Q and A...

He seemed troubled...
Having ordered his favourite drink,I finally asked "something wrong??"
no reply...
I was with an old friend...having shared the good,bad and the ugly of life through school,we are the types people term 'chuddy-buddies' 

With him finally making the move to pune...I finally had a schoolmate in my adopted city...
A smile played on my lips as I remembered the pledge we had taken on the last day of school "till spouses and careers do us part"...
#the irony had made me smile....
Our busy schedules not permitting an earlier meeting,it was a relief when we both finally found time for a meeting one friday evening...

However,his rather strange mood was threatening to ruin the whole evening...

I knew I had to ask him...doing it the right way seemed the immediate challenge...
the drinks arrived and I knew that was the moment...

"whats troubling you??"...no reply still
"come on...you can tell me"...

"why do some women have to behave the way they do??"...
I wasn't prepared for that question...
Anyways,my relative inexperience would have rendered me useless...so I preferred being silent and knowing him,I waited for him to speak again...
#the last I heard of him he was seeing a schoolmate who was pursuing law in the same city...


"why is that you are tantalized bit by bit every time,hints thrown at you in hordes even though you are unwilling to pick them and then,in that one moment when you let your guard down,in that one moment of child-like vulnerability...your dreams are crushed with an iron hand??...got answers boy??"I was puzzled and shocked at the same time...he wasn't making sense...
"care to elaborate??"....that was the best I could think of...

He went on for the next 15 min or so and by the time he stopped I was already having a sense of deja vu...
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#Apparently,after years of  patience,he finally had mustered the courage to talk to the girl he had secretly liked all these years....his patience had been rewarded and the girl had reacted back favourably...
A demand of an elaboration on the word 'favourably'  was met with surprise initially and then he continued...
He would never have expressed his feelings for her had it not been for one serendipitous meeting at a mall one weekend...And even though he wanted to ask for her number,his usual shy self  had prevented him from doing so...She probably gauged his feelings and gave him her number on the pretext of catching up again....
Was it a signal??...he couldn't fathom...

He decided to take it as it came instead of rushing into things...**at least being a friend was better than being a  nobody**...or so he thought..
An accepted facebook friend request and a couple of very formal online chats later....the confusion still persisted...
However,all that was to change soon....
Him being a passionate theatre artist in his free time,he was very often seen on stage in some play or the other...Time and again,the idea of inviting her to one of his shows crossed his mind but his same old hesitatant self stopped him from doing so....

A sms one Friday evening was the harbinger of things to come...
It was the girl expressing displeasure at being kept in the dark about what she felt was a 'special ability' of his...
The feeling the message evoked in him was warm...she had complained in a manner which had given him a sense of belonging...was it a sign??...he still wasn't sure..
He immediately sent her a pass for his next play...
One meeting led to another....#just to add,my friend isn't boring...he's just shy
She seemed to enjoy his company...as did he....
With conversations ranging from topics as diverse as school-time crushes to their respective career paths and the amount of time they had started spending together,it was but inevitable that someday there would be a discussion on their romantic interests....

And it happened....and he stopped there...refusing to go ahead with the story...

I knew I had to guess the rest...which was actually easy...
Isnt it??....Probably you'd have guessed it by now...
The girl's behaviour had changed dramatically the moment he confessed his feelings for her...which actually came as a shocker to him..
Even though it was so unlike him,he had felt bitter...
He needed answers....and he ended up questioning the girl over what she meant everytime she cribbed about not having a boyfriend,about all the sweet nothings which gave him a feeling of gentle surrender,about all the nicknames she had given him,all the firsts she said she could have shared with no one else....If those weren't hints then what were they??
Her expressions had changed from amazement to bewilderment and her answer bordered on disgust ..she had obviously been misunderstood and that reflected in her answer...


No blaming the girl,no blaming the boy...I was lost...
My friend expected a few words from me...good,bad or ugly,he'd have lapped them all...But I somehow preferred a stoic silence...#An old habit I picked from a teacher of mine...not reacting when you are most expected to...It shocks some,amazes some,some even end up cursing me but for me its utility has never been lost....
Not that I had much of an option...Having known both of them since school,I was pretty sure none of them was in the wrong....

The fact that I didn't react the way he expected me to had irked him....he went into a monologue...he kept on speaking for about 10 mins revealing layers of whatever he had shared with her...#the booze and the emotions combined were beginning to show up....
Another drink and the monologue later,he stopped....all silence...
"does love even exist??"....he suddenly sprang back to life and threw that question at me...just when I thought he was done for the night...
Not surprisingly,I didnt have an answer....I had been clueless about much of what he had asked me that evening....
The question had been asked.....
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After having gazed at each other expressionless for quite sometime,I decided we needed a mood-lifter...
Not much later,we were walking down MG Road to a famous kulfi shop....Kulfi had been one of his favourites in school...

The shop was still some 50 metres away when we noticed a middle-aged couple coming out of the shop with their cup of kulfi...the cup in his hands,the man occasionally slipped in a spoon or two of kulfi into the lady's mouth as well... #while PDA usually is a strict no-no with me,this sight somehow didn't make me uncomfortable...courtesy,what was to follow next...

Feeding her the dessert,a small piece stuck beside her lips...The woman didn't notice it,the man did,as did we...the next moment,the man gave a sneaking glance all around and scooped out that piece from her face into his mouth...the woman seemed embarrassed and gave him the usual 'arrey-log kya sochenge??-kya-aap-bhi-bacchon-ki-tarah??' ...of course,all that was in good humor and she had enjoyed it as much as the man....
An instant smile played on our lips which changed into a full-scale laugh once we crossed them...we finally had a mood-lifter and that too,before the kulfi...

we grabbed our kulfis and were straddling down the road still smiling when he said "dude!!...I've had my answer"...I just smiled...his questions had been answered....as were some of mine...


Love existed...and has lived happily,ever after :-)
#On a sidenote....Couldn't help wondering why most doctors and lawyers end up marrying one of their kind??
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