OMG! Version 2.0

Why am I here? This world… this country… to this couple…

Why is this so? The world again… the human being… the animals and birds around us…

How is it this way? The world once again… the brain… its functions… organs… sex…

Never ending questions on earth, right? Men still have a whole lot of answerless questions in this planet. But still wants to find what is happening behind the galaxy. Funny! Sounds too philosophic? In fact, I wanted to say this to my dad yesterday when I was actually wondering at how I got a pimple on my right cheek, and he said “stop wasting your time on useless things and go get yourself employed first. Useless!” ‘How cruel these Indian parents are! They don’t care about their child’s pimple but about the term employment?’ I thought to myself.

Alright! This small pimple on my cheek cannot change my life. But getting me employed could possibly do that? That’s what they believe? Hopefully! But is it actually a true fact that a small pimple cannot change your life? I don’t think so. My first failure started there.

It was 7 at morning and I felt something unusual as I didn’t hear any devotional songs or my mother’s yell that usually was of higher frequency than the former. With a semi-opened eye I tried to look at my table clock to ensure the time. ‘It is really 7! But wait! Is that a coffee cup there near the clock? It’s something unusual as well’. Just then, my mom shouted from the kitchen, “Rahul, are you awake?”

“Yes, mom” I said and I tried to sit straight. With an inclined profile, I had the tasty flavor of some powdered granules of cocaine. The un-brushed teeth made it even tastier. Yuck?

The coffee made me think. The past few days were really terrible for me. Plenty of reasons, I could say: one, Shreya, the girl whom I loved the most rejected my proposal as I had a pimply visage. It started there. Two, my ex-boss fired me for being loyal at work (say, too loyal, which troubled him being my superior. Well, I could need to write a separate book to explain that. So let us just skip it here). Three, the awkward look that was shown upon me by my neighbors after that, which hurts than anything else.

I just don’t want to stay in home that way. In fact, I needed an immediate solution. I couldn’t think. So I decided to take a short walk from my home, so that, I could think better in a relaxed way. I had my last sip of the coffee and placed the cup near the clock again.

With all sort of thoughts in mind, I began to walk like a mad creature with an uncombed hair, un-brushed teeth, and un-shaved beard. I decided to walk through the Anna road where my ex-office is, obviously the first time to my office on foot. I felt myself like a loser walking along the road with no idea of what he is doing.

“Who am I?” I asked to myself. We have often seen people asking these types of questions to themselves. This is somewhat like searching for the meaning of ‘Dictionary’ in a dictionary. We could come up with an easy solution like “It’s me”. But we don’t do that and go for a much complicated solution. Just like the dictionary which says, “A dictionary is a book in which the words and phrases of a language are listed alphabetically, blah blah blah”. Well, I was not exceptional.

When I was in college, the world looked like a playground with all sorts of fun and adventure. But, it’s really amazing how your view about life changes within a very short span. Now, I feel that life is never a playground, but a race track. Everyone around me was running towards something, I being the dormant observer. And few need not even run. They were already found to be near the finish line at the one-more-step-to-win position.

The walk, however, looked too time-consuming. I walked for about 12 minutes, but felt as if I had walked for a very long time. Lumps of thoughts and irritation filled my mind likes bees besieging a beehive.

I found everything that happened around to be very relative to my horrible situation. When I felt myself to be useless, a man on road bawled ‘Go to hell!’ in his mobile phone at someone. When I questioned myself whether I am a good human being, my eyes pointed at a plank near a half-built building which read ‘Under progress’. When I thought that I wanted to have a good rest to my soul, away from all my troubles and turmoils, I found a board in front of my office ‘No parking’. Hell the world was, to me.

I wanted to cry out loud to someone. Sometimes, even men need shoulders to cry upon. And now it’s me who wanted that.

After crossing my office, I saw the Anna road bus stop shed where I used to wait to see Shreya. Every day, that was the place where she used to cross me running to catch her office staff bus like an angel, one without wings and halo. And I, with no idea and courage to talk to her, would just stay there like one among those people waiting for the bus. She even stopped texting me since I proposed her. At times, I used to think that I should have remained to be her friend, so that I needn’t have got to wait for the bus that could never come.

