Unspoken emotions

Loving somebody is one thing, and expressing it is entirely another. Journey with our young, impulsive protagonists who love and hate impulsively and acutely.

Ah! The time when all students hoped they had never gone to a school or a college! The time of examinations! The same was the situation in the medical college, where Shyam and Rinku were frantically trying to mug up the last portions of their course. The Biochemistry viva was due in an hour! It was then that Shyam stood up and said, “Rinku, I want to take a short break. I’ll come back in five minutes.” Rinku was irritated. He was supposed to teach her Biochemistry and now, he was going for a break! Knowing Shyam, she announced she’ll accompany him too, to ensure he came back on time.

 

Shyam was walking in his usual half walk-half run style and Rinku was having trouble catching up with him.

“Why do you always walk so fast Shyam?” an exasperated and tired Rinku asked.

“Fast walking increases blood circulation, and helps in thinking faster,” Shyam replied as quickly as he walked. Then, to Rinku’s relief, he slowed down. It was the sight of a tall boy with whitish complexion that made Shyam stop. He walked over to have a chat with him, and returned in a minute after delivering a couple of backslaps to the boy. Rinku was a silent observer to the whole conversation. She leaned on to a pillar, adjusted her lustrous hair, tied them with a ribbon on the back of her head and gazed at the two boys who were laughing in an inhumanely loud manner at a private joke. Perhaps she stood there gazing for a bit too long, as Shyam poked at her back.

“Hey, don’t you want to study? Come on, let’s go!” he said, waving his hand in air. Rinku was silent throughout the return journey and sat quietly as Shyam tried to explain her Embden-Mayerhof-Parnas pathway of glucose metabolism and the de novo pathway of purine synthesis. Something was wrong, and Shyam could sense it.

 

It was obvious that Rinku was sad. That was enough reason for Shyam to close his biochemistry journal and console her. After all, you can’t be best friends with just anyone. You have got to be with the person every time you are needed.
“What’s the matter Rinku?” Shyam asked concernedly. Rinku suppressed a sob, then whispered, “Shyam, you know that guy from BJ medical college, that guy with whitish complexion?”
“Not exactly,” Shyam shrugged his shoulders, and continued, “I have shared a few jokes with him. That’s all. I don’t even know his name. Why? Has he hurt you? Or has teased you in any way? I will teach him a lesson!!” His tone grew more and more aggressive as he ended his longish monologue.
“No Shyam! You will not do any such thing. I have hurt him enough.” Saying this, Rinku fell silent and started gazing outside the window, as if fascinated by some extraordinary vision on an ordinarily sunny morning. Her reply stunned Shyam. This was atypical of Rinku. She would never admit her own fault even if the reality would fly out of window and slap her in the face. Shyam now shifted his role from a ‘sincere co-student’ to a ‘genuine friend’.
“What's the problem? Consider me your friend and tell me.”
“Will you promise me that you won’t tell it to anyone?”
“It’s my promise.”
“Okay then. We were a pair in the school, me and Abhi. I loved him and he loved me. See, he gave me this.” Saying this, she took out two metal hearts as seen in biology textbooks.

“Hardly romantic.” Shyam muttered, more as a conversation filler than an observation.
“Yeah, I know. But we were to be doctors and hence this.”
“Cool. Then what happened?”
“I deserted him.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want my parents to find out about him. And we were too young. This would create complications in our life. Best was to leave him and we vowed not to talk to each other,” Rinku concluded amidst sobs. Shyam wiped her tears with his handkerchief and waited for her sobs to subside. His one eye was on the watch, and it showed him that they had only thirty minutes to go before the Practical exams, and still a lot of course was left to be revised! But that didn’t stop him from asking his next question.
“Does he have a new girlfriend?”
“No. He is single because he is unable to forget me. This is the reason why I have not taken interest in any boy. It is my moral obligation towards him.”

Saying this Rinku started crying again, but these were the tears of relief, of being relieved of a burden. For a moment Shyam forgot that it was the University biochemistry practical exam. He forgot that he was supposed to remember the horrible names like ‘quinonimiene’ or ‘cholestadiene’. He forgot that he was supposed to give viva exam to someone he might have never met. All he could remember was the days he had spent with Rinku, thinking that he will propose her one day, that he will be a prince who will sweep her off her feet. But now, he was left sweeping the dust after someone else, a whitish fellow, who looked girlish compared to the towering frame of his, had swept her off her feet. But he realized quickly that Rinku needed him to be strong, to be able to support her in this delicate moment and most importantly, to make her pass the viva, which was now due in only ten minutes.

