To read the story before... And i suggest everybody read it once so that you dont feel like an eskimo wandering in a desert as you reach midway of part 2.
Klick Here : http://nikkarmakonfessions.blogspot.com/2006/07/maybe.html
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Part 2: MAYBE:
Swiveling his black leather chair with a frustrated jerk, Omi went to the window. As he looked outside the window of his white-n-red cabin, he could see that it was raining outside; pouring at that. As the rainwater trickled down outside his glass window the view outside began to blur. Omi’s mind was not in a very different state than the view-from-the-window. Too much work was anyways taking its toll on him. At 24, he had a totally screwed back with a couple of slipped discs and a strained ligament. Today things had worsened. As he was continuously thinking about Nisha, Shweta and Jhanavi the Hair Oil Ad Campaign he was in-charge had gone for a toss. A freshly printed pamphlet lying on his table was awaiting his approval. His secretary, Rita, looking at him standing like that, had kept it on the table without speaking a word. As the view became totally unclear Omi suddenly came out of “Nisha-Shweta-Jhanavi” trance and looked at the pamphlet. He then looked at his watch which was shouting 3 p.m. “Board meeting at 5. I have to make a presentation for this hair oil…” After this unexpected strike of sudden realization Omi almost ran to his table.
As he looked at the front page of the pamphlet he knew how Shweta had come to know about his office. She was the lead model in the hair oil campaign. Wearing a striking shade of beige and with an obvious wig, Shweta was looking straight at Omi through the pamphlet. “She still is very beautiful” he wondered aloud. Then he looked at the bottle of hair oil in the right bottom of the page. The first thing that came to his mind after watching it was Nisha. He remembered Nisha who used to apply some really sick hair oil every Friday night. The girls’ hostel never got water on Saturdays citing which she couldn’t wash it off in the morning, forcing herself to come to college like that. Omi used to get so angry with her then. Today he was smiling. He then looked at the punch-line which simply said, “Apply it every night and then Just Chill”. Just then Rita came in again. This time she had come for apparently no reason. She used to come in Omi’s office quite a few times just like that. Today, she was wearing a red mini-skirt with a white top and black jacket. On a normal day, Omi would’ve gaped at her as she bent down at the perfect angle to pick up the planner which she had dropped down, very obviously, on purpose. But today was different. He didn’t even notice the velvety details of the thong which probably the whole office was talking about by now. As she left the room without a word being exchanged Omi threw another look at the pamphlet which was aesthetically done in a shade of off white which went very well with the Shweta’s beige costume on the cover. The off white for no particular reason reminded Omi of Jhanavi’s dress she had worn when they had gone to Lonavala for a weekend getaway.
Busy thinking about that trip when he and Jhanavi for the first time had… “Ahem… ahem” he thought to himself and brushed all physical thoughts away. He was too pestered mentally to get a few more physical complications ruin things further.
“Omi, idiot you gotta work” he warned himself and looked at the pamphlet again. And volla… The shade of off white seemed to have transformed into Jhanavi’s image, the oil bottle’s picture transformed into Nisha and Shweta was any which ways there.
Quite miraculously the punch-line also had changed to three kick-ass lines…
“Maybe Shweta is the girl, Omi”
“Maybe Nisha is the girl, Omi”
“Maybe Jhanavi is the girl, Omi”
For a moment this picture of three girls and three punch-lines was projected on the wall behind his table. Omi almost screamed out of frustration and was almost going to pull his hair off, when he realized that the whole projection on the wall thing was a figment of his imagination. Everything was normal on the surface again. The problem was inside. Inside his brain. As he looked at the pamphlet again, he could see only Shweta and the tagline “Just Chill” Suggestive? Not really. Think again? No way.
Omi looked in his watch and now it was shouting at the top of its voice, 4 PM. He had a board meeting at 5 and he hadn’t done his presentation as yet. Let alone the presentation, he hadn’t had a look at the pamphlet either. Since his mail came in the morning, he was thinking about these three girls. Girls have a strange trait. While at college they stay in your minds and don’t let you study. While at work, they still stay in your heads and don’t let you work. That is the trait. Whats strange about it is that while you are busy screwing your own life and thinking about them, they pretty nicely manage to do their work, study and even think about Tom Cruise’s break up with Nicole Kidman or what Tulsi would do in the next night’s episode of Kyunki Saans bhi Kabhi Bahu thi. Omi always had felt like killing Ekta Kapoor by making her watch her own serials for 7 consecutive days, serial after serial. Today he was feeling like watching all those serials himself. His memory rewound straight to college days when he wanted to watch the football world cup and his mom used to put up a fight more aggressive than the world-war 2 so that she could watch her saas bahu sagas. Yes. Tulsi was alive then. Yes. Tulsi is still alive and kicking. That again is another story. Even baa is alive. How? Ask Ekta.
