Something Special

  “O, teach me how I should forget to think ……” – Romeo.

Gaurav threw a glance at the manuscript in his hand and took a deep helpless breath.

The Siri Fort Auditorium, set in the heart of New Delhi, was filled to capacity. The packed theatre waited breathlessly for the upcoming performances. The outgoing 2012 batch of The Dance and Drama Academy was staging the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ tonight.  

The institute boasted of producing talent in theatre and art for more than fifty years. Students strived to get entry into the various courses at the insti and when they graduated, they merged in mainstream art with smooth transition. The final play of the outgoing batch was always a highlight of the year as it was attended by almost all the famous and known names in the field. This gave a chance to newcomers to showcase their talent. 

The play was about to start.

For a moment, Gaurav felt like disappearing somewhere. The urgent need to play the main lead of the show and to be under the focus of the spotlight was unexpectedly replaced by an escapist’s desperate desire to run away and avoid everyone who was waiting eagerly to witness his performance, for no one knew that Gaurav Khandelwal, the hero, playing ‘the Romeo’ in the musical play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ had stage-fright of highest category.

Shruti, the ‘Juliet’, had been observing Gaurav since evening. The obvious change in his behaviour couldn’t go unnoticed. But she tried not to talk about it. She simply couldn”t.

It was an irony that the lead actors, ‘Romeo’ and ‘Juliet’ playing the lead roles in the classic play by Shakespeare, did not even talk to each other in reality. In fact, everybody was convinced that they hated each other. There was no camaraderie, no friendship and not even a cordial relationship between the two from day 1 of the rehearsals. The aloofness was mutual and evident. Initially, their team had tried a few times to bridge the gap between them but all attempts had been futile with no response from either of them.

Gaurav had been extremely confident about playing the part when he was selected. He had devoted endless hours of practice in his role, had memorized long poetic lines by-heart, acted in front of mirror and had rehearsed untiringly. All was going well, until he came to the auditorium today and witnessed the crowd.

The moment he threw a glance at the occupied seats and saw his parents, family, relatives and friends sitting among the audience, he found himself feeling jittery once again. His confidence shattered and his determination came crumbling down to pieces before him.

The more he observed the crowd from backstage, the more he was reminded of his numb finger tips and sweating palms. His lips quivered as he bit onto them mercilessly.

The leading lady, Shruti, remained a silent witness to his restlessness. After getting completely ready, she entered the stage to have a ‘final feel’ before the curtains slid open and the show began but realized that ‘Romeo’ wasn’t even completely ready. She felt irritated for a moment and couldn”t stop herself this time. Unexpectedly, she walked towards an unassuming Gaurav.

He had been leaning on a wall and observed the crowd through the space between the seams of the curtains. Apart from that, he was busy tapping his feet anxiously and mutilating his lip between his teeth. The moment he heard footsteps behind him, he turned and was astonished to see her approaching towards him.

This had never happened before. They had never talked about anything, at all…….apart from rehearsing their lines robotically. Whenever they rehearsed on stage, they would become absolutely comfortable and acted like professionals, as true lovers, but off-stage, they would immediately turn strangers.

“Gaurav, are you nervous ?” Shruti whispered with a concern as she came closer to him.

The cold vibes between them were almost palpable. There was no room for any conviviality in present circumstances too.

“None of your concern.” He snapped back at her.

Either it was due to his persistent denial of the situation or because of the fact that Shruti was talking about it…… he wasn’t clear why he replied in a rude tone. Usually, he wasn’t that arrogant or offensive to others. For a moment he wondered why he behaved repugnantly with Shruti, but still, he didn”t care to apologise. He shrugged and moved away.

Leaving her taken aback, he walked off the stage towards the green room.

The first bell rang….

The curtains slid open with the Prologue recitation and the play commenced before the packed audience. The characters playing the Montague and Capulet clan began their part. The actors mesmerized the spectators, right from the initial few dialogues.

In the green room…..

