THE LOST BUTTON

THE LOST BUTTON

As they both acquired seats in the bus, Kaivat again looked at Raag’s silent gloomy eyes, he definitely wasn’t as much interested in the surroundings, having lost himself into thoughts, or memories maybe. But Kaivat had to know what it was that had been in his mind for a while. He chose to broke silence, in his way, “So, what’s the plan? I’m definitely not expecting you to stay there for a longer time as I can’t handle the customers alone, you know.” He waited for a reply, though he wasn’t expecting any.

“Actually, you know what, I was thinking, you are the biggest dumb I have ever seen. I mean, who saves his all money by sacrificing two times meal and clothes for a freaking old little two bedrooms house.”

“The composition of a few little pennies would fetch bread some day, as I was told.” Finally, Raag replied, still not looking at Kaivat.

“I don’t care whoever told you that shit, dude. But what you have been doing is more than mere a ‘strange’ behavior. Okay, tell me, which wise-twenty-one-years-old-retard-businessman in the world would keep on wearing his seven years old torn shirt, that too with a missing button on the chest, just to have his all earned money saved for buying a old house situated one hundred and fifty kilometers away from his own house, which is not even ancestral one to make his behavior sound easily filmy and adoptable?” 

Kaivat took a breath of disappointment as Raag moved into silent mode again.

Though, after a while, when the bus started its journey towards Rajkot, Raag asked him, “Did your friend call you back?”

Kaivat didn’t have any answer. In fact, he had to blame himself for not having the answer prepared, although he knew this question was coming. But, he had to reply anyway, “Yea, he did in the morning. He said something had happened there..maybe a case of suicide there, some woman.. had jumped off in the river from the balcony, no..from a bridge and..”

“Don’t mess the thing up, damn it. Please tell me what he told you: Please tell me the truth!” Raag almost shouted, though he kept his voice lower enough not to let anyone else hear it.

“Is it going to please you? – the truth?”

“probably.”

“Hmm” Kaivat paused for a few seconds, and then said, “She is happy, has two children – one girl and the other one, he couldn’t know as it’s too young to know it, it’s bald yet. Her husband, works in a multinational company and they live in a bungalow..a large one, far more larger than our flat.”

Raag listened quietly, imagining herself, her life, her loved ones. He had a peaceful smile on his face, finally. All he could tell him was “Thanks”.

Kaivat noticed change in his behavior and expressions, he got all the fuss in the mind of Raag since the morning. “Is she the one whom you loved?”

Raag’s smile faded, got a serious question mark on his face. “She was a friend.”

“Hell with you, man. I’m with you for past five years, we have been together in all times, happy-sad, rise-fall, everything we have shared. I got my friend there to bring her information to you. Look at yourself, you have been donning a Devdas since long just to know how she would be, and you deny the fact by saying ‘she is your friend’?”

“WAS.”

“Yea, whatever. My question was a different one.”

“Look, I am not lying to you. There’s no reason to. She used to be a good friend of mine once, that’s it. But then, friendship is never ‘ever lasting’, you know. Things ended, and now, our lives are different. She got married to a nice wealthy guy who keeps her happy, and she has even two children now – one, a girl and second, I don’t know, anyways.”

“No man would feel jealous about the marriage life of his ‘FRIEND’.”

Raag knew, it was worthless to argue, worthless to hide things and himself. He opened his bag, brought out bunches of letters.

“Man, look at this. How many are these? They look like a hundred.”

“one hundred forty three.” Raag replied with a smile on his face.

“Shit man, she wrote them to you? This is incredible. I mean who writes ‘letters’ in this Facebook age?” Kaivat replied surprisingly, taking one of bunches in his hands, unfolded one of them and opened it.

“29^th January, 2006. It was the first one she wrote to me.”

“First one? That’s magic.” Kaivat laughed.

“They are arranged chronologically, you fool.”

“Okay, man. So let’s read what she has written:

--Raag,

Hello. I read your letter.—

Oh man, you wrote to her first? You were daring enough to?”

“I didn’t write to her, I wrote to my mom. I was around fifteen, then. Letter writing was new for me, and I had found it crazily awesome. I loved writing letters. Though my parents hardly had any money to serve their single child food, they chose to serve me education also by working insanely hard. My mother went to Delhi to earn more, she worked at Dhvani’s house. I, and my father, lived at Rajnish uncle’s house, where my father would work all the day, and I would study.”

“I know that all, man. I was just asking about Dhvani.”

“That was a prologue to the story, you idiot.”

“Okay then, cut to the story. Why did you write the letter to your mother?”

