Is This Love?

The panel wants to congratulate Miss Aditi Ahuja for the launch of her new book “It’s A Forever”. We wish her luck and the entire creative team along with the publishers are sure that “It’s A Forever” will be another bestselling novel of Miss Ahuja. Miss Ahuja, please come onto the stage and tell us a bit about your new book.

“Thank You so much for the lovely introduction, I feel blessed when I see so many people waiting to read my work. And coming on to “It’s A Forever” it is a beautiful love story of two people who are opposite to each other, tied to constraints of circumstances. But deciding when to love and whom to love is never in our hands. This is a captivating college romance which is going to make you smile with the turnover of every page. I believe love is a wonderful emotion which every individual must experience during their lifetime. So, this book will remind you of your first love of those cuddles and giggles with your loved person. I am hoping to get positive feedback and your smiles in response for this book. Thank you so much.”

Meet Aditi Ahuja, a successful writer, an optimist who finds happiness in her characters, coffee and talking to people. She is a very kind and sweet person who will cross boundaries to help you. Currently she is present in the Jaipur Literature Festival in the launch event of her latest book.

Aditi walked out from the auditorium, away from the paparazzi to attend a call. She walked over to a lonely corner opposite to the direction of the chaos, placing her phone against her ears. After taking the call, she talked animatedly for a couple of minutes before pressing the end button.

“Your books suck and so does your notion of love”. Aditi was confused listening to the voice. She turned around to find a man standing a bit away from her, taking a big puff of the cigarette that he was smoking while looking ahead. Thinking that he maybe was on a call with someone, she started walking away. “So perhaps am waiting for your feedback is just what you say and not mean Miss Writer.”

“Excuse me, are you talking to me?” Aditi stopped walking and asked the man next to her confused at the whole situation.

“Of course, I am” the man in the olive-green shirt finally turned towards her. “Your books as I said suck” He inhaled another drag of the cigarette.

“Have you even read any of them? And if you don’t know then 3 out of my 4 books are bestselling novels.” Aditi was surprised with her own answer. She was being defensive towards a stranger who did not like her work. She has always been okay with people not liking her work as long as it was constructive criticism. But this time she was caught off-guard.

“You believe I’ll waste my time reading those pieces of junk that you write. You must be unstable to think that and also while thinking that those three out of your four books are actually bestselling novels, keep telling that to yourself” he laughed demeaning her.

Aditi was taken aback. She was used to giving autographs and people requesting her for selfies, singing praises of her book. But this… “How do you know they suck if you haven’t even read them? And for your kind information you are anyway wasting your life with or without reading my books, by smoking. You are dying soon anyway stranger.” Aditi crossed her arms and tilted her chin having scored a point in the conversation.

“I give the same speech to my patients almost every day. Tch, nobody cares”

“Your patients? You are a…doctor? I don’t think you can be a doctor”

He chuckled. “Your thoughts haven’t made me a doctor, so I don’t think I care.”

Aditi was flustered. She was polite to everybody, was always showered with love and praises. Why would this stranger talk to her like this?

“Who do you think you are to talk to me like this? You have not read any of my books and you tell me they are pieces of junk. What problem do you have with my books?” Aditi vented out.

“Prateek Taneja. Doctor Prateek Taneja for you.”

“What?”

“You asked me right who do think you are, so I am answering that and the problem I have with your books is its existence itself, the way you keep glorifying love in each one of them just like you did in your speech a while ago. Every individual must experience it once and all that bullshit. Life is not a bed of roses Miss. Writer. Take off those reflectors you are wearing and look around. Love is devastating, it consumes people, takes away a huge chunk of them, making them unavailable to feel any emotions whatsoever. It makes people so useless that they forget to differentiate between right and wrong, but you never mention that.” Prateek flicked the cigarette butt and stubbed the tip of his shoes over it.

“Oh...so Dr.Taneja has been hurt in love and wants to pile up his opinion on love on others. Wonderful. But for your information love is a beautiful feeling and nobody can change the fact, Dr. Taneja.” Aditi spit the words at him and began punching numbers into her phone.

“Calling that number shouldn’t take that long Miss…”

“Ahuja, Aditi Ahuja. See you do not know my name, have not read my books yet spread negative thoughts about it, are a doctor who smokes, have a problem with something as beautiful as love. And dialing what number would not take that long? How do you even know who am calling?”

“911. That is whom you are calling right? To rescue you from here.” Prateek shrugged, put his hands in his pocket, stood on the tip of his shoes and rocked himself slowly.

