The Girl I Last Loved by Smita Kaushik Page B

a few volunteer I-cards.
    Some stick-notes over which few random notes were written. A picture of Priya kissing her cheek.
    Her family picture with her fake smile; an ATM slip – probably of her first salary… few roses she used to make with ribbons, but I got glued to a picture of her in a lehenga .
    “Coffee,” Kasam said cheerfully.
    “You look very different in this picture.” Why I didn’t say beautiful… does different makes any sense at all? What was wrong with me?
    When I was done with self-analysing, I noticed Kasam’s pale face.
    “That’s my engage…,” she looked away.
    “You were engaged?”
    She turned, tried to fake a smile.
    “You remember Utsav?”
    I nodded.
    “We dated in college. Our families were close, so our parents decided to get us engaged.”
    “So, congrats! What’s he doing… where he is now?” I managed to stay normal though my heart ached. He again did it – took her away from me.
    “Living a life that could have been mine,” she went outside.
    I followed her.
    “I was the first topper with him being the second. Our university was offering full scholarship for doing mass-comm in Columbia University. If I stepped down, Utsav would have been the sole contender. Everyone was convinced that it would be a better idea if Utsav went. I believed in their conviction. Utsav left, but never to return. He found someone there.”
    She said it in plain simple tone but I knew she wouldn’t let people to know her pain.
    It tore me that she didn’t even confide in me.
    We ended up having more than ‘one cup of coffee’.
    “I left Lucknow, joined a job, but wasn’t much happy in that. So my cousin helped me to establish ‘Prayas’. Being with all my participants never allowed me to peek into the past…
    “I stayed so engrossed in disentangling their lives, never thought there are some knots in mine as well.”
    “Are you happy?”
    “Yes,” she smiled.
    “Yeah… I am happy. I have everything… it’s wonderful,” she said smiling.
    Those were more ‘yes’ than required. You don’t assert when you really are happy.
     
    “I should go,” I whispered.
    “Yeah.”
    “No need to step outside, just close the door,” I asked Kasam, while stepping out.
    “Mr Akash Kashyap, don’t forget I have been living on my own since you came along,” Kasam teased me.
    I let out a smile. But she accepted what I asked for her to do and stayed there. I walked far from her, continually looking at her and staggered as I encountered the stairs.
    Kasam’s laugh crackled over my ear. It was the first genuine smile she gave that entire evening.
    I was glad for stumbling.
     

 
     
     
    Chapter 11
     
     
     
     
     
    I was searching different ways to write a resume.
    As I typed in Google ‘different ways to’, it gave me the predictions in the same ranking.
    Different ways to say I love you.
    Different ways to kiss.
    Different ways to create departments in an organisation.
    Different ways to create objects in Java.
    I had very little idea about the last two things in the list but they sure looked kind of tough and the stuff for which you Google. Still, saying ‘I love you’ tops the list. Is it just that now people Google everything before doing or it is kind of hard to express your feelings. I don’t know – the first time when I told Kasam it was kind of easy. I went ahead and told her how I felt. I didn’t even know her, and now when I know all about her, I can’t tell her. Lately she has been kind of busy and when available, she is all about Utsav.
    So, I did what guys like us do best in that kind of a situation. I focused on things that were more important than Kasam. Actually there wasn’t any, so I focused on making the less important things more important. Things like studying. Things like resuming jogging. Things like hanging out with my friends and watching daily soaps with my three elder sisters. Things like indulging in aimless discussions with Dad about what aired on