If It’s Not Forever: It’s Not Love

by Datta, Durjoy

  ‘Where are you from? What do you want?’ The maid looks at us inquiringly.

  ‘Umm … we are Ritam’s friends,’ I say.

  ‘Come in,’ she says and points to the couch. ‘Wait here. Main batati hoon.’

  We are a little surprised that the maid knows who Ritam is. She didn’t react even a bit when we said we are Ritam’s friends. For a moment I think what if Ragini knows about Ritam? But that can’t be. The last note, dated ten days before the blast, said that it had been forever since he had had any contact with Ragini.

  The house is very boringly furnished. It looks good but is devoid of colour. It also looks expensive, but there isn’t much around. I had expected Ragini to live in a flat with pink curtains, blue sofas and aromatic candles. This was nothing like it. No flower vases, no photo frames, no nothing. Very strange indeed.

  I try not to think too much about it and wait for Ragini to come out. I breathe heavily and my eyes are stuck on the door of the bedroom behind which is the girl about whom I’ve been reading for the last so many days. The moment is finally there. And my heart is pumping like it did the first time I had seen Avantika. That was quite a day and this belongs right up there in terms of tension and anticipation.

  At a corner of the room, I spot a small photo frame with a picture of a guy—smart, wheatish complexion, decent build, probably in his mid-twenties—who stares back at me with kind eyes. Oh shit. Did she get married? That will be such an anti-climax. I nudge Avantika to show her the photo. As soon as she looks at it, we hear the door creaking open. Shrey and Tiya see the photo too and Tiya almost mutters, ‘What the …’ We all get up to receive Ragini. Our pupils are dilated and our heartbeats hit the roof as we look at the person. ‘… fuck!’ Tiya completes her sentence.

  ‘Hey,’ the voice says.

  We look at where the voice comes from and our mind draws a blank. We look at the face and we are dumbfounded. We exchange glances and look in the direction of the person again. It’s like all four of us are in severe shock-induced trauma. Ragini? Wasn’t she supposed to be a girl? We are bloody shocked. And it strikes me, then Avantika and then the other two. Our eyes move to the picture in the photo frame on the corner table. The person standing in front of us right now is the nice-looking guy from the photo. Darn. She got married? Is this Ragini’s husband? This simply can’t be. How can Ragini do this to Ritam? This can’t be the end of the diary.

  ‘Hi,’ we echo, a little confused. Well, not a little. We are mindfucked.

  ‘I am Ritam,’ he says and shakes my outstretched hand.

  28 August 2011

  ‘I have realized that I am nothing without her. She gives me meaning. Life’s worthless without her and I want my life back.’

  I read the note again today. It’s been too long that I have read it and abided by it. But it’s time I went against it. Some things need to go my way. She needs to know what I feel for her. Things have to change, for the better, and they have to go in the direction in which I want them to go. Ragini will have to listen this time. I will not let her be stupid any more. I read the note for the last time today and tore it off. Not that it helps because I know it by heart.

  I have been a coward for too long. It’s got to change. I have to disregard the note. It means nothing to me. I can’t let my love die like this. But the note …

  Hi,

  I am sure you will be angry when you read this and I agree that it is justified. There are a lot of mistakes I have done in my life, but I have never hurt people who cared about me. My parents, my friends, my sisters, brothers and you. I have managed to do that this time. I know what I have been doing over the last few days is unpardonable and I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me some day. I am ashamed that I dragged you with me to Bangalore, because I wanted to be with Nigel and promptly forgot all about you. I have made mistakes but none as big as this. I have failed you, and I am sorry. There is not much love left in my heart, but if there was, I would have given it all to you. It’s been only a few months that I have known you, but you have meant more to me than anyone else. While you were always there to guide me, scold me and tell me right from wrong, all I did was to give you pain. I don’t deserve you.

