Bye Bye

She fed me fish pulao. 

She brought us all ice-creams on Saturday night after the edition had been released. 

More than anything, she made me speak to Vivek Oberoi. For 4 minutes and 35 seconds, at a time when I was madly in love with him. He wanted to help out a handicapped woman and told me I could text him anytime. I was over the moon. When I handed the handset back to her, I was pretty much jumping up with joy. 

I don't think I was ever introduced to him. But yeah, I had seen him and I most definitely knew who he was. We always used to tease R about him, I am slightly foggy about this-but I think she had a crush on him, or he did, or people thought so either way. 

M called me today morning to tell me that he is no more. He was killed by terrorists at Cafe Leopold, the same place which I have walked past hundreds of times, the place where S and I kept comparing rates for 10 minutes with Mondegar next door and the place where M, T and I went to the last time we were in Mumbai and gorged on all the akoori and the butter.  

He was supposed to get married next week. His fiance and he had set up a wedding site and I saw out their pictures, read the story of how they met and fell in love, even checked out their wedding venue back home in Ranchi. 

I woke up to read how Malayesh had been mercilessly killed at Leopold and read the TOI anchor on Sabina too. 

The string of SMSes she had exchanged with her friends and family made me shiver on this cold, cold morning. They are in my bathroom, I am hiding under the bed, I can hear the gunshots. 

M called me day before to ask me if I was safe and not in Bombay by any chance. And then said, "Why do we end up talking just every time there are blasts?"

Because they seem to happen every other day now, Mona.