Thinking of You

~ 𝔸𝕦𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕣'𝕤 ℕ𝕠𝕥𝕖 ~

Hey 'Thinking of You' Readers!

I hope you all are doing well.

We all have successfully completed the journey of this book and I'm so happy about it that you all were with me in this journey throughout. This note is just a 'Dil ki baat' that I'm sharing with you all.

I know I'm a writer with my own limitations. There are many things that keep me bound and I cannot touch certain areas while writing. But I do try to give you all a good reading experience with whatever I have. In this writing journey, I started with 'Ummeedein' first, then 'Sapno Ka Shaher' and now 'Thinking of You'. In all these books, writing 'Ummeedein' and 'Thinking of You' were indeed tough for me. 'Thinking of You' being the toughest. The reason behind this being that both these stories are based on off-screen people... real life people... our favorites Ashi and Randeep. Being a writer, there's always a fear of hurting people's sentiments in such cases. There's always a fear of offending people as whatever I write about these two or whatever statements or opinions I put here from a narrator's perspective, there is a chance of people associating all this to real personalities. And even if being a writer gives you the right to stir the entire system, me being such a tiny part of it, I don't want people to carry some misconceptions in their mind.

I started thinking about this story in June-July this year. It was not in my mind to construct a full-fledged story, but I just used to think from various angles as to what discussion must have taken place between Ashi and Randeep when they put that reel and then just nothing happened. Yupp, you can say that even being a non-shipper, I too was equally invested in this 'reels' thing. I would just write down a few points and forget about it. But thanks to Ashi and Randeep that they literally did nothing for months, or let's say for an entire year. I still debated a lot with myself whether I should really publish it or not, it was probably meant to be preserved in the draft and then just delete it whenever we would get even one reel. But as the time passed, I realized that this may not just happen now and I felt this urge to give it a closure at least from my side. And I gradually started developing this story, without giving any hint to the readers up to the 5th chapter as to what it was exactly about.

Well, I hope I was able to keep you thinking about it. (or tell me the chapter number when you got the hint that it could be this.)

There's also a selfish motive to write this story. One of the reasons behind this is our Protagonist Ashi Singh. Not the character from my story but the real one. We all have seen Ashi being full of positivity all the while. We have always seen her smiling, speaking only good things and dealing with every situation so maturely. We have often heard from her co-artists that she doesn't get angry at all and always has a positive approach towards things. Personally, I really admire Ashi for this trait of hers, because I can't even go closer to what she is at this age. I used to wonder if this is 'toxic positivity', that you just can't see wrong in anything. It may be somewhat true given her latest New Year segment, where she claims that she wants to face the problems instead of ignoring them. But you can't deny the fact that she's still so good at heart. Which I can never be in my life. Personally, I always prefer to be human, to be raw and organic. I generally prefer to showcase all the layers of human nature in my stories, instead of showing them as perfect or idealistic. And this is why I've made Ashi's character vent out her frustration in both my stories 'Ummeedein' and 'Thinking of You'. Something I see as a normal human tendency. Sorry for being a bit selfish here.

Friends do play a major role in our lives, they always have at least a 'say' in what's going on in our lives, what are we doing with our life. They have the right to scold us, to point our mistakes to us, fight with us and still remain our friends. I don't know what Ashi and Randeep's real life friends' take was on this entire scenario, but I definitely wanted it in my story. So yupp, friends were there for a reason.

This time the chapters were much longer than my usual length of the chapters. Because this time, I wanted to focus more on the thinking process behind every action. I wanted to show the backstory of how that particular person reached a level that he/she said something or did something. I wanted to emphasize more on emotions. And hence I tried this POV style for the first time.

But even if the chapters are longer, I have avoided spoon feeding everything to readers. In all the individual POV chapters, I've left some open lines(not in literal meaning) for readers to think. I don't want you to read what's just shown at the surface level, but I want you all to read the subtext behind the scenes. I want you all to read and understand something that wasn't necessarily written and explained, but it was still there. Why the individual POV chapters used to end in a particular manner; why the characters recalled only some specific memories at some particular point, how those memories affected their lives; how their emotions transitioned over the period of one year; when exactly they answered to their friends looking at their eyes and when they averted the gaze; and the kind of choices they both made when cornered and questioned by their friends. And of course, eventually... their character journey. I want you all to look through all these and understand what the author ultimately wanted to tell, but didn't.

Regarding one loose end that I deliberately kept in the story for readers to point out, but only one reader could find it and ask me about it, or only she 'asked'. I expect readers to be a little vocal, but.... Nevermind... To the question of why Ashi didn't confront about the message she dropped in May to Randeep OR why Randeep didn't reply to her even after reading the message. So the answer. I've given subtle hints about that situation in the last chapter, when it's a bit of Randeep's POV. I've mentioned that when Mrinal was tested positive for covid, Randeep had lost his senses and became panicked. He had isolated himself from the rest of the world. And it was during the same time of May. So even if he had seen that message, he wasn't in the proper state of mind to actually perceive it properly. And then, it was just forgotten.

Why didn't Ashi clear it? Well, she just didn't feel the need. Just the way she didn't tell that she was calling him the whole night, she didn't tell this too. Defending herself wasn't necessary for her at that moment. Since she was right there at his home, the things that happened in the past just turned redundant. And It happens in real life too that we realise it much later ki hum toh yeh kehna hi bhul gaye.... So... Just like that.

Coming clean at the end for both the characters was important to me. There is such a realistic comment by a reader under a chapter, that so much has happened in real life that we may never know. Of course, we may never be able to. But like the lyrics of the song, we all just skip to the good part of it. During my research for this story, I came across many such things and formed my theories on it. But in no case, I wanted to show a particular person wrong. It is after all just a fiction, and I wanted this story to have a particular graph of emotions. And in this process, several scenarios were altered, scenes were edited out, dialogues were simplified and multiple ideas were literally dropped. But I definitely enjoyed this challenge a lot. It was my test as a writer and you let me know if I did a fair justice to it or not.

Lastly, thank you all for taking out your precious time and reading my story. I will always be grateful to you all. This time, we had less voters and less commenters but more silent readers. Fair enough. Thanks to all those who honestly gave me the feedback and thanks to those too who said that they found my story very real. Yupp, I like to write it that way. Extremely sorry to those who were looking for some romantic moments. Lekin aisi story me romance kaha pe aur kya hi likhu aap hi batao!!! For a bonus chapter or epilogue.... Well, it may lose its uniqueness of the story given the concept it was designed with. So I'm extremely extremely sorry to all those who were hoping for it. But trust me, you people asking me for it was such a satisfying moment for the writer in me.

Signing off for now...

My Samaina story 'Sapno ka Shaher' will resume shortly.

Thanks for all the love and Support.

Mugdha

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