Yeah yeah I know, no post for over an year and now I have 2 in a day. As I mentioned in my other post on Sir Sachin Tendulkar, I was so pre-occupied with other stuff that i could not devote time to writing. Enough of all my melodrama, lets get straight to the topic of today's post- 2 states - Can I claim its my story?
First of all I had not read Chetan Bhagat's 2 states but watched the movie yesterday. I must congratulate Abhishek Verman for such a simple yet elegant movie. I must also commend the performances of Alia and and Arjun and a special mention for Ronit Roy for such a fine performance.No prizes for guessing that me and my better half had planned for this movie long ago. We had seen the trailer together about 2 months ago and knew that this is the movie we ought to watch - Why, because its the story of my life, oh sorry the story of our life.
In the movie Arjun falls in love with Alia in IIM A. I could not wait that long though, I fell in love with this girl when I was 15. We were both in the same school but different sections. So we hardly saw each other but still whenever I could get a chance I made full use of it. I still remember I used to wait on our school ground for 10-15 minutes in the morning so that I could walk behind her to the class cherishing each glimpse of her's on the way. She still has not admitted that she knew I would be waiting there every morning, she says she started noticing me when we were 17, common man can you believe this. Anyways, this waiting game continued for about an year - I kept waiting for her in the morning, found reasons to go to her class, made some common friends but still did not have the courage to talk to her. I even started taking rounds of her house especially whenever there was a power cut since i knew she would be sitting in her lawn. No man i was not a stalker, I was rather a kid who really liked a girl but did not have the courage to tell her.
Time went by and I got busy with the board preparations. To my surprise I topped the board exams in my school and was even among the 0.1 % students who got a perfect score in Maths in the CBSE board. I felt like a stallion (Rocky fan) and went to the next level to impress her. Soon she noticed me(that's what she says) and started giving it a thought. The missed call game started and one fine day I said "Listen i know who you are and you know who I am so lets chuck this game" . She kept the phone and I thought gosh what have I done. Did I screw everything up? Did I do all this too soon? Should I have given it a little more time? I had been contemplating for 6 hours when my phone rang and the rest is history.
We fell in love when we were 17 and it is only growing with each passing day. We had an eventful Junior college and an even better college life. After graduating from our respective colleges, we happened to get jobs in the same city. What more could you ask from the Almighty. You guys must be wondering where is the connection with 2 states, let me explain in a bit. Did I mention that she is a Brahmin and I am from a typical Punjabi family? Her parents asked her for a couple of marriage proposals when we were 23 and she had to finally tell them about me, As expected her parents did not approve of this and the serene love story turned into a tumultuous one. It took her 2 years to convince her family. I lost count of the number of times she cried in these two years but she never lost hope, the hope of getting married to me, but she stood like a soldier willing to die but not to give up. She finally managed to convince them and now it was my turn. I cannot boast that I played any part in convincing her parents as Arjun did in the movie. I talked to my mother and just as in the movie the Punjabi drama started, its true we Punjabis are very emotional, very ostentatious and very melodramatic. Just as every other boy in the country, I did not have the guts to speak directly to my dad. All sorts of questions were asked - you are too young, you are not settled, we are Punjabis how will we adjust with a Brahmin family, please focus on your studies. I answered all the questions but my parents were not convinced. I thought its better that the parents meet and discuss the solutions but it was probably a mistake. The parents met and everything that happened in the movie happened in our life too.
Good movies are made so that people can connect to it . 2 states is not just a good movie, its a reflection of the last 10 years of my life. I did not want to write a 5000-10000 word post but simply put everything that's shown in the movie happened in our lives too, the movie is simple and so are our lives. I just hope my love story has the same fate as the movie's.