A slight laughter escaped Aditi’s lips, but the irritation remained majorly.

“No, am calling my driver to pick me up because apparently I don’t talk to strangers.” Aditi kept calling but the line went busy.

“Running away, eh? Afraid against having a reality check of the shit you feed to people? Miss Ahuja do you have a pen name? No? I think I have the right one for you- coward damsel.”

“Are you sure you have a degree that clearly states you are a doctor, or have you made it up in your head? And why do not you become a lawyer because you seem to pass judgement all the time. Did they not teach you to be polite to others in your medical school?” Aditi was seething in anger. She had never come across anyone so blunt, so rude.

“You ask too many questions for someone who apparently doesn’t talk to strangers. But I will answer them all, no worries. Firstly, I should have been a judge and not a lawyer because it’s a judge who passes judgement and not otherwise.”

Aditi turned red with embarrassment. How could she have committed this silly mistake? Gosh! What would he think of her, he already was thinking her writings to be junk and now this? This stranger before her definitely brought out the worst in her. Prateek walked a step closer to her and continued.

“Secondly, they never taught us to be polite to others in the med school. Sadly, all they taught us was how to dissect human body, understand their heart functions- the organ you write so much about in your compilation of junk, you like to call a book.”

“You are rude, ill-mannered…”

Aditi started but could not complete as Dr. Prateek interrupted her.

“Uhn..uhn..uhn. I believe Miss Ahuja you have a lot to say so I think we should sit together and discuss our opinions on love over a steaming cup of coffee and then you can always tell me why you write such revolting things in your books.”

This was the final straw for Aditi. She clenched her teeth hard this time.

“Is this any movie going on here? That you tell so much against my books, my opinions and then ask me for a coffee? You feel this is Hollywood? You ask me for a coffee being a stranger and then I will fall in love with you?”

“Is that where you take your ideas from? Movies?” Prateek mocked excitement over the fact.

Just then Aditi’s phone beeped with a message from her driver stating that her car broke down on the middle of the road and it was getting repaired which would take three hours at the least. She would have to stay here until her car was fixed because the event was in the outskirts of the city and no cab would come to this location.

“Shit! What is even happening today? All because of you” she turned towards Prateek. “This was supposed to be a good day but meeting and bickering with you has spoiled it all. Now I am stuck in this place for three hours and on top of that am hungry.” Aditi ranted and walked away in the direction of the nearby café without looking if Prateek was following her. Aditi did not look back but what she missed was a huge smile that was sitting on Prateek’s face.

“Mam, mam, mam can I please take a selfie with you. Please mam I am a huge fan of yours mam. I have read all your books and I love the way you write them.” One after the other people started gathering around her asking for pictures and getting their books signed. Aditi’s heart swelled with happiness and…pride. Her first instinct was to look back and check if Prateek was watching this and he was right there, eyes on hers. She looked straight at him and wriggled her eyebrows. What? Of course, she could not let the opportunity pass that too in front of someone who thought her work to be junk.

Prateek made a distasteful face at that and Aditi immediately, without thinking much poked her tongue out and made a face at him. Prateek laughed. Realization dawned on Aditi about her actions. She was in the middle of so many people, people who loved her to be specific and here she was busy making faces at a stranger who did nothing but tell her how crap her writings were.

“What are you Aditi, five?” She chided herself and with a guilty smile on her face she started signing the copies of the books. This was the worst day of her life, officially and all thanks to the man in the olive-green shirt standing few steps away, maybe still laughing at her.

Fifteen minutes later when the crowd dispersed Aditi looked back to see Prateek still standing there, head dug deep into his phone. She walked towards him with a smug smile on her face.

“Don’t pretend to be busy, okay. You obviously saw that my fans wanted to meet me.” Aditi flipped her hair.

“Definitely I did, and I am sure your fans must have seen their writer making faces at others. So mature of you to do that and to actually think that they are going to read your books after that.” Prateek slid his phone into his pocket and started walking. Unconsciously, Aditi started walking too, alongside him.

“Unlike you, they don’t have a problem with me and my habits and for the records, they love my bestselling novels.”

“Ya ya, whatever helps you sleep at night.” Prateek offered consolation to her “which reminds me I am also thinking to write a book.”

Aditi stopped walking and looked at him with a big smile on her face. Finally, they were on the same page. “That’s amazing doctor. I can help you with your draft if you have any problem and what are you writing about?” The excitement on her face was clearly visible. Well, that is how Aditi Ahuja is- sweet, lovely and always ready to help.

