The sea beneath the island…

                                        

Burnt out the ends of a lethargic day,
The very essence of a cold morning
Another street lamp dies, yet another dawn awakes…

Azure sky silhouetted against the ruddy horizon
Seeking to be admired, longing to be cherished,
Yet the slumber veils her desire to bask in its very essence…

With bleary and dazed eyes she would awaken to see,
A car snaking its way through the stifling streets,
Oblivious to the magnificence of a beautiful morning,

Gone are the rare mornings which flaunted at their exquisiteness,
The hailstorms which fell like tossed cotton now seem like a deception,
No longer does the wind tussle with her locks…

Draped in an exquisite attire,
She now romances the brands,
Her desires now ride on winged surprises…

Yet she longs to muck around in the mud,
Dance her wits out in the rain,
Take a stroll through a silent street…

All she has now is a longing to reach out to her native self,
A wish to be embraced by her lover
And a vision to run wild ahead of the feisty horses.

Is charity the simple way out?

I am at District City Centre-1, Kolkata, and I don’t think any well read, modern day Indian needs a description of what Kolkata is. Rabindranath, and Sarat Chandra have already filled libraries on this city, or rather I must say what they have written is Kolkata these days. It is difficult to state with confidence whether their work inspired modern day Kolkata, or they were good in predicting where Kolkata was moving towards, either ways it is unambiguously and rightly credited as the cultural hub of India. I am looking for a way out of the second floor, and I sight a counter of an already closed kiosk. The red painted counter has two angelic kids sitting on it, most probably siblings by looks, and rhyming off “twinkle-twinkle little star”. I will make sure my kids sing twinkle-twinkle under “a little star” not in a mall where artificial stars are costlier than planetarium visits. The kids are sweet nevertheless and their father is standing a few feet away with a camera capturing moments, a doting father indeed. A ten year old girl, whose clothes could neither be categorized as shabby nor torn, stood a few feet far and out of the frame of the snap. She was either the house-help’s daughter or the house-help herself. I stood there with a poignant heart trying to take in the disparity of the snap my eyes had taken. One one hand I saw two kids, leading the most comfortable of all life, access to modern entertainment, access to new clothes, fulfillment of desires faster than they breath, and on the other hand I could see a ten year old girl, give or take a few years, looking at the siblings and immersed in a deep thought with eyes that showed a desire, an incessant desire to be there where the fortunate siblings were.

My chain of thoughts was broken by the following sentence, “There is nothing that you can do!” It was a feminine voice and an accent that gave away the speaker to be a well-read individual. I turned around, and faced a complete stranger who just a few moments ago had judged what was going on in my half kilogram brain. She had big prominent eyes common to majority of Bengali girls, a nose which was close to a smooth slide from the pince-nez to the tip; it wasn’t bulging at the tip; she wore spectacles whose power was difficult to guess in the dimply lit space that I stood.

“Excuse me!” I wasn’t exactly sure, and to confirm that she commented on what I thought she commented, then I needed to explicitly hear it from her very mouth.

“There is nothing you can do to help the standing small girl, with an innocuous desire in her eyes, beside the counter. The people who can really do something are busy filling lockers even at the cost of coffins, the rest are just a part of the problem.” There was no sarcasm in her voice rather as if what she spoke was an universal law, a law as unshakable as the constants of physics.

“There is something that can be done- something, anything. There are NGOs, Child Care institutes,Child Labor law someone can help her.”

She gave a sarcastic smile, a smile that made you feel a fool. “People like you, and I mean the majority of people, are too easy to be moved by extreme poverty, by hideous ugliness, by extreme starvation. It is but inevitable not to be moved by them. However the problem is, emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and it is much easier to have sympathy with suffering than sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, the NGOs very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are a part of the disease.”

What was she saying? Her words came to me as someone was waking me from a dream by slapping me hard on my face. She belonged to a different world, not to this mortal world. All my brain could comprehend was she had an opinion on no good coming out of the immense altruism and philanthropy that the world-over people do. I had not accepted her opinion as of yet.

