N for "Notion of Love"

March 26, 2023.

Mahesh...

I am getting ready to go to a storytelling meetup today. After coming to Hyderabad and staying here since June last year, this city doesn't make me feel belonged yet. Stayed home almost every weekend, after having the most traumatic experience ever of my life, when I tried to go out once, my heart forgot the explorer side of itself. After nearly 9 months, and some peaceful and pleasant trips with my friends, and their friends I felt comfortable enough to give life one more chance today. 

So, here I was again on the road, with my cargo pants, funky t-shirt, and reversed cap, ready to give my luck another chance.

I took a safer bet this time, story telling and public speaking are ironically my cup of tea, and the stage is my most comfortable place. 

But the fact that you have to note is, Mahesh is the person who loves to take the spotlight. He would get fully involved in everything, that he gets himself into. And that guy loves to punch well beyond his heights, he would do all the crazy things that most people would dread even thinking about.

Enough praises sung on him, let's get back to the point. The title of the meetup was "fuck up Tales", where you could either tell your story or just go listen and come back. I choose the story that I was most embarrassed about in his entire lifetime, about my female best friend in college. It had a strong emotional angle to it, and given that I was good at telling stories, I conveyed it well. After I ended up performing, I acknowledged some complement, some comments, and some queries that were thrown at me, surprisingly no other speaker got half the number of questions. One of person amongst them was Doyal, and probably she heard my story very intently and asked me the question that left me puzzled, and thinking. 

"Does your heart accept that she was the one did it?"

 I couldn't answer her there. After the meet-up ended, we crossed our ways again while everybody was leaving, I asked her questions about her story, and she ended up answering them very patiently. It was already 8 o'clock. 

"Are you also leaving, how will you go?" I asked her.

"My driver is on the way to pick me up, It would take him 10 or 15 mins more"

"Fine then, I will wait with you since I have to take a cab back home, I will take it once your driver comes", I replied. Since everybody else left and I didn't want her to be left alone in that place, I offered to stay for a bit.

Once we sat, we started talking.

She told me about her life, where she studied, where she lived, about her childhood, and the other interesting stories that she would never share on the stage, that we both performed on tonight.

It made me feel special, it's not every day that you get some alone time with a girl as pretty as Doyal, who shares stories that are personal to them. The wait for her driver turn from 10 minutes to an hour, and then to two, when we finally realized what time it was. She kept on telling, and I kept on admiring the way she spoke.

When she called her driver, she got to know, that her car broke down and it was currently getting repaired. It might take another hour for it to be fixed. 

I offered to drop her home, and she readily agreed. She was also very hungry, so we stopped on our way to have dinner. I kept her asking questions and she kept on answering them all our way.

"What if I reach home late tonight, I met such an amazing girl today, we already seem to hit it off, Cherry on top I got to drop her home, and share dinner with her. How better could the day be", I thought sharing an auto ride with her on a peaceful and stary night.

After coming back home, my heart started floating like a helium-filled balloon in the air. It replayed the entire 2 hours I had with her. The way she intently looked into my eyes while speaking, the way her cheeks gave way to the most beautiful dimples when she smile, how her nose turned pink when she got excited, and how her eyes shrunk whenever she was sad. How melodious and peaceful her voice was, how unafraid she was of touching my hands whenever she felt like it. The way she looked at her life was so similar to mine. 

We exchanged numbers meanwhile, and this gave a way to exchanging sweet little texts often. I called her sometimes, and we would talk about the stupidest things till late in the night.

On the next story-telling meetup, I confessed to her that I had feelings for her when she nudged me toward this question gently. She very clearly expressed that she didn't have any feelings for me, and will never have them ever. But since the day I did that, she stopped replying to my text unless it was something significant. She doesn't pick up my calls at times now, which didn't happen earlier. She would only speak whenever it's necessary, she wouldn't respond to the reels I share with her on Instagram.

"Why did she change, what's my mistake" I still think.

"Did I do a wrong thing confessing to her" is the question that has left me awake for so many nights since then.

March 26, 2023.

Doyal...

I was not feeling well for the last few weeks. So I decided to go out. When I was just scrolling through the events this weekend on Paytm Insider, something caught my eye. It was a storytelling meetup titled "fucked up tales". I am not much of a literature girl, but given the state of my mind, I would love to hear the stories of people fucking up in their lives, so that I don't feel this lonely.

Life has been hard for me, especially harder since I broke up with Santo. We had been in what the world terms a relationship for the past five years. When we started he was very nice, pleasant, and caring. The teenage girl in me loved all the care, attention and efforts showered on her. But slowly it started turning toxic. The typical masculine insecurity, urge to control others, and have things as they exactly deemed fit slowly started sipping into my relationship as well. But somehow I consoled myself telling that he did this because he loves me. But his toxic possessiveness was killing me every day from the inside. His unending desire to control my actions was suffocating me and then he started being abusive towards me. I couldn't come to terms with earlier and gave in to all his whims and fancies, till the day he tried to choke me by my neck. That was the time I decided it has to end here and now.

Anyways coming back to the present day, I heard many stories tonight. I loved listening to them, and they made me realize that my problems are not essentially the biggest in the world, I interacted with the people who intrigued me. 

I felt so light in my heart after ages today, As the event ended I was preparing to leave. I had to wait for my driver to arrive and meanwhile, a guy who performed today came my way with a smile on his face and hands outstretched.

"Hi Doyal, I am Mahesh", he introduced him.

"Yeah I remember, you are the one who told the best friend story right, good story man" I responded.

He then kept on asking the question, and me having no other choice kept on replying. then I got to know that my car broke down, I started blaming my luck again and was worried that I would have to wait here alone for an hour more. When I told Mahesh about it, he said that he would wait with me. 

It was better to wait with him than to wait alone. We sat down back at the place we initially gathered. Then he started asking questions about me, my life my career, and everything else. Seeing no respite within reach I told him a few things about myself. He also told me many a thing about himself that I barely remember one of them.

But when It was getting late, I excused myself to leave in a cab. He said that he lives on the same side and he can drop me home. I felt relieved as I was really afraid to go alone in a cab during the night, meanwhile, we picked up food on our way since I was hungry.

After that day, Mahesh started texting me crazily. He would be sending so many messages every few hours, Initially, I replied to him out of courtesy, but now I let them be. During the next meetup, he comes and says to me the most meaningless three-word sentence of this generation. 

I refused him in clear words, but his actions still disturbs me. He calls me and texts me an overwhelming number of times every day and expects me to talk to him every single day and reply to all his messages. I see his behavior shift, he is also turning toxically possessive just like Santo. His behavior is suffocating me already, but I don't want to lose such a good person just because of my insecurities. I try and keep a constant gap between us so that I don't end up hurting him or his expectations. 

But his words and actions rarely seem to be going together. His action of care which he calls them are suffocating me so much that I cannot think to return to the same level of friendship.

It has happened on a similar line so many times, and I kept losing so many good people in my life, But god not again.

"Where did I possibly go wrong for him to think that I might be interested in him. What was my mistake, can I not just get my old storytelling fun acquaintance back again". I thought.