Gaurav clasped and unclasped his fingers, waiting for his turn and closed his eyes trying to calm down his racing heart beats but to his astonishment, the feeling kept increasing. It was going to be difficult to face the crowd, act before them and speak sufficiently loud so that the dialogues sounded clear and audible. He feared fumbling and shaking on the stage. Once again, he buried his face in his palms as he sat frozen in his chair.

A soft knock at the door startled him.

“5 minutes more to go, Gaurav !” Shruti informed him in slow, deliberate words.

He was infuriated. This time-closing was only going to increase the pressure over him. He already knew that it was 5 more minutes to go and he also wondered what must have made Shruti walk up to him to talk about his weakness.

“She must be relishing the perfect scenario to mock at me and watch me struggle with my fear and nervousness.” He thought.

Angrily, he stood up to shove her away. But she kept standing where she was, undeterred. She was holding a glass of water in her hand which she raised before him.

“I don’t want anything. Please go. I told you that it is none of your concern.” He couldn’t remember if he had ever been this rude to anyone before today. But having to watch Shruti witness him in a   vulnerable state was an extreme torture for him, even more than his fear.

Shocked at his behaviour, Shruti slowly left the room without speaking anything more.

After a while, Gaurav glanced at the mirror and walked out of the room with almost shaking legs. As he took a turn at the corridor, he heard Shruti talking to someone on her phone, making him halt in his tracks. She was huddled up against the wall in a corner and was speaking in soft, shaking tone.

“Ma, I’m so nervous. Yeah, I know I have practiced a lot but I have this strange stage-fear…….I don”t know if I can deal with it……”

Gaurav’s feet froze where they were and he couldn’t move away. Shruti was talking about stage fear ??!!!.

She continued, “Yeah, I know, it’s very common. Shekhar sir, our director, told me that even senior public speakers, so many actors and politicians have suffered from the same. Still, they overcome it and face the crowd to deliver long performances and speeches. Please bless me Ma. Pray that I have the strength to overcome my phobia.”

Her tone was nervous and she appeared edgy. Immediately, Gaurav felt like extending support to her but didn’t move even for an inch. What could he tell her, when he himself was suffering from the same fear. Moreover, they had never been on talking terms. Just a moment back he had shunned her away from his room…..

Slowly her tone changed to a one with confidence, with clear strong words and positive energy.

“But you don’t worry Ma. I won’t let you down. I am just going to ignore the world and the audience beyond the stage….. and perform for myself…..just myself !! I love what I’m doing….. and I’ve been really good at rehearsals……I’ll just close my eyes and remember the hard work that I have invested in past one month…..I’ll just remember that it has been my dream and the time has come to realize it…..I’ll try to give my best…… you know, my team is awesome and the guy who is playing Romeo is too good. He is simply the best. I know that if I falter, I’ll look at him and hold my ground. Just wish me luck.”

Gaurav kept listening blankly…….and was baffled….

Did she really think that he was the best ? Did she really hoped to look up to him and also hoped to gain strength from him ? Him ?

How confidently she told her Ma that she will do her best !!   

Her growing confidence smacked upon his lack of the same and he stood still, without uttering even a word. He desperately needed self conviction and a ray of hope just came from the supposed enemy.

Suddenly, he decided to talk to her. As he turned towards her, Shruti turned too, looked at him and appeared surprised.

“Let’s go. It’s time.” She murmured, trying to avoid any talks and trying to go away from him.

She immediately turned away to walk in the corridor towards the stage. Gaurav walked with her, gathered courage and said, “Shruti…”

“Yeah, Gaurav !!”

“I want to talk to you …..”

“About what ?” She looked at him in surprise.

“I need to apologise.”

“It’s alright, Gaurav.” Shruti continued to walk faster and Gaurav followed her a little behind her

“Err ……. Let me do it……please !! I’m extremely sorry for the way I behaved……”

“Don’t bother……..It happens in stress……”

“The apology is not only for today……I’m sorry for being rude since the day we started rehearsing.”

Undertones of honesty and sincerity were so clearly evident in his apology that he was surprised with himself. This was the first time that Shruti felt any warmth in their conversation.

Shruti smiled amiably and replied, “It wasn’t just your fault Gaurav, I was reserved too……”

“Still……… I was always so cold towards you….didn’t you wonder ‘why’ ?” He asked earnestly.