Before I could cut her short by stating I don’t agree with you, she went on, “You might share a different opinion of stating the NGOs are trying to change things. Well statistically the charity doers have been trying to change things since money was invented. They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by putting that small girl in some school. With a drunkard or a dead father, with an ageing, physically diseased or bed-ridden mother at home, putting her in school is called- amusing the poor. With children dying at mid-day schools being news not even worth noticing what the NGO does is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim must be as a reconstruction of the society such that existence of poverty is impossible- that is kindness. Sympathy givers and charity workers are like the slave owners of erstwhile USA, who were kind to their slaves. The kindness made the slaves thank their stars for being bought by a kind family, and prevented them from revolting and helping the educated and egalitarian men like Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens. Charity delays the solution.”

Her words left me confused, and with nothing to say. She just in a few moments had denied, debated and convinced me the uselessness of charity; and a few moments ago sympathy and pity was the feeling that I had. “So all in all charity is wrong?”

“Yes. Charity done when moved by sympathy is wrong. Charity in a broader sense must be a step towards solution. Your sympathy is just a way of making you feel bad. If sympathy stirred intelligence rather than emotions we would be seeing a governess instead of a child-labor here.”

Her phone rang and she excused herself by saying that her colleague is waiting near the fountain. We exchanged numbers; however I am not sure I am going to call her. She was one amongst us who could see the world without a veil. She understood that we are just running at the same spot, and tiring ourselves out. Probably, I won’t donate someone a ten-rupee note the next time, however what is the solution to it? Being moved by charity is not a detrimental thing, however when that charity doesn't lead the society anywhere, what is the worth of such a charity? Or is charity an excuse out of a complex problem that we are incapable of solving?

The harsh winters

“Dad, what is first love like?” A thirty year old beleaguered Rahul enquired to his sixty year old father, Manish. In the last twenty four hours the thirty year old Rahul had aged by decades and sixty year old Manish had just withered to a frail old weakling.

The old man, his hair silvered by age and experience, closed his eyes for a good part of the minute that ensued. He was formulating a beautiful and soothing reply to his son’s question. “Drown your face in a bucket of water for a minute. First love is like the first gulp of air after that. You can virtually feel every molecule of air passing through your nostrils, engulfing your lungs and speeding relief throughout your body. Elongate this sensation to an eternity that is how I felt when I met your mom.”

“And what was the loss like when mom died?” On a normal day, at a normal hour, at a normal moment this question would have been awkward and out of place- however not now. They were sitting in a hospital.

“It is the most bitter feeling of my life. The taste is still fresh in my senses as if it was yesterday. It felt as if half of my brain had died. Along with my brain, my body was succumbing to an unknown and fathomless pit of which there was no way out. A darkness which creeps out the daylights of any happy man, I was falling into such a pit; and worth mentioning remarkable part is I wanted to be wholly consumed by it. I wanted to be overlapped by it to the tiniest measure of my hair. She left a hole in my soul which nothing and no-one from this universe can fill.” Manish’s frowned forehead revealed multiple wrinkles. There was a palpable sadness etched on his face. The sadness was contagious and seemed to radiate with a high lethal intensity. Even a blind man could sense the grief his face radiated.

“How did you survive after she died?”

“You made me survive son. You had her eyes- the black jet eyes, the prominent chin. You reminded me of her every moment. You reminded me of how much I loved her eyes. You reminded me of what I had loved and how that love was not transient. My love for your mother and her love for me came back to me through you. I don’t picture myself surviving if you hadn’t been there.” Manish took a long look at his son. His eyes were moist and just on the verge of overflowing. A slight nudge from somewhere and he would have wept.

The doctor clad in light green robes came out of the operation theatre. Her face bore signs of tiredness, as if she had just fought a long battle, and marks of grief; it was a battle against fate “Mr. Rahul you are the father of a sweet, beautiful girl.” She spoke with a fake smile that didn't reach her eyes.

“And what about my daughter, doctor?” Manish sat on the verge of his chair. He could sense the foreboding which the doctor was trying to camouflage.

“We are sorry sir, we could not save her. There were complications and there had been a lot of bleeding. We tried our best yet we couldn't revive her.”