Anyways, Omi rewound to those days of school and remembered the fights with mom. For a change he was thinking about some other woman than these three. And suddenly his brain had an idea. “Mom!!!” he screamed in excitement and called her up. They say… “No matter how stupid they sound, moms’ are always right” Omi never believed in this and had always done his own thing. But today he thought otherwise.
As Omi blabbered to his mom about how crucial a state he was stuck in, his mom told him to do just one thing. Ask all girls one question. And ask them to answer it in one sentence. Omi was smiling for the first time since morning. He opened his laptop and typed a fast email; sent it to Nisha, Shweta and Jhanavi. He also sms’d all of them and asked them to reply to it before 7 o clock. Totally at ease with the problem now, Omi
Relaxed on his chair and started reading the pamphlet. The view outside was still unclear. The view in his brain was… crystal clear. He looked in his watch. It was showing 4:45 p.m. Omi again smiled at himself as he thought, “How can I be so stupid? Can a watch ever shout and scream?” All this while, the watch was silent. Omi was shouting. Now, both were silent. Omi left for the board meeting. As he left his cabin, he smiled at everyone, waved at people and yes, noticed the velvet… and yes, gaped at it. After all he hadn’t told mom about it. And then. No matter how much they grow up, boys remain boys. The board meeting went off fantastic and Omi was happier than ever because the hair oil campaign had gone off very well with the high command. Omi had proved once again, that he was the best and youngest creative director Koncept Advertising ever had.
As he returned to his cabin, he could sense his heartbeat growing faster. His pulse racing against time as he opened his mailbox.
The three replies went on like this:
Nisha, as usual, was the first one to reply
She said, “Because I love you Omi.”
Jhanavi was the second.
She said, “Because I love you Omi”
And then Omi opened Shweta’s mail.
She said, “Because you love me Omi.”
As he read the third mail, Omi was all smiles. Mom was right when she had asked him to ask the girls…
“Why do you want me to marry you?”
And then she had told him, “People always say that more than you loving a person, its important that the person loves you. But that is wrong. What is important is that the other person knows that you love her. No relationship can ever sustain till it rests on equal ground. In every relationship, loving a person is secondary. Knowing that he loves you is the more important. Omi, the girl who knows that you love her, is the right one for you.”
As Omi sent two ‘I am sorry’ emails to Nisha and Jhanavi, he was feeling sorry for them coz they were going to be sad for at least a month after this rejection, Nisha for an year maybe. But then he was happy because he would not be responsible for making them sad throughout their lives.
Omi was happy. He thought of breaking the news to Shweta the next day. After all they were going to work on an ad film together after a long time. The cappuccino was waiting. The blue handkerchief was one that Omi had given to Shweta on their first shoot. He still had it with him. He still loved her. And she loved him. Maybe that was the way things were meant to happen. Slowly.
And unlike last time, the ad film was gonna be complete this time. The rain had stopped, and it was dark outside. Omi could see the neon lights and headlamps of streams of cars on the road outside. Everything was just so bright and clear. He just looked in his watch. It was stuck at 6:55 p.m. He looked in his laptop and that was exactly when Shweta had sent him that email. Just 5 minutes before the deadline.
The watch had stopped. Or had time stood still for Omi and Shweta? Was it just a coincidence or was it a signal from the upper hand which Omi saw after taking his decision…? No one knows.
Omi took a cup of cappuccino, stretched his arms and stood in the window. Thinking about Shweta, cappuccino and the emails.
