Around 80 years ago, when India was ruled by britain's, some british sponsored terrorists used to kidnap innocent people from random places. This is story a boy named Ross, who was kidnaped by those terrorists. Terrorists offered him a condition that they will free him if he can tell them a good story. So Ross agreed and started telling story as:
Long time ago, I went to rishikesh for Advance Meditation Course. It was first session of first day, we went through many activities in instructor’s guidance. In one of those activity, we were instructed to choose a random person in hall and sit down facing each other. Everyone including me, began to choose. I found a girl, so we sat facing each other. I saw her name on ID card and asked “Rachel ?, I am Ross, btw”. she said “yah” with a beautiful smile. We talked little more till we got next instruction, “Praise your partner with whatever goodness you observed in him/her”. It was her turn and she started “1. You are very nice. My friends also felt the same about you when we meet yesterday, you are very acceptive person. 2. Your eyes are very beautiful, 3. You look very dedicated and sincere. You do everything 100% ”
I was very dying out of happiness until she added next points “4. You have very good personality, people follows you. 5. You have very positive aura, I can feel your presence.”
I was disappointed after listening 4th, 5th point but I pretended to look as if nothing happened. I had concluded that “everything she said was fake”. But she was looking very innocent, smiling at me and moreover she was very beautiful so i forgave her little mistake and i was happy again.
When it was my turn, I couldn’t say anything more than “You attempt really hard to praise people”.
In next round we were instructed to share all our deepest problems of life. She started sharing some problems, which I almost ignored, but couldn’t dare to ignore one of them, when she was telling, “She recently broke-up with a guy, who was cheating her since long time”. I didn’t show any reaction on it, but this point triggered lot of background computation inside me.
During the break after first session, I was sitting on bank of ganga and noticed that I was thinking about rachel again and again. It’s not that I haven’t seen such sweet girl before, but still i never got caught in such loop of thoughts. probably because here I was seeing the open chance as she recently came out of a bad relationship. I was turning emotionally driven. My mind was flooded with questions,
“ Is it just because she is beautiful ? am i one of those outer-beauty discriminator ? or Is it just because she praised me ? am i selfish opportunist who is being creep ? why would she be looking for new relationship ? ”
I always had a handy solution for every problem “Introspection”. I started writing every bullshit my mind was coming up with.
“Well, I agree that all of above questions have common answer ‘Yes’. so what ? she may be looking for new relationship and at least I am never gonna cheat. Isn’t it sufficient for a relationship ? may be not. Because I don’t have personality. I end up talking shit, behaving like moron. Yah, I should keep away from her. But I think at least I should try. But why ? i don’t want to talk to her. Sooner or later she will get to know that I am essentially a moron. Yes. I should not talk but i am anyway thinking of her, how should I stop ? let me just stop thinking of her. Ok. I stopped. But i need her. Stop thinking, you bloody boy. Just stop ! I said stop ! but how can i stop ? even psychology says you can’t stop thinking about something. Fuck psychology you idiot, I said stop ! what’s wrong with you ? have you fallen in love with her ? No, actually no. It’s just affection with her beauty and sweetness. It’s the exactly same kind of feeling, I used to had with monica verma. I think I am in a state, where I don’t have any control over me. Probably there is some external power which is controlling my mind. I don’t think so, maybe it’s just my perception. No it’s not. I am really loosing control. My conscious state is fading away. I am not purely conscious now. Shit. I am trapped. What should I do now ? let me just drop my phone and relax. Ok. done“
I got up after 20-30 minutes and found, things were little clear. But not completely. I was still controlled by the emotions. So I thought, i should just meet her, tell her every shit running in my head, run away and never talk to her again. This seemed a nice idea.
Next session started and I was committed to do everything very sincerely to maintain her ‘sincere’ perception of me. By the time session was over, I had observed a tendency in me to look around and keep searching for her, a tendency to stalk her secretly.