The old man knew what the bad news was going to be. Yet he was hoping for some miracle to occur. He had hoped for a similar miracle when Trisha had died. He had hoped against hope the last time and this time. For the last hour he had been replaying this conversation with different result, only wishing the versions he played in his mind might turn out to be real. He accepted the news with no reaction on his face. The old man slowly retrieved himself from the chair on which he had been sitting. Tiptoed to the room adjacent to the Operation Theater where the dead mother and the new born had been temporarily shifted. Manish wanted to sit down and console his son, however from an old and sad experience he knew better. He knew that at such moment one can simply show the door to Rahul, it was he who had to walk past that door. No matter how much painful and hurtful it was going to be, he had to walk through it. He did walk through when Trisha died, Rahul will too. He had not yet lost faith.

  

Manish went inside the room and took a good look at his grand-daughter. She had her mother’s cheeks and was sleeping with her eyes closed akin to petals on a delicate rose bud. She looked beautiful and at peace, unaware of how her world had recently shattered. Manish dragged his feet from the incubator to the bed where her daughter-in-law lay in a different type of peace and in a different type of sleep.

Old memories started flooding in. The day she had come to his house for the first time with Rahul; the day she married Rahul and entered his house as the bride; the day she  tried cooking for the first time and over-cooked the dal. His lips parted to reveal a small smile. “It is a torture to see your children die before your own eyes. You were the daughter I never had. May you rest in peace my daughter.” He kissed her forehead and slowly walked outside.

Rahul was sitting at the same position dejected and lost in thoughts. Manish occupied the empty seat beside his son. Neither the father nor the son spoke for the next quarter hour. Finally, Rahul broke the silence, “how does she look?”

“Just like her mother. Bright, beautiful and lovely.”

Suddenly, as if all dams binding the emotions broke down. Out of the blue some electromagnetic spark transpired between the father-son duo. Manish and Rahul both started crying.

Note from the writer: The winters are harsh on all. They may not be fair to all. Regardless of how harsh the winters are, they cannot stop the spring from coming. Flowers do bloom when the spring comes. People are meant to be loved, and people are meant to be mourned. No one is immortal neither me nor my loved ones, despite how fondly we bind ourselves to them. People after a certain time do move on to a different world. Rahul's wife did, Trisha did, someday Manish will too. What shall remain is a brief memory of an over-cooked dal. A thing of beauty is indeed a joy forever.

Point 5203

“Amol! If you don’t come out I am going to stop talking to you.”  A flustered Usha tired of her son’s tantrums sat on the bed. She spoke the name Amol with an elongated ‘o’. Her one hand had a small plate with chapatti and dal in it, her other hand was being frantically used either to brush off her hair out of her eyes or to search for Amol.

The seven year old Amol came out of his hiding. He was hiding under an iron chair that was overstuffed with clothes that had been washed today. His sweet voice was enough to melt any heart, here we are talking about a mother’s heart- it was liquidized. “I am sorry mumma. Don’t say I won’t talk to you anymore.”

The middle aged woman, mother of two brothers Aman and Amol, had moist eyes. She started feeding the young Amol with her own hands. His mouth was over-stuffed with food. “Amol take the last morsel and I won’t feed you till night.”

“Make me a promise that you won’t cry when I don’t come out of hiding?” The sweet young-ling had a few tricks up his sleeves. He found his mother's tears an emotional torture that rips his peace and happiness apart.

“Ok. Pakkaa.”, with a smile on her face Usha fed the last morsel to Amol.

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“Mumma, I want to go to NDA. Dada also went to join the Air Force right? Why are you stopping me?” Amol was having a difficult time make his mother bringing her round to his views. Amol wanted to join the Defence Academy and his mother was antagonistic to the idea. 

“No. You won’t. I do not want to send both of my sons away from me. You have cleared the engineering entrance get a good college and study. I want you to stay close to me. Your dada will be away fighting for his ideals and his country, at least I will have you with me.” Usha was in no mood to listen to any of her son’s point.

“Mumaa, dada is happy and papa is supportive of my decision too.” The teenage youngster looked at Aman, his elder brother, and his father S. P. Sharma for some support.

“Don’t either of you dare to come in between me and my son there won’t be anyone worse than me!” Usha threatened both Satpal and Aman with a lethal expression. The look was a stare down even for a roaring lion. Aman who had just raised his hand to support Amol, quickly crashed his hands onto his laps. Satpal and Aman shared a quick glance at each other and remained seated at their positions quitely. “In case anyone of you want to eat, the food will be served in fifteen minutes. I am not going to ask a second time.”

