A harmless spark?

I am having a particularly stressful day. Not just am I tired of being deprived of my favourite foods, I am also in a mental mess with respect to my relationship status. In case I haven’t mentioned this before I am in a “sort-of” relationship with Aryan. Let’s just say it’s complicated. We just started living together in the same city after 2 years and he is currently dating Kanika – his batchmate.  He and I have always discussed our relationships at length and been open about pretty much everything. Of course I am not happy about him being with Kanika but he says it’s a fling that doesn’t mean anything. On the other hand, he and I share a friendship that we would give up our lives for. But something strange happened today. We took a walk in the park in the evening and just as we hugged to say goodbye, he held me longer than a friend should. My heartbeat went up to a million a second and he just took my face in his hands, looked into my eyes and then just gave me a peck on the forehead and said “bye sweetheart”. Now, when a man does that, what’s the woman supposed to think? It wasn’t the platonic, friendly peck; the look in his eyes wasn’t platonic. So what exactly was that? Just a spark from the past? Should I be ignoring it or thinking and analyzing about it – like I am doing right now?

Tackling the weight

I was always a healthy child, a plump, cute girl. At the risk of sounding immodest, I can say I have pretty features, a Cindy Crawford like mole on the upper lip, deep brown eyes, curly hair that are currently in a straight form – thanks to rebonding, a set of sparkling, white teeth that I flash every other moment because I love to smile :) My constant problem has been my tendency to gain weight. Now that I have 2 months before I start working, I am joining a gym and taking massages and therapies to lose weight. Of course none of it will be possible without a super strict diet. For the next 2 months, my instructor is going to monitor every little morsel that goes into my system. Exercise is not really one of my favourite things but I think once you start, a few days later you also start to enjoy it. So starting tomorrow, I am hitting the gym everyday, 2 hours a day, 6 times a week and cutting out ALL junk and unhealthy food from my diet and my life. I am a complete foodie. If food were a man, I would be in a very successful lifetime commitment by now! But now, it’s time for divorcing the calories and looking fit and fabulous – after all I am going to be joining the very glamourous Indian media industry!

Landing the job

I was watching the first day first show of yet another much awaited Bollywood film that that I am sure will be a hit. I love films. They fulfil my simple formula of “when in doubt, get away from reality”. Accompanying me was my best friend and love interest of the last 5 years – Aryan. I adore him with all my heart and soul. I can do anything for him and as corny as that sounds – I mean it.

I met Aryan when I was 17, we hit it off instantly and even though I don’t admit this to too many people, I was the reason for his breakup. His girlfriend was a good friend of mine and trust me, I am not the kind who would steal a friend’s boyfriend but Aryan and I were friends before she came into the picture. I loved Aryan before he fell in love with her. They had a strange sort of relationship, he was extremely vocal about how he felt and she was extremely shy almost coming across as being uninterested sometimes. I spent many evenings listening to Aryan’s love problems, playing agony aunt to him and his girlfriend even though I was falling more and more in love with him every moment. Just so happened that one day, I was at my secret hideout – “the terrace” – the place where I went every time I felt low about life. Aryan knew about it. As I stood by the railing, looking at the darkness and fighting feelings of jealousy knowing that Aryan loved someone else, he came up right behind me and scared the hell out of me. We walked hand in hand to the water tank, sat there together in silence and I rested my head on his shoulder while he put his arm around mine. Somehow, without intending to, we ended up kissing! What followed were many days of more kisses on the terrace, at the ice cream parlour, at the club, at his place and along with the pleasure, feelings of tremendous guilt hit both of us – him for betraying the girl he claimed to love and me for betraying a friend. Eventually the burden of guilt became too heavy to carry and we decided to come clean with his girlfriend. Her name is Neha by the way. Needless to say, what followed was a whole lot of mess and in gist – Neha broke up with him. Aryan was shattered. He truly loved her – that’s what he believed at that time anyway. We lived in different cities for the last 2 years but now we are together in Delhi with me doing my internship and him studying in engineering college. Even today I am madly in love with him.

Anyhow, we got out of the movie hall and I called back the number from which I had 13 missed calls. It was the number of NNI – News Network India – the latest English news channel in the offing. They wanted me to come and collect my offer letter. I got my first job. Yippee!

Aryan and I drove across the city, to collect the letter and later celebrated with a Chinese lunch. My joining date is 3 months away. In the meantime, I have an internship to finish at another news channel and 2 months to just enjoy my life. On the priority list is weight loss!