Life is so strange. It puts you into complicated situations with simple solutions. It just one word that leads you to the solution: Maybe…
-Nikhil Mahajan
As he looked at the front page of the pamphlet he knew how Shweta had come to know about his office. She was the lead model in the hair oil campaign. Wearing a striking shade of beige and with an obvious wig, Shweta was looking straight at Omi through the pamphlet. “She still is very beautiful” he wondered aloud. Then he looked at the bottle of hair oil in the right bottom of the page. The first thing that came to his mind after watching it was Nisha. He remembered Nisha who used to apply some really sick hair oil every Friday night. The girls’ hostel never got water on Saturdays citing which she couldn’t wash it off in the morning, forcing herself to come to college like that. Omi used to get so angry with her then. Today he was smiling. He then looked at the punch-line which simply said, “Apply it every night and then Just Chill”. Just then Rita came in again. This time she had come for apparently no reason. She used to come in Omi’s office quite a few times just like that. Today, she was wearing a red mini-skirt with a white top and black jacket. On a normal day, Omi would’ve gaped at her as she bent down at the perfect angle to pick up the planner which she had dropped down, very obviously, on purpose. But today was different. He didn’t even notice the velvety details of the thong which probably the whole office was talking about by now. As she left the room without a word being exchanged Omi threw another look at the pamphlet which was aesthetically done in a shade of off white which went very well with the Shweta’s beige costume on the cover. The off white for no particular reason reminded Omi of Jhanavi’s dress she had worn when they had gone to Lonavala for a weekend getaway.
Busy thinking about that trip when he and Jhanavi for the first time had… “Ahem… ahem” he thought to himself and brushed all physical thoughts away. He was too pestered mentally to get a few more physical complications ruin things further.
“Omi, idiot you gotta work” he warned himself and looked at the pamphlet again. And volla… The shade of off white seemed to have transformed into Jhanavi’s image, the oil bottle’s picture transformed into Nisha and Shweta was any which ways there.
Quite miraculously the punch-line also had changed to three kick-ass lines…
“Maybe Shweta is the girl, Omi”
“Maybe Nisha is the girl, Omi”
“Maybe Jhanavi is the girl, Omi”
For a moment this picture of three girls and three punch-lines was projected on the wall behind his table. Omi almost screamed out of frustration and was almost going to pull his hair off, when he realized that the whole projection on the wall thing was a figment of his imagination. Everything was normal on the surface again. The problem was inside. Inside his brain. As he looked at the pamphlet again, he could see only Shweta and the tagline “Just Chill” Suggestive? Not really. Think again? No way.
Omi looked in his watch and now it was shouting at the top of its voice, 4 PM. He had a board meeting at 5 and he hadn’t done his presentation as yet. Let alone the presentation, he hadn’t had a look at the pamphlet either. Since his mail came in the morning, he was thinking about these three girls. Girls have a strange trait. While at college they stay in your minds and don’t let you study. While at work, they still stay in your heads and don’t let you work. That is the trait. Whats strange about it is that while you are busy screwing your own life and thinking about them, they pretty nicely manage to do their work, study and even think about Tom Cruise’s break up with Nicole Kidman or what Tulsi would do in the next night’s episode of Kyunki Saans bhi Kabhi Bahu thi. Omi always had felt like killing Ekta Kapoor by making her watch her own serials for 7 consecutive days, serial after serial. Today he was feeling like watching all those serials himself. His memory rewound straight to college days when he wanted to watch the football world cup and his mom used to put up a fight more aggressive than the world-war 2 so that she could watch her saas bahu sagas. Yes. Tulsi was alive then. Yes. Tulsi is still alive and kicking. That again is another story. Even baa is alive. How? Ask Ekta.
Anyways, Omi rewound to those days of school and remembered the fights with mom. For a change he was thinking about some other woman than these three. And suddenly his brain had an idea. “Mom!!!” he screamed in excitement and called her up. They say… “No matter how stupid they sound, moms’ are always right” Omi never believed in this and had always done his own thing. But today he thought otherwise.
As Omi blabbered to his mom about how crucial a state he was stuck in, his mom told him to do just one thing. Ask all girls one question. And ask them to answer it in one sentence. Omi was smiling for the first time since morning. He opened his laptop and typed a fast email; sent it to Nisha, Shweta and Jhanavi. He also sms’d all of them and asked them to reply to it before 7 o clock. Totally at ease with the problem now, Omi
Relaxed on his chair and started reading the pamphlet. The view outside was still unclear. The view in his brain was… crystal clear. He looked in his watch. It was showing 4:45 p.m. Omi again smiled at himself as he thought, “How can I be so stupid? Can a watch ever shout and scream?” All this while, the watch was silent. Omi was shouting. Now, both were silent. Omi left for the board meeting. As he left his cabin, he smiled at everyone, waved at people and yes, noticed the velvet… and yes, gaped at it. After all he hadn’t told mom about it. And then. No matter how much they grow up, boys remain boys. The board meeting went off fantastic and Omi was happier than ever because the hair oil campaign had gone off very well with the high command. Omi had proved once again, that he was the best and youngest creative director Koncept Advertising ever had.
