And I lost her........

``What are you doing yaar? Get ready bhai. Girl’s father scheduled the meeting at 6:00 PM & you are still lying on the bed. `` Bhaiya got irked with my indifferent & languid demeanor.
Then Bhabhi started her lecture with a jest & smile, `` Panku Bhaiya, girl will not even see you & will reject you accusation of unpunctuality…..jaldi karo ``
`` Yes, and he will get another excuse for not getting married, he will say that girl didn’t even like him, how could he marry? `` Bhaiya joined bhabhi`s quip & laugh.

In few minutes, we were ready to leave for the garden, the meeting place.
As Bhaiya started driving the car, he asked me to call didi & jiju & tell them to start from their home.
As, we headed on the main road, I heard miffed cry of bhaiya, `` yaar, these traffic signals; I am telling you, we need more than 30 minutes to cover just 1 Km. `` and he stopped the car on the red-signal.
It was a signal of 60 seconds & we were in the first row of our side. Suddenly, I saw a group of eunuchs on other side of the light; pulling shirts, squeezing cheeks, misbehaving with families, gesticulating vulgarity with people, ill-treating girls & revealing body for money.
Suddenly, one of them came to our car with same bawdry & halloo, `` aaye –haaye, mere Salman Khan, mere chikne......kya shirt pahana hai, kya jeans hai, hame paise nahi dega kya?? Sara maal khud pe hi luta dega``.
As bhaiya snatched a ten rupee note from the pocket & extended his hand to her, I had a look on her & she had on me. For an instance, I lost somewhere & I guess, she too.
Suddenly, she withdrew her hand & left the place hastily without even taking money.

Bhaiya with surprise, `` Weird, she didn`t even take the money……Weird`` and changed the gear with green signal.
That moment of eye contact left me numb & dragged me in 10 years old mordant memories.
Ten years ago, I had a friend named Prerna.
Prerna………..the most radiant, decorous, amicable, obedient girl in the school.
Everyone was fond of her & I always wondered that how she manages all appreciation & success with such graciousness & simplicity.
She was my classmate, neighbor & more than everything my best friend.
We used to be with each other so much in the school & out of the school that couldn’t get time for anyone else. We used to play, fight, do home works, and have lunch together just like other best friends. With each other, we always felt dearth of provided time & plethora of unuttered words.
I still remember the day when 10th board results were out: she was topper of the school but lacked just 4 marks from the state merit & she was bawling like a failed student.
Then, we started 11th grade with different subjects & different aspirations. Being a competent and devoted doctor was her passion & everyone was confident of her triumph.
After 11th, we didn’t get enough time for each other due to different courses & her goals.
In new class & new environment, she got some new friends; Rani was one of them.
That girl was shrewd, unconventional & quite different from Prerna but was close to her somehow.
Gradually, their friendship grew & Rani started talking about physical & sexual changes, which she & other girls of her age were going through.
Prerna felt quite naive & irascible with this type of conversation & started shunning Rani. But prerna`s avoidance stoked up Rani`s nosiness & she started asking more questions & bantering more about these things. Gradually Prerna`s naivety started becoming insinuation & driving force for Rani`s suspect & derision.
Rani started blabbing about Prerna with other batch mates & everyone started beleaguering Prerna on her sexuality.
In response, she started bunking the classes due to fear of ribald gibes & boorish mockery.
Disconcerted with her regular absence from school, I went to her house to meet her.
``Prerna, what’s the issue? Why you are skipping the classes? Did you forget your goal? `` I inquired with pensive voice.
`` I don’t have any goal anymore. I don’t want to go school, don’t want to be the topper, and don’t want to be a doctor. Because, I am an impotent & impotent people don’t have any aspiration or social life. `` She blubbered with indignation & tears.
I couldn`t understand, what to do or what to say. This revelation & subsequent shock swallowed my consciousness & words.
She asked me again, `` God has done something wrong with me but why my own friends are doing this to me? Can’t they just shut their mouth & let me live my life? You have been my friend for last 10 years. You tell me, why our friendship was so strong? Whether, it was our congeniality, my nature, my qualities or my sexuality? ``
``Hey Prerna, I am your friend because of your virtues & I never thought that way. You will be my friend & I will be your support in any given circumstances. `` My throat was almost choked with these words.

