10 Love Stories: An Indiblogger Selection

By IndiBlogger

A brief fling between ex-flames ends up all in a jumble. A Chinese dentist who swears by his crocs strikes up a rare friendship with a quiet photographer. On a cold winter's day, amidst the romantic grandeur of old Delhi, something is brewing between two strangers brought together by their parents.This IndiBlogger-HarperCollins collaboration is a collection of the ten best love stories selected by some of contemporary India's finest writers and editors from a list of over 500 entries. These stories are a window to how a new generation of young men and women negotiate matters of love and life in the age of Whatsapp and Facebook. The peppy-dynamic prose within these pages radiates a youthful vitality that perfectly captures its unabashedly urban and modish characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperVantage
• Release date: Jul 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9789351773832

IndiBlogger

IndiBlogger is a free online platform with over 35,000 Indian bloggers and five lakh articles. IndiBlogger was formed to promote the art of blogging. Every day, bloggers submit their writing from poetry and stories to articles that elaborate on their life experiences and give their creativity an outlet. This book is a collection of short stories of some of the best writers registered on the IndiBlogger platform.

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Crystal Cacophony

Jenny Sarto

Jenny Sarto is a budding author from Chennai, with a double master’s in management and psychology. She blogs at imaginativerealist.blogspot.in. When not writing, she is an HR professional who is also a prolific trainer. Crafts, art, photography and music are things apart from writing that keep her grounded!

‘To wear this or … that? That is the question,’ Ahaana muttered to herself, sighing, as she considered changing yet again. Her kurta with the Chinese characters which she was so sure about a few minutes ago suddenly felt as if she was coming on a bit too strong – it might be too obvious, the connection. Ahaana scrutinized her reflection in the mirror. Her disobedient hair had been carefully tamed into a side braid. ‘Today isn’t even a special day or anything. And these silly hopes,’ she said aloud, as if apprising herself, ‘they eat into a perfectly sane person’s head, and make them …’

With the amount of fuss she was making, one would think she was at least going on a date. But no, she was just taking Pavan, her brother, eight years her junior, to the dentist. The same cheeky little squirt who now stood at the doorway of her room, tapping his watch and shaking his head.

‘Did sanity die in here?’ Pavan asked, derailing her train of thought. Despite the difference in their age, the siblings were close and Pavan often took this kind of liberty with his sister. He glanced at the heap of clothes that lay discarded on Ahaana’s bed and turned away, groaning, to confirm the time on his watch with the clock in the drawing room. This made Ahaana look at the clock as well and she realized it was high time they left.

Realization appeared to dawn on Pavan now. ‘You’re doing all this because he might be there!’he exclaimed, rolling his eyes. ‘He’ was Sean Chen – the half-Indian, half-Chinese and utterly charming new dentist whom they often ran into at the clinic.

Ahaana grunted a non-committal ‘huh’, not even attempting to feign ignorance. Pretence was no good with Pavan anyway – he would see right through her. So, she quickly brushed past him before his probing made her break into a grin, or worse, a blush. As she stepped out, she yelled at him: ‘Stop standing around and put on your shoes, quick! Or do you plan to keep your braces on forever?’

Pavan merely shrugged as he followed her to her Volvo, muttering something about there being more than one teenager in the family.

Ahaana certainly wasn’t a frivolous teenager. At twenty-seven, she had a stable job – one that truly suited her character. She was a photojournalist, which meant that she could be in the thick of action and as expressive as she wanted through her photographs.

‘By the way, will I get your car if you get married?’ Pavan asked her with a sly grin as they drove along.

‘Yeah, sure, and my right hand too,’ Ahaana said as she threw him a slit-eyed sideways glance.

‘But seriously, just because mum and dad are not pushy about finding a guy and getting you married, it does not mean you don’t have to get married at all,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘Why, do you want to become an uncle and play with my kids or something? If so, you are on the right track. You already talk like our mamas and chachas,’ Ahaana laughed, her eyes still on the road. But she seemed to have turned thoughtful at this remark.

‘Nah, just want your room. It’s bigger,’ Pavan chuckled.

‘Sure, sure,’Ahaana said, giving in, smiling.

She knew they were worried about her. Her parents. Pavan too. It wasn’t like she was resisting marriage. She just wanted to ensure that it was to the right person. And she hadn’t found him yet. She might be closer to that than she expected, but she told herself not to get her hopes high.

They arrived well within time, but to her great disappointment – and her brother’s amusement – Sean wasn’t there after all. She tried to mask her misery by changing the topic, teasing Pavan about holding his hand in the dentist’s office, but he ignored her banter and stalked off. She settled down with a magazine at the corner seat that she always took – the one that commanded the best view of the bead-curtained entrance. The receptionist who occasionally chatted with her smiled but seemed caught up in an excel sheet.

