Gaga Chronicles Part 3: Love lost – a villain on the scene

Hello to all my readers! First of all, a big apology from my side. When I posted the first two parts of the story 'Gaga Chronicles', I lied that I had finished the story. It's one thing to finish the story in your mind. It's a completely different thing to finish typing it down to the last word. Plus, I realized one thing. Writing a love story is far more difficult than perhaps loving itself. It's so difficult, I tell you. Kudos to all those writers who have crafted those timeless romantic masterpieces in the past. My respect for you has grown ten-fold.

Now to the exciting part. I am very happy to inform you all that I am a published author now. The book I co-wrote with authors from other IIMs titled 'Small Big Bang' was launched with much fanfare and is available for sale in Amazon and Ebay ( http://www.amazon.in/gp/offer-listing/8192976106/) Do give it a read and mail me your comments about the book. 

All that done, here are the final two parts of the story 'Gaga Chronicles'. These are slightly lengthy, but I hope they keep you engrossed. I got a very good feedback for the first two parts. Since it's been quite a while (almost 6 months) since the first two parts were posted, you may need to refresh yourselves by going through the first two parts again before you start reading the third and the fourth parts. I have never written such a long story and I could have easily developed it into a novel, but I want to test the waters before I take the plunge.

As mentioned before, this is a work of pure fiction. For those of you who insist on reading beyond what's apparent, let me tell you, for any story, the author brings in elements from his/her own life and weaves a fiction around it. That's the reason why you might find some similarities between the characters in the story and those in real life. I spoke to a lot of people, a few couples and observed many of my friends from close quarters, before I could sketch these characters. A figment of my own imagination and an element of my own fantasies might find a place in the story. But that's that . Nothing more. It's not my story. If something so exciting ever happens in my life, I'll definitely write about it someday. But that's for another day. This is today. Hope you like the final two parts of the story. If you do, I am happy. If you don't, I am sorry.Like I said, I'm still an amateur and I'll try to improve the next time around. Happy reading!!

-Ashwin Murali

This is Part 3 of the story 'Gaga Chronicles'. To read Part 1, click here. To read Part 2, click here. To read Part 4, click here.

Disclaimer: This is a work of pure fiction. All the characters and the sequences are a figment of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to any person dead or alive is purely coincidental.

June 15^th, 2011:

We were done with the Hell Week at IIM-A. The first week is probably the most demanding week in the course in all IIMs and is called the Hell Week. People hardly get a couple of hours of sleep every day during the Hell Week. The week totally drained me out. All my enthusiasm and energy was sapped during that week. The worst part was that I could not talk to Gaga even once during that week. We were only able to exchange wishes through Whatsapp a couple of times. Things lighten up a bit, post the Hell Week. So, I relaxed a bit and called her. Little did I know or realize that her Hell Week had just started in IIM-B. She did not pick up my call. This was not new to me. She had ignored my calls before. But this time, it pained me a little. No. A lot. During the previous instances when she ignored my call, I knew I’d be seeing her anyway, the next day. But that was not the case now. I tried calling her once more and again there was no response. I then texted her, briefly explaining my week, and asked if everything was fine with her and asked her to call me when she got free. We had a couple of days off before normal classes resumed. All this happened on the first day of the two days off. I spent almost the entire day looking at the Whatsapp screen hoping for a reply. Her header said “last seen at 06:03”. I then understood that she was busy with some work and had not checked her Whatsapp. Just to be on the safer side, I sent the same message via normal SMS. This way, I knew she would definitely see my message, even if she is not able to check Whatsapp due to some net problem. 

In the evening, I was to meet Ashwin and the two girls. Though we befriended each other through Facebook and Whatsapp, we hardly got the time to interact properly as the Hell Week kept us busy all the time. So we decided to meet in the evening.