“Rinku, please listen.  We can talk about this for a whole day once we finish our viva. Remember, it is the last exam, and after this, we are free! So please be a good girl and wipe off your tear,” saying this, Shyam playfully added the classic line, “because Pushpa I hate tears!”

“Shut up you idiot!” Rinku slapped Shyam’s hand playfully, and smiled, “you always manage to bring a smile to my tearful face! How?”

“That’s my trade secret sweetie! If I reveal it, everyone would start making you smile! What would happen to me then?” then abandoning the joking, he said seriously, “Now, Rinku, do you really want to pass the viva?” The last line had the desired effect and they spent the last ten minutes revising furiously, the various complex biochemical cycles. Then a bell rang, and an elderly peon came out to announce that the Biochemistry viva had begun and the candidates were required to be present in the laboratory within five minutes to get their exercises.

 

Shyam had a relatively easy exercise. He was first supposed to test for presence of proteins in the given sample of urine, and then determine the amount of glucose in the given blood sample by colorimetry. But the ace was his viva. So far, Shyam was the highest scorer in viva examination. Soon enough, his turn for viva came. The examiner was a thick rimmed gentleman with grey, thinned out hair and a pencil moustache. He gazed at Shyam for some time and fired his first volley,

“Describe the EMP pathway of glycolysis.” It was a simple enough question. Shyam had just taught Rinku the Embden-Mayerhof-Parnas pathway of glycolysis. He started on a confident note, “Sir, it starts with the phosphorylation of glucose to glucose-6-phosphate by glucokinase, followed by its conversion to glucose-1, 6-bisphosphate,” suddenly Shyam was lost in thought. The scene that took place a few minutes ago with Rinku was being played in his mind over and over again. The lines “We were a pair in school, me and Abhi,” were being played in his mind again and again. These lines were like an opaque screen trying to block out all the information that was in his brain. He stopped speaking.

“Yes, what happens next?” the elderly professor tried to revive Shyam’s memory, oblivious of the churning that was taking place inside his mind.

“Sorry sir, I don’t know,” Shyam resigned to his fate.

“What! You don’t know glycolysis! What a shame! Okay, perhaps you can shed some light on the functions of Vitamin C?”

Shyam was again caught in the desperate battle with his mind. Rinku’s image and her lines kept flashing repeatedly in his mind. Finally he gave up, saying, “Sorry sir, I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe it! How low the standards of education have fallen! Get out! You don’t deserve to be in my viva,” the elderly professor was flushed red with anger. Shyam quietly walked out, his shoulders drooped. He knew that he had screwed up big time, and only God could save him.

 

The exam was over. Shyam was sad and angry for not being able to answer so easy questions. As he was walking away slowly and sadly towards his bike, a cheery voice came from behind, “Hey Sam!” Shyam smiled. Only one person could call him by such an absurd name. It was Minisha, his very good friend, and unfortunately, Rinku’s arch-enemy. Shyam had a tough time fulfilling his commitments as a friend to both girls.

“Hi Mini!” He called her out with an equally ridiculous nickname, “How was your viva?”

“What to say! Oh God! I am in so much trouble! Oh God, please help me!” Minisha replied in her characteristic hurried manner. Another of her traits was most of incidents occurring with her were tragic, and if her tragedies were to be believed in the scale which she described, she must have died a hundred times over!
“What happened again?” Shyam asked bemusedly. He had gone through this conversation many times.
“Leave it yaar, it’s too tragic! What about you? You seem a little sad.” She enquired worriedly.
“Yeah, it’s a little problem with… I don’t think you would like to know. Leave it. Let’s go for an ice cream! I am dying for it!” Shyam said. He had earlier asked Rinku too, but she had refused as according to her, good girls didn’t go out with boys alone. Whether Minisha too considered herself a good girl remained a matter of chance for Shyam. Evidently, her definitions of a ‘good girl’ were a little less stringent and she agreed to come with Shyam. For Shyam, it was a way to stop ruminating about his past feelings about Rinku, and to pull the plug on his imagined romance.

