Flashbacks - Stolen Dreams

Almost a year went by since we came to this place. It did give us memories, bittersweet, worth looking back to. I carved out a lifetime out of it and yet that lifetime seems so incomplete. Life is changed now but its definitely not the way it was supposed to be.

Those people to whom I meant so much, I don’t matter anymore. I am just a face they say “hi” to everyday. I don’t come among their best friends anymore. But I still remember the day when I didn’t meet them and everybody called each other up that night. A day without them seemed so incomplete. Sometimes today I find myself waiting for just an sms of anyone, but none comes at the end of the day. People tell me to move on, grow up. But I don’t know how to do either. If moving on means to forget all the memories and replace friends then I don’t know how people can even ask to do this or do it themselves.

I have lost almost all the things closest to my heart and people don’t even tell me where I went wrong. I forgot to laugh and I miss how much I loved to laugh, when I rushed to my friends to share a funny incident that just happened with me. I remember when Nirmalya and Aditi waited 2 hours for my Graphics class to get over and I rushed to them without looking at anyone. I remember when Aditi’s section got changed and Nirmalya got so upset that he started cracking painful jokes as if he was going to die the next day. And Pratip was so upset he asked to go to Aditi’s house and spent a lot of time just goofing around and aunty providing us nice meal and I remember I munched up Aditi’s part too coz she said she was full he he.

One day, I remember it was 16^th January. Arka was supposed to come from his Haridwaar trip and I was the only person supposed to know that fact. Next day we planned a surprise to call everyone at Hiland Park and Arka would come there and surprise everyone and it went badly wrong when Pritam and Pratip saw him hiding behind the Box Office Ticket counters. But Aditi was still to be surprised and she came strolling lightly and up the escalator and we told her that we had a surprise for her and she turned and let out a Squeal of happiness to see Arka there. And she beat us all up with her little flat palmed pats and her famous innocently beautiful face that she tried to make angry but failed badly. This day didn’t end here. We all wanted Photograph of the moment, and I did the volunteering for clicking it and got warned not to click pictures at the mall and the guard pointed at a sign that was supposed to be PHOTOGRAPHY PROHIBITED but turned out to read TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN. And we laughed at her face. She was so embarrassed that she kicked us out of the mall coz I was standing in the escalator in facing the opposite direction and sometimes walking up the down-going escalator. Then we had no choice but to accompany Arka to College Street and to add to the spice, BY LOCAL TRAIN which wasn’t so usual for Adi and Pratip.

We bought cold drinks at Sealdah and walked a way that we weren’t sure lead to college street or not, yet we kept walking. Before everything we decided to have some snacks at the Coffee House but no snack was available before half an hour, so we needed to get evidences that we have been to coffee house that day so My phone was in very much demand and when everybody agreed that it was impossible to click the photo of all of us, I devised a self shot which luckily worked (which even I didn’t expect).

Now before we read on, I gotta tell this, Pritam and Aditi had said to their moms that they were going for Studies, and Pritam suddenly got a call from home after which he looked like the earth was going to end after half n hour, and he ran home like hell, we all kept watching almost speechless and reaction-less. Let’s face it, It was too quick for any of us to respond properly! We didn’t even got to say bye to him properly. By that time we were all starving and Arka suggested to taste a Roll which was supposed to be delicious (and famous) around the corner of the footpath that we were walking but the place was closed so we were stuck me and Aditi basically had nothing to do coz we came to kill some time (Aditi also had her college bag to pretend that she was going for some very important thing), so we parted, Arka and Pratip went to buy their stationery and we strolled back towards the metro station. Aditi had her music classes later that afternoon which she eventually bunked and she also told me that she was bunking the classes for the past three weeks. I and Aditi laughed so hard about it, all through the metro ride home.

There are countless occasions and incidents and accidents with Aditi that I still remember and the gang always held on to. I remember Aditi called me one day just because she didn’t see me or any of the other guys at college that day and she missed us this badly. I guess today I am not a person she misses anymore, and somehow I was forgotten from among her close friends too, though I want to say this – I miss her and she will always remain my best friend…