During the second break after second session, I went back to bank of ganga, applied all physiology theory to forget her, but none of them worked. In fact, I was becoming even more and more emotionally driven. More suffering, more frustration, more pain and the result was: I gave up. next thought in my mind was to at least talk to her normally. So I started looking her here and there but didn’t find her anywhere. This made me even more restless. I spent hours before the next session was scheduled to start and finally I found her. I saw her standing few meters apart from me, talking to her friends, laughing on some jokes. But I was scared to talk to her. She said “hey” as hand expression and I responded same. but I didn’t dare to approach her. Coward me, procrastinated the plan for next break and started roaming and stalking.
“Procrastination is well known bad habit”, next session prove it.
In next session, we were instructed to remain in silent mode till end of course. I had to follow this instruction very sincerely because of her perception about me. My life became even more complicated. I can’t speak. I can’t remain in silence. I can just die, drowning in flood of my emotions.
Next day began, instructor put a basket at stage, labeled “Botherations” and suggested to write down any of your botheration on paper and drop in basket after end of session. I attended the session sincerely. Followed all yoga & meditations activities very sincerely.
At end of session, I was sitting in hall itself. Rachel and some more people were writing their botherations, some were going out. When she had finished writing, was dropping paper, I noticed exact position of her paper in basket. In next 15-20 minutes, everyone had left the hall. I quickly went to basket, made sure no one is watching me, took out her paper, kissed it multiple times, took a intense breathe in, felt her smell, unwrapped it and started reading. I was feeling intense pleasure. I read her well described botheration and kept the paper with me. By that time, I was emotionally ‘high’.
I went outside and started looking for her until I find her roaming nearby, stalking her until no one notice me, pretending normal if i anyone watching me. This became my default-mode throughout the advance course. But this default-mode was really pleasurable. I don’t think even weed can do that.
Course was progressing well, I was participating each and every session very sincerely. Rachel was writing new botheration after every session. I was getting more content to read, more papers to kiss and feel her smell. Basket was filled with too many papers, but my stalking eyes were very powerful to remember exact location of her paper, which helped me to find out her paper within O(1) time.
3rd day during 3rd break ( After 3rd session), she didn’t simply drop the paper, rather hide it under all existing papers. I concluded, this could be very secret and serious botheration of her. In couple of minutes everyone had left the hall except one girl. she had written 2 papers but her botheration was still not finished. I was waiting for her to finish. In meantime, I was pretending to write my botheration. I didn’t had any botheration as such, so I started writing random shit. I wrote:
“Dear god, please make this girl finish her writing as soon as possible and solve all the problems of Rachel. I need to look at Rachel’s writing. She hide it so deeply, there must be something very serious. I need to look at it asap. But how can I do. Make this girl out of hall. asap. Please. Please. ”
Finally she had finished and left. There was no one in hall. I attempted to search for Rachel’s paper. But it was almost impossible task among those 100 papers. I picked a paper uniformly randomly, unwrapped it, checked handwriting, retried the attempt 10-15 times, but none of them matched with Rachel’s handwriting. So I had no option other than brute-force search. Also I was afraid, what if someone notice me doing such cheap act.
I used to looked outside at hall’s gate, made sure no one is coming and I had 10 seconds as guaranteed period to take any action ( safe-look-up ). although 10 seconds of safe-look-up were not sufficient but I had a strategy. I started folding empty papers, as chunk of 5 papers in every safe-look-up, hide them below the dustbin, repeated it sequentially for approx 20 times. In next safe-look-up I swapped all written papers ( basket ) with empty papers ( below dustbin). Then I started bringing 5-10 papers to my room in one safe-look-up. After having all papers in my room, I simply closed room and found her paper by checking all papers. Read her detailed botheration, kept her paper with me, reversed the algorithm and brought remaining papers back to basket.
By that time, I got to know a lot about her life, her situations, her problems. Somehow my intuition was saying “she also feels something for me”. I found lots of evidence to support my hypothesis from her behaviour.
