FAN [Part 2]

I hadn’t expected that the invitation would be extended to other people as well. I did face the reality, however, when I had to watch DDLJ with Nikita with Shreyas snorting through the entire movie. He didn’t watch the movie; he sat on the same couch and read Top Gear, but made sure he irritated us with his despicable exhalations. This one time, I couldn’t take it anymore and I gave him a really cold look, but he didn’t react to it.

We were about two and a half hours in the movie, and I was having a great time—apart from Shreyas’s snorts. It was spacious, Nikita’s place. It was a one storeyed bungalow, and we sat in her room upstairs. Her room was painted lavender, and had photographs framed on almost all the walls. There was this big poster of the lead cast of the TV show Friends, wherein they all were shown sipping coffee. It was quite famous, the show. My sister, too, was a fan.

“Ignore him. He doesn’t hate DDLJ as much as he loves pissing me off,” she whispered, just loud enough for Shreyas to hear it. “I’d invited everyone from my gang, but this is the only monkey who wasn’t playing in, or watching, our interschool football game with JNPS,” she explained. I offered her a sympathetic look.

“Dude, why doesn’t she just take that door? It’s the same damn compartment, isn’t it?” Shreyas jumped in the conversation.

“Because she wants him to hold her hand and pull her in. It’s symbolic,” Nikita answered, pushing the chocolate lumps in her mouth, with her eyes glued to the television. The closing sequence of DDLJ was on, and Raj and Simran had just hugged each other. I sensed the onset of a drop of tear from her kjnfjsknf eye, and quickly shut my eyes close so as to avoid any embarrassment. A moment later I looked over at Nikita. She was still staring at the television with her eyeballs popping out. No traces of tears.

“Symbolic? No. Idiotic? Yeah!” Shreyas countered, smirking.

“You won’t understand until you fall in love. Love is magical,” she told him, her eyes still hadn’t got enough of the movie.

“And I don’t even want to. Love is dumb,” Shreays decided. Nikita avoided offering any response, but her eyes looked sad. Whether it was the movie having ended, or Shreyas’s unkind remarks that made her do so was unknown to me.

“So how about a viewing of Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na next week?” I said, trying to elevate the mood.

“Haven’t watched,” Shreyas answered. “Me neither,” Nikita joined in.

I took a few steps ahead, and stood between the TV and the couch, facing Nikita; thus blocking her view of the end credits and the title song. “What kind of SRK fan are you if you haven’t watched his best performance till date?” I demanded, my pitch trekking higher.

She looked at me; her face devoid of any expressions at all. “I, am not a fan, of SRK,” she answered coldly.

“How are you supposed to hate SRK if you love DDLJ?” I cried.

“Whoa! You hate SRK?” Shreyas hopped in. “Way to go!” he said, putting his shiny white teeth on an exhibition.

“Dude!” Nikita exclaimed. She seemed to be trying hard to keep her temper in her pockets. “I am not a fan of SRK, but that doesn’t mean I hate him. I sure admire him, but I’m not a fan.” She made me sit by placing her hands on either side of my arms. “Like, Shreyas, is a big fan of the Undertaker,” she said, shaking her head. Her expression connoted that she either hated the Undertaker, or found the idea of WWE juvenile and silly.

“So what does he do?” she continued. “He walks in the school corridors as if he is the Undertaker, looks at people like the Undertaker does and imitates all the Undertaker’s mannerisms. I, on the contrary, am a fan of Jennifer Aniston. I try the same hairstyles as her, try to copy her fashion statement, her shoes, her clothes, everything. Just liking someone doesn’t make you their fan, Raj.”

While I was walking back home, I thought about the incident over and over again. All I could conclude was that it was one of the best days I had ever lived. Never had I been so happy. Nikita, who was inaccessible for me earlier, was now a friend of mine. I had spent the day sitting alongside her. Initially in school, and later in her room. And as if that wasn’t enough to elate my silly heart, she had also handed down a definition for the word fan.

Fans aren’t just people who like some commendable thing you have done. They try to copy you, imitate you. They try to be like you. Rather, they try to be you. Because, for them, you are the sole creature who is worth copying, imitating, or being. It’s exquisite—the feeling. Someone liking the way you are, to an extent that they want your way to be their way too. Quite a few things in this gargantuan world give you more joy than having someone who emulates you. Fans, I decided, are emulators.