This was our first real interaction. We introduced ourselves properly. I knew Ashwin well and he knew me. He was my school mate for 12 years. He was a star quizzer and a shared interest in quizzing brought us together. We were quiz partners at school and we made a name for ourselves in many city-level quizzes. We were good friends then. Once we finished school, Ashwin went on to do Engineering from a top college in Chennai, while I was in Coimbatore. This moved us apart and slowly, we lost touch over time. After graduating, I learnt from another friend that he went to work with a top MNC firm in Mumbai. We befriended each other when Facebook came into prominence. I got to know that he too made it to IIM-A after 3 unsuccessful attempts. He had posted an update on Facebook. Since then, we got back in touch with each other and we knew for sure that we were going to be those old buddies again, once in IIM-A. Sure enough, we were. 

One of the girls was Ananya Suresh. She had finished her Engineering a year back and was working in one of those regular IT companies. Hers seemed to be the usual story of IT employees – routine job, feel bored, feel the need to get out of job, look at GRE, look at CAT, settle for CAT, give CAT, get interview calls, lie to the panel that you’re looking to start your own company in the future, convince them, clear the interview and get into an IIM. What really struck me about her were her beautiful eyes. They seemed to speak volumes. I got to admit here that I thought she looked really beautiful the moment I saw her. For a brief fleeting moment, I forgot that I had Gaga ;-)

The other girl was Sahana Shankar. She was a Commerce graduate for a change. She worked in a small firm for 2 years, before clearing CAT. But she already seemed to be pretty popular in the campus, thanks to her singing career. She was a participant in a very famous Reality Singing Programme for the past 2 years and she finished as a finalist last year. So she was pretty popular with the followers of the programme. I wasn’t one of them and had to be told all this. But she struck me in the way she greeted us and spoke to us all with the ease and comfort of long-time friends. I liked that about her. 

During our introduction and interaction, I constantly kept looking at the phone, hoping for a reply from Gaga. That gave me away. 

Sahana popped up the question. 

“Akshay, can I ask you something?”

“Yes”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

I was surprised by the question. I didn’t know what to say. The other two listened in keenly. My face gave me away as I started blushing. 

“Awwww…!” they all chorused

I decided to be honest with them. If they were going to be my friends here for the next couple of years, I surely can’t hide it from them. I told them all about Gaga.

As soon as I finished my story, Ananya gave a dejected look.

“Vada Poche!” she muttered under her breath, but I could hear it.

(Vada Poche is a colloquial expression in Tamil that you use when you miss a great opportunity)

“What?” I asked her.

“Nothing! Nice story. Hmmmm!"

“What was that?”

“Nothing! I just mentally prepared a list of good-looking guys here who I could … you know… have a chance… You were on top of that list, but, sigh! There seems to be some truth in the statement ‘All the good ones are taken!’”

“Whoa!” I thought to myself. The other two laughed.

She joined in the laughter. “Akshay, you fell for that, didn’t you? Ha ha ha!”

I smiled at her.

“Don’t worry! I won’t hit on you. Infact, it’s the guys here who are hitting on me. Infact, I have already got 5 proposals.” She beamed.

“Not a surprise at all, considering how beautiful you look”, I blurted out.

“Aww… thank you!” she smiled.

“Wait a minute! Ananya, IIM-A, good-looking, 5 proposals within a week. Doesn’t this remind you of a bestseller book from the ‘most famous’ author in the country?” Ashwin chipped in.

“Ha ha! Very funny! I know people would bring up that ‘2 States’ for sure. Of all the names he could have chosen, why did he have to name that character ‘Ananya’? I’m mad at him for that. You know what? Everyone in my family teased me about it before I came here. My dad suggested that he wouldn’t mind a Krish Malhotra for a son-in-law, but asked me to look for a Krishna Manohar, positively.”

Sahana, who was observing us, suddenly joined in.

“Would he be ok with an Ashwin Ram?” she winked.

Ashwin was taken by surprise. “Hey... Sahana!”

“I was simply helping you. I have been observing you for some time and you simply could not take your eyes off her” Sahana remarked smilingly.

“No, it was Akshay who said that she looked beautiful and I was just seeing if he was right”

“Ok. With that, I’ll take your name as No.6” Ananya winked.

“NOOOO…!” Ashwin shouted.

We all laughed heartily.

I liked these people. We gelled well together.

The next day:

 Meeting the gang eased me a bit and I slept without bothering myself about Gaga’s impending reply. The next day morning, the familiar feeling of pain returned. It’s strange that in love, it’s the early mornings that your heart pounds the most. All feelings of pain prop up then. 

