Chapter 13: Is Friendship a Product? - Sorry, You're Not My Type

4th October, 2012

Someone once said that death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we’re alive. No matter how hard Vikrant tried, he could sense he was moving towards a slow and painful death. Death of their friendship, their love, and their bonding! How strange it was that the day he managed to bring VAYU together, he lost Anamika! The day he managed to propose to Sanaya, he lost happiness! It was their first night together and they couldn’t even smile. Anamika was not his childhood friend but the bonding that they had developed in the past few months was something special. She treated him like a brother and her absence was killing Vikrant every minute. Yuvi did not seem very bothered about Anamika’s disappearance as he was never close to her anyway. He wanted to win her over and show his dominance over her but that night he was hardly in his senses to even bother. After coming back from the police station, they just sat quietly in their room waiting to hear a knock on the door by Anamika. But no one knocked till morning. Life without friends is like the world without colour and Vikrant could feel it that night.

‘Hi guys. Good morning,’ Yuvi said as he entered Vikrant’s room the next morning. Sanaya was asleep as she had been up all night cradling Vikrant in her arms.

‘Yuvi, thank God you’re up. What had happened to you yesterday, yaar? I have never seen you getting so tipsy ever. Please tell me if you saw her at Jampore beach. You didn’t answer yesterday and went straight to your room before we could talk any further,’ Vikrant said in a nervous tone.

‘Nothing,’ Yuvi replied in one word.

He seemed upset. Something was killing him from inside. He didn’t answer any of Vikrant questions which made Vikrant furious. He could sense there was something worse coming their way. He promised that he wasn’t going to let Anurag live happily if he had done anything to Anamika. Vikrant tried every possible way to provoke Yuvi to speak up but Yuvi kept mum. Do you ever feel the need for someone’s arms around you in your most trying times? Yuvi was feeling the same! When Vikrant and Sanaya told him they had filed a missing complaint report at the nearby police station, Yuvi’s face turned blue. He was shivering badly. Vikrant could tell something was going on in his mind. He wanted to confess something but wasn’t finding the courage to do so.

‘Why did you do that? That was not needed, right? We should have…’ Yuvi couldn’t complete his sentence.

Before Vikrant could explain why he had taken that step, he got a call from the same police station that they had found an unconscious girl on the beach and had admitted her to the nearby hospital.

‘Which hospital, inspector? Okay… We will be there in few minutes,’ Vikrant stammered and continued, ‘Okay thank you. We will be there.’

Yuvi was looking at him anxiously and by now, even Sanaya had got up hearing the loud ringtone.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘They have called us to Anand hospital which is located near Jampore beach. We should leave right now,’ Vikrant said as he got up to get ready.

All the way to the hospital, no one spoke. They had sensed that they had landed in deep trouble with no way out. Was she alive? What was she doing at Jampore beach in the middle of the night? Did Anurag call her there? If then, did he hit her and left her to die on the beach? Why hadn’t Yuvi been able to find her when he had gone looking for her at the beach? And why hadn’t she attempted to call anyone of them? Only Anamika had the answer to their questions. As soon as they got down from the taxi, they rushed to the ICU ward.

‘You can’t meet her unless we have done our routine inquiry,’ a senior inspector ordered us as we tried to get in.

‘But what happened to her and why is she here?’ Vikrant and Sanaya spoke together.

‘Is she alright?’ Yuvi asked in a low tone as if he was guilty.

‘Not really. We just had a word with the doctors and according to them, she has physical injuries on her body and is not in a stable state. She was brought here in an unconscious state and hence we have to wait for her to wake up as only she can tell us what exactly had happened,’ the senior inspector answered.

‘What do you mean by physical injuries? What do the reports say?’ Sanaya stammered.

‘It means someone tried to get physical with her without her consent. Now whether the intention was to kill her or rape her, we don’t know yet. But yes, he definitely tried to get physical with her. We think she was alone on the beach when this incident occurred. We got a call from a few fishermen early in the morning saying they had found a girl lying unconscious on the beach. When we reached the shore, she was not only unconscious but was also bleeding badly.’