“I have tried to guess……..” she replied honestly too.

“Enlighten me……..”

“You always wanted Rhea to play Juliet and were really looking forward to be with her when she was selected. The moment Shekhar Sir removed her for lack of sincerity, you suddenly discovered an enemy in the girl who replaced her.”

The clarity with which the answer came, testified for her straight-forwardness and dwarfed his own personality before this middle-class, average girl. He fumbled and tried to hold his ground to defend himself but instead found himself searching for words.

“Err……No…….actually….you might be partly correct but not totally,” was all that he could come up with.

“Oh yes, one more thing. You hated the fact that Rhea was replaced by ‘me’. It wouldn’t have mattered much if it was anyone else. But you have always disliked me as you always thought of me as a snobbish, reserved, middle class, dumb girl.” She exaggerated the words with expressions while she spoke each adjective.

“No, that is not true,” he refuted almost immediately, “Trust me, I have never thought about you like that. In fact, it’s on the contrary. I was uncomfortable with your opinion about me that I was some brainless Casanova, who ran behind pretty girls, including Rhea. You thought I was careless and brute with no class.”

She stopped walking and stood facing him with a questioning look, in disbelief.

“And who told you that I think like that ?”

“Didn’t you ?” he asked with a serious, intense look in his eyes.

She wanted to answer this but suddenly realized that he was supposed to make his entry on the stage.

“It isn’t important what I think. Right now, it is important to focus on what “you” think.”

“Shruti, I………” he couldn’t speak more as he was interrupted by her.

She slowly stepped ahead, looked straight into his eyes and spoke in loud, clear tone, one word at a time, so beautifully articulated that it appeared almost like a part of play to him.

“Focus Gaurav, simply focus on ‘Romeo’ right now !! Just remember that you are too good. No one else could have made a better Romeo than you.”

He kept looking at her, captivated and mesmerized.

“Are you sure ?”

“Absolutely. You’re the best !!” she extended her hand for a warm handshake to wish him the best.

Surprisingly, her words seemed magical and suddenly nothing else appeared to exist anymore for him. He held her hand strongly as a ship holds on to an anchor in a raging storm and wished to keep holding her to gain strength…..

The music piece for Romeo’s entry started playing. She was just behind him and raised her hand to signal a ‘thumbs up’ with a warm smile. He felt like capturing forever, the assurance that radiated from her.

Confidently, he took the stage to storm. It was both challenging and positive but not very difficult to ignore the world beyond the stage and remember his love for what he was doing. He only needed to remember his passion and the hopes his family had on him.

They were supposed to perform together for many scenes today. He had always avoided her before this, on the pretext that she was opinionated about him. Her prejudices about him, or what he thought, they were…….repelled him whenever he thought of talking to her. But today, he was able to perform just because she had been the source of the subtle push that he had needed desperately. Once he was there on stage, all his fright vanished slowly. For the first time in past one month, including all rehearsals, he found himself waiting for his scenes with ‘Juliet’. Among them was the famous ‘balcony scene’ between just the two of them.

In the scene when they faced each other, Gaurav was surprised to find himself gaping unabashedly at Shruti. The calm, the poise and the beauty with which she played her part was elegance personified. Awestruck, he admired her graceful demeanour as she appeared completely in control of her role and the scene. She had never appeared prettier before. Dressed elegantly in Roman costume, with frills and bows enhancing her beauty and her petite figure, she looked like a doll. Her subtle make up highlighted her chiseled features and her deep, amber eyes shielded by thick, long eyelashes captivated everything that caught their interest. Gaurav felt tongue-tied, not out of anxiety this time, but out of the spellbinding and magnetizing effect of his leading lady.

Another thing that he noticed was that she wasn’t nervous at all.

She looked straight into his eyes and muttered softly –

“With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls………”

He was astounded when he realized that she had prompted ‘his’ lines to him. He smiled sheepishly and promised himself to stay attentive from here onwards and confidently played the rest of his part and his lines till they left the stage to prepare for the next scene while other characters took over the stage.