“You know Sam,” Minisha said, wiping her lips with a tissue paper, “I have always longed for someone who can understand my feelings. Someone who can love me, in spite of knowing my weaknesses.” Shyam was taken aback. It was exactly what he was thinking after the incident with Rinku. He too was feeling very lonely. Suddenly, as if on an impulse, Shyam heard himself say, “Mini, I love you.” Minisha’s mouth, which had opened to say something else, didn’t utter a single voice, and stayed open. A moment later, she regained her senses and said softly, “Shyam, you know what you are talking about?”

“Yes Mini, I know what I am talking about. I love you,” Shyam replied confidently. He was about to add “from my heart,” but he stopped, knowing that it was not true.

“But I thought you loved that Rinku!” Minisha replied after somewhat recovering from the shock. Shyam froze. He realized how transparent his feelings for Rinku would have been, that even a girl who hasn’t met her would be able to decipher it. “Everyone could read my love for Rinku, except Rinku herself!” Shyam muttered.

“Did you say something?”

“No... Listen Mini, Rinku was my friend. And you, you are my girlfriend!”

Minisha laughed and said, “Not yet, sweets. I am yet to say yes.”

“In that case, we’ll call for separate bills!” Shyam said with a laugh.

 

Two days later, Shyam again went to the same ice cream parlor with Minisha, ordered the same ice creams but this time, there were no separate bills. It was Shyam’s first date, his first romp with romance after being crushed by his previous crush. Minisha disclosed how much she had always loved Shyam, over an hour long chat the previous night, on the phone. That time, an hour seemed too long for Shyam. Little did the poor fellow know that soon, hours would fly away like minutes, as he’d spend most of his time and all of his pocket money on Minisha!

 

They explored more dating joints. To Shyam’s surprise, his own city had many places exclusively for young, romantic souls and he was shocked at his own lack of knowledge of the same. Each evening was spent in a new coffee shop or ice cream bar, either sipping coffee or eating chocolate ice creams from each others’ cups. Shyam was in heaven, and he took Minisha with him too!

 

Then one day, that moment came which Shyam had been dreading for so long- the encounter with Rinku. His affair with Minisha was not a secret after a fortnight, and the news spread around faster than a wildfire among the romance-starved students of the medical college. It was a ‘big deal’ amongst Shyam’s friends, and Shyam was again in the news for romantic reasons after his incident with Preity Sharma in the first year. Being his ‘best friend’, it was obvious that Rinku would get to know of it sooner or later.

“Shyam! Look at me!” Rinku thundered.

“That’s what I had been doing for one year,” Shyam muttered. Rinku didn’t hear it.

“What did you say?”

“Eh?” Shyam gave the most idiotic look he could muster.

“Don’t look like a fool! You know I am angry on what happened between you and Minisha!” Rinku screamed.

“Rinku, try and understand…” Shyam began to pacify Rinku, but he was cut off by Rinku before he could speak anything, “Don’t you utter a word! I thought you were my best friend, and here are you, fraternizing with the enemy!” Rinku’s stream of anger continued.

“Fraternizing? From where did you pick that word Rinku? And listen, I retain the right to fall in love with the person I like, okay? It’s my life after all!” Shyam countered Rinku.

“Okay, it’s your life. Live it the way you want, but from now, keep me out of it!” Saying this, Rinku walked away in a huff. Nobody could see a tiny droplet of tear from her left eye. Shyam called out aloud to Rinku. She stopped. “Listen Rinku, I need to tell you one fact,” Shyam’s mystery laden sentence made Rinku turn around. Shyam continued, “Rinku, I had loved you for the last one year. One year! And I had hoped to propose you after our first year. But when I heard about you and Abhi, my heart was broken. Minisha was my balm. She filled my life with the happiness that you unwittingly had taken away.”

“Over? Fine, I forgive you for romancing my enemy. And listen Mr. Shyam, you can forget me forever. Forget Rinku forever. Pluck me out as you would remove a suture, cleanly and aseptically. Bye, and see you in heaven!”