The inspector peeped in through the glass door to see if there was any improvement in Anamika’s condition. Vikrant was heartbroken listening to all this and couldn’t hold back his tears. Sanaya tried to console him but it was of no use. Yuvi stood there with an expressionless face. Vikrant wanted to tell the cops about Anurag and the message that he had sent but preferred to keep silent and wait for Anamika to regain consciousness. All three of them went into the waiting room as they were not allowed to meet before the police inquiry.

Vikrant was extremely upset with the incident. A girl who was someone’s child, a girl who was someone’s sister, a girl who was someone in her own eyes had now been injured beyond repair. Only Yuvi knew what had happened last night. He wanted to tell them everything but feared losing them. Somehow he gathered courage and with a stammering voice he told Vikrant and Sanaya that he wanted to confess everything. Vikrant and Sanaya looked at each other with a quizzical expression. Everybody says love hurts but that’s not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Loss hurts. Love is the one thing that makes everything better again and Yuvi hoped they still loved him even after what he was about to tell them.

‘Vikrant, I know you won’t believe what I am going to confess right now but it’s true. Please don’t misunderstand me. I know I have done a mistake and I am guilty as charged. I am even ready to suffer for my mistake as I know it’s unforgivable. Maybe I will lose you all and will have to spend my entire life alone but I can’t live with this guilt. I thought I will not tell this to anyone as no one will come to know about it, but seeing Anamika here like this has shattered me. It’s all because of me. Things could have been different last night but I screwed it all up and I still don’t know why. I kept asking myself that why did I take that step but I had no answer and I still don’t have an answer now. I know you won’t accept it easily but that’s the sad truth. If Anamika is lying here today in this condition, then it’s all because of me. Only I am responsible for it and no one else. I don’t know what happened to me but… It’s not that it happened all of a sudden. Remember I had told you…’

Vikrant interrupted Yuvi, ‘Yuvi what’s wrong? Calm yourself down first. What is your point exactly? We all are responsible for today’s scenario. You can speak your heart out.’

Yuvi continued, ‘Everybody goes through some things in life that changes them in a way that they can never go back to being the person they were before. Last night changed me in a similar way. Now I cannot go back to being the person I once was. As I told you, it was not all of a sudden. Remember, I had told you that there is that oomph factor in Anamika which attracted me to her even though I hated her carefree attitude to the core? When I met her for the first time in our college auditorium, I felt like she had that wow factor in her which impressed me a great deal. Though I was committed to Kashish, I couldn’t help myself from staring at her sexy figure and that’s human tendency. Men are made like that. I thought that she was flirting with me because she would try and come close to me. Maybe I misunderstood her actions—I do not know. Her relationship with Anurag made me feel like she was a girl who you could take to parties just to show her off to your friends. It was completely my perception and it was developed on the basis of her casual attitude towards late night parties and drinks. I never knew her before so I was not aware of how she was as a person. When I got acquainted with her, I realized that though she exposed a bit much, she was a nice person at heart. Remember Vikrant, you were against her relationship? You asked me how she could agree to Anurag’s proposal just to overcome her fear. I was the one who convinced you that she was not wrong and that her situation had made her take that decision. Day by day, my infatuations increased and I even tried to talk to her about it but I never got a chance. Once I tried telling her in the car on our way to some place, but since Anurag had come along, I couldn’t find the right opportunity. Plus, I thought of Kashish and our four-year-old relationship, and how much she had supported me. I couldn’t do this to her. Do you ever regret making a decision? I regret the day I decided to give her equal space in our band though she never was an active participant and just wanted to enjoy outings and parties. Her dream was to be a part of one of the best bands in town but my dream was to make our band the best in town. Soon she started getting more popular than me and that made me jealous. It was our band and we had put equal efforts, so why was she getting the maximum publicity? I couldn’t digest it and each day it killed me from inside. I wanted to harm the same skin she showed off to win fans. Though I hated her more each day, I was also in a way attracted to her. Probably because she was a complete contrast to Kashish. I controlled my emotions for the sake of the band. But when her relationship screwed everything we had earned with so much of hard work, I lost it. I had warned her so many times to keep her personal relationship away from the band but she didn’t listen.

