Living The Now (Chapter 1)

Chapter 1

“Come with me, it’ll be fun. Do you really want to spend the evening with a bunch of juniors??” He said.

“You know I don’t. But it’s Tamana’s birthday, and she’ll kill me if I don’t,” I told him laughingly.

“Fine! Do spend time with me. I’m leaving you now.” His tone was of mock anger.

“Whatever  yaar.” I laughed him off and watched him stomp off.

I then started making my way to the girls’ dormitory where I could hear—

“Jess!”

The yell pulled me back from my reverie. It was Tamana. Only this was real. This was the present.

“I’ll be down in 5, Tamana.” I yelled back.

A quick dab of lip gloss, a brush through my hair and I was ready. Picking up my cell phone along the way I made my way downstairs to where my friends were waiting. Outside the room I took one last look at the phone’s screen to seek if I had any calls or messages I had somehow missed. Nothing. Before the disappointment could hit me I took a deep breath to compose to compose myself and entered the room.

The room was packed with people I knew. The moment they saw me enter they all started singing the birthday song.

Yup, it was my birthday.

Once the wailing was over, my friends all pulled me into hugs and wished me. Stuffing my hands with presents which I was putting on the couch besides me. After about half an hour of ‘Happy Birthday!’s and ‘How are you?’s and ‘You looks beautiful’s, it seemed I’d been wished by everyone.. The couch besides me was overflowing and some of the presents had even fallen off it. Appreciating the moment of solitude I finally had and wanting to quench my thirst I made my way to the kitchen where i could see one of the servants serving coke.

Halfway to my destination, a comet seemed to hit me. The force with which Samara leaped at me to hug me was equivalent to that of a comet.

“Birthday girl!!” she yelled in my ear.

“Hi Samara, are you having fun?” I asked her politely.

“Duh not, idiot. How can I enjoy when my bestest friend in the world isn’t?” She pouted at me. “Come on Jess, it’s your birthday. Your SIXTEENTH birthday. We’ve been dreaming of the perfect sixteenth bash since, like, forever! You gotta enjoy to make ‘the perfect’ bash!”

“I am enjoying,” I said, plastering a huge fake smile on my face. “I am, yaar, just on the inside.” I said trying to convince her.

She stuck her tongue out at me and started pulling me towards the staircase which lead to the balcony. “Come on,” she said. “The others are waiting for you upstairs.”

“What others?” I asked in an, unintentional, high pitch yell. “Don’t tell me there are more people out there. How many people have you invited, anyway? Seems like everyone from the school is in here.”

“Chill, Jessie darling,” she says with a wink. “By the others I meant Jeh, Tamana and Rishab. And we’ve just called sixty-five people. It was difficult to reduce the numbers to this.” A dramatic sigh followed. Yup, expect the drama from Samara.

I snorted at her remark. Difficult? 65 people. No one in their right mind would invite so many people to a birthday party. But then Samara wasn’t exactly the Smartest of all. As she lead me ahead, I thought of my friends.

Jeh Shahi, My official best friend. We had been besties since we met at our dads’ joint venture’s inauguration party. We were instantly drawn together for two reasons. First- We were the only two kids at this boring party full of constructors and shareholders. Second- Our dads were just about desperate to get us chatting as we were expected to spend a lot more time together when we met, which would be often, considering that our dads were now planning another venture. Anyways, once we got talking, he turned out to be one of the most genuine people I’d met. Sometimes when you meet people, you just click with them. It was like that for us and by the time it was time to leave, we were eager for another one of these ‘boring’ parties. We’ve shared countless arguments and fight since that party which was about an year and a half back. I never hesitated in saying that he was one friend I never wanted to lose.

Samara and Tamana were twins. They were also my close friends, not as close as Jeh, but close enough. I was more comfortable with Samara. I’d known her most of my life. Our mothers had been college buddies. When we were in class five our mothers decided that we weren’t independent and responsible enough (as if!) and shipped us off to Boarding school in Ooty. We spent six and a half years in that school before we were called back. We knew each other inside out.

Tamana, had also been with us at the boarding school, but she’d been in a different group. She was just a friend of mine. There wasn’t any major ‘bonding’ because I’d always been very hesitant around her. Things improved a bit on account of Samara and Jeh getting involved in a ‘special friendship’.

Rishab. Let’s just leave him be. I didn’t want to discuss him and ruin my mood.

They were laughing when we entered. But shut up the moment they saw me. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously as I saw the innocent look on Jeh’s face.

“So you’ve remembered us finally?” Tamana said, with a hint of amusement in her voice.

“It’s a miracle I’m alive after you left me to face that army.” I replied, laughing openly, as they laughed with me. “You guys should’ve at least given me a warning there were gonna be so many people. I thought it was just twenty people or so.”

“It had to be huge idiot. A girl doesn’t turn sixteen every day.” Jeh spoke out, that innocent look gone. “Besides, Jeh Shahi’s best friend can’t be having a party with just twenty people. You know it’s about my reputation as well. I’ve got to maintain it.”

We all burst out laughing at that. “What did you say Jeh? ‘Reputation’? To maintain a reputation you must have a reputation.” I couldn’t keep myself from remarking.

“I’m not gonna say anything today cause it’s your special day” he said, which caused more laughter.

“Oh mighty Jeh Shahi,” I said, with sarcasm lacing my words, “thank you for gracing us with your presence! If you hadn’t come, my whole party would be ruined. Thank you.” And I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Do you want your gift or should I toss it in the bin? I spent a lot of time on it, so i sure don’t want it going wasted.” He said with an irritated look on his face, which I knew would be gone in a moment. Jeh couldn’t be mad at me.

“Give it here, you moron!” I said, “It’s mine.” And I snatched it from him.

It was rectangular and covered in purple decorative paper. It felt kind of heavy so I shook it to see if it was a box with something. No noise. “Open it” Jeh urged me, fuelling my curiosity. I tore the paper away carefully and opened it, to see some sort of leather bound book. On the cover were the word ‘To the bestest friend I have, my memories.’ Opening it I saw a picture of us he had taken at that party we met.

Jeh was an amazing photographer. He could make ugly look beautiful. He just had a thing with cameras, as if the camera knew what he wanted and always gave him that. His pictured caught the light, the surroundings and even the feelings of the person perfectly. And like a dedicated photographer, he carried his camera everywhere and took pictures of everything and anything.  He had even convinced his father to set out one room from the house they had which was his dark room, where he developed pictures on a daily basis.

As I flipped through the pages of the scrapbook, I was taken by surprise on many pages. I’d seen some of the pictures he’d put in, but most of them took me by surprise.  Every picture had a caption below it stating the date and place. He’d put in pictures of almost every day we’d spent together, right up to last night at midnight when he walked into my room to wake me up and wish me happy birthday, just so he’d be the first one to wish me in person.

When I was through with it, I gave Jeh the tightest hug I could muster.

“Well,” Rishab’s voice reminded me that we had company and we immediately pulled away. “My gift could never measure up to Jeh’s, but still.” With that he handed me a small rectangular package. On opening it was revealed to be a set of limited edition Parker pens. 

“Thanks, they’re really nice. I’d been thinking of getting them but didn’t get the time.” I replied with a polite smile. With the present circumstances, that was the maximum I could manage for him considering I didn’t even want to see his face.

“Okay now we gotta get back to party, before people realise we’ve stolen you.” Samara said and pulled me back into the house towards the sixty-five people waiting for me.

(Criticize will all your heart people.. wherever you find a fault... Please!!)