The Fat Indian Girl (#6)
When Love Fades
Meera and Karthik’s first date was at a coffee shop, after that they started meeting pretty much everyday. They texted each other all day long. They showed all characteristics of a much in love couple — they smiled widely when they saw each other approach from a distance, pretended to get angry if one of them skipped dinner and worried themselves sick if the other person got sick (it usually got blamed on skipping dinner and not eating properly).
They are six months and seven days into their happily ever after.
Meera is at office, her boss has been scolding her for not paying attention at work since the past few months now, but she is on cloud nine, her boss’ taunts in broken english are not capable of bothering her at this point in her life. She has never had anybody to talk to all day long before. Before meeting Karthik, Meera did not think telling somebody what she ate for lunch would be the highlight of her day.
Karthik likes to paint, he makes beautiful abstracts depicting Meera and all of the places they visited and gifts them to her. Meera has two canvases — one is a drawing of a sunset point that Meera and Karthik frequent and another of what looks like the silhouette of a girl, who is supposed to be Meera but looks a lot thinner than her (Karthik took his creative liberties), hung on her wall. She proudly looks at the paintings everyday finally feeling like she has made it in life. She is somebody’s dream girl!
Karthik is heartwarmingly romantic. He often speaks of how Meera and him will settle down one day and have two kids. Whenever he talks about their future Meera smiles shyly without replying because she does not know what to say. Sure, she loves him right now, but she has never thought about settling down. In fact, till she met Karthik she was quite against the concept of marriage, especially after what happened with her parents.
But lately Meera seems to be looking at love quite positively, she thinks maybe, just maybe not all relationships end badly and she probably got lucky.
But on that day, that fateful day, all of Meera’s fears of every relationship always ending badly came true.
Meera is at an office colleague’s birthday party, it is a typical twenty fifth birthday, everybody is getting piss drunk, Meera in a celebratory mood, she has been in such a mood ever since she met Karthik, she downs an entire bottle of whiskey, by the end of the night Meera is completely wasted. And she doesn’t quite remember what she did after midnight but she is pretty sure there was some dancing on the table top and calling her colleague Jatin, who she hates, c*&t several times.
Next day Jatin from work, like the c*&t that he was insinuated to be, uploads a video of Meera drunk dancing on the table top on Facebook, which makes Meera very angry. She asks him to take it down, he asks her to finish his Audit Report, she says fuck off and the video stays put and so does Meera’s bad mood. She texts Karthik to make a plan to meet, she really needs some loving right now, meeting her K will make everything better.
She meets Karthik at the café in the mall which is close to where she works, they often meet here during her lunch break. Meera smiles and waves excitedly at him but this time he’s not smiling, he doesn’t look too excited either, in fact he looks sullen and angry.
“Hey what happened?” asks Meera feeling concerned, scared that her romantic bliss is going to come to an end like she feared it would.
“What’s this Meera?” asks Karthik, livid, he thrusts the phone screen onto Meera’s face.
“What?” says Meera sheepishly, taking the phone from his hand, half guessing what the issue is and hoping it’s not what she thinks it is.
“Oh! This! I was at Amish’s party got a little drunk, Jatin is a fucking asshole, I told him to take..” Meera starts to explain.
“Shut up, just shut up. How could you go to a party like this?” says Karthik, his voice cracking like he is going to cry.
“Like what?” asks Meera, genuinely confused.
“When you told me you were going for a friend’s birthday, I assumed it was a girl and you were going for dinner.”
“What! Are you serious?” asks Meera, who is really confused, she doesn’t know what’s happened to her sweet Karthik, why is he behaving so weirdly.
“Yes, that’s what I assumed you were doing, which decent girl does all this and I was thinking of taking you to meet my mother” says Karthik, banging the table loudly.
Meera gets a little scared and pulls her cup of iced tea away from him, scared that he will break it or spill it.
“I don’t know what to say, I’m sorry, I was just drunk, I did not do anything wrong really” says Meera, she is feeling really scared, she has never seen Karthik so angry, he has always been so sweet and nice to her.
“You know what forget it, I don’t want to date a liar” says Karthik, firmly, without even looking at her.
“But.. I did not lie to you” says Meera, she is feeling really sick right now, she wants to go home.
“Just get out of here”, says Karthik.
“What, listen I am sorry let’s just talk” says Meera trying to hold his hand, “please”.
“GET OUT!”, screams Karthik pushing her hand away violently.