As soon as I got off from the bed, I looked at my phone for any message from her. Nothing. Then I opened whatsapp. Again nothing. But then something else caught my eye. The text near her name read “last seen at 07:03 AM”. It was 7:30 then. 

What the heck! 

The fact that she was last seen at 7:03 proved that she would have read my message. Why didn’t she reply then? This really troubled me and I sat staring at that screen for about 20 minutes. I could not bear it and I typed out a message to her asking why she hasn’t replied to my message. I could sense that I wasn’t my normal self. I was slipping back to the pre-CAT days when I used to feel such pain when she didn’t reply to my messages.

I finished my breakfast and switched on the net again. The phone notified me about a whatsapp message from Gaga. The feeling of joy I felt then was unimaginable. Hurriedly, I opened the message. She had apologized for taking so long to reply and in a couple of lines, explained that she was going through hell and it was taking a toll on her. I understood that she was struggling through the hell week and told her that it’ll all be ok once the week was done. Saying so, I wished her and asked her to take care. She thanked me and logged off. 

Even though it was only a small whatsapp conversation, it elated me and provided me with enough energy to stay fresh for the rest of the day. It’s funny to note the things love can do to you :P

Feeling energetic, I teamed up with Ashwin and we participated in a Quiz in the afternoon that the Quiz Club had organized for the new batch. It was a throwback to our school days and we totally enjoyed each other’s company. We complemented each other well and we rocked the quiz. We made it to the on-stage finals and our team won the quiz by a thumping margin. Our batchmates in the audience cheered us during the finals. It was like in our school days. Our victory made us popular in our batch and the two girls were elated that we won. Finally, I realized that I had discovered something that would keep me engaged during my two years at the institute. We were directly recruited into the Quiz Club based on our performance in that quiz. 

I messaged Gaga the news about the quiz in the evening and surprisingly, she replied immediately saying how proud she was of me. I could not ask for anything more. I thanked her and messaged an ‘I love you’ to her and went to sleep peacefully. 

A week later:

Classes had begun and we all settled in. To our surprise, all four of us were put in the same section. We could not ask for more and our bond only strengthened with this arrangement. Gaga was done with her hell week at IIM-B and she called me after that. We spoke for some 20 minutes about our experiences before she had to cut short the call for some work had propped up. I was disappointed that we could not talk more, but realized that’s how things are going to be. We exchanged ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ wishes everyday in whatsapp and that kept me going. I sent her some whatsapp messages but got no reply. Though it worried me, I convinced myself that it was alright. 

July 10^th, 2011:

By now things were more or less settled for everyone. I did manage to talk to Gaga a couple of times, but on both instances the conversation was brief and lasted not more than 10 minutes. I learnt that she had been selected for their Marketing Club and I felt happy for her. 

It did strike me that day during the phone call with her that she sounded disinterested. I asked her why and she curtly replied that it was nothing. This was the first time that some alarm bell struck in a corner of my mind. The fears that I had with respect to the two of us before we left Coimbatore, made a sudden reappearance. I felt dejected that day. But I thought about July 20^th. Her birthday. I wanted to surprise her with a gift for her birthday. So I logged on to Flipkart and chose a nice book for her as a gift. I did not have her address, but I got the address of a batchmate’s sister who was studying in IIM-B and shipped it to that address with Gaga’s name. I felt that she would like the gift.

July 20^th, 2011:

I called Gaga at midnight to wish her. She was happy that I wished her promptly. There were noises from her end that suggested that a cake cutting was on. That evening, she called me. She was overjoyed that I had gifted her something. It was planned to get the gift delivered to her on that day and she was touched by the gesture. I felt very happy that she was happy and we chatted for about an hour. But a certain thing she mentioned during our conversation worried me. She repeatedly kept mentioning the names of two boys – Kaushik and Aditya. She informed me that they were also from Tamilnadu and that they had been very helpful to her over the past month. This totally irked me. 

