Serendipity

“I Love You!”

He heard her loud and clear. He even the sweet smell of her perfume. But when he opened his eyes, there was nobody. He was sitting all alone on a ruin by the river with only cool breeze and chirping birds for company. His reverie had been interrupted. He got up and started walking along the familiar road towards his home.

This was not the first time he had heard it. The voice had haunted him over and over again. It was sweet; yet there was something sad about it. He felt it was familiar; yet he could not place it. It was like everything else in his life. The streets, the house, the people… everything. He felt as if he was living in a trance, a dream, where everything was hazy, the voices toned down, disconnected. Was he hallucinating? Was he going mad? The thought was disturbing.

One hot afternoon, a few days later, he found himself sitting on a bed staring at a large old cupboard. It stood in a dark corner. He felt drawn to it. He pulled at the handle, the door opened smoothly.

The cupboard was full of books, some new, some old, neatly arranged. But the books did not interest him. He kept searching ignoring the books. Under one of the plank there was a small recess just enough to give him a finger hold. He yanked at it. Magically, the bottom half of the plank swiveled out revealing a small compartment. It contained a lone diary. He took out the diary closed the cupboard and started reading it.

The diary was full of scribbles; he scanned through a few entries. It was written by somebody who led a boring life. He was flipping through the pages when a folded paper slipped from the diary and fell on the floor. It was a handwritten page neat and crispy. And it told a story of a boy called Sameer.

“Sameer was a shy, slightly introverted boy. His only childhood playmate was his neighbor Shruti. They were almost of the same age and good friends for as long as they could remember. They always liked to play together; they shared everything from chocolates to secrets. They were best friends, they were inseparable.

“Ambitious father, a pamphlet in the newspaper advertizing an IIT coaching center in the city and a relative exalting the virtues of the coaching center resulted in Sameer packing his bags to join the residential school which prepared students for IIT. This was after his class ten; Shruti joined a local college. The coaching center was famous for military discipline. The students, once inside would not be allowed any disruption in their concentration. Visitors were allowed only once a month and even then only parents could visit. And going home was a forbidden except for a prescribed week once a year. They provided each student with a time-table which spanned from early morning pre-dawn Mathematics lessons sessions to pre-sleep biology drawing practice.

When Sameer visited home a year later, he had become a shadow of himself. Sameer’s mother could not bear that her son had to suffer at this age. She declared that her son would not go to the residential school again, She was convinced that the residential school would harm her son. Sameer did not protest either, he was not very happy there either. He joined the local college; he and shruti were classmates once again.

Sameer who returned from school was a different person. He made friends more easily and was generally extroverted around them, while he became introverted when around Shruti. He had not seen her for a while although they wrote to each other regularly, and when he saw her now he could not but resist but wonder how beautiful she was. This converted into a full blown crush by the time he joined the college.

He would find himself staring at her quite unconsciously. But one day she noticed his stare. She waved at him and instead of responding, Sameer blushed. That day he resolved that he would speak to Shruti about his feelings. He knew that this would take it out of his system.

Sameer would try and catch Shruti alone, and though he succeeded many times, he could never speak his mind. Frustrated, Sameer decided to write a letter. That evening, when he was along at the house, he sat down and wrote a long letter. But the letter was never delivered. His life was interrupted.. by a phone call.”

He turned the page around to find it was blank. Whoever had written this had intentionally stopped at this point, like they did in novels, to encourage readers to move to next chapter. But here there was no second chapter to be found. He searched the cupboard, turned almost every book upside down, peered into holes in vain.

It was evening. The sun was setting. He was sitting under a large tree on the banks of a lake surrounded by fields on either side. Sameer’s incomplete story had made him restless.

He heard sound of some feet running. He turned around and watched as a school boy approached the tree, stood on a protruding root and retrieved and retrieved a stone from a hiding place. The boy walked up to the shore, closed his eyes concentrating on the stone for a few seconds, slowly took aim and flung the stone flat into the lake and counted as the stone bounced 5 times before finally submerging. The boy jumped with joy. “Come on, it’s getting late.” A girl from somewhere further behind was hurrying the boy. He turned around to look at the young girl, but there was nobody there. He turned back towards the place the young boy who was jumping with joy a few seconds ago was gone too.