Late in the night when everyone had retired to their rooms Satpal stroked Usha's forehead and uttered, “Let the child make his own path. If he wants to join the army why should we stop him? He won’t go unless you give him the permission, you know right?”

Usha started crying and after a few words of consolation Satpal fell asleep; Usha cried for a long time. When Satpal woke up in the morning Usha was no where in sight. Satpal went to the children’s room to see Usha sleeping peacefully on Amol’s bed. Satpal’s lips parted to reveal a highly content smile.

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The 300 plus bodies of flesh and blood who took their first step in 1991 are marching to the “antim pagh” of the National Defence Academy. Today Usha looks at the finest men of the Indian population; even calling them the finest men on this planet won’t be a stretched truth. Three years ago the 300 bodies of flesh and bones made a decision and crossed the first step into the academy that teaches them everything life has to offer. These three years have prepared them for anything and everything that life may throw upon them. These gentlemen are a symbol of honor and pride - the virtues which lasts longer than any other mortal attribute. Among st such glorious men Usha's eyes are riveted on her son.

A proud Usha Sharma pins the stars on her son’s uniform. She has moist eyes. “You know right this mess serves the best food you will find in the whole of the world?” Amol said with a smile on his face on seeing the hidden tiffin in her mother’s bag. “However extra food is always welcome!” 

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A disturbed Aman was on the line, “I heard you are being posted to Siachen. Is that true?”

Amol replied back with a hint of surprise in his tone, “Really? How come these fellow know where I want to go? ”

“Stop kidding Amol. You know that mother won’t take the news lightly. Given her affection for you, I expect a bit of tears and surely a tantrum.”

“You wish she threw the same affection towards you, right? Don’t worry and don’t tell her where I am posted. I will give her a call once in two weeks to let her know I am fine.”

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Siachen is a not a place, at least not a place as we mention in common terminology. It is a part of the 2 trillion cubic volume of frozen water. It is a pole itself in “the third pole”. It is the highest battleground on earth, and the elemental forces of nature are the harshest that mankind shall ever endure and still live. After three weeks of acclimatization at the Siachen Battle School Amol made way for the Siachen Glacier. He was scheduled to stay there for 90 days, and regardless of what his relatives and parents said he didn't withdraw his name from the Siachen posting.

On the 82^nd day he was asked to extend his stay by a month, to which he readily agreed. Look from a common and basic point of view, what is there at 7000mt height apart from kilometers and kilometers of solid ice; a week in Siachen and your eyes will long for any color apart from white. A 90 day stay is sufficient for you to start hating the most serene of all colors, yet here we have a gentleman who extended his stay on this barren land for another 30 days.

On his last day another soldier named Sahil asked Amol, “Sir, what made you stay here for another 30 days?”

“Siachen is no ordinary place. It may be different geographically than the rest of the places on earth where military serves, however no other place makes you feel special. Siachen is a place where only men of steel volunteer to serve and when you leave this place you feel as if there is no one equal to your standards in the whole of nation. You walk the whole territory of the Indian country with your held high and an expression that you are an emperor. 30 extra days of an emperor are welcome Sahil!”

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Aman and Amol had come to their parents place to spend their holidays. Every year both of the brothers used to apply for holidays at the same time in the month of may.

On 16^th of may, 1999 the land-line at their house rang the person on the other side asked for Aman. Aman was asked to report immediately to the air force base.

Minutes later the land-line rang again to ask for Amol. He was being asked to report to Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir, instead of Delhi.

The rest of the evening was drained in murmurs and chatter of what had happened and what was about to happen. Usha had a flying feeling that this is going to be a long lasting memory for her. She cooked up the favorite sweet of both brothers. The next morning both the brothers woke early and started for their destinations.

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The last twenty days have been nothing less than hell for Amol. There hasn't been a moments peace in the valley to be experienced. Everyday new news used to pour in- either the news regarding new posts that have been discovered under the Pakistan’s control or colleagues who died fighting for one of the decimal numbers. Amol hurriedly finished his letter to his mother, “Don't worry about me. I hope to be back in Delhi by the end of this month. Then you can fix my marriage in case you all are in a hurry.”

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June 10, 1999

Captain Amol Kalia, along with 13 of his men started for the mission of freeing point 5203. Amol Kalia was specially called from Delhi on account of his in-depth knowledge and experience of mountain warfare.