A sure-shot way for any girl to annoy a boyfriend is to talk highly of other boys to him. I forgot what happened in the rest of the call, but I only remember telling her that I have some work and cutting the call. That night, I messaged her saying sorry that I had to cut the call short. She was fine and she told me about the cake cutting she had. I asked her to upload some pics in Facebook. She said she would. Strangely enough, I logged on to Facebook and found that there were no updates or no new pics in her profile ever since she left Coimbatore. This was very strange for a girl who was very active on Facebook. 

August 10^th, 2011:

By now, our mid-terms for the first trimester was done and there was a gang meet. Since we were in the same section, the four of us never missed any opportunity to team up as a group for any group work, assignment or project. And most of the meetings would happen in my room or Ashwin’s room. The last few days were very taxing and we were glad that mid-terms were done. My conversation with Gaga was increasingly getting confined to whatsapp messages alone as our erratic schedules prevented us from calling each other. She did not seem to mind for she was happy with this arrangement. But it bothered me that I could not talk to her.

The past few days, I had insisted on a pic upload from her side as I had not seen her ever since we left Coimbatore. Video-calling was not an option as she did not like it. So I was eagerly looking forward to some photo updates on Facebook. It so happened, that particular day, some batch-mate of hers had uploaded a group pic in which she was present. She was tagged initially, but she quickly untagged herself. I simply happened to be on FB then and I caught that pic when she was tagged. She was standing in front of a restaurant with 6 guys and 3 girls from her batch who were a part of the Marketing Club along with her. She looked elegant and beautiful as ever. I kept admiring her, when the gang walked in. They caught me looking at her pic and started teasing me. The plan that day was to order pizza and watch a movie in my room. Since my love became a topic of discussion, everyone was asked to talk about their love/crush.

Ashwin had a funny story to tell. He spoke of how he had a crush on a junior named Srinidhi from our school and how he found her on Facebook while he was in Mumbai, befriended her on FB and started chatting with her. I remembered that girl Srinidhi. She was Shwetha’s classmate. His story reminded me of Shwetha. I too found her on FB while in Kakinada, but my work prevented me from having any chats with her. I was drawn in by Ashwin’s story.

“You started chatting. It went well for a couple of months. Then what happened?” I asked Ashwin.

He gave a sheepish smile and ignored me.

I pressed again. The girls joined in too.

“You know, it was her birthday and I wished her. Out of nowhere, she thanked me with the words ‘Thank you Anna’. That was it.”

We all burst out laughing. ‘Anna’ is a respectful term in Tamil, used to address an elder brother.

“You didn’t know this while you were chatting with her for 2 months?” I asked.

“No. She only addressed me as Ashwin in all those chats. But she made it clear to me in that reply. Post that, whenever we chatted, she addressed me as ‘Anna’. And thus ended my love story.”

Again we all laughed. 

Ananya had a familiar tale of multiple proposals to tell. Her count in the institute now stood at 16. I asked her the total count in her life so far.

“Must be 37 or 38” she quipped. We again started laughing. This laughter ended only when Sahana told her story.

She had a colleague who worked with her in the small firm that she worked. He was a guy who she admired greatly for his quick wit and intelligence. She liked him but did not show. He too liked her and he tried to express it in every discreet way possible. Though Sahana understood what he was trying to tell her, she thwarted all his attempts. She was not sure if she could give a commitment to him amidst her singing career and her MBA ambitions. So she maintained status quo and came to Ahmedabad.

“I think he still likes me a lot and cares for me, but am not sure about myself” she said.

It was clear from the tone of her voice that she liked him and missed him.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Sathya. Sathya Prakash”

Her story kinda made us all a little sad. To change the mood, I showed them Gaga’s pic in FB and also told them how I was awaiting her promised pic update in FB. 

With this they started teasing me and we enjoyed dinner with a nice movie.

August 15^th, 2011:

I remember everything about that day. We had Independence Day celebrations in the institute in the morning in which my batchmates performed some skits, sang a few songs and Ashwin gave a small speech. It was an enjoyable day till the evening. 

In the evening, I casually opened Facebook and was taken aback when I saw a pic of Gayu. She was standing in the centre of the pic, elegantly dressed and on either side of her, stood a guy. The guys were neatly dressed and they had Gayu stand in between them. They were tagged in the pic as Kaushik Ravindran and Aditya Ramnath.

