WHAT IF....

Well,this is the story of a friendship.A friendship which started like any other but kept sailing through as it would never end.But it did end.How?When?Why?....well,these are the questions which are mysteriously dumbed into the oblivion as the protagonists presumably tried to move on.

He was a fun loving,music freak,too westernised for her.She was sweet and helpful but too simple for him.But they met and when they did,even they never would have imagined what kind of game fate would play with them.They knew they both had lots in common but the differences (which never surfaced until the beginning of the end)were unknown at that time.No,this isnt any fairy tale love story….

He was a robust, careless freak who never gave a damn about what people might think of him.He was too consumed in his own naivety.For him,this world was a laboratory,with innumerable experiments to be performed,until you find the perfect formula.Little did he realise that there was no perfect formula and even if there was any,it wasn’t to be found in the outer world.Some thought,he was cool,while most of the others thought of him as a jerk,a total wanna be.He totally failed at relationships,especially the formal ones,which were imposed upon him right from the time he took in his first breath.He wasn’t a good son,neither an ideal brother and nor a good academic.But there was one art he was really good at, making life long friends.This was the only sentimental thing for him.All his emotions are attached to this only.For him,a friend was not just a friend but someone who accounted for all the social voids he failed at so miserably.He treasured them more than anything else.Ironically,he had tasted the side effects too and many a times was left in shatters when devils like ignorance and betrayal hampered his life.But he braved them all and kept his faith,which earned him the priceless treasures of some unmatched friendships known only in the fables.

She was a simple girl yet to blossom.Too pure to survive the atrocities of the tyrant world.Too soft to withstand the contaminated social surroundings and maintane her purity.She was too consumed in her own world where everything was soo easy and feasable.She never knew what it meant to face the world while clinging on to her convictions.She was always taken care of,never left alone.Away from all the sarcasms and mockery which she never faced until she had to step out of her comfort zone.Her thoughts were noble and idealistic and she knew exactly how to excel in whatever she pursued.She too was naïve to judge her own decisions.She would have, whatever she wanted,no matter what the price.This was her dangerous feature.But,no one could deny the attractiveness of her demeanour.Her casualness,her frankness,her innocence(till some time later)masked all her infirmities.She herself wanted to experience life differently so her social skills came in very handy.She was soo self obsessed,that others around her were frequently given less importance by her than they truly deserved,a fact that even she was unaware of and even when made to realise,she was too ignorant to let it make any affirmative changes.Her theory on friendships and relationships was just the opposite of his’.She always felt that friends were temporary and to be made only for the hour of need and to some extent to enjoy life and once the job is done,friends are only to exchange good wishes occasionlly.Yet,her helpful nature,her willingness to be a part of the team(even though on her own terms)and her intellectual brilliance made her an eye candy.

JAB ‘THEY’ MET,it was the HUM TUM story(sans the love and romance).To him,she was like any other girl on the block.To her,he was just a friend with whom she felt a bit secured.He liked her saintly approach towards life while she was magnetically driven because of his rustic charm and intellect.Initially,both gave in their best.She would never refuse him of any help and he would do anything to make her smile.Others who liked her grew jealous of him but he could never had cared less.Instead,he comforted her and condoled her whenever some cheap maggot would harass her and would easily coax her back into the jolly mode.Both started knowing each other well and understood that it’s the differences in their attitude towards life that kept them going together.There were moments when he felt that he had found the perfect formula and she thought that it was a whole new experience altogether.They did hang out and couldn’t care less for the world.He thought of her as the next ‘friend for life’ of which he was so used to.She took him as a great support and shared all her griefs and joys unhesitatingly.It felt as if this would never end and nothing else could have been better.

But then,as is always the case,”LIFE SCREWS YOU RIGHT WHEN YOU KNOW YOU HAVE FIGURED IT ALL OUT!!”.There was a gap.A suffocating silence between the two.He thought, may be shes too involved with her life and she was never the kind who would give importance to communication.But when they did meet again,everything seemed fine.Both were oblivious of the dent that had crept in.Complaints and small grudges took their stand.They tried to put up a fight but the mischivious destiny had rolled the dice and the game was set to end.

He felt ignored while she felt the pressure of his expectations.She felt she wasn’t good enough for him while he thought hard to figure out what went wrong.They both knew they had imperfections.Imperfections that reqired flexibilty(which once did exist).So,he tried to bend.She also gave it a try.But then,he was asked to bend so much that he finally broke.She did a disaster and he finally decided to quit.May be,she did feel sorry for her mistake but then its so ironical of humans to boost their egos so much that they became their slaves.Same was the case with them.They both became enslaved to egoism and stubborness and misery fell upon their once glorified unionism.The once cheerful boulevard with greenery of happiness, sunshine of trust and blowing breeze of belonging was now cold as a graveyard.They both now stood at the opposite ends of a river and that to with their backs towards each other.

However,once in a while,a question would flash through their minds.What exactly went wrong?But then, soon that would fade away to black.Now,whenever HE and SHE do come face to face in this small world,there is nothing but a sense of discomfort.A feeling of irritated disharmony and a flashback of all the past that they had,until they finally averted away from each other.Nothing but one thing clings on to their troubled mind….
WHAT IF….this all wasn’t the way it was…
WHAT IF….everything remained the way it was back then…
WHAT IF….everything goes back to the old ways….
And then,finally reality strikes them and they move forward to carry on their journey of life!!!!!