Indian army was battling on various fronts inside the valley. The nation’s attention was held by the fighting in the Drass sector, however the heavily entrenched Pakistani forces on the tougher terrain of Batalik was turning out to be a grave for the Indian soldiers. Climbing already occupied peaks by enemy forces in Batalik is like standing in no mans land and shouting anti-pakistan slogans. Bullets slip by your ears and legs only to hit you somewhere in the chest; do the physics and add to those bullets a few more speed when they are being fired from 16000+ feet height.

Point 5203 was a military post in the Batalik sector. The soldiers of the northern infantry of Pakistan sat on the top of this ice clad peak. The 14 Indian soldiers of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry led by Amol Kalia ascended the peak in the dead of the night to face a pack of well hidden, bunker-ed and armored 25 soldiers. What are the odds? When you deal with brave rare human you don’t look up to statistics, here we are talking of the rarest of the rare human.

Despite the well entrenched enemies, the 12 infantry team holed the 25 odd soldiers in their bunkers. For how long could they do that was the question? The light machine gun detachment personnel to Amol died in the wee hours of 11^th june. Kalia picked up the machine gun and opened fire on the enemy bunkers as Hollywood movies often show. A desperate hero surrounded by enemy picks up a machine gun lying on the floor to open fire on anyone and everyone. The only difference being here people do die when hit by these bullets. Kalia himself shot five men with the LMG before succumbing to his injuries and falling dead. 

Neither of the 14 men survived the bullets, nor did the 25 Pakistani men. Point 5203 was finally captured at the cost of 14 Indian lives, and by taking 25 Pakistani lives. 

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Usha didn’t cry when she received the news of her dead son. She didn’t speak a word for the next 11 days. She hardly ate, she hardly drank and she hardly cried. On 21^st june, 1999 when Amol’s body was handed over to his family Usha broke down. Wars are fought by warriors, and tears are shed by their mothers.

“I promised you son when you go into hiding I won’t cry, and when you have returned…” the rest of the line was drowned by her cries. The near by families were overwhelmed by Usha's grief. No mother has ever been so distressed, no father has ever been so proud and no sibling has ever been so lonely.

Satpal amidst tears in his own eyes bends over to retrieve a hand written piece of paper from Amol Kalia’s bullet holed dress- “Mother India doesn't want cowards.” When Amol was born little did this history teacher knew, that one day his son would fill up the pages of history. The way he lived; the way he died; the way he is immortal even in death is an indelible truth in itself.

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The AIR anchor named 24

“Good evening to those who have just started their vehicles for the pubs, good night for those who just completed their dinner. For the rest lovers sitting outside the girl’s apartment- beware of Indian Police. A dog’s bite is curable; a landing in jail is non-bailable!” The mysterious anchor of the 9 p.m. show on Shimla All India Radio welcomed his listeners.

The mysterious anchor calls himself ‘24’ these days. An odd name right? When he started anchoring he used to call himself ‘22’. In the last two years, add a few more months to justify the math, 24 has gathered a good number of admirers. His show called “the eternal lovers” encompass beautiful poems- few copied and mostly his own. His show is a must at the drinking joints in Shimla, his show is a must at various college hostels of the north, his show is a must in various homes of Shimla and his show is a must at SBI Asst. manager apartment where Trisha resides.

“Oh, in sweaty shimmering summer spree

To this lovely landscape people flee.

The lovely couples just into love

As beautiful doves reach this cove.

Should I wish you for days to come?

Wishes will be handy for a group of some.

Take my wishes of better luck

And some be warier with best of luck!

Love is a path that always demands a price,

Some pay the managers with hard earned buck,

The rest pay their life with beads of cries.

The summer of twenty-zero seven

I stumbled the hill called lovely heaven-

Some call it love for the sake of fun.

Her eyes bright, her hair short

Her ruddy lips with a tint of mole

Nerved are gods for their implicit role

And frenzied are damsels adorning the court.

Her lips part, to flaunt a smile

Waste is a matchbox that can spark a mile.”