As he returned to his cabin, he could sense his heartbeat growing faster. His pulse racing against time as he opened his mailbox.
The three replies went on like this:
Nisha, as usual, was the first one to reply
She said, “Because I love you Omi.”
Jhanavi was the second.
She said, “Because I love you Omi”
And then Omi opened Shweta’s mail.
She said, “Because you love me Omi.”
As he read the third mail, Omi was all smiles. Mom was right when she had asked him to ask the girls…
“Why do you want me to marry you?”
And then she had told him, “People always say that more than you loving a person, its important that the person loves you. But that is wrong. What is important is that the other person knows that you love her. No relationship can ever sustain till it rests on equal ground. In every relationship, loving a person is secondary. Knowing that he loves you is the more important. Omi, the girl who knows that you love her, is the right one for you.”
As Omi sent two ‘I am sorry’ emails to Nisha and Jhanavi, he was feeling sorry for them coz they were going to be sad for at least a month after this rejection, Nisha for an year maybe. But then he was happy because he would not be responsible for making them sad throughout their lives.
Omi was happy. He thought of breaking the news to Shweta the next day. After all they were going to work on an ad film together after a long time. The cappuccino was waiting. The blue handkerchief was one that Omi had given to Shweta on their first shoot. He still had it with him. He still loved her. And she loved him. Maybe that was the way things were meant to happen. Slowly.
And unlike last time, the ad film was gonna be complete this time. The rain had stopped, and it was dark outside. Omi could see the neon lights and headlamps of streams of cars on the road outside. Everything was just so bright and clear. He just looked in his watch. It was stuck at 6:55 p.m. He looked in his laptop and that was exactly when Shweta had sent him that email. Just 5 minutes before the deadline.
The watch had stopped. Or had time stood still for Omi and Shweta? Was it just a coincidence or was it a signal from the upper hand which Omi saw after taking his decision…? No one knows.
Omi took a cup of cappuccino, stretched his arms and stood in the window. Thinking about Shweta, cappuccino and the emails.
Life is so strange. It puts you into complicated situations with simple solutions. It just one word that leads you to the solution: Maybe…
-Nikhil Mahajan
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I hope that i have lived upto the expectations that part 1 had created. Maybe is in actuality a movie script titled Shaayad and is pretty long. I have cut it short, removed almost 50 scenes and converted it into a short story format. There is a scene in the film where all the three girls come in the same frame. Adding to the cunfusion.
I got a tremendous response to the interactive bit of Maybe and i am thanking everybody who gave their feedback
Out of the 15 emails i got and the 10 odd phone calls and the response Shin-Shin got here are the stats:
70% people thought that Omi would go with Nisha.
29% people thought that Omi would go with Jhanavi.
But only One person predicted the actual end which i am sure nobody else predicted. The person is Sukie from Amity Lucknow.
Way to go Sukie. I was so flattered with your email there.
I sincerely hope Maybe... lived upto the expectations.
Do feel free to give me honest feedback.
Many Thanks,
NM
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The above work is protected by copyright laws. Copying Maybe or any part of it without the prior permission of the author would lead to serious legal consequences.
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SHAAYAD is registered with the Scriptwriters' association of India under the name of Nikhil Mahajan.
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Copyright: Nikhil Mahajan
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3 comments:
Thanks a zillion Vijay Sir. Glad u liked Maybe.
nice story. went on my own trip and started predicting and fighting with jini after reading the first part. I agree with vijay . My thought was tht it wud be nisha !! .. they way u described it , top notch ! needless to say , u've got a great flair for writing. Looking forward for these kinda stories!
hey i did'nt really predict anything - but i loved the philosophy behind the whole thingy :)
"coz u luv me" sounds a lot deal better than "coz i luv u" any day...........way to go dude!!!!
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