Where is the Love

Raj wants love, seeks love, and craves for love in absolute empty space. Raj believes in dreams, believes in a dream girl, and believes in a dream romance, so much so that he lives in a dream world where reality is a myth. A sucker for love, attention and care. Welcome to the world of Raj.

This is just a chapter in the life of our man, whose life is no less than an out-and-out entertainment blockbuster movie, with its share of happiness, sorrow, hope, despair and every other word in the category of unreasonably sentimental words. This is when Raj has just entered his adolescence. Out of teens, like his eyes and senses on the whole got a complete revamp and ready to take life and love head on. So here goes an episode where Raj thought he could have found love.

Ria was a sweetheart anyone would fall in love with. But for Ria, “there was nothing greater than friendship in the whole wide weird world” or so she would make it seem. Luck by chance, or let’s just call it a dirty game of destiny, Raj and Ria meet up on a social networking site through stranger friend requests which had become a craze then.

Ria had initiated the stranger friend request sending a mail to Raj, letting him know that she found the lies on his profile really interesting. For Raj, there would have been nothing happier or scarier. Happier because hopefully he would meet the girl of his dreams (note that this is all he does, dream) and scared because this was a new, unknown and inexperienced territory as far as he was concerned. He had only had notions of having a love in his dreams. He had no idea about the reality bite. So with hope in his heart and shit loads of fear in his head, he decided to finally meet up the pretty Ria on a blind date.

Cut to the D Day, a cool Friday evening, breezy after a light drizzle, nearing twilight, he met up with Ria face-to-face. Well, to be honest here, he wasn’t blown away by her beauty because when his eyes met her face, it was dark around, power-cut. But this scene was a mere contradiction to what transpired when the place lit up after the ever-bugging power cut.

In Raj’s own broken expressions... beauty, never seen anyone like her before, fairy like, sexiness personified. Alright Raj, we understand. You ain’t never seen a girl before. But this was him and he was blown. Now all he wanted to do is get down on his knees and ask her to marry him. But soon, sanity prevailed and Raj was back to his normal, gentleman self. Projecting a big, bright, flash-bulb smile, Raj greeted Ria. They exchanged nervous yet supposedly happy greetings of “Hi”, “Hello” and “How are you” and got down to the business. Yes... EK COFFEE..!!

Considering how awestruck Raj was after seeing Ria, he let her do all the talking and was highly content listening to her angel like voice and the pretty little nothings being blurted by her. And Ria too, for her part had decided to put her best foot forward, mentioning every single crush and boyfriend of hers from the 3rd standard onwards till now and discussing how she felt love was over-rated and that it was all a time pass for her and how she believed that “there was nothing greater than friendship in the whole wide weird world” Oh wait.. We’ve heard that shit before.

There.... Raj had just received the first genuine shock of his adolescence listening to Ria and her pretty little bragging. He knew there was no chance he could find love in Ria, and if that wasn’t enough, she had gulped down a couple of cold coffees and munched a whole lot on the menu from the coffee shop and this meant, Raj would spend his pocket money for the whole month just to foot the frikkin bill.

Cut to post blind date, where Ria had left after a content hogging and bragging session. Raj... our man was left isolated and stranded in the middle of nowhere with pieces of his little broken heart on the main road with everyone from the auto wala to the Volvo leaving a mark on them. Raj was now confused and sad and of course most suitably “hopeless”. So the moral of this chapter, is not merely a moral but a question mark on Raj’s face. WILL RAJ EVER FIND TRUE LOVE...???