  Ever since I have been shifted to rehabilitation, I can’t help but think of all the pain I have brought to you and my parents. Mom and Dad have no choice but to live with their degenerate daughter, but spare yourself the trauma. You need to leave me. I can’t bear to see you any more. I won’t be able to. Yesterday, when you came to see me, something inside me wanted to die. I wanted to slit my wrists and end my worthless life. If you stay, you will be a constant reminder of my mistakes in life and I can’t take any more of it. If you ever considered me a friend, and I know you did, I need just one favour from you. Save me. Please go away and never come back. It’s my last wish from you. Please don’t make it more difficult for me than it already is.

  Please know that you hold a very special place in my heart and it will always be that way. Try to forgive me. I won’t blame you if you don’t. Best of luck for your life.

  Ragini.

  I wish and I will see her some day. And she will be mine. I will make it happen.

  Ritam?

  Ritam? Did he actually say that? Is this even real? Someone is playing around with us. He doesn’t look burnt. And he seriously doesn’t look like a girl! He is definitely not Ragini. What on earth is happening here? We look at each other, and look at him, clueless at what just happened. What the hell?

  ‘Umm …’ Avantika says. ‘You’re Ritam? Isn’t this Ragi … I mean—this is your house?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, a little taken aback. ‘This is my house. Who are you guys?’

  ‘But how can you be Ritam?’ Shrey says.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Ritam Dey? Who studied at Imperial Academy, Dehradun?’ Shrey tries to confirm.

  ‘Yes, I am. What do you mean? I am really not getting you guys.’

  ‘But you’re dead! You’re dead, right?’ I say.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he says. He is freaking out and so are we. He should be burnt and dead, and definitely not be in Ragini’s house.

  ‘Yes, you are dead!’ Tiya shrieks. And this is not your house! This is Ragini’s house! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you dead?’

  ‘What? Ragini? How do you know her?’

  ‘We just know and this is her house, not yours,’ Tiya shouts again.

  ‘I am really not getting you. How do you know her?’ he asks again. We can see that he is now a little angry and very confused. We are no better.

  Avantika says, ‘We have your diary. You were in that blast in Delhi sometime ago, and you are dead!’

  She takes out the diary from my backpack and hands it to him. His eyes look like they would pop out of his head. He is stunned.

  ‘Here it is. It’s all burnt. How can you be alive? We found it at the blast site. You should be dead. But you’re not! How?’ Avantika exclaims.

  ‘Yes,’ he says and takes the diary. ‘I should be … I … I … should be dead.’

  Suddenly he is lost. His eyes go blank and vacant. He looks at the diary like he has never seen it. The same ritual unfolds for the umpteenth time in front of our eyes. A few tears, the running of hands over the burnt pages, the pause, the flipping through the pages. He looks at it, teary-eyed for quite some time and looks at us, his eyes flooded with questions he needs answers to. We look at him with the same expression. We have no answers for him.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ he asks. His feet are staggering.

  ‘Near the Chandni Chowk blast site. I was there when the blast happened. The diary was all burnt. Are you sure it’s yours?’ I ask.

  ‘Wait,’ he says and opens the drawer next to the sofa. ‘Look, I have copies of it. This is mine. But how is it with you? I sent it to Ragini a few weeks back … and …’

  His voice trails off. He asked a terrible question and he answered the question himself. Tiya s
taggers and leans on the sofa. Avantika clutches my hand. Shrey and I look at each other in sheer horror. Our hearts beat out of our mouths. Fuck. This can’t be. It was Ragini. We look at him. The copies of his diary drop to the ground and his tears begin to flow in abundance. He stumbles and leans on the sofa. He sits there, puts the diary on the table in front of him and looks at it. He looks lost. It looks like he would faint. My head’s in a mess. I have no idea what he must be going through.

  Ritam looks at us, his eyes filled with tears, and he asks, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I thought it was you.’

  ‘Oh God,’ he says, now looking very close to fainting.