“It was this shirt, the only new cloth I had seen in my life. I had gone crazy after it and would be wearing it all the day. I would cry like a six-year old, if I could see even a single patch on it. But one morning, I woke up, and what I saw was, one button on the shirt was lost. I tried searching for it in the whole house, but all was in vain. I was crying like hell. My father tried to console me, but of course, that wasn’t enough. I felt as if the happiness of my life had been stolen by someone. I wanted to talk to my mother, I picked up my pen, took a paper, and wrote to my mother, the only person in my life who could get my peace back. I requested her to come back home as soon as possible.”

“I hope this was prologue, too?”

“Listen, I am not the one who wants you to listen to me, but you are the one who wants to listen to me. I am not going to let you make fun of these things, damn it. You know what the fuck these days meant to me?”

“Okay man, I know that. I just want to know about Dhvani, that’s why. Gosh man, you can transform yourself into the hulk very easily.”

“That’s what she told me in the first letter, in her own words, obviously.”

Kaivat waited for Raag to continue, while Raag was about to get lost into the past, feeling the moments again, “It was Dhvani who had read my letter, my mother told her to, as she didn’t know to. Dhvani said my mother was laughing loudly when she read my letter. She wrote on behalf of my mother. But the loveliest part was the last lines she wrote. They weren’t the words of my mother, I knew. the lines said, ‘Don’t get moved by little things, dear. Excessiveness of the surroundings will be hurdles in your way, you can cross them, though. But excessiveness of emotions will be the biggest enemy you could ever have in your life, crossing them will feel almost impossible to you, don’t let them be a part of your journey.’”

“Do they sound lovely? Really? I would be banging my head against the wall if I would face some stranger advising these things to me, really.”

“You wouldn’t say this if you had lived my life, a life of a person who always faced kicks of strangers and who had been abused always by people, just because he was the son of a poor man. She was the first person apart from my parents in my life, who had advised me over something, for my better. Her words had warmth, friendliness; actually, the lines were tough enough for me to understand them. It was only after my father explained it, then I got its meaning. I replied thanking her. It was not enough though, I started applying her advice in my daily life. I tried doing what she said, though it had been a little tough for me. I felt like writing to her once again, I felt like talking with her, I felt like befriending with her.

    And one day, I did, to which, she replied too. Then, we started to write to each other more and more. She was older than me, how much, I don’t know. But I would ask her advice on everything, I would tell her everything, every little bit of my life; and she would get back to me with the best replies. Her words were magic filled in them, they would get right into my heart and would make me want to talk to her more and more. I would wait for her letter everyday, and when it would arrive, my heartbeats would rise to the sky just to know what her words would contain this time. Every piece of money my father gave me, I would spend it after the letters. She was a strong human being, she knew how to control emotions and stay happy in any hell kind of situation, she was lovely, the best.

    I never saw her, I never needed to. But all I knew was, I was getting addicted to her letters, her words, her nature, herself. Any day without her letters was hell long for me to pass through. I never knew before what an addiction is, addiction of any person; therefore I didn’t ever know also, what this addiction causes. One day, my father died of the reason I didn’t know. I was not young enough not to understand the reason of his death, but I never wanted to understand it. You know, even his death couldn’t move me as much as absence of Dhvani’s letters would. But then, the life was going to change.

   After my father died, I was thrown out of the house, in exchange of removal of the debtor’s tag from my father’s head. My mother came back for me, but we didn’t have a house to spend days in. We started living in a tiny hut, having no identity of itself on paper. All I could worry about was Dhvani’s letters. It had been so many days and I hadn’t read her letters. I knew she would have replied to me, but I was worried whether Rajnish uncle would have kept the letters safe or not. I went to him to request to give me the letters, but he didn’t even let me enter his house, for he always hated me, for the reason of my poverty maybe. He said he would give the letters back to me, only when I would pay the debt back. I requested him like hell, I fell on my knees to convince him how important the letters were. You know, what he said, ‘You are a dog, you know how to touch people’s feet. And the person, whose letters you are waiting for, is not one of your kinds, you know. Rich people use dogs for their fun, when the dog is useless for them, they forget it.’ He blamed Dhvani of not being my friend. That was the time when I had to forget all other emotions, but one: Love. I wanted myself to prove that that bastard was wrong.