Back stage…..

He followed her as they proceeded for a costume change. It was surprising and unusual but pleasant change for their team to witness their tall and handsome hero ardently following their charming heroine in the corridor. The team had always seen them ignoring and avoiding each other so many heads turned when Gaurave dashed towards the corridor where Shruti entered. If it wasn’t for the final staging today and if the team wasn’t busy, they would have loved to stop and give attention to their leads. But the other characters and the rest of the team was more interested in the ongoing stage play right now. There was some time for the leads to go back again and Gaurav had time.

He couldn’t wait to talk to her.

“Shruti !! Wait !!!”

She stopped walking and turned back to watch him reach near her as he sprinted to get closer to her in the bustling corridor towards the green room.

“Hey…..you were good !!” She complimented him with a genuine smile. It was terribly infectious. He smiled too.

“Thanks……you were pretty awesome yourself.”

“Hmm……thanks…..” She murmured softly.

“Finish what you started, Shruti.”

“Excuse me !!”

“We were talking.”

“Regarding what ?”

“Before we entered the stage, you were telling me what you thought about me.”

She smiled mysteriously and tried to walk away without answering him but he was quick enough to hold her arm and twirl her towards him. She staggered for a moment but controlled her steps to avoid crashing into him.

“Hey !!”

“Please Shruti……”

She straightened herself and replied, “Okay, I’ll tell you. I never thought low about you, Gaurav. In fact, it was you who always hated me for being more regular, more sincere and for receiving all the accolades.”

“That’s not right !! You hated me for being reckless, irresponsible and fun loving…..you thought that I was good for nothing and fooled around aimlessly.”

“Hello.... that’s totally wrong. It was you, who despised me for being confident and hardworking. Everyone praised me and you thought that I was snobbish and proud.”

“And didn”t you think that I had no character ?”

“You thought the same….. you assumed that I had bagged Juliet’s role because of my proximity to Shekhar Sir.”

It was strange to talk about what they had been thinking about each other coz before this they never talked and suddenly they were accusing each other of prejudices. The ease with which they communicated without fighting or raising their voice surprised both of them.

Mortified at the despicable accusation from her, he stood dumbfounded for a moment, staring at her with expressions hard to decipher. Finally, he spoke.

“That’s rubbish and very cheap. I never thought like that about you.”

“But you definitely hate my closeness to Shekhar Sir.”

“Yes……” He didn”t lie.

She threw her hands in air in exasperation, turned and walked away.

He spoke at her back, “But, I didn’t hate ‘you’……I hated your camaraderie with him.”

“Gaurav, he is like an elder brother to me !” Once again, she turned towards him and almost yelled to prove her point.

“What ?!” He murmured.

“Yes…….it isn’t like a relationship between you and Rhea.”

He was truly surprised this time and demonstrated the same with a strong shrug of his shoulders, “What…..what’s between ‘me and Rhea’……?”

“I mean, me and Shekhar Sir are just colleagues, casual friends…. and my feelings for him are sisterly  but you and Rhea are a couple, aren’t you?”

He laughed loudly at this, simultaneously nodding in denial.

“Rhea is a friend and we are a part of the same group, that’s all. The day she was removed from the role, she had turned bitter and tried her very best to make this play a flop.”

“Really ?!?!” A shocked look appeared on her face when she heard that someone had tried to sabotage her debut play. It was scandalous and outrageous for someone to even think so. But why this feeling was accompanied by a subtle relief and happiness, she had no idea.

“Yes. I can never relate to her way of thinking. We have never dated.”

“And I thought………..” she paused, struggling to find proper words to form a shape to her thoughts……struggling to come to terms with her raging emotions and struggling to accept that what she was feeling right now was true, no matter how much she denied it.

He observed her facial creases and tried to read the graph pictured on it. But was unable to succeed. He moved closer to her, focused deep into her amber coloured eyes and whispered to ask, “What? What did you think ? That she is my girlfriend?”

“Hmm……yeah !” she murmured in confusion but couldn’t take her eyes away from his deep brown ones. He was staring at her intensely.