  ‘But … let’s not assume that she is … she is … gone. I mean, when I got this diary, we assumed that you were dead. We assumed that the owner of the diary did not survive. When we did not even know if the diary was with its owner at that time. Maybe … maybe it was with someone else? Maybe it wasn’t … her?’ I suggest.

  ‘But I sent it to her. Why would she give it to someone else?’ Ritam asks, trying to make sense of the whole situation.

  ‘Did you courier it?’ Shrey asks.

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Then maybe it did not reach her? Maybe it was with the courier guy?’

  ‘Was it in an envelope when you found it?’ Ritam turns to me and asks.

  I shake my head. We don’t say anything else. We are all expecting the worst.

  He frantically gets his laptop and searches for helpline numbers for the Chandni Chowk victims. He finds them and starts calling those hospitals like I had. I tell him that I have done that and the hospitals can’t tell him anything. He doesn’t listen to me and still calls all the numbers. We still don’t know what’s going on. Or we do, but we don’t want to accept it. Tiya looks at me. She has tears in her eyes too. She passes on the envelope that Nigel had given us. She asks me to check the writing on it. And it strikes me. It’s not Ragini’s handwriting. It’s the handwriting from the diary. That’s why it has Ritam’s address. The card with Nigel wasn’t from Ragini, it was from Ritam.

  Meanwhile, he keeps calling these hospitals up and asking whether there is a patient by the name of Ragini in their list, dead or survived. There is no trace of her. He has written down the list of the people who had been killed and Ragini is not one of them. I tell him again that it will not help. But I don’t argue. He looks frantic and is all over the place. Soon he starts to look like a maniac.

  An hour passes by and he is still trying to trace Ragini through news articles, hospitals and YouTube clips of the news channels reporting the blast. We just sit there and watch him cry and frantically do everything to get to Ragini. Though slowly, he starts to accept defeat and his face droops, his movements become more restricted and the flow of tears increases. Nothing comes through. He holds his head and sits in the corner. He looks devastated. It’s not easy to know that one’s love is dead in such an unfortunate incident. It’s probably a feeling that we can’t understand unless it happens to us.

  It’s just unfair. I am sure he is thinking, ‘How can she die? How can it happen to me?’

  It feels like someone has ripped my heart out. So, for him, it is bound to be even more painful. Ragini might have just come to know that Ritam loved her. She might have read the entire diary and then died. It is just so unfortunate.

  Suddenly, something strikes him. He flips open a telephone diary and goes to the page where Ragini’s home phone number is listed. It’s a London number.

  ‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Can I talk to Ragini’s mother? No longer live there? Why? What happened? India? Why? Death? Whose? What? Ragini? Fine.’

  Our eyes widen and our hearts sink as we hear the word death. It is final. It is no courier guy who died. We look at Ritam and he is disturbed as hell. He has reasons to be. It’s worse. Ragini knowing that Ritam was dead was much better than this. Ragini can’t be dead. This is not happening. And we just told Ritam that? Oh God. This is a worse nightmare than we had ever imagined it would be.

  He hangs up and flops on the sofa. He covers his face with his palms. I can’t imagine what he’s going through. We are devastated too. I can barely sit still, my head spins as I look at him. I can feel his pain. It’s even more real now. It’s like imagining Avantika blown to bits and someone telling me that. I would want to die that very instant. It would kill me. And it seems like it is killing Ritam too. It has to. After reading everything that he feels for the pretty girl from the diary, the pain would be unbearable. It shows on his face, which is red and looks like it would burst.

  After a little while, Ritam is not crying. He sits still, looks down and breathes heavily. Ragini is dead, blown to bits. Not Ritam. He looks at us and again a few tears trickle down his cheek. He almost faints as Shrey holds him up. He holds back and cries softly. He leans back on the sofa and looks at the ceiling. He doesn’t say a thing. A few moments later, he tries to stand up and does so. He walks up to me and hugs me.

  ‘Thank you.’ The words barely escape his throat. His eyes look vacant.

  I don’t know what to say other than ‘I am sorry’.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he asks. ‘You want something to eat?’

