# 27 - Vichitra and Chanchal - VII

Vichitra and Chanchal had gotten along so bloody well right from day one when they had met a few months ago that he had never felt the need to say anything to her. He thought it was a tacit understanding that their terrific friendship was supposed to graduate into a fabulous relationship; it was just felt.

Chanchal, on the other hand, wanted to restrict their relationship to just what it was – a terrific friendship.

Vichitra could see things were slipping off from right under his nose. His dreamt-of world was in complete disarray. And Chanchal was making it even more difficult for him.

He decided to talk less to her now.

The next two weeks he did not make a single call to her. If she called him up, he avoided talking to her on whatever pretext.

Chanchal just couldn’t understand why Vichitra was behaving like this. She had never known him to act in such a manner. She sent him numerous text messages, messages on the internet but to no avail. However, the crisis situation proved to be only momentary - Vichitra did not have the heart to completely stop talking to her.

He called her up after two weeks. Her sister picked up the phone.

‘Hey how are you?’ beamed Vichitra.

‘I am fine. You tell me’ replied the little girl.

‘I’m doing good. Where is Chanchal?’

‘Oh don’t ask! She’s gone crazy. She’s been crying all day long.’

‘Why? What happened?’ Vichitra was genuinely concerned about her.

‘I don’t know. You talk to her maybe she’ll tell you. She’s been just crying and crying’ added she.

She handed over the phone to Chanchal.

‘Hey! Heard someone’s crying like a pig’ jokingly said Vichitra. He tried to lighten her mood.

‘Don’t talk to me’ snapped back Chanchal.

‘Hmm… I can see someone’s not happy about something.’

‘Will you let me cry properly?’ Chanchal was in no mood to be taken lightly.

‘No, not unless you tell me why are you crying? Something serious must have happened?’ It was Vichitra’s turn to get a little authoritative now; he really cared about her and definitely wanted to know what was she so sad about?

‘Fine… he is not replying to my text messages’ said Chanchal in a shaky voice.

‘Ok’

‘He is not taking my calls. He’s even changed his mobile number.’

‘Ok’

‘He’s just disappeared off the face of earth.’

‘Alright’

Vichitra was super-confused. He was talking to her after a supposedly long time and this was a complete surprise for him albeit a good one. He had never been in such a situation before. He just didn’t know how to console her; he had to say something and say something quickly.

‘Well… I don’t know. Hmm… I think just forget about him and things will be fine’ said Vichitra.

‘And please you better stop crying; this is doing you no good’ added he.

‘Ok’ sadly replied Chanchal. It was only a whisper.

‘Why don’t you ask one of your friends to call him up and then see if he replies?’ suggested Vichitra. He knew he didn’t want to suggest exactly this but then he did. And then he didn’t know why had he done that?

‘I have already done that. He knows all of my closest friends’ replied Chanchal.

‘I meant except you.’ she added.

‘Alright don’t worry, things will be ok’ said Vichitra in a very gentle tone.

He then hung up the phone.

While keeping the phone down he thought of only one thing - what if she was as passionate about him as she was about that soccer weirdo?


© 2007 Ankur Shanker
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