Shit happens again and again (part-2)

[Recap: Mitika was one of my best friends. In Nov 2004,  due to some misunderstanding, our friendship saw a phase of distrust which is described in my last blog.]

After the last incident in November 2004, I waited for some more time. As they say, time is the best healer; it worked same for our friendship. After a gap of few months, we again started chatting on internet and phone frequently. Also, once in a while she used to come to my campus. That’s how it seemed things were getting better between us two.

She used to discuss various things regarding her career, life and other matters. I used to feel proud that she valued my advice so much and even sometimes she also used to give some good advice. That’s how a connection was developed between both of us.

In short, one and half years after the Incident-1, which was somewhere around mid of 2006, it looked like  the things were again back to normal.

Incident-2
February-2007 ............

19 February of 2007 will always be a memorable day for me because this day my elder sister was going to get married. So, being her only brother, I was super excited. This was also my last year of graduation.

Since, my sister is everything to me; I wanted to contribute as much as I could do to make it the best wedding ever. I was trying to look after the arrangements as much as I could do. Shopping, preparing list of invitees, getting invitation card printed, arranging stay for the guests were some of the activities where I was totally instrumental.

Finally, the auspicious day arrived and my sister got married in a grand ceremony with great pomp and show.  Many of my friends and their parents also joined the party.

After the wedding day, everyone was relaxed and so was I.  Finishing all the post wedding responsibilities, I came back to my campus. I had been away for more than one week at a stretch.

That evening after the dinner, I was not feeling like doing anything or studying, though my exams were approaching. I was just lying on my bed and was deeply into the thoughts of weddings and various events which took place before and after the wedding.

In the meantime, somebody knocked.

“Come in, it’s open,” I said in a loud voice so that the person behind the door could listen.

“Praveen sir, you have a phone call downstairs,” The telephone attendant informed me by pushing his head through the door and keeping rest of the body out.

“Tell him that I have got a cell phone and my number is 9415440562. Ask him to call me on this no.,” I almost ordered him. This cell phone was given to me by my elder sister around one month ago as she got a new one.

“But it is she not he.” He smiled.

“Whoever. Go and tell what I just told you,” I was little uneasy on his smile.
        

Just 5 minutes after he was gone, I got a call on my cell phone. It was some number, which looked little familiar.

“Hello, Praveen” that feminine voice said.

“Hello” I said.

“What yaar, now you have got a new cell phone so you will forget your old friends, right? ” She said.

“Of course not, Mitika. Why do you say that? And also that is a not a new phone. Anyways, tell me how are you? It has been more than 20 days since we talked” I said as I recognised her voice.

“Yeah.  All because of you. In the last week I tried to call you 3-4 times but everytime your telephone attendant used to tell that your room is locked.”She explained.

“Oh, you don’t know. I was not in the campus. I was so busy with my sister’s wedding. You know it was great wedding. So many guests, so many arrangements. I was so enthusiastically doing whatever I could do since it was Didi’s wedding. It was great fun. So many relatives, I saw together after a long time. Also many of my friends could make it to the wedding. Their presence just augmented to the fun part. You know it was the first experience for me and I totally enjoyed it along with my friends.” I told her with my excitement overflowing.

“Ok, I get it. You were busy in your sister’s wedding alongwith your friends. Great, good to hear that. You must be tired now. Get some rest. I gotta go, by the way.” She said and this time her voice was totally dry with no interest in talking to me further.

“You going, what happened. Just now you called and we haven’t talked enough...” I asked.

“Nothing, just some work. Talk later, bye.” She said and didn’t wait for my ‘bye’ and hung up.

Wondering what was wrong with her, the moment I put my cell phone in my pocket, it just flashed in my mind the reason of this sudden change in her behaviour. I realized that I had committed a mistake rather a blunder. I realised that I had forgotten to invite her in my sister’s wedding. Damn it!

“How could I just forget to invite her? She is one of my best friends. How did it really happen? I am just a jerk,” I cursed myself.

“I will tell her that it was because I am the only brother of my sister so I had loads of work hence it just slipped from my mind. May be I can tell her that I went to her home but nobody was at her home to receive the invitation card. Or I can tell her that not many friends could make it to the wedding, only few neighbhours came as all of it happened so fast. Or I can tell her that it wasn’t a grand ceremony, only a small gatherings of some close relatives. “I was just exploring all the options which could possibly convince her why I could not invite her in the wedding.

Finally, I figured out some excuse and decided to call her and tell her the reason why I could not invite her. I decided to call her the next day and explain the thing.

Next day, it was 9:30 pm and I was just flipping my cellphone with little nervousness. I was planning to call her but I was little scared with the thought ‘what if she won’t buy my excuse.’

Anyways, gathering all the courage, I called her. I was fully prepared to pour in front of her whatever story I could develop.Suddenly, caller tune of her phone discontinued and I heard “Hello” . It was some mature voice.

“Hello Aunty. This is Praveen. Can I talk to Mitika if you don’t mind?” I asked politely.

“Haan Beta, of course you can. Why would I mind? Wait, let me call her,” she said and called her in a loud voice.

“Beta, she is coming. By the way, is everything fine? Today, Mitika looked little sad. Is there any problem with her? Do you have any idea, Beta?” She asked.

“Yeah aunty, everything is fine. But if you feel so, I will talk to her and will surely try to find out the reason of her sadness. Don’t worry aunty,” I said but on the same time I was really ashamed of me as I totally knew the reason and I was the culprit.

“Ok Beta, she came. Talk to her. Take care. Good bye,” She said and went away after handing the receiver to Mitika.

“Hi Mitika, how are you?” I asked in a voice as if nothing happened.

“Do you really care?” She replied. And with this statement, a bomb was dropped.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. What do you mean...” My voice was stumbling.

“Look Praveen, you are a great guy and of course I do not intend to teach you anything. But only thing I wanna say is that if you call somebody your friend or probably your best friend then that person gets a right to share your joy and grief both. She will be the happiest person accompanying you in your happiness. This is called friendship...” She explained. This time her voice was very calm and sad.

“But...” I tried to interrupt so that I could put across my clarification but couldn’t succeed as she had something more to say.

“And you know what it hurts when you get to know.... Well, leave it.” She didn’t complete her sentence.

“But..” I again tried.

“Ok fine, I’ll call you later. Gotta go.” She said.

“No, but...”I tried again but figured out that the line was disconnected.

I thought to call her again but could not gather the courage this time. I thought she would call once she would get over with all these things. But I was wrong, she never called.

It’s not that I didn’t try from my side. I called her couple of times but everytime one of her family members would pick the phone and told me that she was not at the home.

So, was this the end of our friendship? Maybe.... (To be continued)