Just A Friend

Friend

"I can speak of friendship Sudeep.

Because I always had lots of people in and around my life. During tempests they left me like an empty sea shore abandoned and deserted, I can relate myself to that ground after the festivities end ...I have stood that kind of time and I learned a lot of things in that loneliness. Today those so-called friends who took favours for nothing are peeps on my FB or any other way, they sit with a telescope or binoculars into my life watching it like some kind of sky daddy. To gossip with their evening tea , I call them voyeurs ...!"

She lighted a cigar while she said it ."But what kind of a friend are you she asked ?"

He laughed and lying on the bonnet of the car told, "a friend who takes wheat and chaff together and just take wheat and give up the chaff."He added

"Ritu it is not that I know your depths still, you seem a genuine person to me, someone who trusts and can be trusted."

She mixed the coconut water with vodka and handed him ."Friends they come in all colours, all forms some stay, some have  just blindfolded  me and hit from behind they are the worst. Some are just shape shifters you never know them."

"When I met Siddharth he was the greatest friend I had, I still m his friend...I don't know if I am okay with such kind of drama anymore. He has put me through a lot ."

"Leave it, girl," Sudeep told her" you are here not to lament on your boyfriend's relationships ...he is every woman's man just cut it ..."

"I respected him for the post he holds his ability ...but being sugar daddy and then...

It dont adds up ..."

She said" but there was this one girl Sudeep, who lifted me from the great dungeon. Siddharth put me in. Maya...

A colleague, she was this ideal girl, from a good family, got lots of love that she radiated it. Unlike me who had nothing but memories of mom and dad and then the stepmother and broken family

It was 1998, the year I had the greatest tragedy of my life "

"Siddharth left you ...right ?" he asked

She smoked and told ", it was his nature, he doesn't just stay and I never learnt. Every time he came back I would give him another chance ."

"I remember, I lost my self and my mind totally while being at the bus stand near his home ...carrying....and he just dumped me in that condition...I was lost for a year" ..she showed signs of crazy ...

"Totally brain .." she did not say it completely.

"Ritu," Sudeep held her hand ....and she saw his eyes sparkling with.. acknowledgement of a co-travellers pain.

"I joined for work as an instructor, I made a great teacher, but she was the reason ..we shared room and I feared she is going to know I am on medication and I could not hide it, so I was stressed and my migraine became so bad that I had to be hospitalized..we started our friendship there during those moments of chaos."

"She did not need a language to understand me. She just told me a day Girl I saw your mom in a dream and she asked me to look after me, she brought back the smile I lost, I became involved in the students' world, I taught them to mould sculptures, I danced with them, I organized skits and dramas ...I rouse to power just because Maya was there encouraging and shouldering the pain I was going through."

"Ritu you are continent of God and devil ..do you know that ...you are pious and serene and at the same time you are a daredevil woman who is up to everything. "

Sudeep just told leaving her hand to her.

"Don't come so near Sudeep she told, you may fall in love with me, I just need a friend just a friend in you. I can't romance anymore"

"Is it me or is it your moral scale..?: "Sudeep just asked

"No, I am over such feelings Sudeep. A friend is a gift, you know they are there .you can entrust them with your most perilous ordeal .."

She told him. She continued

"I revived and when we were one day talking while walking from a public library back to our hostel, she told, Once you leave here you would forget me,

I said what in the world woman, you are my best friend

"She told no you need to forget and forgive this part of the trauma and I am part of it

I cried on her shoulder. It rained and we ran in those rain Until she and I laughed our hearts out.

She got married first and moved and she pushed me to the level I took another Chance in life forgetting all that happened. A new life was though not a solution."

I love my husband and I know he too loves me but we have too many differences which became sort of indifference later to each other.

Well ..life never stopped being cruel to me or rather say I jumped into trouble after trouble.

Naive, too much active unrest innocent me, I can be only me.

She paused.

They both got in the car and he said to her

"Ritu loving you is so easy but understanding you as you bit.."

She laughed at it

When they drove she said, "do you know the story of two friends ..a dry leaflet and dry piece of mud..clay ..they became friends.

One day they decided to go to Kashi.

He smiled...well we'll to Kashi...

She told" but on the way it rained ..they loved each other so deeply that each wants to sacrifice for the other ..the leaf tried to cover the clay mould but leaflet was blown away by the wind and the mud loaf tried to protect ...the leaflet but it got to melt away.

There are such friendships that should never happen .."

Oh my God Sudeep ...said .".they should have stayed back ".

She said ..."idiot..so that is your conviction of its moral .."

They laughed ...

When she got out near her apartment she told Sudeep ..." friendship is a deep phenomenon which is possible only if one has a clear soul . Expecting nothing in return, always forgiving, yet being able to say wrong is wrong. It is the most beautiful bond in the world but for that, you have to be your own friend ...the best friend...

He nodded and drove away and send her a message

"Do not fear Ritu ...I am your friend..just a friend ."