Something in me said that I should sit in the bus stop for a while, so that I could feel her presence. It was a barren bus stop shed just like my barren life. With a heart that wept inside like a child for missing her, I sat on one among those few chairs in the bus stop.

All of a sudden, with mixed feelings of frustration and loneliness, I blast out and began to scream at the peak of my voice. ‘What is happening to me? Why am I such a loser? Don’t I deserve to win? What’s so wrong about me? I don’t have my girl friend with me. My parents don’t understand my feelings. My boss didn’t recognize my loyalty. I don’t have a job in hand and people call me unemployed. They could call me loser instead. I need a single packed up solution for this. What could it be? What could it be? What… could… it…be…?’ and rested my head onto my hands and bent forward. I was totally exhausted.

As I felt my first tear trying to roll off my eyes, I heard a feminine voice calling my name “Rahul!”

With a sudden shocking expression, I turned around in microseconds as it was a very familiar voice to me. Yes, it’s Shreya’s. There she stood, wearing a white salwaar-kameez, with a handbag on her right shoulder. I couldn’t believe it. She was looking just like an angel, and now I could even see the wings and the halo circling her head. I couldn’t react. I froze for sometime showing no reaction.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“What do you think?” I asked in return.

“You look so weak””

“No. I am fine, Shreya”

“I wished that I could meet you today. Thankfully, I saw you sitting here. So, just wanted to talk” she said with a smile. The smile created a dimple on her cheek. It looked deeper than a well for me to fall for.

“Meet me? What for?” I asked.

She smiled again and turned around to open her bag. She took out a red rose from her bag and looked at me.

‘You aren’t gonna say those 3 words, are you?’ I thought to myself and looked at her with a stunned expression. But beyond all my surprise, she synchronized her lips with the words in my mind “I love you, Rahul” she smiled again.

I felt my mouth wide open, wider than the opening of her handbag. Even without my knowledge, my hands received the rose from her. Shreya, still with the cute smile, let her hand again into her handbag and took out a white colored cover.

“Take this. This is my birthday gift for you. Belated wishes dear” she said. I, still being in shock turned the cover around and opened it. Even before I started reading it, she continued. “I have been appointed as the HR manager of Oasis Infotech and you… are my colleague from now. Got it?” she said and smiled again.

I cannot explain how that thing could mean for me. I wanted to run around the street and shout that I was the happiest person on earth. But, before I could react for that, she grabbed my t-shirt collar and came closer to kiss my cheek. ‘What is happening? This is too fast’ I thought to myself.

As I thought, she came closer, closer and closer. Suddenly, I felt some mist filling my eyes and it began to blur. As I tried to understand what was happening, I heard some AR Rahman music at a distance.

I opened my eyes in shock and guess what; I was still on my bed. It was my mobile phone which played an AR Rahman BGM as my alarm tune. I could neither believe it nor bear it. ‘Man, was that all a dream? Just… a dream? Dammit!’ I shouted in frustration and looked at my daily calendar. It had an image of a girl fashion-model who was pointing her right hand index finger towards a mobile phone which was in her other hand. As a marketing technique, it had a slogan on it which read “This is the real world!” I felt as if she was saying that for me.

With all those frustration and weakness making a comeback, I looked at the table clock. It showed 7am. I turned around with my hands wiping my sleepy eyes. Something stroked my sixth sense suddenly, and I stopped the wipe half-way and looked at my table in a hurry. I was astonished when I saw a coffee cup just like the one I saw in my dream. ‘What!’ I squealed in sudden revelation.

“Rahul, are you awake?” my mother shouted from the kitchen again.

I was stunned. “Yes, mom” I said and looked at the mobile phone advertisement image again, which said, “VERSION 2.0!”

“Woah!” I laughed and jumped off the bed happily, getting ready for the short walk.