  He instructs the maid to get something for us. He is still crying. We feel sorry for him. All of us are close to tears. Tiya and Avantika have tears in the corners of their eyes. It feels like we have known Ragini forever—and now, suddenly, without any warning—she’s left us.

  We show him the envelope Nigel gave us.

  ‘We met your sister too. We read about her in the diary,’ Avantika says. ‘Very sweet girl.’

  ‘Did she look happy?’

  We nod.

  ‘She liked Ragini. I had promised her that I would make her meet her some day …’

  He doesn’t say anything for a while. Obviously, there are other things on his mind. He tries to talk a few times but his voice gives way. Words refuse to come out of his mouth.

  ‘I was leaving today to meet Nivedita. You met everybody?’

  ‘Piyush, Sumi, Nigel. We met them all. We thought you had … They all had good things to say about you. We wanted to meet Ragini. Nigel showed us the Get Well Soon card and said it was from Ragini. We didn’t know it was you who sent it to him …’

  Since he isn’t talking, we decide that we would. Avantika tells him everything that has transpired since I found the diary. How we got to Piyush, then Nivedita, Sumi and Nigel. She tells him everything—the kind words and love everyone had for him—and we wait for him to smile. It doesn’t work. I look at Ritam and feel terribly sorry for him. He is a good-looking guy. We already know he is a sweet guy. Ragini would have been really lucky to be with such a genuine person.

  ‘Ragini had started to hate him,’ he says and looks out of the window The tears don’t stop. ‘Nigel.’

  ‘Nigel told us,’ Avantika says.

  ‘Nothing should have happened the way it did,’ he says and holds his head again.

  I can imagine the feeling. Of loving someone and not letting that person know. And the only time that Ritam had tried to tell her about her feelings, it didn’t end well. Ragini died with that diary in her hands.

  ‘It took a lot of courage to send her the diary,’ he says, with regret in his voice. ‘I should have done it long before, but I wanted to give her time. I ne … never knew that … I just wanted her back.’

  We don’t want to say anything that would make him regret it more. Shrey and I look at Avantika, who is our expert at handling such situations.

  ‘I’m sure she knows that you love her … wherever she is,’ she says and pats his hand.

  He starts to sob again but stops immediately. He sees us looking at him and maybe realizes that it must be awkward for us. I really don’t mind. He should get his time to cry it out.

  ‘But why did you go out looking for Ragini in the first place?’ Ritam asks.

  I say, ‘I read the diary first. I just thought that Ragini deserved
to know. And it was your intention too—as you mentioned in the last note—that you will disregard what Ragini had said and will tell her everything. I just wanted your story to have an end.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he says and we nod. ‘I would never have known … had you not …’

  None of us says anything. The air around us is still one of shock, we are still grappling with the stark reality—that Ragini, the girl we had been looking forward to meet, is dead—and none of us is getting used to it. The feeling of denial hangs unceremoniously in the air. Everything changed in a matter of a few seconds. Neither he nor we know what to do. There is an awkward silence. It’s a consolation that Ragini probably knew that Ritam loved him.

  ‘Why didn’t you drop in your number in the diary?’ I ask, just out of curiosity.

  ‘The last few pages of the diary are burnt,’ he says. ‘I had …’

  He tells us that he had poured his heart out on the last few pages, which were now burnt. He tells us that he had even written his number and had been waiting for her call ever since he had couriered the diary. He tells us that he was beginning to think Ragini wouldn’t ever reply and that he had lost her forever.

  He was right in a very twisted, unfortunate manner. Indeed, he had lost her. Instead of the call from Ragini, we landed up at his place. If only those pages hadn’t gotten burnt, it would have been so easy to trace Ragini/Ritam down. But I am glad they got burnt. The chase and the search for Ragini made me realize how important it is to keep your loved ones close and let them know what you feel. Who knows what tomorrow has in store for you? Or worse still, for them?

  Once again, silence hangs around the room.