“Take help from you to write pages of crap? No, thank you. I will pass the offer. And I am writing a book called ‘101 ways of telling bestselling authors that they write crap.’ Isn’t that a nice title? I know it is a bit long, but the readers should have a clear knowledge of what is inside. Right? Uhh… Miss Ahuja are those fumes coming out from your ears?”

“You shouldn’t care whatever it is doctor Taneja, and you should rather write a book titled ‘101 ways to be mean to others’ because that’s what you are.”

“Yeah, you feel I can write that too. I maybe will but that will be my second boo…Miss Ahuja where are you going? We were in the middle of a discussion… Miss Ahuja…Miss Ahujaaaa” Prateek laughed and followed a flushed Aditi who stomped away in anger. Wanting to go as far as possible, Aditi walked into the café, took the corner seat and huffed.

“Mam would you like to order something?” The waiter asked after placing a packaged water bottle on Aditi’s table. Aditi uncapped the bottle of cold water and gulped the liquid without pausing to breathe.

“Ma’am I can come back later if you…”

“Two cappuccinos and grilled cheese chicken sandwich for two.” Aditi heard someone say from behind her. Well, she did not need to turn back to recognize this someone.

“I do not know him and that’s not my order.” Aditi had hardly completed her sentence when Prateek turned about the table and sat in front of her. “Oh…we are best friends you see…she is just angry with me. You please carry on, that’s the order.”

“What is your problem and why are you following me? Why can’t you let me be? Are you sure you hate me because you focus too much on me to hate me you know and I can never be friends with someone as mean and egocentric person as you, let alone best friends?”

Prateek bit the insides of his cheek to control his laugh. “Friends tell each other the truth, that’s what I have been doing since we met, and I never said I hate you...Miss Ahuja.” Prateek titled his face to look at her as his eyes roamed her face. Aditi got conscious and looked into her phone to avoid him. Why were her cheeks burning? They could not betray her now when he was looking, straight at her. This was not the first time she was in the company of a man then why was she feeling so jittery and why would her heartbeat like crazy when he looked at her like that.

 “You could have said if you wanted to have coffee with me instead of doing all this, you know? I would not have denied. I anyway had to discuss so much about why you write such revolting stuff.” Prateek shrugged.

“You were this mean from the beginning or something happened in particular to make you this bitter towards life?” Aditi pushed away rapidly a wisp of her hair that kept falling on her eyes. Prateek’s eyes softened at her action, his hands wanting to be the one to tuck her hair away gently.

Aditi could feel his eyes on her. She gulped another swig of water thinking that to be the solution to pacify her disturbed heart.

Prateek sighed and looked down. The color from his face vanished all of a sudden. Aditi sat back straight. What did she do that this man in front of her went from being all jolly to this downcast? Did she say anything…shit! She had asked if he was this mean from the beginning or had something happened to make him this bitter. That was surely the wrong question, maybe something had actually happened with him.

“I am so sorry Dr. Taneja. I should not have asked that. I am really sorry. Please do not be sad about it. You do not have to answer that. I am really really sorry for asking that…”

“Let it be Aditi…oh sorry I mean Miss Ahuja”

“No no please call me Aditi, its fine.” Aditi was already feeling guilty for having said something that might strike a bad memory for him.

“Thank you, Aditi, but I would answer your question anyway.” Prateek still low, slowly lifted his head up with a sad face and looked at Aditi.

“No no you don’t have to.”

“I want to, trust me Aditi. In fact, I will feel better if I tell you what made me this mean.” He very slowly slid his hands on the table and gently placed his palm on hers to assure her his honesty. Aditi was taken aback at this gesture, her increased breathe and pounding heart not letting her think rationally about this. She looked towards their hands where his hand was laying lazily upon hers on the table. As if having realized his actions, Prateek immediately drew his hands back and folded it to keep it in place this time. Aditi could not believe herself when she sucked in a breath, apparently sad that he pulled his hands away. What was happening with her?

“So, everything was alright until one day when…” Prateek closed his eyes and sighed. Aditi’s heart sank at this. He seemed to be in great pain.

“Until one day when I came across your books and read all those crap that you write. I almost puked and since then life has never been the same, never.” Prateek wiped his fake tears.

Aditi pressed her lips to suppress the traitor trying to escape but she could not. She threw her head back and roared in laughter. Prateek sat back and admired her, his eyes twinkling seeing her laugh.

A whole minute had passed, and Aditi had just stopped laughing, her breath still heavy from all the laughter.

“See it was not at all that difficult.” Prateek looked at her, smiling.

