Story
THE BOY IS MAD
Dhaval Thakkar
This is the story about a common boy. He is as common as his name in US – Michael. Michael’s full name is Michael Andy D’souza. If you put together his initials, it would read as MAD, and that’s what he liked to be called – yes, MAD rather than Michael or Mike.
Michael is a smart boy. He was good at studies as well as other things. He was not so good looking as a Hollywood hero but he was not ugly either. But he was really smart. Tell him something to do and consider it to be done.
Mike lived in Ohio and studied Engineering. It was in his second year that he went to his cousin’s marriage and fell in love with a girl. Her name was Nicky. Nicky was looking beautiful in the white dress she was wearing and Mike couldn’t stop gazing at her. But as always happened in love, Mike who was normally very talkative and smart, suddenly became dumb and couldn’t even say ‘Hi’ to her. The day passed, wedding was over and everybody went their way. Nicky also left with her parents without even knowing that she now had a secret admirer and lover in some corner of the world.
On the other hand, Mike was feeling something strange. He had always seen something like this happening in movies, something which people called LOVE; but he didn’t believe in it earlier. He thought that love only happens in films and what he was feeling at that time would be some attraction because he hadn’t seen such a beautiful girl in a long time – beautiful girls are very rare in engineering colleges. Or maybe he never noticed girls around him as his only target was to get good scores in college and find a good job and earn some decent money to support his family. He thought he would get over these feeling in a day or two. Days became weeks, weeks became months and months became years but Mike couldn’t get over those moments and memories of the day when she saw Nicky for the first time – and for the last time till he finished his college. He didn’t get good grades in his exams but he somehow managed to get a job, which sort of paid him money enough to manage his own expenses. In these two years there was not a single day when he didn’t think about Nicky. But still he didn’t know anything about her – not even her name. The only thing he knew was that she was a relative of his cousin’s wife whose marriage he attended and that she stays in a city hundreds of miles away from his own city. Nicky lived in Los Angeles.
Sometimes Mike even thought of forgetting everything about that girl because he didn’t hear anything about her since more than a year. So, life was just moving on, normally, as in a common man’s life.
One day, one of Mike’s friends told him that he was going to Los Angeles for an official trip and asked him if Mike wants to join him. Mike asked his boss for a leave for few days but his boss refused. So Mike quit the job. His mind was so occupied with the thoughts of going to Nicky’s city that he didn’t think of anything and just quit the job. He called his cousin and told him that he is going to Los Angeles and asked him if he wants anything from there or if he wants to send any message or something. Fortunately his cousin’s wife wanted to send a parcel. She gave Mike the parcel and gave him a telephone number. She said that this number was of her cousin and her name is Nicky. She will collect the parcel from Mike from his hotel or wherever it was convenient. So finally after couple of days, Mike left with his friend to Los Angeles.
[Here we can start calling him MAD as he has started showing signs of madness.]
After two complete days of train journey they reached Los Angeles. Right from the time MAD put his first step out of the train his heart started beating fast. He was as thrilled as Armstrong would have been before placing his feet on the moon. They went to hotel, washed up and got ready. MAD’s friend went for his official work and MAD decided to stay back at the hotel and get rid of the parcel before he actually begin his quest. So he called the telephone number which he had and waited for someone to come and pick up the parcel.
He fell asleep while waiting. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. He opened the door and there was a girl standing in front of him, the girl for whom he’s come so far, the girl which was in her mind – now has a name NICKY.
All the old memories came back to him. Nicky had grown a bit, so he himself had, but she had the same spark in her eyes which MAD had always remembered. Nicky said that her parents want him to come for dinner in the evening. She took the parcel and left. MAD was so dumbstruck that he could hardly say OK and watched her going.
If it was something else, MAD wouldn’t have gone for dinner even on God’s special invitation. But that day he went for dinner just to see her for one more time before he dies. He didn’t remember what he had for dinner. He only remembers that Nicky wore a sky blue color dress and she served a big spoon of rice in his plate. This was more than enough he could handle at that time. He still doesn’t remember how he came back home from Los Angeles. He doesn’t remember meeting his friend that night or a day after that. He doesn’t remember being on train back to Ohio. All he remembers is a face, blue dress, big spoon full of rice and a sweet voice saying ‘Take some more..’. He always wished if he would have been able to capture that moment in a frame and always keep it in front of his eyes.
Now, MAD knew the name of the girl, her address and her cell phone number. It took 6 months for him to gather enough guts to message her; 14 months to make first phone call to talk to her; 2 years to again visit her place to see her; 4 years to keep in touch with her regularly through messages and mails; 6 and half years to call her for first time to wish her on her birthday; 8 years to take her out for dinner; and 8 years and 9 months to express his feelings in front of her.
Today, a bit more than 10 years have passed since MAD saw Nicky for the first time and about 1 and half years since he expressed his feelings. MAD still hardly Is able to talk on phone with her for 10-15 minutes whenever he calls her. They’ve meet only once after he expressed his feelings for the first time. MAD mostly message Nicky or mail her or chat with her online and try to convince Nicky about his love for her.
Nicky on the other hand says that MAD’s love for her is strange and crazy. She asks for the reasons why MAD loves her. She also sometimes tells MAD that he could find better girl than her. She also says that they both don’t know each other very well to fall in love.
MAD doesn’t want to know anything more about Nicky to get married to her. He is ready to accept Nicky as she is. Also MAD says that he doesn’t want to find better girl than Nicky because for him she is the BEST. And again, he doesn’t have enough guts and time left to fall in love again with someone else.
If we talk about MAD’s other part of life apart from his love for Nicky, his professional life is okay. He can earn his money by one or another work. Though, he has never done the same job for more than 2 years. At some places a year and at some place just for a month. His parents are not very happy with him but they can’t do much about his life – though nobody from his family knows about Nicky.
Nicky is also single and only she knows the reason for being single. As she had said to MAD, she is also not in love with someone else but she doesn’t accept MAD’s proposal. Everybody knows it is difficult to predict what’s in a girl’s mind. MAD thinks that it is his destiny that has kept Nicky still single and so he keeps on trying to convince her every now and then, waiting for a positive response from Nicky so that he can go and meet her and move things forward.
But the most important thing is Nicky’s response. When MAD last messaged her, he had asked to think about his proposal one more time. Nicky hasn’t said ‘YES’, she hasn’t said ‘NO’ either.
*
I haven’t written much about Nicky because I’m writing this story from MAD’s perspective. And he doesn’t’ know much about Nicky either as she never spoke much. I still have to write this story from Nicky’s perspective. But before that I want to give an end to MAD’s story.
I don’t want to write that Nicky agreed suddenly making a typical Hindi film story. I don’t want to write that Nicky said ‘NO’ bluntly and make it a tragedy.
I’m leaving this up to you to choose an end. We all have different thoughts on love – some believe in it, some don’t. Just become MAD for a moment while selecting an end for this story. Maybe you can email me how you decided to end this story.
Please share your thoughts on .