“I know that you don’t have any stage fear, Shruti.” He informed her in a husky baritone, still holding her gaze.

Embarrassed at the revelation, she pursed her lips as he stretched his hand to snatch from her, the phone that she had been holding in her hand.

He glanced at the screen…..

“It’s switched off. I realized on stage that you were extremely confident and all that you spoke a while back on phone was fake……will you deny that you did that to motivate me?”

At loss of words for his subtle accusation, she stood speechless.

He sighed softly in silent gratitude and the two pairs of eyes could have held each other for something like eternity, only if they were not startled by the ringing bell which alerted them that there was very less time left for them to change for the next scene.

The rest of the play moved ahead smoothly.

Shruti enacted each part with refined grace and elegance, earning a roaring applause from the audience. Gaurav was marvelous too, but he was no more thinking about the audience and it’s response. He was bothered only about one girl who believed that he was the best.

The play concluded, leaving the audience feeling overwhelmed at the end of the tragic love story and the finesse with which it was presented. The viewers stood up with heavy hearts and the claps didn’t seem to end for a long time.

Backstage, a new story was beginning…..

Shruti was shocked at being dragged between the two layers of curtains used to separate different scenes in the stage play. They are drawn one by one to enhance the effect and flow between two scenes. Their team had dispersed to different areas from green rooms, washrooms, interacting with audience to refreshments. The audience had started leaving the hall and the stage was empty. The curtains were drawn to close and it was then, when Gaurav held her wrist and pulled her between 2 layers of curtains.

“Hey, what are you doing ?” She whispered to ask.

“Trying to get your time.” He whispered back.

“What do you want?”

“Talk to me.”

“About what ?”

“What’s going on between us ?” He asked intensely.

“I have no idea.” She looked at him squarely.

“Great !! It means that you ‘do’ agree that there is something going on ?”

“Err……..I didn’t mean that…….”

“At least you didn’t say ‘nothing’……..so I guess, there is ‘something’ which is going on from both sides…..”

“Something ??” She stared at him cluelessly.

“Yeah…… ‘something’ ..........'something special' ??!! I say like that coz even I don’t what it is. What do I call this, Shruti ? We never talk to each other, fight constantly, have harbored weird assumptions and prejudices about each other all these days, but we don’t stop thinking about each other.”

She lowered her eyelids and pressed her lips for a moment before releasing them slowly.

He moved a step closer to her and continued, “We assume that the other hates us, we misunderstand and even avoid each other. But will you deny that you keep thinking about me coz I am not going to do that. I thought I hated you and you hated me too….. but I’m so confused now…….how easily you inspired me as you couldn’t see me losing confidence and how difficult it is for me to see you crying.”

She was moved. “Were you upset when I cried ?”

“Of course ! Why did you cry when you hugged the other actors ?”

“It was our last day together. A love story was ending today.” She replied softly with lowered eyelids, “I cried because I thought that we will not meet to rehearse from tomorrow.”

He smiled affectionately.

“All good things come to end someday, but count them as blessings if they end on a positive note and when we gain something from them.”

“Really ?? Did you gain anything?”

“A lot !!”

“Like ?”

“Confidence, self esteem, riddance from stage-fear and……”

“And ?”

“You !!”

Blotches of crimson appeared on her soft cheeks as she blushed hard and tried to turn to walk away. He swiftly moved ahead to block her way and stopped her from going.

She didn’t move after this and stayed still, waiting to hear what he wanted to say.

“Mmm………Can I ask you out for dinner ?” He hesitated but finally asked her.

“Why should I come with you?” She smiled mysteriously and teased him.

He smiled victoriously, before replying, “The feelings that we are going through are potentially dangerous…. they have no name and they may cause significant issues ……for us and people around us…….so we need to find out what this ‘something special’ is …….asap !!”

She laughed loudly at the way he said it and he observed her laughter intently to realize that he had been missing on this radiance that made him feel content and happy, raised his sense of self worth and esteem and made the day appear complete with it’s sunshine.

The source of the sunshine was happy too and her uninhibited laughter proved it.

               …………………………………………………………………………..