Story Time | Ved & Chaya

 Entry 1

Growing up, Ved loved his collection of sophisticated toy cars and luxury gadgets. In the era of people making do with 1GB data a month, Ved enjoyed unlimited internet access. His life has always been perfect, thanks to his amazing dad who was no less than God to him. Seldom does one find father-son duos that are this cordial, but Ved was a special child with the most loving parents. Not only was Ved charming and charismatic since childhood, he was also well-behaved, good in academics, and just everything else that society deems ‘ideal’ in a child. For being a good boy, Ved's father would reward him well, and that would be their thing.

But despite having everything, an inexplicable pain would engulf Ved every time he would try to sleep. This anxiety slowly seeped into his life in his late teens. He secretly went for counselling too, but nothing seemed to be working. He never discussed his insomnia or sleep anxiety with his parents; he didn't want to trouble to the old couple. Having been childless for a long time and then being gifted with this gem of a boy, Ved's parents were extremely protective of him, yet never in a suffocating way. He was the first among his friends to learn to drive, and swim. He even went for a solo trip to Melbourne at eighteen, that's the kind of liberation his father made accessible for him. For a single child from an upper-middle-class family in a metropolitan city, Ved was tied to his roots, forever in awe of nature, and just the opposite of all the stereotypes attached to people with his background. His seemingly perfect life however was not without its share of darkness. Ved had his heart broken by his childhood sweetheart at 15, and since then he's been having these nightmares that make sleep inaccessible to him on most nights.

Chaya lives in a small town, in a joint family. She comes from a lower-middle-class family that isn't necessarily poor but isn't rich either. It's best to describe them as people who spend on the right things and curtail expenses wherever possible. Chaya is at least eight years younger to Ved and had no idea of his existence until this beautiful morning when she randomly sat next to him on her school excursion to Delhi. A bright-eyed girl with a bubbly personality, Chaya wasn't someone you'd call beautiful. She was cute at best, she could easily go unnoticed in a crowd of many, yet that particular morning, Ved noticed her. They were on this city tour bus that was headed to India Gate. Chaya with her school mates and teachers, and Ved with a few colleagues from a magazine he had just started interning with. At 13 and 21 respectively, Chaya and Ved had no clue that randomly sitting next to each other on a crowded bus for just 30 minutes would help them foster a connection they'll cherish and secretly long for much later in life. 

Image source: AI

They began talking when Ved asked if she was with the group of chaotically loud kids singing at the top of their voices in the front. Chaya smiled and nodded. She loved how he seemed to prefer her choice of being calm and enjoying the city view rather than dancing the moments away to a Bollywood number. She had just begun embracing her womanhood and only she knew how fast her heart began to beat when Ved walked in through the aisles of the crowded bus. In fact, there were two other people from Ved's team who came to sit beside her, but she tried to show how unwelcome the idea was via gestures and the classic use of her bag as a space eater. And when it was Ved looking sincerely for a seat, the bag swiftly made its way to her lap and the rest is obvious.

With their hands brushing against each other and thighs occasionally touching at the abrupt halts of the bus, Ved and Chaya felt a soothing comfort that each lacked in their otherwise fulfilling lives. Anyway, post Ved's wittily framed question, it was the inquisitive Chaya's turn to interrogate him and she asked straight up, 'Are you with these magazine people, you know these journalist types?' To this Ved smiled, both admiring her naive nature and directness. She almost resembled her...the girl who brutally broke his heart...

 Entry 2

The bus passed through India Gate, heading towards Jaipur House now. The weather was unusually pleasant. This part of the city has a charm of its own, with clean, green streets and brightly coloured official buildings. Chaya's wondrous eyes began dreaming the kind of life she would live if she got to shift here. It was her dream, after all, to study at Delhi University. She was just walking out of her room in her skinny jeans and checked shirt, with, of course, her classic backpack with her, perhaps walking to college, when Ved's voicing began filling the background, bringing her back to reality.

Source: Mariana De Los Santos from Pixabay

Chaya swiftly came back to the present. "Listen, I have to go. They've urgently asked us to report to the office. Here's my number." He said, handing her a piece of paper. "Call me when you can." Chaya could only manage to nod her head. Was it too soon to hug him goodbye? What would her friends think if she did hug him goodbye? Perhaps nodding and smiling are enough. He must have felt the connection, too; why else would he share his number, right? With this endless banter going on within her head, Chaya could merely manage to nod as she slowly witnessed Ved disappear in the Delhi crowd after he disembarked. The rest of the trip remained a blur of a memory in her head for all the years that followed. The entire school excursion culminated in just one brief meeting of chance, and all she remembered and treasured from this trip was a three-letter word and a gorgeous-looking Delhi boy—Ved.

Life remained pretty much the same for Ved and Chaya even after this meeting, but something changed in both of them. While Ved found hope of regaining a love perhaps even more beautiful than the one he lost, Chaya, on the other hand, found the fairy tale love, the one that happens unexpectedly, the one that enamours and enraptures the soul while sweeping you off your feet. Life and daily responsibilities continued, but each secretly craved to reunite, perhaps to know each other better, to adapt to each other, to coexist, to nurture, and to love.