On any normal day, I would have appreciated that pic. But that day, it pained me. It pained me to see her with two strange guys who she had spoken about. She did look well in the pic but I could not appreciate her beauty. All I could notice in that pic were the two guys. The two guys who now looked like villains to me. Villains who would take Gaga away from me. I would realize later that it was nothing but plain jealousy on my part. 

Silently, I logged off FB and sat in my bed with phone. I opened whatsapp. There was already a message from Gaga.

“Hi Akshay, I have finally uploaded a pic in FB. Take a look. Hope you like it. I am with my friends Kaushik and Aditya in that pic.”

I was envious and I was angry. In that same state of mind, I began to type a message.

It is said that you should never reply to anyone when you are angry. I was to realize this later. But that day, I kinda lost my sense and I typed out a message.

“Yeah, saw the pic Gayu. I didn’t like it. You look bad in that pic. You don’t look your usual elegant self in that pic.”

That was it. That was the tipping point. One thing I realized later, that I felt I should remember for the rest of my life, is that never ever talk ill of a girl’s looks. Never. If you don’t like the way she looked, it’s best not to say anything. Never blurt out your thoughts as to what you feel about their looks. They will not like it. They will remember it for the rest of their lives. Anything good you say might be forgotten, but these things will be remembered forever.

I realized my mistake only when I did not receive a single reply for the next 2 hours. By the time I regained my senses, it was too late. The damage had been done.

I tried calling her, but she would not pick up my call. I sent about half a dozen apology messages to her. It was only after the sixth apology message that I got a reply.

“It’s alright. Now I have work. Good night!”

Having been with Gaga for over a year now, I had learnt to sense the tone from her messages and interpret them. What her message actually meant was “What you’ve said is not alright. You won’t be forgiven. Now leave me alone.”

I was clearly devastated and could not sleep that night. It turned out to be a horrible day.  

September 15^th, 2011 and the week that followed:

Our first trimester exams had ended and we had four days off before the next trimester began. Since the day of the pic fiasco, the frequency of messages from Gayu reduced a lot. In this one month, we spoke to each other only once and that was only because of my repeated insistence. She sounded as though she was a stranger to me in that call. I apologized to her once again and she told me that she had forgotten all about it. She wished me all the best for my exams and told me that she had her exams coming too and she ended the call. Though I kept denying it to myself, it was clear that she was moving away from me. 

I was totally shaken by Gaga’s indifference. She kept ignoring my messages. The worst way a girl can punish a boy is by ignoring him. Boys can never take it. Even a negative reply is okay, but ignoring is something that kills you. I took solace in the gang whenever I felt down, which was like always over the past month. 

I chose not to go home for the term break for I felt 4 days were too less for me. Ananya stayed behind too, while the other two left for Delhi to their respective relatives’ places. 

It so happened that Ananya fell terribly sick on the first day off. Since there was no one around, I took her to the institute hospital where she was admitted immediately. Most of the students had left the campus for the break and only a handful was present. I felt that I should not leave her alone in the hospital and so I stayed by her side. She was on drips and medication. I took it upon myself to get her food and give her company by talking to her, whenever she was awake. She was sedated at other times. I informed her parents too, who were very worried and promised to come immediately. I asked them to relax for now for she seemed to get better. It was a viral infection of some kind and a dosage of antibiotics cured her. She was there in the hospital for 3 days and I stayed by her side for all the 3 days. 

It was unlike me to do some help of that sort. I could have just visited her from time to time and left the hospital at other times. But I did not do that. I did not know why but I felt that I would have done the same for any person in that position. Not just Ananya.

She was discharged on the fourth day and her parents also came that day. They thanked me profusely for the help and since she was still recuperating, I took them around the campus and got them a guest accommodation. They spoke to me for long about so many things and I could tell that this was not a normal conversation that any parent would have with a friend of their ward. 

By the fifth day, everyone returned and our second trimester started. Ananya recovered well enough and by now, Sahana was there to take care of her and bring her to the classes. She was completely normal within a week. 