He walked around the tree. The trunk looked smooth and solid. Just as he was sure that it must have been a dream, he saw the hiding place camouflaged by overgrown bark. There were a few stones and to his even greater surprise a neatly folded paper. It was written in the same handwriting, and was the second chapter of the interrupted story. He anxiously started reading it without even bothering to sit down.

“Just as Sameer was about the finish the letter, the phone rang.

‘Hello’ Sameer answered.

There was silence at the other end.

‘Hello. Who is it?’

Sameer heard someone giggle at the other end. Then the call got disconnected. 10 minutes later the phone rang again. Sameer picked it up, his heart was beating fast.

‘I wore a red dress today. Did you like it?’ It was a girl at the other end.

‘Excuse me?’ Sameer was confused.

‘You heard me. Think about it. Click’ The girl had disconnected the phone.

Sameer slept uneasily that night.

The girl called Sameer every evening, without fail . “Today I wore green”, ‘Today it was blue.”, “Today it was blue again, but a different blue!”. That was all she spoke, not a word more.

Sameer became obsessed with her. He started writing down all the dresses worn by different girls during the day and wait for the call in the evening. But he never could make out who it was.

“Then one day she did not talk about dresses. ‘Halliday and Resnik. Page 128”. When he opened the book, there was a photo of a temple with “4 P.M.” written it. Sameer recognized the temple in the photo. It was located on top of a hillock on the way to college. He looked at his watch. He had 30 minutes to reach the place.

Sameer cycled as fast as he could. He parked his cycle on the road from where a hundred steps led to the top of the hillock on which the temple was located. Sameer was out of breath when he reached the top. He looked around. But it was deserted, the temple itself was locked. There was an arrow drawn using sand, which pointed in the direction to a tree. When he followed the arrow he saw a coffee cup kept under the tree. The cup was empty except for a coffee bean. Below the cup there was a photo of a bus with “4:15”

Sameer searched for more hints. There was none. Then it hit him; near the foothill where he had parked his bicycle, there was a bus stop with a large advertisement of the new coffee brand. The advertisement consisted of a cup and a coffee bean.

Sameer’s heart was racing, from the exertion and excitement. He kept the photo in his pocket, carried the cup in his hand and ran down the steps with all his remaining strength. When he reached down he was breathless. He first looked at the bus stop; he did see the Cup and the coffee bean. As he looked down, he saw her sitting and waiting. He smiled. Eagerly he stepped forward to cross the road. He was still looking at her. She stood up smiling. Next moment, there was noise of screeching tyres and a loud crash. Sameer had been knocked down by a car.”

Like the first part of the story, this chapter also ended suddenly. He felt exasperated. He felt sorry for Sameer. What happened to Sameer? Who was the girl? Did Sameer survive the accident? With all these questions on his mind, he walked back home.

Disconcerted, he was sitting on the porch of his house late in the evening with his head resting on the wall. He was thinking of Sameer and the incomplete story. He felt drowsy. He was tired. He closed his eyes.

“Sameer was lying in the hospital bed, mostly unharmed physically, but comatose with only a bandaged on his head. The physical wound was healing. It was late afternoon when Shruti walked into the room. Vikas, Sameer’s elder brother, was sitting on the chair by the bed. Shruti asked,’How is he now?’. Vikas shook his head his face clouded with worry. They sat there staring at the peaceful face of Sameer. Vikas asked Shruti to take a sit. He took out the cigarette pack from his pocket and asked Shruti whether she give Sameer company for a few minutes. Shruti nodded. Vikas walked out of the room eagerly, he had been holding the craving for too long.

Few minutes later, Shruti was holding Sameer’s hand delicately. Her eyes were damp. She whispered “Please wake up Sameer. I will never be able to forgive myself for playing the prank. I love you, Sameer. Please wake up.”

He woke up with a start; he had been dreaming about the story. He touched his head, it was still numb. And suddenly everything around him had meaning. It was his house, his parents. He was Sameer and the story was ‘his’ story. He walked to the telephone, dialed a number.

“Shruti?...” A pause. “I remember… everything”

After a silence of few minutes, Sameer heard a sob at the other end. Tears, those were happy tears.

*(My proof-reader is busy serving a higher priority interrupt. You might have noticed the result already.)