   For the first time, I decided to go on a journey, to Delhi, to meet Dhvani. I didn’t know how it would turn out to be, all I knew was she would be happy like hell when she would see me. I went to her home, it was peaceful and a big house. I knocked on the door, no one was at home. I sat there and waited for her. I didn’t know how she looked, but I knew I would know when she comes, as it wouldn’t be tough at all. Then, one car stopped, she stepped out, before I could look at her more quietly, a man came out of the car and kissed her, on her lips. It was the darkest moment of life. Even in my sleep, I had never been to such darkness. Then I just told myself, ‘You know what to call yourself when you can’t fight for your most anticipated dreams.’ I walked up to the guy, and punched him hard on his face. I was filled with anger only. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had become almost numb. All I knew was, Dhvani was mine and nobody else had fucking right to be a part of her life. I didn’t look at her, I couldn’t. I just kept on hitting that guy as wildly as I could. I would have killed him, unless I hadn’t heard a loud scream. It was her, she was crying like hell, trying to save that guy. That was the first time when I saw her eyes, her face. They were full of grief and sadness, as when one’s are while seeing someone whom he loves, die. I was blank. All parts of my body had stopped performing except my eyes. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. That was the moment when I realized what it is like hurting someone so much whom you always wanted to keep happy. She joined her hands, requested me, to stop, and go away. She didn’t call the cops, she wanted me to run away. No moment of my life can be worse than that one, Kaivat. That was the biggest sin I have ever committed, forgiving myself for that thing would be even a bigger sin.”

Raag’s eyes were shedding tears unstoppably, but his face was expressionless. Kaivat had no word to console him with, but he had to speak something anyway, a conclusion: “So, you didn’t want to be rich, you wanted to be accepted.”

“I didn’t know what I was exactly feeling then: anger? Sadness? At that moment, I felt Rajnish uncle was right, I was a dog who had been licking her feet, she was not my friend, she had used me. That was the time when I decided I would be THEM, I would have money, have all, be a hero of my own life, and take everything what was mine.”

“And now? What is it that you think about NOW?” Kaivat asked as they reached the destination, the bought house.

As both started taking steps towards the front door, Raag replied, “She was right, excessive emotions are the biggest enemies one can ever have. They never let me understand what truth was. I thought revenge was my destination. I got Rajnish uncle thrown out of his house, and planned to get Dhvani’s life filled with storms. I decided to forget her. But today, when I am here at the edge of my destination, I hear about her, her life, and I feel..” Raag stopped as he opened the letter-box..there were many of them there, “.. I was not being a hero of my own life, I was being an evil to our friendship.”

Kaivat took all the letters and opened the door, he started checking one by one, “LIC, State Bank, Ms.Sandhya, Dhvani, Dhvani, Dhvani..my god, this is why you did it?”

“She never told me she was in love with me, did she? She was a great friend, probably the best one can ever get. I was granted with such a great friend, and what did I do with her?”

“You didn’t do anything, man. You just planned to.”

“No, I did. I blamed her all these years for my life. I was being a dumbass. I never knew that not the Revenge, but her friendship was my destination. I didn’t love her, I was just addicted to her. It was never about money. For her, I was the best friend. She did tell me about this guy once, who kissed her, she didn’t betray me. And even if she hadn’t told me, it wouldn’t be called ‘betrayal’ damn it. We were friends, close friends. I was the one to ruin it all. But now, I know what is my destination, Revenge it is, from myself. These letters, they wont be opened.”

“What? Are you kidding? These many letters..who do you think can write even when there’s no reply ? She misses you, man, that’s why she has written them.”

“I know, but as a friend, and that doesn’t make..”

“..Who are you to decide what she feels, huh? Who knows if she also felt the same way for you? What if she also had the same feelings for you, but she never realized it? I mean..”

“What are you trying to say? That she loved me? Keep this fucking shit with yourself, she is not the same as me, okay. You said, she is happy with her husband and two kids, didn’t you?”

“Okay, then take it this way. What if she is broken from inside, what if she needs you, what is she wants some help from you? Why the hell did you buy this house when you wanted to keep yourself away from her?”

“I already said it, it’s a revenge time, my friend. I am the one who deserves to be kept away from her by myself even when I know that I am still a friend for her. And, she is strong, she cant be broken, I know that.”

“Nobody is strong enough not to be broken. I mean, it is secret for both of us what was in her heart.”

“Let it be a secret only. Give me the letters.”

Kaivat handed the letters over to Raag, who put all the letters inside box, and closed it, “They will be opened, when the time comes.”

“And when does that time supposed to come?” Kaivat asked.

Raag paused, and replied, “When I am able to find my lost button by myself.” He smiled and he walked away.

Kaivat picked his cell-phone out and called his friend, “Did you find it?”

The friend over the phone replied, “Yes, it’s her only – Dhvani Thakkar. They say, it was tough to find the body as the flow was too strong. She was disturbed for over three years, nobody knows the real reason.”

“What about her relatives?”

“She had none, as they say.”

“Husband?”

“No, she was unmarried.”

Kaivat couldn’t reply, he remained silent, the mobile slipped out of his hands as he could listen last few words on it: ‘Kaivat? Was she someone to you? Kaivat?..”

And Kaivat’s eyes struck on that box, the one full of letters!