Aditi could feel her blush creeping up her cheek. He had such a wonderful smile and this time it was directed towards her and what did he say, “see it was not at all difficult”. He told that when she was laughing. Did he do all this to make her laugh? The thought itself increased the pace of her heartbeat. This was the third time her heart was going all crazy. Amongst the loud pounding of her heart, she asked him in a slow voice “what isn’t difficult?”

 “You, accepting that you write nothing but junk.” Prateek said, the smile still sitting on his face. Aditi’s heart started beating all the way louder, but this time it was because of anger. She looked at him with a deadly expression as if she were already murdering him inside her head.

“What happened Aditi? Are you fine…you seem a bit off? Did you by any chance expect me to say something else?”

“What shall I expect from someone as mean and conceited as you? Praises? God forbid if you praise someone for their efforts, your elephant ego would crash into a thousand pieces. Won’t it?” Honestly, Aditi’s heart sank at his reply earlier. Why...well she had no idea about it. What she was not able to understand was that why would she expect praises from someone, a stranger in particular whom she met practically less than two hours ago? Thousands of people read her book and not everybody was supposed to like what she wrote then why she wanted him to like her work? It is not like his opinion mattered…or did it? One thing was for sure, Dr. Prateek’s personality was attractive. She did not have it in her to avoid him, the mischief in his eyes and his laugh that held her captive.

Upon realizing her attraction towards this almost stranger, Aditi became defensive.

“It’s fun for you isn’t it, being mean to others. You barely know me, and you are this mean to me. I wonder how your friends tolerate you.”

“Tch… they aren’t this fortunate to witness this side of me. This is actually reserved for specific people.” Prateek started sipping his hotly brewed cappuccino while trying to hide his smile.

“See you are again making fun of me.” Aditi shook her head while clicking her tongue against her mouth. “Is there anything at all about me that you like?”

Aditi’s tongue rolled out the words even before she had the chance to stuff them back in. There was silence on the table after that. Aditi realized she was right when she declared this day as the worst day of her life earlier today. Nothing was under her control today- neither her heart, her actions nor her words.

Prateek after looking at an embarrassed Aditi, pulled a couple of tissues from the holder and a pen from his pocket with an innocent look on his face “Aditi could you please give me your number or email id maybe? No no do not worry, I will not disturb if that is what you are worried about. I just need a week’s time to do a proper research to find out if there is anything at all I like about you and I will send you the document once it is ready.”

Aditi should have known better. This man before her was impossible. She flared her nose and looked sideways into the blank because currently all she wanted was to reach over the table and tear away the smile from that stranger’s face. When she heard him laughing, she looked over at him clenching her fist with an expression that clearly said one word from his mouth and she would kill him without a second’s thought.

Prateek pursed his lips to hide his smile. Well, he had been doing it all evening.

“Stop laughing you moron. I had just heard about people being this evil but for the first time I am meeting someone as evil as you…wait for a minute you must be the boss of all the evil, mean, conceited and egocentric people. Right. Is it a well-paid job because you should be anything but a doctor?”

Prateek could not control the bubbles inside him and burst into laughter. “You are too cute to be true, Aditi.”

Warmth spread across Aditi’s chest over his words but the expression on her face did not change. One second and he would be back to being mean.

“By the way all of your books are not that bad you know. I kind of liked your 2nd novel, the one that was not a bestseller. The characters were good and surprisingly you did not write that bad either.”

Aditi’s ears perked up.

“What? You have read my books? Seriously? But you have been calling them junk…wait a sec. Is this again some kind of joke?” Aditi’s excitement hardly took a second to die down. She curled her lips and looked down. Silly of her to even ask that, of course it was a joke. Aditi felt irritated at her own behavior. She was never like this, getting affected and upset this easy.

“It was not a joke. I really liked it and all the other three as well.” Aditi could not believe her ears.

She kept looking at him to see if there will be any change of his expressions but the honesty on his face was startling.

“You have read all my books, haven’t you?” The smile on her face spread till her ears, eyes twinkling like that of a little girl at the sight of a candy.

“Of course, not tch just the non-bestseller one and that also wasn’t that good you know…”

“You are lying, you liar.” This time her smile did not die this time “you have read every of my book that is how you know it is not the bestseller one and you said, and I quote I have read that one and the other three as well. You have been lying all this while.”

“Being smart huh.. Am I rubbing off on you?” Her smile copied onto his face.

“Shut up, you liar. Why have you been lying to me since the beginning. Making fun of me and calling my books pieces of junk. Now I want to know the truth and just the truth. Put aside your sarcastic self away for a while and tell me.” It was more of an order than a statement from her.

