4/23/2020

Naming of the Shrew

On the strangest of Saturday afternoons, of no high-school, no tuition, no TV, Bhargavi made the strangest of observations: people hardly try to belong to other sun-signs, Maths is useless in real life, rain is over-romanticized. All of 15 then, she never lived in her present, Bhargavi perused now. She had sketchy memories of her school days, but strong ones of her many misadventures. Like the time, she wrote a letter to a boy named Pallav, overwhelmed with the beauty of his name. When she needed loud music to immerse herself in. Her first kiss inside a car with the neighbour's visiting grandson. Childhood remained in sepia-toned pages of an album lost in heaps of gathering dust.

Bhargavi's smile faded when in one of her first online chat sessions she came to know that an extremely fancy "Cadbury_Boy" was actually Gokul Roy. For her, it was a worse than the stale equivalent of Neha and Puja and Priyanka, and Sandip and Arindam and Saurav. Where do people with fancy names reside? With whom? While she did settle for "Sindbad_the_Sinner" who turned out to be a Rishi, her heart went back to Gokul. What could she do now? She was having stimulating exchanges with him, both intellectual and otherwise. Yet, she couldn't allow herself a Gokul in her life.

Cut to three years later, in an inordinately decked mandap where Bhargavi was taking the ceremonious seven rounds with Gokul. In her mind, she was listening to conversations of the guests.

What an awfully loud person she has settled for!
She went for the package. Do you really think she loves her?
Her make-up is too casual for a wedding.
Their age difference is terrible.
What an awful name! 

Unable to concentrate, she hardly had any honeymoon, and slided into a habit. She resumed her chat sessions under a new name, "ColdCoffee" for herself and settled for "Disco_Dancer" and "Hot-Chocolate". Aware of her virtually successful infidelity and crushed by the raging good governance from her now husband, Bhargavi was twice distanced and thrice dead already. She needed a change, a new detachment to attach herself to. Ably, she fought and also won herself the divorce.

With no Gokul in her life now, she did not need to alter his persona. Instead, with a very deep look at herself, she rechristened as Jennifer. Truth could often kill with its kindness.

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