“Have you ever tried to step off that pedestal of yours and see my point of view? I like change, unlike you. I like risk and unpredictability to check my extremes. I don’t want to feel safe and comfortable all the time. With your money, with you!
I don’t want someone who loves and accepts me the way I am. I want someone who pushes me, challenges me, calls me out. Someone who excites my mind as well as my body. It sounds funny, but that’s who I am! I love you, but I feel suffocated like this. I am someone fearless and fiery who wants something similar.”
Kanchan dared to say this in a breathless tone.
She was certain for this time to come soon as every time she is meeting Abhinav is now suffocating for her. Each call is now a lecture as if the nine years of togetherness are turning into lifetime imprisonment since they got ‘rokafied’ (engaged).
It certainly wasn’t love for a while. She promised a lifetime to him but growing up they seem to be poles apart. Kanchan took a bank job in a bank where her work timing was 9 to 9 in actual and 9 to 6 on paper.
She is a flower who loves to blossom not just in the spring season but throughout the year. In fact, in every season, she changes her colours. Strange no? She is an authentic version of Bollywood’s Geet, Queen, Naina. Just that she couldn’t find her prince while on a voyage! She loves Abhinav.
A table calendar on Kanchan’s table is always marked with extended holidays with a fluorescent highlighter. It is March, and the Holi weekend is approaching. She called Abhinav to tell him that she was booking a bus ticket to Vrindavan and going there for three days to enjoy the festival of colours.
She is running two Instagram pages successfully @rovergirl_trapholi and @rovergirl_foooddie. Also, Abhinav doesn’t like her being active on social media this much.
“Holi is a festival to celebrate with friends and family. Unlike you, to go out and celebrate it with foreigner junkies.”
“Junkies! And celebrate at home, sleeping where everyone prevents themselves from colours. I have no words for your intolerance.”
Before she could say anything else, he disconnected!
“Helllooo…Hell…He…”
She didn’t cry this time. For the last three years since she discovered she has a hippy heart. Almost every date and phone call ends with an argument. She is fed up.
She just couldn’t gather a gut to move on from this toxic relationship. So she started weaving new and creative ideas for making reels on Instagram at this festival of colours.
She boarded the train, and across her sat a girl similar to her age. She was seated, rolling her fingers on her phone. She seems to be a travel junkie too. Unfortunately, her attire is an example of a stereotypical bad girl in a crop top.
She was scrolling Kanchan’s profile since she was sitting across from her seat. She was trying to recollect where she saw her. Gotcha! She is @rovergirl_trapholi.
“Hey! Where to?”
“Vrindavan…”, Kanchan answered gingerly.
“Me too! My brother will be accompanied there. We will shoot the festival of colours for a week,” she mentioned excitedly.
Kanchan jumped off her seat. “Oh my gosh! You are @kadmon_ke_nishan!”
“Oh yes.”
“Can’t believe it. I can’t believe my fate.”
“Bade bade deshon me chotti chotti batein hoti rehti hain (Small things like these keep happening in big countries.)”
“How couldn’t I guess I am sitting next to Tripoto Star!” Kanchan exclaimed.
“Oh no, buddy. I am no star.”
“You are just being pretentious with a wink!”
Kanchan always wondered how her love for travelling let her make such relations very soon. She often read and heard that social media is two-faced. Yet for her, it’s always spirited as every trip lifts her, zestful as each rendezvous ends up being yet more youthful and enriching.
They hopped off the train. Clicked pictures, made pretty reels on trending, where the Tripoto star tagged her in all the pictures. From “Deewani Mastani” to “Meera” to “Radha” poses.
The night was an amazing one. Just like sham bhi koi jaise hai nadi…(this evening is like a flowing river). Her favourite song from the movie ‘Aisha!’
She dozed off! Three days passed in a jiff, and her followers picked up with an electrifying speed.
“Time to go. I wish I could make it for a week, but I am still a bank employee,” Kanchan said sadly.
“I’ll give you a call once I am back in Delhi.”
She is looking at amazing pictures and reels. It was a wonderful time. Yet, this was short-lived. She entered the house’s porch, and Abhinav was there along with her family to fix her wedding date. Her mouth dropped. She wasn’t excited to see them.
After a prolonged, uncomfortable conversation, she opened up and said, “I don’t want this. I don’t want you. We aren’t the same. I don’t feel anything for you now.”
“We aren’t brother and sister. We don’t have to be a math equation where an LCM needs to be taken. Don’t start your crap in front of my parents now. I have invested nine years in you. I took this job and got settled for you. Now, at this moment, you are backing off. You have used me, my resources, my emotions, my family!” Abhinav said.
“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that I don’t want to become what you want me to become. Love is to take how I am and push myself to the extent to make a better version of myself.”
“This happens in movies, Bollywood masala, Hollywood romcoms, and not in real life.”
“Abhinav!” Kanchan pulled her hair in anger. “To me, it seems real. To me, this is life. I want to become a full-time travel blogger. I wanted you to guide me in this or support my choices. What you did was to show me I’ll be the first ‘working- bahu’ in your family. I want to end this. I am not enough for you. I don’t want to finish myself.”
They all left with grim faces. His father did not affect what had happened. Her parents were okay with her not marrying Abhinav. Every parent knows their child better than themselves.
She received a call from @kadmon_ke_nishan to join her as an intern officially. So she left her bank job and started a new journey towards freedom. Let’s know at 29 what life has for her in disguise. Whatever is there, she wants to taste it.