Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya

Chanderi was pining. There was no other word for it.

It had been two days since Chiranjeev had told her he would be busy this week because his school had exams going on. It would be an exhausting time and he may not be able to chat with her as much. She had brushed the whole thing away, feeling a bit strange that he had felt the need to apprise her of what was happening. Surely, if they didn’t chat for a day or two or seven it would be okay?

Wrong. She had been so wrong. Until two days ago, she hadn’t realised just how often and how much the two of them had chatted on an everyday basis. She still got his cheesy morning messages. He had taken to sending her photos of random things at home with the greeting. Once, she had woken up to a photo of a kadi patta. She had laughed so loud her mother had run into the room, wondering if she was being attacked by something.

But those morning messages weren’t enough. She was used to not hearing from him until 4 or 5; he would return from school around then. Once he was home though, her phone would ping relentlessly. She had taken to keeping it on silent to avoid questions from her parents.

There were so few messages now, she felt antsy. It was ridiculous. She had work. She had to finalise the organza saree and then help with the costumes for a bachelorette and…the list was endless. And here she was, staring at her phone, hoping it would ping or ring. And it did neither.

So, she did something she had never thought she would do. She called Pihu for advice.

Pihu, the good friend that she was, said nothing about her friend’s odd behaviour or her demand that Chiranjeev, a friend, leave everything to entertain her. “You could message him.”

Chanderi rolled her eyes but she didn’t say anything. Pihu wasn’t wrong. Since he wasn’t messaging her, she too wasn’t sending any messages to him. “What do I send though?”

“I don’t know. What do you usually send him?”

She thought about it for a minute. “Fabric swatches. Design screenshots. Teaching memes. Those are my favourite. Uh…what else? Let me think.”

Had she been able to see Pihu, she would have seen her incredulity. “Fabric swatches? Really? Why?”

“He sends the best comments on them. It’s hilarious.”

It was Pihu’s turn to roll her eyes. It was a good thing they were not face to face. Her expressions would have told Chanderi what she really thought of this friendship. She didn’t want to pressurise her by such thoughts though. She was liking the fact that her friend was discovering the first rush of love and didn’t want to hurry the pace. There was nothing better than feeling that settled feeling of being in love with someone. She wanted her friend to reach there and experience it, if that is what was happening, at her own pace.

“So maybe send him some swatches?”

They spoke for some more time and once she had kept the phone, she realised she was overthinking the whole thing. If he could continue the tradition of sending her weird morning messages, she could send him messages too.

I have always wanted to work with wool but it’s so hot in Bombay, I never get a chance.

She sent the message with the picture of a cute sheep. She stared at it for so long after sending it, she almost deleted it but then the grey ticks turned into blue ticks and he had already seen the message and she was out of time.

Do you need your own sheep to source the wool?

She laughed and replied to his message. It occurred to her then that maybe, just maybe, he had been waiting for her to message him first. That thought made her inordinately happy.

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Chapter 16 of 26 of the ongoing series Chanderi. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.