“You are Aditi Ahuja, who doesn’t know you- the best-selling author. And…uh yes I have read all your books and I kind of like them all not much though…”

“Shut up” Aditi roared.

Prateek put his hands up, taken aback. “WOAH! Aye aye captain. Okay so I liked them all, each one of them and had a very strong urge to know the one writing all this so of course I googled you, got to know about you and discovered that you are from Jaipur itself. Your characters were so compelling that I used to think about them for days even after finishing the novel. I could connect to them, wanted to know more about them, much more than what was written in those pages of that book. I wanted to know what you had in your mind while creating them. I had so many questions to ask, some complaints and truck loads of things that I wanted to say to the characters, to you. Just then I got to know that you are coming to this literature festival and maybe that was the only chance I had to meet you. So…” Prateek kept rubbing the back of his neck to shoo away that blush that was creeping up his neck.

Aditi was speechless. So much was going inside her head and especially her heart. These feelings, the fluttering of her heart was completely foreign to her. It was as if all the things she wrote in her book was happening with her. But the boy sitting in front of her, blushing was a sight to behold.

“But why did you had to be so mean to me? You could have told me that…”

“And miss all the fun…no thank you. I have read a bit about you, but no article mentioned that you were this fun, you know. Jokes apart, you are a good writer. I have stayed up for nights completing the book. You make a good-looking author I must say.” Prateek confessed.

He was hell excited and looking forward to meeting her but talking all mushy was so difficult for him. Ask him to be sarcastic and mean and he can go on and on for the entire day, well that was his defense mechanism. And probably that was the only way to hide his anxiousness of meeting someone whose books and its characters had created an impact on him so profound that he started looking up for her online and was amazed with her personality, her passion for writing and most of all, the smile that she wore.

“And your thoughts on love…the things you said earlier…”

“Well, that’s true you see. I definitely love your books; I do, but I have so many complaints against the way you glorify love because it is not true. Those stuffs might happen in movies and books but in real it is just an over-hyped emotion which brings about destruction. It not only affects you but burns every other person who is with you in the process. People fall in love, everything seems mushy for them, they get married and then, then what? They cannot seem to stop fighting, ruin the childhood of their children and then choose the easiest route, divorce. What happens to the love then? Where does it go? When it ends, it leaves a big, indelible scar on people connected to them as well.”

Aditi understood that this was personal, maybe someone close to him had to go through this or maybe he was telling his own story. His stature had changed. Lips pursed in a thin line, he was looking somewhere else, somewhere into the blank. Whatever it was, it affected him, and Aditi knew it was her time to make him smile.

“Listen Dr.Taneja, take this.” Aditi’s voice broke his trance. She was forwarding him a tissue. Confused he took the tissue from her hand and looked at it. Aditi had signed her name with big bold letters on it as “your favorite author”.

“You so wish you were my favorite author.” Prateek had his sarcastic comeback ready but this time the smile stayed on Aditi’s face. By now, she decoded Prateek’s meanness, a tiny bit though but still she understood that he was not that bad. Of course, he was mean and nobody in the world could change her opinion on that, but he was not mean those ugly words that came out of his mouth.

Folding the tissue and tucking it into his pocket, Prateek looked towards her. “Aditi, I had to say something to you actually, I could not say it earlier, but I don’t think I will be able to hide it for long.” Prateek looked into her eyes.

Aditi’s heart who has been behaving odd all evening, started thumping loud again. His poise, his words, his eyes on her had made her entire face hot.

“What?” Aditi’s voice was slow when she asked him that as if she had almost lost her voice when he was looking at her like that. She was afraid that even Prateek could hear her heart beating this loud.

“Honestly, this is why I came here to meet you in the first place, just to tell you that…that…”

“To tell me that…” Aditi gulped, tearing away the skin near her nails.

“To tell you that…I feel…I feel… “It’s A Forever” your upcoming novel will be nothing but a piece a crap.”

Aditi was breathing heavy. She did not know if she should reach over and strangle his neck or first ask her heart to calm down and then beat the shit out of him. She did not do either. Instead, she yelled a “shut up, you stupid” at him. For the gazillionth time that night, Prateek threw his head back and laughed out loudly. This time, Aditi joined him too.

That night on that table it was not only two hot cups of cappuccino that was brewing but something else too was brewing in the background. A beautiful something had started to bloom between the two people seated adjacent to each other. Well, it was just the start of a Tom & Jerry like friendship or something much more than that is for me to know and for you to find out.