Post #22: Love at Website (Vol-1)

                    It all started when I was in my sophomore. All alone, no girlfriend, no dressing sense, no good physique, literally I had nothing to impress a girl.  I had classes from 8 am to 6 pm, and in between I had a gap of 2-3 hours daily. I felt like I had nothing to do, no girl to talk.

                    I used to see that some guys (with or without their girlfriends) were seating here and there inside university campus with their laptops using Wi-Fi to browse over the internet daily.

                    From the next day onwards I started coming with my laptop to utilize those hours. After 3 early sessions and having lunch I sat with my laptop in the strong Wi-Fi signal area. That time I had no idea about Social networking sites nor was I so much interested in all that. I opened my laptop, turned the power button and the Wi-Fi button on. Now it was turn of Mozilla Firefox browser, the browser I was comfortable with, to appear on my laptop screen.

                    At the next very instance, I initiated my mission to hunt a girlfriend. I typed google.com and succeeded with “chat with Indian”. Of course with Indian girls. It hardly took a second to appear 1000s of website addresses. I kept my finger at the touchpad and scrolled down, I saw one website snip**slive.com, I clicked that website. I don’t know what I liked about the name of that website but I clicked immediately and that click directed me to land at the desired place.                            

                     Fortunately there was no registration required, for my convenience I had to enter only random nickname. I was damn excited to find a girl over the internet and more importantly, to chat with a girl. I was aware of the internet frauds, so I thought I should not reveal my identity and I kept my name as ‘pj456’.  I kept on changing my nickname though.

                   I saw a lot of people were chatting there in the chat lobby. Some notorious guys were abusing. Some were unnecessarily flooding the screen with unwanted messages. In the right side of the chat window, there was the list of the people present in that very chat room. There were around 20-30 people at that time. 6-7 were girls; actually there were some smartasses who had kept their name like that. I came to know later though.

                   I clicked on the name “SweetSimran”, in the dropdown menu, private chat option appeared, I immediately tinkled on that and said “Hiiiii,Can we chat?”…2 minutes no reply…10 minutes no reply. I understood that she was not interested in private chat. I clicked on the name “PriyaP” and did the same thing. But no reply! Damn, what the hell no girl is interested, huh!

                      I was getting late for my next class. I, immediately in anxiety, pressed Alt+f4, smashed the lid of laptop, put it in the bag virulently. I moved towards the classroom thinking that what the hell no girl replied, the first day the flopshow was.

                  Now the second day, what’s next man? I thought in my mind. Suddenly an idea came to my mind. I had always considered myself as a humorous person. I was determined to defy the gravity or to collapse.

                   I should make this chat room funny; I thought lavishly and acted strenuously at the same time by changing my nickname to ‘Shaktimaan’. It worked, everybody welcomed in the chat room.  I erupted in a joy saying yesssss I did it. And, one more idea came to my mind that let’s not go for the private chat first, be here and make my presence noticeable. It happened. Some people who earlier were abusing, after my intervention, started nudging- “Sorry Shaktimaan”. Girls also started interacting with me in the public chat. I loved it. So, the second day was quite fruitful and sophisticated.

                   The third day, One guy named Gaurav from my batch, different branch but we had to go for internship at the same place, so we had interacted earlier, came and said – “Hii, what are you doing?” and started looking in to my laptop screen. He inquired what I was doing over this website. After knowing this, he immediately opened his laptop and started doing same.

                   Meanwhile, I started my own friendly but funny chat with people available there. People started liking me. Gaurav also started his own inning. I was feeling good. Again, I had to go for classes. I moved on. But Gaurav kept on chatting and chatting…and chatting. He bought Tata Photon for this purpose only while being at house.

                 Days were passing and chat-room administrator had made some changes to the chat room regulations. Now, I had to register on the website. I registered my nickname as “pj456”. I was chatting happily.

            I came to know that Gaurav got his girlfriend there. He even met her in Delhi. Ohh!! I was surprised to see. But anyways, He should be thankful to me for letting him know about this website.

            One day being humorous, I said in the lobby, knowingly as she was present in the chat room but did not mention the name- “Bhabhi nahi aayi?” (Sister-in-law did not come?). As soon as I wrote this, She disappeared from the chat list and everyone understood that she was that girl whom I was saying Bhabhi. I got banned immediately. I was like what??!! I asked Gaurav – hey, who banned me? Who is the administrator? He said- “She is “PriyaP”, admin of that room, she is very arrogant”. Remember “PriyaP” whom on the first day, I had sent a private chat and went ignored.

               I could not register any other name, as they had banned my IP address just for the foolish reason. Damn, whenever I tried to login with different names, every time I got kicked out of the room either by PriyaP or by other admin. I was so sad and hurt and I said in my mind, I won’t return to that website again, well I didn’t swear for this.

               3 months passed. I thought I should go back to the website and should let them understand I wasn’t wrong, I was just becoming funny. I decided to login from my friends laptop, as there would be different IP address. So I logged in with newly registered user id “Shaktimaaan”, Shaktimaan with one extra ‘a’. This time they couldn’t kick me out.

                   I greeted everyone in the lobby and went to right side of the chat window I found PriyaP is there. I wrote her in the private message- “Hey Priya, You had banned me 3 months ago and I’m still banned. It’s such a long ban, I had done nothing wrong and I’m not bad”. Actually I confronted her for this cruel act. She said okay; give me your IP address and user name. She said me to open gmail and scroll down to see the IP address. I did this and provided her the required IP and user id. She looked in to the matter, unbanned me and said I’m so sorry but she said you had done wrong; you shouldn’t have done this kind of thing. I said okay, my mistake. It won’t happen again.  And, now onwards I would come as Shaktimaan. She said okay!