As I sprawled on my bed, I looked at the photograph from DDLJ that hung askew on the wall ahead. Raj and Simran were shown hugging each other, and I could feel the love. The very next thought that crossed my mind was of hers—Nikita’s. It had been two months since that day it all began, and we were really good friends now. We hung out together, went out on weekends together, and even studied together. Of course, we included Shreyas, but what mattered was her presence. As long as she was there, I didn’t care about anything else.

What was even more delightful, that it was she who always took the initiative. She called me up when some plan came up, she came looking for me if I missed school; she liked my company. We’d grown really close. I did her homework for her—at times, I made notes for her—always, and I got all her jokes—I was the only one who did. We had this unspoken bond. It was the best friendship I had ever had. And I wondered if now we were more than being just friends. I felt awkward when our hands touched mistakenly, and she shared that awkwardness if someone mistook us for two people in a relationship.

Things had definitely changed. For me, and for her too. Her voice, when she talked to everyone else, was always distant and often indifferent. But it changed altogether when she talked to me. There was this jovial, pleasant quality to it when we had a conversation. She opened up to me. I still wasn’t a member of her gang, but that didn’t matter. At times, she ditched them to keep her promise of meeting me somewhere. It was like I had this completely different Nikita, who was known only to me. I mulled it over, and decided to be honest with her. It was time to tell her that I had fallen in love. With her.

Realizing you have fallen in love is an easy thing to do. Acknowledging it is a completely different affair though. I considered this, as I took a sip of my hot chocolate. It was mid-February, and having hot chocolate wasn’t a good idea. I wanted to have a Coke instead, but since Nikita is so particular about ordering the right things at the right place, I decided to deny myself the privilege to listen to my heart. We sat at a restaurant—a new one—that was just opposite my school. I had asked Nikita in the morning if she wanted to have a cup of coffee in the evening, and she had already suggested this place.

It was nice, the restaurant. It seemed like a part café part restaurant. Nikita sat opposite me, supping her Cappuccino as the breeze from the neighbouring hanging fan kissed her hair and disappeared in them later. A row of hazy yellow lights lit up behind her as she shifted in her woven wicker seat. She looked beautiful. In her teal coloured tank top enveloped by a black coloured shrug, and dark black jeggings that terminated an inch or two above her ankles, she made it difficult for me not to stare at her. Her hair canoodled with her button shaped earrings that matched with her top. As her eyes twinkled as they were gradually directed from the cup in her hand, to my face, ‘she took my breath away’ would’ve been an understatement.

“Uh, I needed to tell you something,” I spoke after a while. “Something important.”

“Really? What is it?”

“It can wait. I’ll tell you when the time is right,” I assured. I was nervous and I couldn’t utter words anymore. Just meaningless sounds came to life from my vocal chords.

“Great! Coz I too have got something to tell you,” her voice was surging with excitement.

“What is it?” I asked, all panicky and tense.

“Well, you know how good friends we have become now. You understand me better than anyone else, and know me better than anyone else.” I nodded, approvingly. “So I wanted you to be the first one to know about it. I have this thing for Shreyas,” she said, stepping over my fragile heart with her pointy heels.

“W-wow!” I exclaimed a minute later. It was the only one I could find, and afford.

“Yeah I know, it doesn’t show on my face and all, but I have had it since forever. I always thought that we were more than best friends. That we were meant to be together, in our own special way, you know?”

“Why haven’t you told him yet?” I couldn’t believe my words and myself.

“Shreyas doesn’t believe in love. You know how he is. He goes on telling everyone how love is a big whimsical mirage which fools you. And I really want to spoil what we already have.” She looked worried, and I couldn’t see her like that.

“Go and tell him, you idiot,” I told her finally. That was the right thing to do, I concluded

“Do you think he likes me?” she said biting her lower lip. God, I loved her.

“Of course he does. He needs to be a big douche bag to say no to you!” I assured her.

“Thanks Raj,” she said blinking her eyes warmly and offering me an even warmer smile. “I love you,” she said, and I wanted the world to stop for a moment. I wanted to dip myself and dampen my heart in the wetness of her words. I wanted to pause life, and cut those three words and play them on loop forever. I wish I had the remote control. But she did add a “Thanks for being there, bestie” later on, and I was shaken awake by reality.

“I’m so silly,” she said, as we began to leave the place a while later. “What was the thing you wanted to tell me?”

“It can wait,” I said as I tried to prevent the broken pieces of my heart from falling down on the ground, “I’ll tell you when the time will be right.”