Trisha had been listening to this mysterious guy since the last couple of months. He used to remind her of Sahil during college days. Sahil and Trisha were classmates in 2007-2011 batch of NIT Hamirpur. Sahil was a poet, a magician with words. It was rumored in the girl’s hostel that Sahil was in love with Trisha, and as girls usually are- she was confused. Trisha was confused to whether she should give up on her school time long friend Pratik who had proposed her in class 10^th and not called for the last six months, or give a go ahead to Sahil. Whenever Sahil spoke Trisha replied, however fearing emotions of betrayal to Pratik she never initiated a conversation.

On the contrary Sahil never knew when to give up on Trisha. There were moments when he would sense the non-reciprocity and get hurt. He would stop talking to Trisha for weeks, only to find compelled by his own thoughts, coerced by his own feelings to ping her ‘hi’ on gtalk. Four years of engineering passed away like a tuft of wind that originates somewhere in the trees, and comes with a gusto crashing on your face. Trisha never overcame her confusion, and Sahil never gave up on Trisha. On every Valentine’s Day and on every birthday of Trisha he used to find himself occupied in a smoke filled room with a pen in his hand penning down poems for her. He used to gather the courage to send it across to her, travel till the post office, stand in line and chicken out at the counter.

24 broke the thought train of Trisha with his words, “I wrote this piece when I was in final year of my graduation for a special girl who became a part of my life. I would like to share it with you, and just in case, if she happens to be listening always remember my words- it is never too late.”

“Was it the standing with you in admiss’n line

Or the play of the Sun on your hair that shine?
Was it the playful dent when you smile

Or was it the desire to walk you for a mile?

I fell in love when I was a kid at heart

And saw you on a day spilling tart.

I asked for a date which you smilingly refused

In spite I cracked jokes to see you amused.

How long can eternal love be on hold,

Waiting for you in my arms to behold?

The Sun, the Moon, and the lovely hills

Wait for the moment when love spills.

For years I have been fighting with my abandoned fate

Cajoling my heart - it is never too late!”

Words play a powerful role in our lives. Words conjure memories; words resurrect the dead and reflect them as tears in our eyes; words bring back our forgotten loved ones and rip our hearts making us yearn for them. Somewhere deep within Trisha’s heart, some deep and calm voice transpired. The voice made her believe 24 could be none other than Sahil. The voice called out to her, “Despite years and miles of distance between you two, he has still not lost hope. What is that which makes men love women with such absolute passion, regardless of how detrimental this passion is? It cannot be lust I am sure of that. Lust is a flesh worm that burns in the night and is finished by the morning. Lust is the temporary solace which Tulsidas mistook to be love. Love is eternal, all encompassing- omnipresent, regardless of where the physical bodies reside. Sahil has crossed the boundary of loss and gain, and he has accepted the universe where he is bereft of your presence. He might not have stoically accepted your absence, yet he has hopefully accepted your absence. He has gained solace in the fact that beyond this mortal world there is a parallel world where purity of thought is respected and responded to. Why bereft this man of the same happiness in this mortal world. Don’t you wished to be loved by such a man; don’t you wish to be loved by him? Aren’t you affected by his poems? You are the source and you are the end of his words!”

Trisha picked up her car keys and ran for the garage. She started her maruti alto and sped her car towards Ambedkar Chowk. On reaching Ambedkar Chowk she cursed “to hell with traffic laws” and snapped her car door shut. She virtually tripped herself while entering the AIR building; giving a slip to the security guard she managed to reach the recording room from where the mysterious number 24 was telecasting his today’s episode.

24 was indeed Sahil.

In matters of love the heart doesn’t wait to add two and two. Adding two and two is the work of the brain, the task of the heart is to pour it out to someone and be a cause of happiness. Without thinking of the consequences and results Trisha barged into the recording room and stood face to face with Sahil. He was in the middle of a poem when his eyes shifted from the page to be locked in the black eyes of Trisha. She had put a thin lining of Kajal in her eyes which was now starting to fade. Her eyes were moist and tears were on the verge of overflowing the brim.

“With hopes we meet--

In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive

Into the room you barge

Where my heart dwell.

Send word to the church,

Ask them to ring the bell.”

Trisha ran to his arms and after smudging the left over kajal on his shirt, spoke in the mike, “Hi, your anchor whom you know as 24, I am his miss 24. We wish to grow as Mr. and Mrs. 100...”

The rest of the hour was utilized by Trisha to entertain the audience with anecdotes of what all Sahil used to do to impress her in college.