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“Shamita”

He ha ha ha ha. I feel like laughing out loud. LOL in chat terminology. I was unable to hold the spurt of laughter gushing out. I held it back with great efforts. If it hadn’t been for Piyush, I would’ve laughed badly. On his face. Melodramatic mess saala. What a joke. Two great individuals falling in love with a same woman. Holy cow!

We stand at a point, which has been visited upon by numerous Hindi films. A plot so old, yet so popular. A love triangle. An poignant situation where romance meets geometry. I always wondered which type of triangle is a love triangle. Acute? Isosceles? Or a right angled triangle? Can Pythagoras theorem be applied on the love triangle. Which is the adjacent side? And which is the hypotenuse? Do the theorems of triangular similarity apply on them? Or can they be trigonometrically evaluated? Are there any theorems that are related to these triangles. Maybe those would solve them for better.

Like this new triangle that was being constructed before me. There was a straight line. A line that connected Harshad and Piyush. And a point emerged at a certain distance near this line. Or was it always there, but realized later? But the point doess intrude in the private space of the line. And lines were drawn. From the two ends namely Harshad and Piyush to this point. The triangle formed. In geometry, a triangle always binds the three points together. It’s because pencil lines lack feelings. They are just lead scratches on a paper. When the triangle comes to life here, it feels. And that’s where it starts differing from geometry. In a human triangle, the third point divides the line joining the first two points. No perpendiculars and no bisectors. Just presence. And no geometric law has been able to solve this dissection. I wish Pythagoras had given this a thought.

The line between any two of them was going to be dissected soon. That’s the law. My law of human geometry.

“What happened?...why are you quiet?...she is a good girl na?” Piyush seemed worried by my contemplative silence.

“Yes…of course dude!” I replied. “No doubts about that!”

“Then??....is there any problem…..I mean I am asking you because you are closest to her….Tell me if there is any problem….I will solve it! ”

“No problem man!”

“Do you like her?” He speaks it out directly like a naïve soul. I like it more than the path Harshad had chosen to get the same information.

“No man!” What I have is just lust. You love her. You have more right to approach further.

“Then…?”

“Isn’t she a bit different from the girls of your choice?” Yes he had a choice. He came from rural India. And like the rural youth, he was always taken aback by the amount of freedom enjoyed by the urban women. They are attracted to them. They want to spend nights with them. They want to peep into their cleavages. The want to stare at their thighs. They want to possess them and get laid for a million times with them. But they only want a homely female as a wife and as a lover. Reason is simple. They cannot trust urban women. A judgment arrived at, looking at the way the urban girls dress up. Piyush was one such epitome of hypocrisy. He had always maintained on sleeping with urban girls, whom he was unsuccessful in wooing even a single one till date, and marrying a rural girl, of whom he was assured about morality, clean character and preserved virginity. But I knew he would hook one. He was rich. And that says it all. But I never thought that something of this sort would ever occur. He had fallen in love with a girl he would otherwise not trust, by his measurements of character evaluation

Yes….but she is different….I know….my heart says so!” He replies.

What Ghanta different! Just say you have gone head over heels over her and have secretly kept aside your hypothetical ideals beneath your mattress. Bloody hypocrite

And if she isn’t?” I ask him generally, “I mean…I am asking you generally!”
“Then I will get her straight!”

Yes. Like million boyfriends in this country who hit their girlfriends when they seem to loose an argument with them. Like all those lovers who forcibly get their girlfriends to bed. Like all those macho men who restrict their girls from socializing after they get into a relationship with them. Like all those embodiments of masculinity who verbally abuse the queens of their heart with choicest of abuses about their character. And she, like all those girls, who gullibly swallow up all this, will bear it all, if she falls in love with you. Like all girls who undergo this wordlessly, for god knows what reason, maybe for the sake of love, she too would endure it all and succumb to you. In that case, you would be damn lucky.

“Yeah….right!” I said.
“So….what do you think?....should I go ahead with it?”
“What does your heart say?” I thank the great Bollywood line churners for this.
“That I should”
“Then you should!!”
“Thanks man!” He hugs me tight.

Out of helplessness, I hug him too. I realize, it is not he who is hugging me. It’s a trouble to follow that’s wrapping me in its arms. He almost cries as he hugs me.

That night he is in a different high altogether. Everybody comes home. We drink, smoke and chat. But he doesn’t tell anybody about his new found love. He is the usual chatter dick. I feel privileged to be a part of his secret. I feel filled up with his respect. I feel like hugging him now. But as the honor fills into me, also does a fear clouds my mind. What if I am not able to keep his faith in me alive? What if I break the delicate toy of trust he has placed in my hands. I smoke more. And so do I drink!


(Contd.)