She moved her head up to the sky and stared keenly at the flying object. “He might be on that plane,” she said pointing to the airplane up in the sky. Sitting outside her tiny messed up room in Lajpat Nagar, she could not help think about him. “You have gone too far, but are still with me coz, you don't lie outside but within me”, she wrote in her lovely little notebook as a drop of tear fell on it. Avanti loved writing poetry and Dev was her inspiration, her muse. She found her words in him. He was her fiction. He was her truth.
“I want to write.” It had all began with such words. “But I am not good at words. Wrong words, wrong places.Fuck!”, she said shaking her head as if trying to shake off the feeling. “Everything will be fine. Don't Worry!”, Dev said holding her hand in his own. Dev, a friend she had made just two days ago when she was crying and weeping near the school canteen. “Hi, Dev”, he said offering a tissue paper to her. “ Wipe your tears, your eye-liner is falling out with your tears, so if you keep crying like this then soon all your face will turn black.” At first sight, she looked at him furiously then gave a thought to his words and slowly and steadily began laughing. “ Seems, you are more concerned about my eyeliner.”
“ It's not about what words do we use, but the how we use words.”, he told her as their first vocabulary session began. He started with basic newspaper reading in easy English and asked her to mark the unknown words. Since the content was simple and precise, she could hardly find one or two difficult words. He helped her with those words and asked her to read the editorial as homework. “Bring the new words tomorrow”, he said. She nodded.
“ These sounds, they really give me solace and an inspiration to write”, said Avanti listening to the birds chirping on trees. “How does it feel like living in trees?”, she said wondering in amazement. “ You mean, arboreal?” he asked. “What does that mean?”, she questioned. “ Living in trees”, he replied with a smile.
“Now do remember and if possible use it in your poetry”, he said as he walked away from there. Avanti kept staring at him with full concentration till he disappeared from her sight.
Next day went on as usual in teaching, learning, and grasping. At the end of the session, Avanti couldn't contain her curiosity anymore, so she asked him, “Hey, how are you so good at English?”
“I have grown in a world of English, my mother is an English Professor.”, he replied. "By the way, I am getting late for my class. See you later.” , he said and went away. Avanti then gathered her belongings. To her surprise, she found a note beneath her notebook which read, “ You’ll be a great writer :)”. She brought the note closer to her heart. A smile appeared on her face.
“You know my dreams, Dev. Tell me something about yourself now”, she said one fine day after a long practice session. “Sometime later. I need to go now.”, he avoided the question and went away.
Slowly and steadily time flew by. Six months past their first meeting and now Avanti could use complicated words and felt confident in her writing. “You are so complicated Dev, you don't tell me anything about yourself. I mean when I first met you I thought you are an extrovert but now your silence makes you more than an introvert. Oh, God!.”
With a little smile on his face, he began, “ Okay! So let's break this silence. I am a simple person in love with life. I feel blessed when I help someone. I feel overwhelmed when other people smile because of me. Academically I want to be an automobile engineer. I want to build cars. I just love machines. That's all about me.” he completed.
“You are a nice person Dev.”, she said.
Another few months passed like the wind. Everyone was busy with their board exams. Dev and Avanti now hardly talked to each other. He was from the science background and she was a humanities student, so they had nothing much in common to discuss in academics.
“ After long and anxious waits for exam results and cutoffs, I am finally done with it”, she said as she stepped out from LSR College, New Delhi heaving a sigh of relief. English (Hons) from LSR. Ah! Dream college, Dream course.
“You’ve got what you wanted Avanti”, her mother said hugging her. The first person whom she remembered was Dev. “ I must call him. It is only due to him that I am here. By the way, what would he be doing? He must have got admission in IIT. He was so intelligent.”, she thought. She went to her home and dialed his number. He didn't pick up her call. She tried a few more times but the result remained the same. It made her upset.
Some days later, a message came from her school. She was overjoyed seeing the message and literally jumped from her bed. It read, “ The students of batch 2015-16 have to report to school on 22 July for the bid adieu ceremony.” It came as a surprise and Avanti’s face brightened like the sun. She was eager and impatient for the day to come.
“Finally! It's 22 July and I am going to meet him,” she mumbled as she applied makeup. “Today I’ll tell him everything about me. The things which were hidden till now. My feelings. My love. Everything.”
The ceremony began with the felicitation of toppers which included Avanti and Dev. Afterward, everybody began talking to each other. Dev and Avanti came face to face. Their eyes met. “ I'm in LSR Dev and it's all because of you.”, she said in a low and deep voice. “ Congrats! I knew you would make it.”, he replied in a joyous tone. She was about to vent out her emotions when something inside her heart stopped her voice abruptly. “ You were going to say something Avanti! Speak up”, he said. She tried her best but she could not. She quickly averted her mind and spoke “ What are you going to do Dev, engineering? IIT?”, she spoke with her heart throbbing in nervousness. “ Umm Engineering but not IIT.” “Then?”, she asked puzzled. “ University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. I didn't tell you but I always wanted to go there. It is as important and precious to me as poetry is to you.” he said. For the first time in past one year, she had seen him so happy. Tears fell from her eyes. She couldn't help it. “ What happened?”, he asked as he wiped her tears. “ I am happy for you. May you achieve everything you want.” She hugged him tightly.
“So you didn't tell him about your feelings? Maybe his feelings are same as yours?” her roommate asked. “ How could I? He is moving towards his dreams, just like me. And if he feels any such thing, I don't want to hold him back. He must go on.” she replied in a composed voice. “ And what if he doesn't come back ever? If he doesn't meet you ever? Will you be able to live?” , she asked again. “ Yes I will,” she replied in a cold voice. “ And even if I never get to meet him, I'll be happy. Even if he's far away, he's still in me, in my poetry. His image has been engraved in my heart forever.”, she explained.
“Well don't you think your story ended before it could bloom?”
“Some stories are meant to be short and are perhaps, the best like this. We both are following our dreams. Neither hopes, nor promises, nor any heartbreaks. What else can be a better ending? she said as another airplane passed through her eyes.