the metro station for her tears. But I was fighting back my own tears.
“I can’t,” I told her. Each moment was killing me, gnawing my insides like a demon.
“Please,” she spoke with her head bent.
“Your friend is watching, the one you said is a gossip monger.” I moved my head to point at the girl standing less than 20 ft. away.
And so, I left her, crying, the last time I would ever see her. Her kohl dripping from eyes. I try to laugh at the white pullover she was wearing as if wearing white in mourning. It doesn’t suit her at all but she is wearing it for I would always pick the color white over black. And she is always partial to black. At least we would agree on which sides to choose over a game of chess.
Her hair all tied up in a braid, I tried to soak in her image to remember for eternity as I knew I won’t ever see those eyes, that hair, that smile, ever again. My heart yearned to be optimistic but deep below I knew our paths will never cross again. Never. Neelima had made sure of that.
And if by any chance our paths crossed, we would be just another set of strangers in a crowd of millions, not recognizing each other, not acknowledging the flutter in our hearts. We will ignore the cold in our belly, the heat in our throat and just move on.
Over time, the Neelima writing project was lost in cold storage. I had left it to Pushkar to work out modalities of publishing it or whatever he wanted to do with it. I knew compiling all this had worn him down. I could see his movements becoming slow and he even lost interest in cooking. I find it funny to think, a guy handing a book with a ribbon over it to a girl, who no longer recognizes him. (Of course, when I told him that once, he was very unhappy about it. I had to buy him an Old Monk to seek forgiveness for my sense of humor. Come to think of it, I buy Rum and whiskey for a lot of peop
le.)
But Pushkar lost the appetite for alcohol as well. As our meetings progressed, I could see the transformation as if he was turning into some kind of yogi.
One day, Eti broke her leg, while practicing for a marathon. I fail to understand, why anyone would go running on Delhi roads. With the air filled with pollution and dust, one could spend time in a Hitler-style gas chamber instead. But Eti being Eti had to do it and practice it as well. Now with a broken leg, she crooned for help and my own writing commitments just took away all my time. I spent half my time doing chores for Eti (which mostly was to buy her alcohol and get her cigarettes). I did message him at times but Pushkar never responded. I thought he was just going through a phase and will eventually snap out of it.
Then one day I was scrolling my Facebook page, desperately trying to escape work (happens with me all the time, especially when I am near deadlines.) when I saw a message in my news feed.
“R.I.P. Pushkar”, it read. I just wished it was a prank. I opened his FB profile and found 2 messages saying R.I.P. Pushkar
This is what our new lifestyle is. We are in such a hurry these days that our condolences are also abbreviated. Rest in Peace would take some time to write. Why not just punch R.I.P and get it over with? I tried his number but no one answered the call.
I wrote to Chetana, one of the authors of the R.I.P. note, to inquire more about his death. I thought she might be able to shed more light on the subject.
“He died last week; I don’t have any further details. I just saw a message from Neeraj and responded.” She messaged me after two days I sent her the message. That was plausible. Often, we just follow threads on social media, not knowing complete facts. In this aspect, he was lucky not to be alive. I mean, imagine you die and only two people leave a condolence message. You would die again from embarrassment I am sure.
I wondered if Neelima had left any message on his Facebook wall. No, there wasn’t any, as I had obviously assumed. But she was still on his friend's list. I opened her profile and saw a picture of hers with the lookalike at a beach. They both were looking dashing in their swimsuits, arms around each other and raging waves in the background. I went back to Pushkar’s profile and checked his profile for any other clue but again, no luck. It was strange that I had spent months visiting his apartment but had no idea about his family or other friends. I had no chance to meet or talk to any of them. Did he have any other friends?
“Have you come to any conclusion yet,” Eti asked me one day as she was reading my notes on the Neelima thing.
I was setting up some pillows for Eti to rest her plastered leg on. Somewhere near her bedside table, Ellie Goulding was crooning Love Me Like You Do. It seemed to be Eti’s current favorite. She had once asked me to learn the dance, like the one shown in this song’s official video. I shrugged it off, the same way I ignore many things Eti asks me to do.
“Do you have any thoughts on conclusions?” I asked back, letting out a deep sigh. The whole Pushkar and Neelima affair had mentally exhausted me. A broken, unfulfilled story can do that to you.
“Talk to me,” she ordered.
“I think she never loved him. The more I consider it, it becomes clear that Pushkar was living in an imaginary world. He tried to convince me she did love him, but I think she never did.” It felt raw inside to admit this.
“He was her exotic pet. She took no time to get tired of him. Pushkar knew it too.” Eti said as she gazed away at the open window. I sat beside her and she laid her head on my shoulders. Both of us now stared at my open notebook with untidy markings of Puskar and Neelima’s story. None of us was happy about this and Eti remarked, even Neelima would have been unhappy about this.