                 Me and PriyaP chatted in private for a while and shared our intro. From that day, we became good friends. In those banned 3 months, I had got some idea about social networking sites and I had made my account on Facebook. She added me on Facebook. She liked my sense of humor, my sketching and my short satirical articles. Now, we chatted regularly in the lobby as well as on Facebook. We used to have lot of fun there in the chat room. After so many negotiations, we even had a talk (only audio) on skype. We were more than good friends now.

                But, PriyaP is not that girl about whom I would be introducing in the next half of my story.

                Here comes Simran in to the picture, whose nick name on the chat website was “SweetSimran”, remember? Yes, that girl on whose name I had clicked for the first time and of course on the first day. I had sent her PM (Private message), unfortunately I had remained unnoticed.  That girl, indeed!  

                In the public chat, after getting unbanned, I started my second inning and said “Hii,Simran how are you?” She replied “Hii Shaktimaan, I’m good. Geeta kaha hai,lol?(lol, where is Geeta?). Geeta was the girlfriend of real Shaktimaan (Shaktimaan was a superhero in Shaktimaan tv serial aired on DD National).

               I was bit amused and happy too as she had replied. I came to know that She was in her 3^rd year pursuing B Tech in Computer Science at Mumbai University. Even I was pursuing B Tech in Computer Science but I was in the 2^nd year. I said her about my education and started saying her Simran Ma’am from that day onwards.

              Simran Ma’am asked me “Ma’am kehna jaruri hai kya?”(Is it necessary to say Ma’am?). It is not necessary to say but here in my university, it’s a trend to call your senior girl as ma’am and senior boy as sir, so I am following that same rule here also, I said. She liked it and became friendly about this.

               I asked her if we can chat in private if she didn’t mind. She said okay no problem, junior. From that day, she kept my name as ‘Junior’. After sharing our likes, dislikes and future prospect about education, I said- well ma’am I have to go for classes; I wrote down my e-mail id and said we will chat there. See you.

              For three days, I could not go to the chat website as my internal papers were there. Third day, in the evening I logged in to the chat room and saw Simran Ma’am is not there. I lost my interest to stay there and logged out immediately.

             Next day, I didn’t login to the website nor did I get her email. Aah! Very sad day it was. In the night I got her email saying “ Hii Junior, it’s your senior Simran. How are you, where are you? You didn’t come to chat room since last 3 days?”

              I was so happy to see her e-mail. That time chatted about course curriculum only.

         Come to chat room, we will have fun with all, She said. I went and what happened I got kicked out of the room by other admin like a terrorist who had Bomb, a humor bomb, what the hell. For no reason this time, Simran ma’am asked the admin why he kicked out Shaktimaan? Answer was he was already banned earlier, how he got unbanned and kicked.

          I really got hurt, I didn’t like that. Simran ma’am confronted with the admin and complained to PriyaP. But this time I was firm that I won’t return to that website now. And, I didn’t return there even till I’m writing this story.

          PriyaP and Simran Ma’am tried to convince me that I should come back to lobby. PriyaP felt so sad about that. I told PriyaP that I won’t come back to lobby. We are good friends we will chat here on Facebook and gmail. She lost the battle with me and I didn’t return.

           Simran ma’am and PriyaP became so good friends of mine. I was feeling lucky to have them.

           I moved to B Tech, third year and Simran Ma’am entered her final year. Final year is full of tensions like placement, internship, peer pressure etc.

           Ma’am got busy; she got very less time to chat. I had started working on sketching, painting and art works. People in the college were appreciating me for this. I was overwhelmed and thought I should launch a website.

          I launched my own website. I told about this to everyone. People appreciated it. Ma’am also came to know about this and she liked those sketches so much. She was quite impressed with my so called ‘talent’.  But unfortunately, I couldn’t monetize my website and it became burden on my exchequer. I closed down the website.

           Simran ma’am got busy for her placement. I also got busy doing classes about computer languages. So I too didn’t get that much time.

             But in between, I used to send my photo to her and used to ask, how I am looking. Her reply was always hmmm not soo good; you need to gain some weight. Whenever I asked about her photo, she always had skipped the demand saying it’s not necessary to see me, I don’t look so good. Why do you want to see me?

           I was chatting with her for almost a year now, I wanted to see. But could not convince her to send her picture nor was she on Facebook.

           What’s your name? Ma’am asked. I was stunned ohh shit! I didn’t even tell you my name and you didn’t even ask me? Ma’am laughed and said, its okay, and you can tell me know. I, being naughty told her my name hmmm who is the finance minister (now president) of India right now? 

            Ohh my God! It’s my brother’s name too. Wow! I said well, you brother would be writing Pranav. But I write Pranaw, different from your brother, mind it haha. She smiled and she was like…wowww! I have two Pranavs now. I said nooo one is Pranaw and other is Pranav. She laughed and said buddhu(stupid) haha.

            After knowing my name, she became closer to me as her brother’s name and my name was same. She appreciated with the glittering smiles.

           I came in the final year; she got placed in TCS and Oracle both the companies. She sent me an email and acknowledged me about this. I came online and congratulated her. She asked me to end the deadlock which company should she join. After knowing the terms and conditions I suggested to join Oracle. She joined Oracle in Mumbai itself.

          “You know what? There is one guy Varun from your college, he also with me as a trainee.” She said.

             I knew him, he was my senior and he too had got placed in Oracle. See this earth, how round it is. See how connections get established though Varun sir had nothing to do with me or Simran Ma’am.

            After chatting for some months…something happened, this was unexpected. I’m quite incoherent to express right now.

        Friends,I know it’s getting too long but the real twists, turns and the tragedies occurred are yet to come…Picture abhi baki hai! I hope you have liked volume-1 and I hope you would eagerly be waiting for the next volume too. :D

[To be continued…]