"Marry me."
Two words. Two people. Two different situations.
Ipshita Kumari, a 25 years old mechanical engineer at the MicroMakers, is faced with a different side of her lover, and a difficult decision.
Kabir Arora, a 26 years old software enginee...
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Ipshita and Kabir met after dinner for the walk. Ipshita hadn't had a chance to explore the campus much. Kabir, on the other hand, had covered almost everything except the faculty area.
They walked around the campus while talking, looking for the classrooms and labs for the next day.
Ipshita learnt that Kabir was from the Computer Science department, and was one of the top scorers in the entrance exam. Not only that, he had also been able to crack all the entrance exams he had given. This impressed her, but also reminded her of her own scores. She had not been able to crack any other exams and had barely passed the cut off for this exam, landing her in the mechanical department. She realised that now her competitors are going to be top students like him.
While Kabir's intellect impressed her, he was impressed by her creative mind that had tried her hands in art, writing, music and even dance. He had once written a few stories here and there, but he could not sing or dance at all.
Kabir also had a lot of stories from his school to share, mostly all the scandals that had happened in his school. Ipshita was shocked at hearing all this. Her school life was quite simple, so she had thought all this happened in movies only. It was her first time hearing such real life stories.
"You're from a Convent school, right ? " she asked, surprise evident on her face.
Kabir was from a convent school while Ipshita had attended a regular school.
"Yup."
"Aren't those usually more strict ? Why is your school more scandalous than mine ?"
It was true. The most she could remember from her school was when a fight broke out between her school and the neighbouring school students in front of the school gates, apparently for a girl.
Since she had no such tales to tell, most of the time was spent listening to Kabir's stories and being surprised by what 15 year olds were doing in school.
.
.
.
"I love you, Ipshita."
They were sitting on the stairs, behind the auditorium. It had been two months since they had met, two months since their first walk. Those walks had now become a daily routine for them. At first, it was to know the campus, then it was to know each other and then, it became a habit.
In these two months, they made many new friends and even lost some, but Ipshita and Kabir were constant.
It was her first time receiving a proposal, but it was not Kabir's first time proposing to someone. Maybe, that's what made her so hesitant, and also because she liked him too.
Yes, she 'liked' him. It was too soon to call it 'love'.
Kabir sat beside her, not taking his eyes off of her even for a second, waiting for a response.
"I like you too, Kabir" she confessed , "but..."
"But ?"
"I feel its too soon. We have known each other for only two months. What if it doesn't work out? What if the feelings die? What if - " Kabir held her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers.
"What if it does work out?"
She looked at him, her eyes watery. She was scared to love him. Past friendships had hurt her enough. When friendships can be this cruel, how cruel would love be?
But there was something in Kabir's eyes, the way he was looking at her, holding her hand in his, it gave her hope, it gave her the courage to love.
And so she did.
.
.
.
Four years passed by like the wind. They were graduating now.
Ipshita got a job in her hometown only, at a mechatronics company, MicroMakers. The company was giving all its employees their own living quarters in Noida. A job and a house from the start? She had hit a jackpot.
Kabir had been working on his own startup, along with his friends, Vipin and Advik. When asked for details, he refused to elaborate, stating he will tell her everything once he is 'worthy'.
Ipshita did not probe further and decided to wait till then, to wait till Kabir shows her everything he was working on and everything he has built.
.
.
.
Two years passed by, but the wait never ended.
Ipshita was out of her training period and was now working as a full-time employee. Her livings quarters were upgraded from a 1BHK to a 2BHK apartment. She wanted her parents to come live with her, but they had gotten attached to their old home and declined the offer. Still, she visited them almost every weekend, and the weeks she couldn't, her parents would show up at her new home.
Out of all her college friends, only Sia remained in contact, both being from the mechanical department in college. Sia was working in Pune, at an automobile company. They texted each other from time to time, but rarely got a chance to visit each other.
As for Kabir, she lost contact with him six months after graduation. The loss was gradual. From calling daily to calling once a week, which reduced to only texts and soon, the messages also stopped coming. She tried re establishing contact - calling him, leaving messages, voice notes, asking for an explanation - but she gave up after a month. And in her rage, she blocked him from all her social media accounts and deleted every picture of him and her together and every message she ever sent him. She removed all signs of his existence in her life, and with burning all the gifts he had given her, she burnt away that chapter of her life.
It was not easy. She spent days crying, every little thing reminding her of him. And for once, she was glad she lived alone. Just a few months back, she was planning on properly introducing him to her parents, taking their relationship to the next stage. Even Kabir had agreed to it, promising to be back in Delhi in a few months.
She ended up writing about it all - the love, the joy and the butterflies of first love, accompanied by the pain, the suffering and the tragedy of the heartbreak. She wrote till her hands started paining and her tears dried up. She wrote till she had nothing more left to write.
And the person that emerged from the pain, was a woman, who closed off the doors to her heart and refused to love again. She dedicated herself fully to her family and her career.
(1113 words)
(That school fight was something that actually happened in my school. A few boys from our class got into a fight with the students of a nearby school.
Our math teacher once joked about it in class, saying fights like these happened for three reasons - the 3 J's - Jar, Joru, Jameen aka Money, Girl, Land.
And since we students don't have our own money and land yet, the only reason left was Joru(Girl). )