Ahaana couldn’t help but smile wryly at herself – there she was, a grown woman, waiting at the dentists’, hoping to run into someone. She didn’t know whether she wanted her brother to finish and come out early so that she could be spared the self-consciousness and embarrassment; or if she actually wanted him to take his time so that she would be around if Sean happened to make an appearance later. But then again, what if he thought her kurta with those Chinese characters – which she had finally decided to wear anyway – was stupid and that she was trying too hard to get his attention? She stopped herself there. You really should stop over-thinking things, she told herself. She opened the magazine again, to try and focus on it. Her mind drifted, though, back to the first time she had met Sean.

Late one evening, about a couple of months ago. Ahaana had been sitting on that same seat. The receptionist had been out on some errand when he had walked in. He was wearing a full-sleeved grey shirt with formal black pants and comfortable grey Crocs. As a photographer, she remembered wondering if she should sneak a photo of this strange combination in attire. He somehow managed to carry off the look, though.

He’d walked straight up to the reception, then looked all around the room with a worried expression. He saw right through her the first time, which had worked just as well for her, as she could quietly stare. Within moments, though, his gaze had zeroed in on her and he was looking right at her.

‘No one here?’ he demanded.

A bit taken aback by the abruptness of his question, she merely shook her head.

‘We might as well be the only two people on the planet right now!’ he declared resignedly.

She thought it was just a random, one-off remark, but he continued, ‘Imagine … what if the whole world outside of these four walls had ceased to exist. Like in one of those horror movies!’

She could only gape in response. Her own overactive imagination, added to his clearly hyperactive one, had her visualizing him as an axe murderer – who did his deed without getting a drop of blood on his pristine shirt – and herself as a woman with no one in the world to save her.

He probably sensed her nervous confusion then, because he started smiling. It was as if he’d flicked on a light switch in that room. It wasn’t a heart-stopping beam, or even one of those grins that make your heart race and cause you to do silly things. It was just … no, there was no just about it, it was the warmest and friendliest smile ever. That smile made her wonder if she’d known him all her life.

This feeling of familiarity did not sit well with her.

She was a girl who rarely felt comfortable with strangers and was very good at hiding her emotions, and this situation made her uncomfortable – his friendliness as well as her own feelings about it. In fact, she suddenly realized that she was frowning at him. Not that he seemed to be put off by it.

‘I’m Sean … Dr Sean Chen,’ he’d said introducing himself, walking over with his arm extended.

‘I’m the visiting gum consultant here. I tend to say random things out of the blue. I hope I didn’t scare you! And I came to meet a Mr Pavan, but the receptionist is missing.’ Her frown eased a little at this. ‘That’s my brother. He’s inside,’ she’d said, indicating the dentist’s office to her left. ‘Ah, really? Perfect. I’ll just go right in, then,’ he said, flashing her another smile before turning to go through the door.

‘Weirdo,’ she thought to herself as she eased back on her chair, wondering if she should be worried for her brother.

That evening, though, Pavan had raved about how much fun the doctor had been. And so good that he had felt absolutely no pain even though his gums had been cut a little to make the braces fit more snugly.

For a while after the first meeting, she didn’t think much about him, neither did their paths cross – until another evening, when she sat at her usual place in the waiting room, gazing at the patterns the beads made, and listening to their gentle click-clack.

Claiming to find the little consulting room too stuffy and ‘gravely lonely’, he had come to the waiting room to hang out. As she was the only other person there, he walked over to sit on the couch across from hers and cheekily asked if she remembered him. Her forced polite smile had been encouragement enough for him. Her gaze instinctively went back to the beads, partly out of habit and partly so that he’d get the hint and leave her alone. He followed her gaze and looked at the beads.

‘Lovely, aren’t they? Don’t they make you think about how much beauty colours bring to this world?’ he exclaimed, almost reverently.

As a photographer who loved everything to do with light and colours, she did actually think about this a lot. The statement helped thaw her out. She smiled at him again, genuinely this time. And they went on to have a deep discussion about the Impressionists for a good half-hour. By the end of it, she had softened to the point of melting. A witty doctor who shared her taste in art – how could she ever resist?

From then on, she looked forward to their casual conversations and discussions about anything under the sun. He even explained to her his choice of Crocs as regular footwear – since his job involved a lot of standing, he felt it better to be comfortable and fully focus on the patient; but he couldn’t resist the idea of dressing formally to work. Hence the strange combination. He was strange, but somehow strangely irresistible with his easy charm and quirky ways.

To Ahaana, Sean embodied confidence. When he entered a room, his presence filled it, and it was very difficult to miss him. Ahaana, who was also a sucker for the chivalrous type, noticed him opening the door for his interning assistant. The petty jealousy that that scene had awoken in her made her realize that she was actually attracted to her brother’s gum specialist.

During one of their last random meetings, he