03328320421 calling.....

A loud whrrring noise woke the dozing Ahsan up.....Ahsan, your typical boy next door, 22 yr old, Kolkata resident, engineering student, well mannered (atleast as well mannered as a self respecting engineering student could afford to be:D), has lots of friends and is fun-loving. Single, not desperate to mingle but wouldn't mind an encounter with love.

Waking up, he realised that the whrrring noise was his cell phone (in vibration mode) announcing a call.....Reaching out for it he secretly hoped it wasn't a close friend asking him to go out for an evening chill-out, he was seriously in no mood for that.

03328320421 calling...



One look at the number and a tizzy of emotions washed over him in an instant. Memories, look hoped to have been buried in a deep chasm rushed back to engulf him.....Emotions, long banished by the logical brain swirled back into an unnerving existence.....and unbeknownst to even himself, those whirlwind 36 days flashed upon his inward eye.

He had met her in the virtual world. One Monday afternoon, bored to death, a username caught his eye and he fired off an IM as any boy would.

Leosrule07 :- y r u hell bent on making the whole world diabetic:D
Sweetdreams4all :- bcoz being diabetic is better than having nightmares
Leosrule07 :- an interesting but mistaken observation
Sweetdreams4all :- how, if u care to explain
Leosrule07 :- for d simple reason k d effects of a nytmare may last 4 an hour @ max whereas u bcum diabetic 4 lyf:D

N so they kicked off a conversation which lasted for an hour and a half.....in the course of which he came to know Zeba, 19 year old B.Com student also from Kolkata, brought up in a secluded all girls environment, she has hardly ever talked with any boy casually.

More conversations followed with their duration becoming lengthier every time and they started to enjoy their tit-for-tat replies to each other...she was his "deer" and he her "mangy lion":D.....soon their "talk time" became the highlight of their day with both just waiting to log on. About two weeks from their 1st chance encounter in the virtual world, their conversation moved on the cellular world when Zeba called up Ahsan to cancel a pre-set virtual meeting.....She did not own a cell and was calling up from a public booth, the conversation stretched on to an hour and 13 minutes.....with the last 13 minutes constituting their 1st tiff as such reason being Ahsan's not liking her wasting so much money (he became aware of the public booth angle only an hour into the conversation).


That tiff just added to the growing feeling of connect that seemed to be engulfing both of them and just 4 days later on another phone conversation Zeba, unable to suppress her feelings anymore, ended up utterring that so-used phrase of the English language..."I Love You"...and so started a love story.


They couldn't meet coz there was no way that Zeba could go out of her house alone, in fact her calls to Ahsan were made in the borrowed time which she extracted from her tuitions. The next two weeks constituted two sightings of each other from across the road (wherein each tried to engrain the other in their inner eye) .....endless whisperings of sweet nothings in their 10 minute conversations.....feeling a sense of bliss every waking hour engrossed in each other's thoughts and their 1st "love fight" (which resulted in a sleepless night for both, shed tears from Zeba, unshed ones from Ahsan and ended with both saying sorry the other day blaming oneself for the fight).


03328320421 calling...

The loud whrrring broke his reverie and he received the call....." This is Esha from Reliance Communications, Sir...would you like to know about our......" the call tuned out as his mind went back to his reverie.....it has been 3 n a 1/2 months as of today since Ahsan last talked with Zeba.....she disappeared from his life without a trace and he had no way of finding her.....countless offline mesages and e-mails went unanswered.....it was as if he had lived a dream, a wondrous dream but reality struck back...n how harsh it was.....just then he realised how wrong his comment was about nightmares lasting for an hour @ max......"sweetdreams4all" had given him the worst nightmare of his life...a nightmare which he was living every waking hour of his life and would be living for he knew not how long...



Ever since every call on his cell phone from a 033..... (public phone booth number) evoked sharp memories and moments of gloom within, a painful reminder of what was, what could have been and what actually is.....as he pressed the red button on his cell phone to disconnect the call, he remembered a couplet which seemed just so apt...



"Woh na aaye, unki yaad aakar wafa kar gayi
Unse milne ki tamanna sukun tabah kar gayi
Aahat hui, socha asar dua kar gayi
Darwaza khola to dekha mazak hawa kar gayi"
{ her memories remain faithful to me, not she
wish of meeting her has destroyed my peace
a knock on the door, and I think my prayers have been answered
I open the door to see that it was just a cruel joke played by the wind }