Apurva Rathod

"Ashu? Can we stop for a while?" I yelled, heaving. I agreed to go running with him in the morning and now after a few minutes of it, he had already zoomed ahead a hundred metres and the backs of my calves were aching trying to catch up. He looked back grinning, the adrenaline brightening his face. "I'll slow down! Try catching up, Riku!" He slowed to a jog. *** Ashu had proposed to me a half a year ago and we had been living together. Cooking together, working out together, bumping music late at night on weekends together, dancing in our bedrooms, being silly together... living together. "That was... breathtaking," I joked as we reached the end of the road. We burst into laughter, still taking rapid breaths, cooling down from the run. To be continued.

We went trekking <3. We were awkward and quiet at first. But I was smiling and so was he and awkwardly staring at each other wasn't so bad.. I was taking in his face, his beard, his long hair tied halfway...Maybe he was taking in my face and my curly mess of hair..   "So how are you feeling, Mr. Waiter?" I ask, grinning. "Graced to be in your presence, Miss Artist!" We crack up. Soon we are chattering away comfortably, exchanging sarcastic jabs and I do not want to leave. We started going on dates every month. Both of us wanted more. Sometimes I visited his city, sometimes he visited mine. And sometimes we went on trips somewhere between our cities. When we went on trekking trips, he could not help but start singing along the way. We loved the hills. The air felt magical to us. And he sang so well. I could listen to him all day, nuzzling up in his chest, in his warm smell, feeling his chest vibrate in song. Who would have thought that I would get so lucky.. I...

I found him online, on a messaging app. He contacted me first and a random question was how it started. We were in the same group, a group where we discussed our artistic interests and shared our creations. He loved my quilling projects. And one day he directly messaged me. "Hey, Ashutosh here 😊." "Hello" "Do you make paper earrings?" "Yup" "😅 I was just curious...how did you start quilling?" "Ohhh. That started when I was gifted a quilling set... "......" ".........." And that was our first conversation. He told me that he was studying hotel management and was currently working as a waiter at a cafe. I found cafes romantic. I was someone who found romance even where one typically wouldn't look for it. But cafes *are* romantic. We had been dating online for a year and today we were going to meet. It was weird, I knew. Why I chose him, how did it happen, I could have found someone else offline right? But he...

It was raining tremendously and people on the streets were knee deep in rainwater. It thrilled me. I ran down the stairs against my mother's advice. She wasn't home but I knew that it would be against her advice. In the open, in a few seconds I was completely soaked. I thought of going to a nearby national park to enjoy this torrent amongst the trees.  I climbed up the path not made for humans. The mud and the leaves smelled beautiful. The wind blew against me, trying to topple me but I kept on climbing. The mud stuck to my shoes and made each step heavy. Out of nowhere, I heard a roar. Of thunder, probably. Ignoring it, I moved on. Out of my peripheral vision, I spotted something moving behind the bushes a feet away. My breath caught in my throat, stepping away, I casually started climbing down the hill, pretending that I hadn't seen it. After achieving only a few feet of distance, the creature leaped out of the bushes. It was something I had never really seen before, some...

It was the first time I was traveling by train, alone. I spent the first five minutes worrying about whether or not I got on the right train. I was arriving from my hostel to spend the vacation with my family. My heavy bag packed tight with only a few clothes, my five five-subject notebooks, and other knick-knacks and essentials, I held firmly in my lap.  A girl my age plopped down beside me and my face brightened hopefully for I wanted to strike up a conversation. I tried to think of a "small talk" question. Or you could just say 'Hey' first, you know. But that could come out weird. As my inner monologue ran thus, that girl beside me pulled out her phone from her side-bag and plugged in her earphones. Alas! I was just about to ask her her destination!  Everyone around looked too lost in themselves for small talk. I settled back and pulled out my own smartphone to finish the unfinished crossword on the app I had downloaded to improve my vocabulary.  One hour passed. ...

The road was flooded with waves of vehicles driving past. A sight that would scare someone just learning to drive. People were struggling to cross this road to reach the shopping mall on the other side of it. All the fun places in and around the city, and most people went to the mall for entertainment. The loud honking of vehicles was hurting my ears. I cringed at the noise. The really long queue at the bus stop resulted in people at the end of the queue occupying the benches on the footpath. Some passed the time playing games on their smartphones while some scrolled mind-numbingly through social media. The restaurant opposite the mall was crowded and noisy with a busy panipuri stall beside it. The panipuriwala deftly prepared the panipuris, one by one giving them to the crowd around him, who in turn chirped to him that they wanted it 'less meethha' or  'more teekha!' People exiting the mall with their trollies filled with shopping bags were contesting trying to get an ...

Why do ppl wear pants. Salwars are the most comfortable. They aren't firm against your skin anywhere except at the nada. They don't tear at the crotch cuz they are loose everywhere, they don't get pulled at the knees when you bend your legs. You can workout in them. Compared to pants, they are more creatively and smartly stitched. They balloon around your legs and so they are even more comfortable than palazzos and palazzos have more of a possibility of tearing at the crotch than salwar. Not even harem pants are that comfy cuz they are firm at the ankles. You can only feel salwar touching your skin and not 'pressing' anywhere. But salwar won't provide protection to the knees if you are pressing them to the floor in a workout. Unless the salwar is thick if that's possible, I guess it is..? But wait, those samurai pants are also loose. Okay, salwars may not be the best, I don't know all the kinds of bottoms there have been.

Staying at home. I miss going to college. One just can't interact online on the same level that one would, offline. You can't pass someone in the hallway and start talking to them. You can't casually greet and exchange a few words with acquaintances when you come across them. There isn't the same kind of chaos and liveliness on online meets as there is in classrooms. This is my first year and an entire semester has passed but I still don't feel much of a bond with my classmates. The sharing of stuff, roaming around, yelling across the classroom to answer someone, the spontaneous jokes, there is none of that. Moreover, we missed out on college trips that would have happened if there wasn't a lockdown.  College fests are happening but where is the nervous excitement, where are the colourful crowds?

Sleep deprivation. Even before coming to the trip, I was in a sleep deprived state but I hadn't realised how much. Waking up early for lectures, sleeping late wasting time, watching Netflix. I attended lectures in Lonavala as well. I had to wake up early to attend the 7:30 lecture and I don't think I slept sooner than 12. This sleep deprivation built up, making me feel heavy headed. This took my motion sickness to another level. By the time we reached Tiger point, I was barely holding myself together and I had already sobbed a little bit by that time, didn't vomit though. The sun was harsh and it felt really good roaming around. Monkeys were arriving there from the forest ahead. There were cattle roaming around. I walked right infront of the monkeys and looked at them. I see monkeys in Thane too, about once a year but it's so rare I gotta cherish every moment I get to see them. And cows, they have such a big calm presence, it is mesmerizing. People were surprised seeing...