Twelve Weeks of You

Week One

Week One

"Karna!" "Karna!" "Karna!" The chant grew louder with each second and perhaps if someone had cheered the original Karna on his final battle in Mahabharat with the same passion, who knows, he might have saved himself from being killed by Arjun's wrath.

Karna poured the bittersweet beer in his body faster than the October rain falling on the ground as the chants turned into a haze of drunken laughter. Not everyone realized how twisted it was that his parents named him after Karna, the cursed warrior from the great Mahabharat who died as he was born and lived; always in the pain of being misunderstood. Orphan, a hidden king who never got a chance to obtain his birthright and cursed in ways so similar that it looked like all who touched his name would be cursed too.

Certainly, the twenty-two-year-old Karna felt so.

Maybe no one looked into the pervasion of his name because nobody could connect the dots they never saw. He was as mysterious as the dead warrior, and he made sure it stayed that way.

Until of course, his Maami decided to cut off his 'pocket money' because the therapy she had to take 'because' of him had drained all the funds and now it was just enough left for his tuition and whatnot. He wanted to laugh at her face when she told him this three years into college, she had lasted longer than he expected her to. But this had forced him to get a job, move out of the hostel and in with his best friends, a decision he didn't like because it forced a test on a friendship he wasn't ready to lose.

Karna was on his fifth beer now and he knew he could easily go with five more. The beer had numbed his mouth completely and at this stage, the lights shun a little brighter and he was beginning to forget how feet felt like. He looked up to see a certain set of eyes pleading, he wanted to stick his tongue out. Like hell, he would let those pleading eyes win. 

But then they took out something silvery and glittery and Karna felt his feet return and ready to surrender. That is how smooth Rooman was. He always knew exactly how much to give and how much to pull back.

The chants of Karna's name started to die down as his head shook. His wavy mess of black hair rocked as he stopped a few sips short of his fifth beer, faking a groan that colored his entire face. To top the act off,  he burped loudly and the next sound he heard was a set of boo's and another ride of chants, but these time for Rumi.

She finished her fifth beer and slammed the bottle hard on the table as sudden applause filled the room. "Rumi! Rumi! Rooman Ki Rumi!" By the time the third chant was carried off in the air, Rooman had wrapped his muscular arms around Rumi's thin waist and had twirled her, her dark eyes shining with beer glee. Her hair, cut in all random waves shook wild, as her slender arms wrapped around Rooman's broad shoulder.

"I knew you would defeat Karna, Rumi!" He spoke, letting his body slide down back to her feet but in a process so slow and sexual, letting their bodies rub against each other in all modesty; their chemistry is what titled them the name 'Rooman ki Rumi'.

Rooman with his athletic body and soft puppy dog eyes, his face always clean-shaven and his words like extra butter on a hot paratha, soft and comforting and Rumi, the exact opposite of her name. As soon as she had realized she was named after a poet, she distanced herself from becoming poetry till she became a satire that juxtaposed everything and everyone. Even Romaan.

Her hair never touched her breasts and she spoke constitution numbers more than philosophy. She was so averse to poetry, she once puked on Rooman's face when he started narrating a stolen Faiz Ahmed Faiz's couplet to woo her.

He never called her Mehboob again.

They fitted against each other so perfectly on their good days, that it was hard to see them apart. But only on the good days, on the bad ones, they were both walking granites, any wrong movement and they would blow each other off. Burning along whoever came to touch. Karna had his experience with that.