At the end of the week, Ananya invited me to her room. I went. I thought that the gang would be there, but was surprised that she had invited only me.

“Hello Akshay, I can read your mind. You’re wondering where the others are. Am I right?”

“Yep”

“They are not coming for I did not call them. I only called you.”

“Oh, I see. Anything special? Good to see you hale and healthy again.”

“Thanks. That would not have been possible if not for you. I wanted to thank you personally for what you did. I’m totally indebted to you for the invaluable help you rendered Akshay. I don’t know if I would have survived if not for you.”

Saying so, she wept. She then came near me and hugged me. I felt strange. What am I supposed to do in such a situation? She required a shoulder to cry on and I lent her that. 

“Hey, it’s alright Ananya. You’re fine now. So don’t worry about it”, saying so I patted her on the back and made her sit. 

I could sense that she was growing on me and growing fond of me. I didn’t want that. So I bid her goodbye, asked her to take care and left the place.

October 2^nd, 2011:

I was on a call.

“Hello Gaga. Do you remember me?”

“Hellooo Akshay! Ofcourse, how can I forget you? Even today morning, I was thinking about you.”

“No calls. No messages. No whatsapp. No replies. What’s this Gayu?”

“I know, I know. I am sorry. Life was very hectic.”

“I understand that you had exams and I did not bother you then. But the week after that? How many times I messaged you and called you? Neither did you pick my calls nor did you reply to my messages. I was devastated. If you are angry with me for something, I apologize. Please tell me if you are upset with me for something. We’ll talk about it and we can fight it out. But please... please don’t ignore me Gayu.”

“I am sorry Akshay. I understand that I may have hurt you. I wanted some time for myself and so I decided to turn off whatsapp for a week.”

I sensed the change in her tone. She hates complaints/criticism about her. So I changed the topic and told her about Ananya and how she got sick and all. While Gayu appreciated my timely help, she did not sound happy about me staying by Ananya’s side for 3 days. Was she jealous? Probably. So I obviously did not tell her about how Ananya hugged me in her room.

The call lasted for 20 minutes before she had to go. I said the customary “I love you” to her. She replied with a ‘Thanks!’

Irritated as I was, I felt better talking to her after nearly a month.

October 28^th, 2011:

Our one year anniversary. One year since she confessed about her feelings for me. One year since we started seeing each other.

I was hoping that she remembered and called me to wish. I, ofcourse remembered every single thing that happened that day, a year ago. These past 25 days since her last phone call were very very hectic with so many things happening at the institute both on the academic, as well as on the non-academic fronts. So I could not get time to call her, not that she ever bothered. I sent her a few whatsapp messages. As usual, I did not receive any replies. It used to frustrate me whenever I see the title next to her name saying “last seen at xx hours”. If the time happened to be after the time I had posted my message, and if I don’t get a reply, the frustration simply doubled. One suggestion I wanted to give the developers of whatsapp was to remove this ‘last seen at’ feature (which they eventually did 2 years later).

I waited to see if she would call. It was 8 PM and I had received no call till then. So I called her praying that she should pick up. Luckily, she did. 

“Hai Akshay, anything important? Tell me quickly. I am in a hurry.”

“Oh…it’s nothing. I just wanted to wish you for our…our…you know… our one year anniversary.”

“Oh… is it? I didn’t know. Thanks Akshay. Wish you the same.”

“Thanks Gaga.”

“Ok, listen. I need to go now. I am going out for dinner. I am in a hurry. Kaushik is waiting for me. I’ll catch you later. Bye”

“Bye!”

That last sentence. The mention of the name Kaushik! It totally ruined my day. I was frustrated beyond my limits. 

I logged on to Facebook and I went to her friends list. There I found his name. I clicked on his profile. He looked an ordinary guy with ordinary looks and a very typical IT profile in which he had worked with an IT company for 3 years before coming to IIM-B. Despite his decent profile, he looked a complete loafer to me. The loafer who would take Gaga away from me.  I could not sleep that night. Here I was, lying lonely and thinking about her, while she was celebrating our anniversary with my villain. Sort of stories that you normally get to see only in the movies.  (Continued in Part 4 ...)

To read Part 4, click here.