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As Shravan waited for her, his thoughts swirled around their love story and their undying love for one another. He thought of how their love had finally won his parents' hearts!
As Shravan waited for her, his thoughts swirled around their love story and their undying love for one another. He thought of how their love had finally won his parents’ hearts!
Shravan was waiting for Nikita on the sea shore. It has been 20 mins since their meeting time. Nikita was late. That was very unusual. She was never late, she was the one who was always on time.
He never had to wait for her. Hmm, Shravan wondered. Maybe tables are turning. Shravan was whistling as he walked around playing in the sand. He was super excited and could not wait to share the news with Nikita.
Sitting on the sea shore, looking at the calm sea, Shravan waited patiently. While waiting his thoughts drifted to the last few months. What a tumultuous time it had been!
The past 6 months were filled with constant arguments and fights at home. Shravan’s parents had created a big fuss about Nikita’s caste and background. Shravan was tired of making sense to his parents. He could not believe that his parents were upset because Nikita belonged to a different caste and spoke a different language. How did it matter? He loved her. That’s all that should matter to his family. Unfortunately, her caste and community took precedence over his immortal love.
Shravan could not believe that his life was turning into one of the numerous Hindi movie stories he had seen during his teen years. At that time, the revolt by the heroes looked very chivalrous and inspiring, but now that he was in the same situation, it did not appeal to him at all.
Nikita was like a sunshine on a gloomy day. He met her at the lowest point of his life. The time when he was jobless and in a situation where his earning would be the only source of income for his family. His dad had retired and he did not have a job. Shravan was getting more rejection letters than interview calls.
He met Nikita one day in the lobby of a company where he had an interview. She was there for an interview too, but for a different position.
While waiting to be summoned they started chatting. Talking to her calmed his nerves. He felt at home talking to her, it was good 20 mins wait. In this short time they talked as if there was no tomorrow.
They attended their respective interviews and went home. That was it. Shravan cursed himself for not asking for her number. He kept on thinking about her. She was not the most beautiful girl he had seen, she was not picture perfect but something about her was very very attractive.
A week later, he got a call that he was selected for the job. The salary was unbelievably high. He could not believe that his life has changed overnight, it looked like the cloud over his life had passed away, it was all sunny now.
Shravan joined the new job with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. After a week of joining one morning he boarded the elevator to go to his floor. The elevator stopped at the 2nd floor. The doors opened, there stood Nikita busy texting on her phone. As soon as she entered the elevator she looked up and her face shone, she looked happy to see him.
Thus, began the beautiful journey of friendship between Shravan and Nikita. They became the best of friends. Nikita’s happy nature and attractive personality impressed Shravan in leaps and bounds. Over a period of time they realised that they could not be without each other, and this marked the commencement of the beautiful journey of love.
Shravan and Nikita wanted to be together for ever. They decided to let their respective families know about their feelings for each other. Though they knew that it would not be a smooth sailing towards marriage, both were geared to face all the possible hindrances. They were very clear about the fact that they will not marry till there was complete acceptance from both families.
Nikita’s parents were very happy with the alliance. They simply loved Shravan and were convinced that he complemented Nikita in all ways.
However, things did not go well with Shravan’s family. His parents and grandparents were not happy about the fact that Nikita belonged to a different community and caste and did not know the language spoken by Shravan’s family. They were hell bent against the alliance and did not want to discuss it.
Months passed in trying to convince Shravan’s family. In the mean time Nikita tried to learn Shravan’s language and vice versa. She tried her level best to establish a bond with his family but to no avail.
Nine months went by in constant bickering and arguments. Shravan was getting tired of the tension packed environment in his house stirred by his love story.
After 2 years of trying and rejections, Shravan’s family accepted Nikita as their daughter in law. They wanted to talk about the wedding with her family.
Shravan went crazy with happiness, he was jubilant beyond words. He did not want to share the news with Nikita over the phone so he messaged her to meet him at the sea shore (their regular meeting spot) in half an hour. Nikita said she’d be there. She could sense the excitement in Shravan’s voice but could not guess what had caused this excitement in him.
Shravan switched back his thoughts to the present. Here, he was waiting for his lady love to divulge the most awaited news of the decade. He felt her presence all of a sudden. He was so immersed in his thoughts that he did not realise Nikita was behind him. He look around and there she stood looking as pretty as always.
There was a strange aura about her today, in the midst of her beauty, he could see a subtle peaceful sadness on her face. He took her in his arms immediately, and whispered, “I have a very happy news to share. Guess what! My family agreed to our wedding. They want to meet your family and discuss about the marriage preparations.”
Nikita’s eyes shone with happiness but he could still see a pinch of sadness on her otherwise smiling face. He could not decipher the reason. Nikita just stared at him for a second and said in a hoarse voice, “What a lovely news but it’s too late.” Shravan was baffled, he exclaimed, “Too late?!”
Nikita blurted out, “I meant too late for office. I need to rush back. I have a meeting in a few minutes.” She started heading back.
Shravan said, “That’s fine. Call me after the meeting.” Saying thus, he turned to wear his shoes so that he could walk her to the car. But by the time he was done tying his shoe lace and turned back, she was gone, not to be seen. Shravan thought wow she must have been in a real hurry. It seemed weird but he was too excited to read into it.
He started walking back to his car. Nikita was not around but he could still feel her presence. He didn’t know why.
As he approached his car he saw a big crowd making a fuss over a car in the middle of the road, looked like there has been an accident. He was curious to know what was going on and wanted to help out if needed.
He went closer to the crowd, people were screaming and trying to take someone out of the window of the crashed car. The car was a mess. There was blood everywhere around the car. Some one was saying how brutally a truck ran over the car. Looked like the incident happened some 15 minutes ago. The ambulance was on its way.
Shravan went ahead to help the people who were trying to pull the person out of the car window. It was such a messy scene. They had managed to pull the person out and someone declared it was girl and she was dead. As he went closer Shravan’s heart skipped a beat. He screamed his heart out. It was Nikita!
He could not believe his eyes. Nikita’s entire body was badly smashed up but her face was untouched. How could life be so cruel?
She was gone forever, he was with her only 5 minutes back. Wait. This accident happened 15 mins back. He felt a cold shiver pass through his spine.
She left the world but could not leave Shravan without hearing the good news from him. She did not want to make him wait for her. She loved him so much, her love for him was eternal and so was she!
The special meeting happened a bit too late!
A version of this was first published here.
Picture credits: Pexels
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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