I guess, my words relieved her a bit & she again tried to attend the classes and one day when we were leaving from school, some guys taunted her from back,`` Aye chhakke, where are you going with your boyfriend? You know, you are of no use to him. We have pity on this bloke, who wasted his 10 years with an eunuch. ``
She got infuriated with those jeers & started vituperating those guys, `` Behan****, fu** your as*. What he will do with me is not your fu****g concern. Go to hell, Mad*****d. ``
I couldn’t believe on those words. I couldn’t understand whether she is the same prerna, I used to adore, I used to know from last 10 years or someone else with low moral values & nauseating language?
That moment hurt me badly & we had a fight on her behavior & I decided to never see her again.
After victimizing her incessantly, people started preying her family and one day after getting exasperated from everything, her brother decided to get rid of this contumely & took lots of sleeping pills. He got survived by doctors but Prerna ended up being considered blight on family’s peace.
After losing a friend, she started losing support & concern of her family and one day her father decided to throw that curse to cursed community & called to an eunuch.
One day 4-5 Eunuchs came to her house; dragged her out of home with help of her parents & threw her in their car.
She wailed for her dignity, beseeched for her rescue but no one moved. Her parents seemed unwavering & obdurate. When this happened, I was also standing near her house, but couldn’t do anything except feeling sorry for her.
She wanted to be with her family, because she still loved them but for them she had turned into a curse from a sweet daughter & they repudiated her.

This incidence happened before ten years, but everything came in my mind in flash of a moment.
She was my best friend; I used to like her for her innocence; her principles; her courteous nature; her modesty.
And this Prerna, who just came to us on red-signal with smutty gestures and scurrilous language was someone very different.
Seeing your childhood mate after 10 years & in this condition would be nerve-racking for anyone & was so for me too.
She is different now; she is no more adorable; no more principled; no more decent; no more mannered as before.
And, who is responsible for this transition in her?
Whether her batch mates, Rani and society, who teased her, ridiculed her and made her parents callous enough to take that ruthless decision or her parents, who chose rescue for themselves & dark consequences for their sweet daughter and deserted her, when they were most needed or I, who withdrew his hand, when it was most needed?
We all abandoned her, when she was very vulnerable & needed us most.

After being thrown from home, she would have tolerated enumerable whips of merciless society, disgraceful remarks & other more offensive stuffs. That community would have taught her its ways, its language, its tactics even after her resistance.
And, when she was going through this phase, no one was there to support her or rescue her from that hell; neither me nor her family.

She was never impotent; impotent was her brother for not having enough audacity to save his sister from obscene remarks; impotent were her parents for not having enough mettle to accept the truth & their loved daughter; and impotent was I for not having enough faith in her & in my abilities to defy the circumstances.
If she were stayed with her family & led a normal life with her impotency, she would have become a great doctor without loosing her graciousness & allegiance.
But, remarks of people & our apathy converted her into what she is now.
Bereavement of losing her elegance was more than that of losing a friend because I used to love that demureness more than my friend.
She was more brilliant than any other normal person; more proficient of doing welfare of herself & society, just was incapable in having sex.
But having sex is not the ultimate goal of humankind; we are not meant for having sex only; reproduction is not the best way to serve the humankind or is it?

We have a large number of Prernas in our society, who first become victim of sloppiness of God and then scoff of human; then we accuse them of being vulgar and finally stigmatize their community as one of the most despicable community.

``Panku, what happened yaar, why your face is so pale & eyes are wet?? Are you alright bhai? `` bhaiya asked me with shuddering my shoulders.
``Yaa, I am good bhaiya. Actually, bahot pahale ek sher likha tha, wo dimaag me aa gaya, isiliye…. ``I accused my poetry for my tears as always & got off at the entrance of garden with these lines in mind, ``
Jisne bhi khuda hone ka dawa kiya, wo patthar ban ke rah gaya……
Naa dil paseeja, naa aansu hi bahe or Namaji sir patakta rah gaya…..``

She considered me Khuda of her life & how did I react on her pledge of saving her from that brutality except being petrified at that moment?


I want to apologize for using some bad words in the story, but had to do it on the demand of the story.

Critics & their categorical comments are most welcomed.
I would appreciate detailed comments on storyline, lucidity, flow, language, writing style and anything else that comes in your mind........