During 2nd session of second last day, It was still 30 minutes remaining for session to start, I was headed to hall. While going there, I got a random thought that she is currently inside the hall and no one else is there. but on next moment i found that probability of such an event is extremely small (⅓ * ⅔^26). My logic and emotions started debating again, which lasted for few seconds until my emotions stated “if universe can manage to execute such a small probable event that means she also feels something for me”. I entered into hall without any hope and found there she was, just in front of me, looking at me as if she was waiting for me only. I was shocked and she also looked surprised. we looked into eyes of each other for few seconds until I started feeling embarrassed. So i took a corner in hall and sat down. she started roaming around in room and I started my default-mode ( stalking )
This incident was sufficient to make me believe in my hypothesis. I became even more restless. But still there was some fear, some uncertainty. So I planned to create one more test-case.
In last session of second last day, we were instructed for a special type of meditation, named “Meditation in Motion”. it’s so hard, people start crying during this. so I committed that “If I can succeed in this process without any imperfection that means Rachel also feels something for me”. Process started, everyone cried, but I was so high, I didn’t fail for a single moment.
Session had ended, I headed to bed. test-case had passed and I had no doubt on my hypothesis. My mind was full of excitement since it was last day in silence. I was ready to tell her everything since I was sure that she also feels something for me, so there won’t be any problem. Mad with excitement and restlessness, i started roaming around with very high energy. I was no less than drunk man. I was going left and reversing. Going right and reversing. Jumping and climbing. stepping forward for few meters, holding for few seconds, stepping backward again. running very fast, suddenly stopping, running again. If anybody would have noticed me, I am sure he/she would have reported to mental hospital.
It was 3 AM, but I was far away from sleep. so I started designing scripts to propose her.
“Rachel, Actually I had something to say. Actually during the advance course, I fell in love with you. I felt it very strongly. Actually I wanted to know, do you also feel something similar ? I mean, I know that you must be shocked. You wouldn't be prepared to answer. But do you imagine we can have a comfortable life together ?
Our relationship won’t be based on emotional dependency, but it will be based on mutual understanding, mutual happiness and mutual growth. If nothing more, at least I can always promise that I won’t cheat. Never. Ever.
I will stand with you to solve all your problems. These problems don’t have a quick fix solution rather require well planned strategies and trust me I am an expert strategist ”
Next morning, first session, dream moment had arrived when we were allowed to break silence. People started greeting each other, talking to instructor, roaming in hall. I was also involved into greeting, but deep inside it was very terrified moment for me. Although I was crazily waiting for this moment, but when this moment arrived, my whole body was shaking, things were getting blurred. I was feeling storm of pain in my heart. May be because in my imaginary world, next step was to go to her and propose her but this thought was not aligned with reality. I observed lots of contradictions in my thoughts. But still it was difficult to digest the truth. So i attempted to approach her. I was stepping toward her so slowly, every step was taking more than minutes. I couldn’t even reach half of the way, my leg’s vibration was speeding up more and more. Suddenly a thought triggered in my head, aimed to find out reasons, which could justify and convince me to stop. Another part of my mind was committed to perform the stepping action. Both part of my mind started fighting but justification part was more dominant and end up winning. So I stopped. I was justified that “this is not right situation to propose her, my script won’t work in such situation”.
Slowly I was coming out of Imagination layer and accepting the reality. I realised justification was really correct. I thanked god for preventing me from a dangerous action.
I was disappointed, but I decided that “I will talk to her after some time, may be when I will become mature, mentally normal and expert in interpersonal skills”
Course was anyway finished, everyone met everyone and headed to their home. She and 5-6 more people were from delhi. So we all came in same bus.
It was 4 AM and we had reached delhi. all of us were standing at bus stand. She was standing directly opposite to me in circle. My emotions were shouting “Ross, you have last chance ! You won’t be able to see her again in future. Stalk her as much as you can ”
I was stalking, looking at her innocent face and thinking, “this girl don’t have even slightest idea of what she had triggered ”. While I was looking at her, I was still in hope that she will break silence, get high in emotions, rush, hug me hard and whisper in my ear “Bye Ross ! we will meet soon ”.
But nothing such happened. I said “bye” to the group and headed to uber. I was extremely broken. I just needed a place where I could cry loudly. but I was matured enough to cry without tears.
Meanwhile one tear fell on my phone screen, indicating tortured death of my 3rd love story.
