Love-How Deep It Can Go?

The only thing you can't plan in life is when and whom to fall in love with..

Ayan likes to show that there is nothing remarkable about his life-loving middle-class family,a elder brother he looks up to and plans to study in an medical college. And that's how he wants things to seem-normal.

Deep down,however,the guilt of letting his closest friend drown in the school's swimming pool gnaws at him. And even as he punishes himself by hiding from the world and shying away from love and friendship, he feels drawn to the fascinating Krissy - a girl quite like him, yet so different. No matter how hard Ayan tries not to, he begins to care...

Then life throws him into the deep end and he has to face his worst fears.

Will love be strong enough to pull him out?

Love-how deep it can go? , is a multi part romance. The first part is dark and edgy, wonderfully realistic.

07 January 1997

Today was my first day at the new school,just two months before the start of the tenth standard exams. Why my parents chose to change my school in what's said to be one of the most crucial year in anyone's academic life is amusing to say the least-my friendliness

'If you don't make friends now,when will you?' mom asked.

They thought the lack of friends in my life was my school's problem and had nothing to do with the fact that my friend had been mysteriously found dead,his body floating in the still waters of the school swimming pool. He was last seen with me. At least that's why my classmates believe and say.

Only I know the truth.

When my big brother woke me up this morning,hair parted and sculpted to perfection,teeth sparkling, talcum splotches on his neck,he was grinning from ear to ear. Unlike me he doesn't have to pretend to be happy. Isn't smiling too much a sign of madness? He had shown the first symptoms when he picked a private sector undertaking which would have guarantee a lifetime of accountability.

'Are you excited about the new school, Ayan ? New uniform, new people, new everything? Of course you're excited! I never quite liked your old school. You will make new friends here,' said brother with a sense of happiness I didn't feel.

'Sure,if they don't smell the stench of death on me.'
'Oh,stop it. It's been what ? Over two years ? You know how upset mom and dad get,' he said. 'Trust me ,you will love your new school! And don't talk about Jacob at the breakfast table.'

'I was joking bro. Of course I am excited!' I said, mimicking his happiness.

He falls for these lies easily because he wants to believe them. Like I believed Mom-Dad when they once told me, 'We really liked Jacob. He is a nice boy.'

Jacob, the dead one , was never liked by Mom-Dad. For Dad it was enough that his parents had chosen to give the boy a Muslim name. Mom had more valid concerns like his poor academic performance, him getting caught with cigarettes in his bag.
I let mom feed me in the morning. It started a few days after Jacob's death and has stuck ever since.

Mom's love for me on any given day is easily discernible from the size of the morsels she shoves into my mouth. Today the rice balls and mashed potatoes were humongous. She watched me chew like I was living art. I ate because I believed the easiest way to fool anyone into not looking inside and finding that throbbing mass of sadness is to ingest food. A person who eats well is not truly sad.

'Do well in school' Ryan (my brother) said before he left.

Mom came to drop me to the bus stop and cried when the bus drove away her favorite son. I waved to her till the bus turned the corner.

It makes her happy. Mom's obsession and deep love for me is now old news. Mom had no choice i the matter. Ryan grew up too early. When I was twelve, he went off to the hostel and found friends and happiness outside our family and carved a son-shaped void in mom's heart. That's when mom turned to me for succor, the apple of her eye, and loved me with the power of a thousand suns. Even now she clutches my old clothes and mourns that I'm no longer the child who used to need her for everything.

When I sat back in my seat, the other students in the bus looked at me strangely for they had seen me looking at mom like a puppy left behind at a shelter. I don't blame them and neither do I care. I will be her best son till the time I can....but I also wonder how long that will be.

As brother told me I tried to do well in school. Since my shift had turned me down. My new school isn't as good as the last one; it is lenient, the teachers are a little slow, and the students are rowdier.

I didn't talk to anyone, didn't make any new friends. I picked the empty first bench, sat there alone, stared at the blackboard and waited for the day to end. Just 700-odd days in my new school, 1200 days in whichever college I go to and then some more days and then some more and then some more......and then I die. Finally.

One day at a time. Unless I find the courage to....

To be continued.

Picture credit : www.wikimotive.com