Imaginary (Rebooted)

This is a story about college romance and friendship. It features three people, two of whom are in love and a friend of theirs who likes to stay by himself. This friend is not secretive, merely an introvert who chooses his company carefully. He wears baggy jeans and a black hoodie that he keeps up.  He can be seen with an iPod, always listening to either Metallica, or Black Sabbath or Tool. If he isn’t listening to music, he is texting this mysterious girl that nobody has ever met on WhatsApp. His name is Hiren.

Our lovebirds are called Tanya and Arnab. Arnab likes to debate a lot. He has gone to three MUN debates and come back with the Best Speaker award. Unlike his friend Hiren, he prefers The Beatles and truth be told it was their shared love of Penny Lane that brought Tanya and Arnab together.

Our third character is Tanya. She likes Audrey Hepburn movies, her favourite being Roman Holiday. She is also captain of the college quiz team. Her nickname around college is Little Miss Know It All but she doesn’t give a damn.

Tanya and Arnab met because of Hiren. He was the one who introduced Arnab to Tanya at the college fest and then melted into the shadows which was his usual style. Tanya and Arnab hit it off and started going out with each other within a week. One strange thing that accompanied this development was that Hiren opened up to Tanya as much as he did to Arnab. He was there for both of them. He used to help resolve some of their fights when they happened and he also sometimes accompanied them on dates, with his father’s old digicam. Hiren’s photos were treasured memories of the fun times they had in college.

But as it is said, all things must come to an end. College ended after three years, but to the three of them it seemed like yesterday that they’d stepped in as freshmen. Arnab decided he would study further and signed up for an MBA programme. Tanya decided to test the waters and joined a start-up.

Hiren said he had landed a job working for a company his father once worked at, but was very vague about the thing. Bit by bit, he started to increase distance between himself and Arnab and Tanya. He would always cite work as the excuse, saying that they were bleeding him dry, but that he needed the experience to land a better job later. He also reduced the frequency of his visits, but was always there on the phone whenever they needed him and Hiren would also meet them every now and then. However, all three of them sensed that their professional lives were causing them to slowly drift apart.

Our love birds continued dating even after college ended, and Tanya’s job was in the same city as Arnab’s college. Two years passed. The situation with Hiren remained in status quo.

Arnab landed a job with a decent company after passing his MBA. He didn’t waste too much time proposing to Tanya shortly after. Their wedding was a simple one, free of razzmatazz. Needless to say, Hiren showed up and he was there throughout the ceremony. He wore a striking black kurta over pajamas and it was one of those rare occasions when he smiled in photos. Hiren seemed as happy as Tanya and Arnab that this was happening.

The day after the ceremony, the three of them went on an impromptu road trip to a dhaba. Over lassi and items from the tandoor they caught up. It turned out that Hiren had recently been promoted to senior manager, which was a promotion that had been coming for a long time. The flip side was that his work load had quadrupled, meaning he wouldn’t be as available as before.

Little by little, one email at a time, one text message at a time, over the course of the next year, Hiren vanished. Arnab once remarked to Tanya that Hiren had written. Tanya didn’t recall who Hiren was.

Tanya and Arnab had their first child in September 2011. Hiren showed up for her first birthday, but didn’t interact with anyone. He just came and went.

2011 was also the year the fighting started.

Arnab had recently been promoted at work which meant he was coming home at odd hours or sometimes not coming home at all. Meanwhile Tanya was shouldered with her own job at the start-up, which was not going so well and the baby. Fuses were short in the once happy family and fights broke out often. There would be name calling, things thrown and tears shed on both sides when the fights happened.  In all of this turmoil, Hiren was nowhere to be seen. He had just disappeared from their lives, and it seemed that something else had disappeared with him. Arnab took to drinking heavily. Tanya started to sleep in the guest bedroom.

Then, somewhere around November 2011, something changed.

Babli, their daughter was playing in the garden. She suddenly looked up from her toys and she saw a man of medium build, wearing baggy black jeans and a hoodie which was turned up. The stranger stood and watched her for some time and then he walked away, seeming to vanish at the point where the road started to curve.

Babli saw this stranger again two days later and this time, she decided she would ask him to come in. However, when she made a move towards him, he scuffled off, vanishing once again where the road curved.

Meanwhile, the frequency of the fights in the household had lessened and Arnab was drinking less than before. The stranger’s visits to the corner of the house became more and more frequent.

Unable to keep this a secret any longer, Babli went and told her mother about the stranger, giving her an accurate description of the hoodie and baggy jeans and his above average height. Tanya looked at Babli shocked, and then she dialled Arnab at work.

“I think Babli just saw a friend of yours. She described him exactly as he looked in college. You remember that weird guy? What was his name?  Himesh? “

“Hiren.”

“Hiren? But Hiren has not been in touch for years now, I don’t recall the last time I saw him”, said Tanya.

At that moment, Babli started waving at someone in the garden, a person in baggy jeans and a hoodie.

“Arnab, come home. I think Hiren is here”, said Tanya

This time the stranger did not go away like he usually did. He walked up to the door, rung the bell and asked if he could sit down. 

He said it would become clear when Arnab got home. Arnab arrived a few minutes later, and walked to the sideboard to pour himself a drink.  He found his favourite Scotch on the rocks already poured out for him. He looked up from the glass and saw Hiren.

“Can you see Hiren too, Tanya?” he asked

“Yes. But why after all this time..?”

“Well, remember how in college we were so madly in love with each other? Hiren was inseparable from us back then. It was like he was a part of us, On the drive back home, I got to thinking- what if our love took on a physical form during college. An imaginary friend if you will. That would explain why Hiren went everywhere with us, but we never minded him. It would also explain why he disappeared when we started to have fights.”

In the corner, Hiren nodded and smiled.

Arnab smiled as he took Tanya into his arms. Hiren was back. Everything would be fine now.

The Bilge Master