People are looking at them, Meera is as embarrassed as she is confused and shocked. She cannot stand the scene that is being created. She gets up and leaves. She goes home and crashes on the bed, she is feeling exhausted. She refuses to get out of the room when her mom calls her for dinner, she cries all night long.
Next day she gives Karthik about 20 missed calls and leaves 25 text messages, he does not reply. She keeps calling and texting him for two weeks. He does not reply. Another week passes and then a month. She cries almost every night. She barely talks to anyone. She has stopped hanging out with her friends, except when Sara and MoMo force her to join them on their dates, in her weakened state she cannot deal with saying no to Sara’s overpowering invitations. Weekends are just not as fun for Meera anymore.
Slowly another month passes and Meera gets over the first and weirdest break up of her life. Now that she thinks of it, he was a possessive asshole anyway and she most definitely did not want to call her girl child Alia and boy Aman (that’s what he said they would name their kids). Now Meera has started living her life like before which means she works all week, fights with her mom over petty issues and watches television over the weekend, she is pretty content if not in state of bliss. The name Karthik has faded away from her mind.
It’s Sunday morning and Meera is spread out on the sofa like a mattress, all that has happened in the last month that is, sitting at home, crying and eating lot of Doritos has made her gain almost five kilos. She has been thinking of joining the gym, but the thought of running on the treadmill makes her feels so dizzy that she needs to lie down instantly. She is watching another episode of Friends to infuse some humour into her life. She hears her her phone beep.
Hey I miss you, I really love you — Text from Karthik
She doesn’t reply. The humiliation and ordeal of crying all of last month has put her off Karthik. She gets about a hundred more I love you texts in the next week. She deletes them, most without even reading.
Then she gets a call from an unknown number, it’s Hari, Karthik’s friend, she has met him once or twice when they were dating, he says, “Listen Karthik has not eaten since a week now, he says he is going to kill himself you have to talk to him”.
Meera freaks out, she is scared out of her mind, she gets into her car and goes straight to Karthik’s house, he looks like a mess. His shirt is crumpled, he hasn’t shaved and there is such a foul smell in the room, Meera has a strong feeling it’s coming from Karthik, from the looks of it, he hasn’t had a bath since a long time. Also, his eyes are bloodshot.
“What is wrong with you?” asks Meera.
“Please take me back, I really love you!” says Karthik trying to hug Meera.
Meera pushes him away she cannot let him near her, not in this state.
“But you broke up, you told me to get out, now why are you doing all this?” asks Meera, as she goes and sits on the chair across the room putting as much distance between Karthik and her, as possible.
“What you did was wrong” says Karthik accusingly.
“What, going to a party, that was wrong?” asks Meera exasperatedly.
“Yes, good girls don’t do all that” says Karthik.
“What the fuck is a good girl man, listen you really need to take care of yourself, I am leaving, please just get your shit together and go see a doctor or something” says Meera, getting up to leave.
“Don’t leave me Meera please. Please I promise to love you forever, I will do everything for you, you don’t have to work or do anything, I will earn, I will fulfil all your wishes” says Karthik, getting off the bed trying to stop her.
“Right now I only have one wish that you get your shit together and leave me alone” says Meera running in the living room towards the door, she is just about to leave when Karthik screams from across the room.
“You bitch!”
“WHAT?” says Meera angrily as she turns back to look at him with one foot outside the door, she just wants to leave this gloomy, dirty and shabby place.
“You are a fucking bitch, you are a slut, I am sure you slept with somebody at the party and that’s why you left me. I am going to tell everybody what a big slut you are” says Karthik with a diabolical smile, crossing his arms.
“Yeah. You are right, I did sleep with somebody else, not only that, he was much better than you, asshole!” said Meera and runs out of the door, climbs down three floors, taking two steps at a time. She runs onto the street, gets into the car, yanks up the volume of the radio and drives away in full speed. She doesn’t want to think about this weird boy ever again.
Love just happens you know. For some people, it is very difficult to accept that somebody can leave them, that too for no other reason apart from having fallen out of love.
This is because such people don’t get that love does not happen because of a reason, it just happens, you don’t love somebody because he or she has pretty hair, big blue eyes or a great body, sure all these can be the reason why you get attracted to that person. There can be many reasons for attraction but not love, love just happens.
Love, love is a feeling, a feeling that makes you want to give the world to the other person, the feeling that makes you smile when you see him or her coming from far away, it’s the feeling of peace and contentment that you experience, when he or she is sleeping next to you.
That feeling just comes and but can just as easily go away. Some people cannot accept that. These people try to hold onto love until it doesn’t even remain love, all that remains is a stubborn obsession.
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