Shyam felt shattered. He felt as if somebody had removed all his blood and replaced it with bile. The gathered crowd walked away after watching the live drama between two now-ex friends.  Shyam called Minisha and asked her whether she could go out with him to the new ice cream joint and try out the new Chocolate Pudding. Minisha said she would not be able to come as she was leaving for a holiday resort that day, where she was going to stay for a week. Shyam cut the call with a sigh. So, for a week, he had no girlfriend, and no best friend.

 

The week passed slowly for Shyam. He missed the amusedly annoying chatter of Minisha, the sweetly funny sulking of Rinku when Shyam did something stupid. He missed them both, but was unable to reach either. Then, one lazy afternoon, when Shyam was watching TV, his phone rang. It was Minisha’s call.

“Hi Sam!” a cheery voice of Minisha lovingly called out Shyam’s name.

“Hi Mini! How are you?” Shyam’s voice was laced with more force and less enthusiasm.

“Let’s meet today! I want to introduce you to one of my friends.”

“Okay!”

They decided to meet at the place where they had first gone for the ice cream, where Shyam had proposed Minisha. Shyam quickly got ready. Just as he was about to kick start his motorcycle, his phone rang. Thinking that it must be Minisha with a change of plans, Shyam took his mobile out. It was from Ashwini, Rinku’s friend.

“Hi Ashwini!”

“Shyam, listen,” a serious tone replaced the normally cheerful voice, “Rinku hasn’t taken to your break up very well. She has been crying continuously since a week.”

“But Ashwini, what are you talking about? We have never had a link up! How could we have a break up?”

“Shyam, you were always dumb, we knew it by your stupid antics to make us laugh, but you were also blind!”

“What the…”

“Listen, can you talk to her right now? Please?”

“Ashwini, I am going to CCD with Mini. We’re going out after a week!”

“Shyam, you idiot! You never saw how much Rinku loved you? She loved you more than she had ever loved anybody!”

“Impossible! She loved that Abhi or something.”

“No Shyam, she didn’t even know Abhi. She didn’t even know his name! It was an innocent prank to see whether you loved Rinku too. If you had confronted her once, just once, with your love, she would have been yours!” Shyam could not reply. The exasperated sound of “Hello! Hello!” was being heard from the speaker but Shyam had lost all his voice.

 

Shyam reached the ice cream joint in twenty minutes. Hoping for some change in mood on meeting his sweetheart, Shyam pushed the door open and located Minisha. Boy, she looked so cute! Just as he was admiring her, Shyam’s eyes fell on another boy sitting with Minisha. To his shock, it was the same white skinned guy, Abhi!

“Hi Minisha!” Shyam warmly hugged Minisha and looked at ‘Abhi’ enquiringly.

“Hi Sam,” Minisha replied a little less enthusiastically than she normally would, and continued, “Here, meet Vikas. He was my ex-classmate.”

Shyam shook hands with Vikas. Minisha continued, “Shyam, please sit down and listen this very carefully.” Shyam was puzzled at the mysterious way in which Minisha spoke, as he sat down on the sofa. Minisha spoke after a short cough, “Shyam, I will come straight to the point. I loved Vikas in school, and he loved me too.  But our relationship ended abruptly when we parted after 12^th. Then, I met you and our love bloomed. I had almost forgotten him. When I met him at the holiday resort a week ago, our old flames were rekindled. I am sorry, but I need to break off from you. You will always be my friend, but I cannot love you. Sorry!”

Shyam merely smiled, and said, “In that case, we’ll have call for separate bills!”

“Thanks for understanding Sam!” Minisha said in a choked up voice. Shyam merely paid his bill and left the place. Rinku, who was sitting there with Ashwini, saw a solitary figure walking out of the shop, with a slow, staggering walk, and his hands in his pockets. If one would approach this figure, they could see a stream of tears running from his eyes, and a smile plastered on his face, as if the man is smiling at the cruelty of his own fate, as if the man is voicing the sound of an unspoken emotion. Seeing him, Rinku smiled for a mini second and burst into tears.

Reviews

[Katie de Lavani]

This writing was so touching. I loved your diction and how you tied everything together in the end. In such a short story, you can convey so much emotion through your characters. I enjoyed reading this.

[deeps]

I really loved the deep imagery i got with this write.
The details are amazing as well. This is so very well written.
I like this alot.