“We still don’t know whether he meant anything to her ever,” Eti spoke first.
“We will never know,” I replied.
“And we will know what was wrong with Pushkar other than love.”
“True that Eti. At least he got Honey Bunch?” I tilted my head towards her.
“I don’t know about that, but I think I found mine,” Eti whispered, ruffling my hair as she spoke, her other arm wrapped around my neck and her eyes locking mine in a matter of fact way.
Epilogue
I often wondered if Neelima knew anything about Pushkar having a psychological disorder. I discussed with a friend of mine who is a Doctor. In a typical doctor style, he informed me that without talking to the patient, how could he say anything. I explained him that won’t be possible. The patient won’t talk to anyone now. I explained the mannerisms, the things which bothered me about Pushkar. He said, it was likely to be Asperger’s Syndrome but someone trained in psychology and psychiatry might be able to help. The things just kept on nagging me. I was not sure and now I won’t ever know.
A few months after his death, I still could not find much about how he died. I don’t know why, but it was a relief, to not know. In a sense, his death would have been a relief to his tormented soul too. I hoped, wherever he was, wherever people go after death, he was okay. I know he would have coped with the loss of love but not the loss of friendship. In his darkest days, he had crimped on that relationship perhaps looking for a save. I just hope he is not worried, wherever he is, that Neelima would be sad to his demise.
One day, I typed her name in Google. I had told Eti I won’t contact her, but just out of idle curiosity I keyed in her name. Amongst the many links that popped up, one was a YouTube link. As I played a video, I heard her speaking about Asperger’s.
“I knew an Asperger’s patient once. I always believed that he was too shy, always teased him about being an introvert. I was not a trained clinical psychologist back then. I did not know about Asperger’s Syndrome. I always believed that my friend was a shy guy. Why didn’t he go out as often as I did? Why did he prefer reading at home, then partying out with friends? He preferred to sit home and write than go to a bowling alley. It’s the noise he would say. But do I know for sure today? To be honest with you, I don’t. I wish I had the courage to talk to him about this.”
Someone, from the audience I assume, spoke up, the video camera was still focused on Neelima’s face. It looked sad.
“How do you know? I mean, from your own experience, what have you learned? I am sorry if its personal.”
“No, it is okay to ask. I honestly don’t know what I learned from my experience. Could I have saved him from himself? I ask this question myself many times but I am yet to find any answers.”
“Actually, can I ask another personal question?” This came from a short Asian Girl with freckles. Her bangs almost covered half her face.
“Sure” Neelima smiled. I had thought that she would discourage such questions.
“Were you guys a couple?” She asked in a very teenage kind of way.
Some people chuckled in the audience. Neelima giggled too. Then she lowered her eyes as if wishing for some words to appear before her.
“He wanted the whole of me. There was not enough of me to offer him. That is what I always tell myself.”
She slowly lifted her eyes to face the audience.
“Maybe, all he wanted was loyalty. And that was the only thing I couldn’t give him.”
There was a long pause of silence before she continued with her planned lecture.
I paused the video and checked the video length. There were another 15 minutes in it to finish. I pondered over the video and closed the browser window, wondering about how we always pretend to understand love. Yet are always fooled by the games, emotions play. For love is an emotion best left unexplained.
Acknowledgements
First, this story would not have seen the light of the day had the wonderful people at NaNoWriMo not provided their tremendous support. A special word of thanks to the India Municipal Liaisons and the Indian commune of NaNoWriMo. They are not only gifted writers but also have a great sense of camaraderie.
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a great effort to bring
together a diverse set of writers on a platform with similar goals. It throws a challenge to authors to pen down 50,000 words in a month and keeps them motivated through a sense of camaraderie and activities organized by local forums. It is held every month in November.
A special note of thanks to those people who provided the poetry/prose for this story but chose to remain anonymous. You might not want me to mention your names here, but gratitude needs to be noted.
A big thank you to my friends and family, who have steadfastly encouraged me and believed in the story that I can narrate stories to the World.
Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to you, the reader, without whom a story teller would be nothing.
About the Author
Tushar Mangl is a motivational speaker, trainer, and storyteller based in Delhi. An avid reader, he spends most of his free time reading, writing, and traveling. He is the author of The Avenging Act, The Thakur Boy Footsteps on the Sands of Time, and The Reluctant Scribbler.
He is also one of the contributors at Team Potliwale Baba, who wrote a story that is part of BlogAdda.com’s book Six Degrees. He has also collected his experiences as content writer and strategist into a book titled The Ultimate Guide to Content Writing
Write to him at Twitter.com/tusharmangl
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