“Truly speaking whenever I think about you, a picture comes into my mind – Its raining, we are alone and all wet, we were on a long drive, it is late and no one is around. I ask you to stop the car and I step outside and start enjoying the raindrops touching my face while you watch me intensely from the car.”

Aakash read Ritu’s text and replied, “waiting for the day when our dreams will come true, missing you baby!”

Ritu’s thoughts were engulfed by sadness like the dark clouds that were there in the sky. She was all alone, waiting for Aakash to come back from UK. It was raining heavily and she was missing him like hell, more to say she was missing his text messages. She believed that her dreams would come true one day – sooner or later! She was wondering how things have changed in last six months. It was Aakash who taught her to smile, right from heart for the second time! She looked out of the glass pane towards the falling raindrops and felt as if the whole sky was crying with her … sharing her pain, her sorrows.

Ritu was a housewife and into wedlock to Rishi for two years. Although it was a love marriage, as the year turned, there was only the marriage left but no love! Rishi was working for a MNC in Bangalore, which always kept his plates full and to add on it, he had to make official trips all over the world! He had to work until late hours and on the following day needed to leave for his office early to attend the early morning calls. As days went by Ritu started to feel lonely and soon sadness and the memories of their good times became her companion.

This was when one of her school friend told her about Orkut, a social networking site, where most of her batchmates were present. Chatting with school friends can kill some of her time, she thought and opened an account in Orkut and in no time found her school under the community section of the site. When she opened the members’ list, she found most of her batchmates were present there. She sent friend requests to all of them and within the next few days, she and her friends started scrapping each other.

After a few more days, when she logged into her account, she found a pending friend request from an unknown guy. She usually never accepted any unknown friend request but there was something different about that guy. May be it was his profile pic or the content written in his profile or may be his profession that amazed Ritu. He was a casting director for movies. Ritu always liked the glamour world; in fact the affinity was so intense, she immediately felt that being a friend of a director can bring her close to that world! She instantly added Aakash as her friend.

It however made no difference to her scrapbook until one day when she eventually found him online. They started their chitchat with simple “hi hello” but soon they started to chat almost everyday. It used to be normal friendly chat sessions though the compliments from Aakash were always overflowing. She would ask him about his shooting schedules; about the famous actors and models that he came across and very soon, they became best of buddies. Their chat schedules never paused even for a day except during the days when Aakash was off to some other city for shooting. During those days, Ritu used to login almost five times a day to check if there was at least any offline message from him. She was already addicted by the way Aakash used to pamper her; she was completely captivated by the way he complimented her, all these which she was craving for, since last one year.

The only information about Aakash, she had was that he was a Punjabi guy, almost a pinup boy, almost of her own age. He had done his courses on film and media from UK. He was single and was settled in Mumbai. Ritu didn’t knew what was happening to her, she started to build castles in air. Every morning she would anxiously wait for Rishi to leave for office, and then she would immediately login to check if Aakash was online. Soon a distance was created between her and Rishi, the obvious reason being her closeness to Aakash. After a month, Aakash and Ritu exchanged their cell numbers and then during their first conversation itself she realized that they shared similar wavelengths, same interests and were very similar by nature.

Within a couple of months, Ritu fell in love for the second time with her unknown friend. Ritu missed him when he would be out of reach during his shooting schedules. But she knew once his shooting was over, he would very well come back to her. She regained her lost smile; she started to get everything from Aakash that he expected from Rishi!

One day she took the courage and texted her true feelings to Aakash and to her surprise he texted back saying, “mai bhi tainu pyar kadiya!” Ritu felt out of the world as she jumped in joy but never did she realise that there was no future to their relationship since she was married!

As days went by, she started to become even more attached to Aakash and on the other hand she was left with no feeling for her hubby. Whenever she had a fight with Rishi, she would text Aakash and she couldn’t stop smiling seeing his lovely replies. She started to text him when he was away for shoots, “hey don’t you miss your baby while you are off for ur shooting? Sometimes I feel I have lost u when you do not reply to my msg! “She used to get a reply by end of the day,” oh my baby you will never lose me…I was busy shooting darling, it was too hectic, I am sorry baby! ”
Their texting continued until late nights; they both would share their dreams of an unreal world. Ritu at times would realize and would text him, “this is an unreal world dear…it hardly have any existence!” Aakash would instantly reply, “I have started liking the unreal space in which we both are together and adoring each other” and the texting went on and on. It was not much problem for Ritu as Rishi used to come back quite late!

At times for some reason she would always feel insecure about Aakash. May be for her marital status. She would immediately text Aakash asking, “hey do you really miss me?” Aakash would reply, “of course I do. Why do u think I text u everyday when I am not shooting. I miss u, though we never met, we dunno each other but there is something that’s binding us and baby don’t be hesitant, I want you to express what you feel about me, how much you miss me, its ur thoughts my sweetheart that makes me miss u… anyways I like everything about u, especially ur nose ring ”

Finally, they made a plan to meet up. However, both were in different cities and since Ritu was married and it was, hard for her to travel alone. Aakash was the one who would come to Bangalore to meet her. They finalised the date and the venue. Ritu was very excited and was loving each moment of her own ‘unreal’ world. She was very confused and didn’t even knew what to wear during their first meeting. She went out shopping alone and bought quite a few dresses but was still not sure which one to wear. She smiled in her mind, all alone, cherishing the memories of Aakash and his crazy messages. Even during weekends when Rishi used to be at home, still she kept herself busy with some work or the other, may be to avoid eye contact with her hubby. Seeing Ritu’s attitude, Rishi understood something was wrong. He started realising that he hardly gave time to his beautiful wife. Next morning itself, he was supposed to be off for another tour and decided to surprise her once he was back.

Finally the day arrived, when Ritu and Aakash were supposed to meet. She was exited like crazy since that morning. She tried all her dresses to get the perfect combination of her attire, shoes and contact lenses. After considerable trials and error, she finally got it right. Then she picked up the gift that she had bought for the pinup boy and all set to start for her destination. She locked her door that is when suddenly she received a text from Aakash, “hey baby, I am sorry, I am off to UK for few days, and I will contact you once I am back!” Ritu’s eye became clammy; suddenly she felt all her happiness to evaporate!

She always thought he would come back for sure, as it happened every time when he went out for shootings. She waited each and everyday for a text or scrap but there was none! Finally, one day she mailed him. Next day she got her reply, hey I am in UK, part of a very big banner, a dream venture. Sorry baby I think I will never come back to India again! She did not know how to react; she simply stared at her laptop screen blankly. After hours she slowly got back to her senses, mocked at herself, and thought what a fool I was! How can one be in love without even seeing someone and that too with a married lady!

She understood that she was simply a pastime for Aakah and nothing more, he was always sincere to his passion and nothing else. He never had any feeling for her and only played with her emotions. She realized that she herself was wrong too and she had nobody to blame!

After two months one day Rishi was back from office early and asked Ritu to get ready as he wanted to take her out for a  movie followed by dinner. They started to munch popcorn as the opening credits of the movie started to flash on the screen. Ritu’s eyes locked when the name of the director was shown. It was Aakash Tandon and immediately she felt blue and guilty. But she instantly knew that it was an unreal world where she was hovering since she met Aakash, and now she was back in her real world with her hubby. She finally felt happy. The couple enjoyed the movie and then had a lovely candlelight dinner. During dinner, Rishi held her hand and said, “I am sorry honey. I didn’t realise what I was missing. Now I know I was missing you in my grueling schedule! I love you.”

Ritu smiled back at him and saw a ray of hope. She knew the fantasy was over and things would be much better in the real world!

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