‘When you told me about this trip, I thought I will refuse to avoid facing Anamika since I knew it could lead to something unwanted. For your friendship, I agreed to come for this trip. Kashish explained to me that Anamika was not wrong on her part and that she was like this by nature. While you and Sanaya were spending time together, Anamika came to me and apologized for whatever had happened. However, it only takes one second to break someone’s trust but it takes an entire lifetime to rebuild it. I didn’t want to create a scene as I knew how important this trip was for your relationship and I accepted her apology. But there comes a time in life when we realize that we cannot force love, respect, or friendship. If it’s not from the heart, then it’s false and meaningless!!

‘I had realized that our relationship could never be the same again. But strange are our emotions. Even when you know that things won’t go your way, you still take a chance. That evening when you proposed to Sanaya, we both were equally happy and casually hugged each other. The hug changed something in me. I wanted to feel her. I wanted to see how wild she could get. I wanted to see if she could satisfy my urge. But fate had a different plan in mind. Yesterday when I was alone before the party, I thought of going to the beach just to chill out by myself for a bit. But I had no idea that it was high tide until I had gone too deep into the water. The waves almost engulfed me. I screamed for help, as I was not a good swimmer. I was lucky that the security guard heard my screams in time and came running to save me. I didn’t tell you about this episode as I wasn’t hurt and I did not want to spoil your first evening together as a couple. In those few seconds, I wanted to live my life just as I wished. The fear of facing death changed me completely. Now I wanted to fulfil all my fantasies because facing death had made me realize that we never know what will happen the next moment. Later that night when we went to look for Anamika I was not at all in my senses.

‘We should never start a task if we don’t intend to finish it and we should never speak up if we don’t mean it. When I saw Anamika alone yesterday on the beach I decided to strike a conversation with her and break the barriers that lied between us. I spoke things I never meant. I don’t even remember everything but I will try…’

* * *

Jampore Beach, Daman

‘Anamika what are you doing here?’ Yuvi asked her when he saw her sitting alone on the sea shore.

‘I just want to spend some time alone,’ Anamika answered.

‘Are you alright?’

Yuvi came and sat next to her. She was surprised by the amount of concern he was showing.

‘Yes. I am so confused about where my life is going. I still wonder if I’m capable of loving anyone. Anyway, what’s wrong with you? You look drunk,’ Anamika added.

She wanted to spend time alone away from everyone to think about her future and her life, so she had kept her phone on silent mode. She was in no mood to take calls from anyone. She also wanted to avoid Yuvi’s party because she sensed Yuvi was not very keen in spending time with her. She didn’t want to spoil Vikrant and Sanaya’s night and thus preferred to spend some time alone by herself on the beach.

‘There is something about you which attracts me to you. You are one of those girls who look nice when they are drunk. I wanted to express my feelings since a long time but I never got a chance,’ Yuvi exclaimed.

Anamika was feeling odd at the sudden change in his behaviour. She knew very well that Yuvi loved Kashish from the core of his heart. She told him to watch what he was saying as he was drunk. She further added that whatever he was up to was wrong. But Yuvi was in no mood to listen to her. He tried to catch hold of her forcefully. He held her by her waist and planted a kiss on her mouth. Anamika tried to push him away but he was too big for her to handle.

‘This body makes me crazy. I want to ram you right here on the beach. I want to see my fantasy turn into a reality. Oh bitch! Let me taste you tonight. Let me feel your body.’

Yuvi forcefully pushed her to the ground and jumped on top of her. She tried to resist with all her might but he was too strong for her. He tried to kiss her neck and her mouth. She tried to scream but he shut her mouth by placing his hand on top of it. After some time, she surrendered to his wishes. She lied there like a dead body while Yuvi devoured her as if she was a piece of meat. Tears trickled down her face. Anamika felt like she was losing a friend forever. The feeling was worse. The more Yuvi tried to force himself physically on her, the farther he went mentally. By the time he went up and left, she had turned inanimate.

* * *

Anand Hospital, Daman

‘Excuse me. The doctors have given their final report to us. They said that she was physically assaulted. You need to treat her with love and pamper her without giving her stress. Anamika is being kept under observation for 24 hours. We are leaving for the day but if needed, we will come back. Do you have any clue what was she was doing so late at the beach?’ the senior inspector inquired.

A wave of silence filled the air. They knew what had happened last night but couldn’t say anything in front of the cops. They simply shook their heads to say ‘no’. A lost or a broken friendship hurts, but what hurts more is the realization that they weren’t a true friend to begin with.