Rhythms of soul - a short story collection

Friend request

'Friend request' the red icon popped as Manasvi sat staring at her boring facebook wall. She absent mindedly clicked on it. 'Abhay Sethi' it said. She tried to recall if she knew any such person. Not a childhood friend, not a school mate, nor her college buddy...nope, she didn't know him. She ignored it and logged out.

Since she got married two months back, Manasvi was finding it very tough to pass the entire day alone in this huge flat. Her husband, whom she hardly knew was either in the office till late night or was away on official tours. Her parents and in laws stayed far away, in Akola, and she was finding it rather difficult to adjust to this new life in Mumbai. Since she was a child, Manasvi had dreamt that she would get married to the man of her dreams in a grand, lavish wedding and then walk into the sunset hand in hand with him for a happily ever after. As she grew up, she realized all this was not possible in the literal sense, but still she hoped she would get a good professional degree, find a nice job, maybe fall in love with a colleague and then get married...But real life proved to be quite reverse. She was just out of college when her father took seriously ill. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and the chemotherapy sessions began costing a fortune. Her dad's boss of twenty years helped a lot financially, and as a pay back, her father promised her hand for his son. Of course it was the best match her parents could ever find for her. Rishi was soft spoken, kind hearted, well educated, well behaved guy with a nice cushy job and own apartment in Mumbai. He was a thorough gentleman. But Manasvi was not yet ready for marriage, and for her he was a complete stranger. She wanted to get to know him first, and then take the next step. She even told him about her wish. But she could not say no to her dad as he wanted to see her getting married off while he was still alive and his days were now numbered. So within 8 days, she was married to Rishi and sent off to Mumbai.

From the time they came to Mumbai, Rishi had been very busy with his job. Yet he was very gentle towards her. He had employed maids round the clock for cooking and cleaning so that Manasvi could just relax. He made all efforts to make her comfortable. He would take her out on weekends. But still, they missed the most important thing in married life...conversation. Rishi sometimes tried to make her open up, but she couldn't get herself to be free with him. She needed time...and space, and he respected that. She badly missed her carefree college days, the girls hangouts together, the stay overs and late night gossips. Here she had no friends at all and life seemed getting duller day by day.

Manasvi looked at the wall clock. It had just stuck 8 pm. Rishi was still not home. Dinner was ready but she was not hungry yet. With nothing else to do, she logged onto facebook again. There was a new notification. 'Abhay Sethi is following you'. Now her curiosity was piqued. She went back to his timeline and opened his profile pic. It showed a handsome guy, about her age, wearing casual tees and denims, standing near some waterfall. She didn't recognize him. She tried to click on 'About' section but nothing more was entered other than 20 yrs and male. She thought for a moment and then accepted his friendship request.

'Thanks for accepting my friendship request' a message from Abhay Sethi popped up.

'You are welcome, but do we know each other?' she typed back.

'We went to the same college, though I was in commerce stream and two years junior to you' he typed back.

'Oh...sorry didn't recognize' she typed back.

'No problem. So hows life?'

She didn't know what to reply to this. 'Good' she typed.

'I heard you got married' he said.

'Yeah, I am in Mumbai now'.

'Okgood...hadn't expected you to get married so soon though J'.

Manasvi was astonished at his judgemental statement.