I had come home to India after a long time, during my last summer vacations. I decided to call my old school friends for a grand reunion the following Sunday. I rang up Anu, my very best school friend. A very interesting, dusky male voice answered the phone with a "Hello". I asked for Anu and the voice replied "Wrong number" and banged the phone down. I looked at my phone diary for Anu's phone number and dialled again. This time Anu picked up.

We chatted for hours, but that voice never seemed to go away from my mind. The depth.... The clarity...The accent...

The next day I sat down with the phone in my lap and tried all permutations & combinations of Anu's phone number. But in vain. I decided to give it a last try and the phone rang on the other side saying "Hello". The same voice.... The same clarity...The same diction.... Oh! At last I had found him. "Hello" I said" Remember me. I called yesterday....the same wrong number girl". He laughed like he had never laughed before." So what makes you call again?" he asked." Nothing, you seem to have an interesting voice," I said.

Then we talked and talked and talked. We exchanged phone numbers. Every afternoon after lunch I used to wait for his phone call. We shared almost everything from family issues to studies to movies, music and cricket. Cricket...Oh! He could talk forever on that topic. Gradually we developed a relationship over phone that grew out of a part of him and a part of me.

It was about a month since we became friends. Suddenly one day I just happened to ask his name. Why he reacted so unusually, only God knows! As if I had asked him to disclose his darkest secret! After lot of hesitation he said, "My name is Ishaan" and kept the phone down.

For next one week he did not call me up. I kept on waiting and waiting but he did not call me up. My holidays were coming to an end and so I decided to give him a phone call. He picked up the phone and without saying even Hello I just started "Ishaan, listen...I want to meet you tonight once before I leave for America". But he reacted as if his whole world had come apart. "NO" he said. He requested...He pleaded, He begged ...But I was not ready to listen.

Through a friend in the telecom department I was able to find his home address. On my way to his home I did not forget to bring his favorite red roses. I was so excited as I was about to meet the guy behind such a lovely voice. Anyway I reached his house and there was a body lying on the floor draped in white sheet with people all around. Just then a gust of wind blew and I was shocked, Oh God!!! The face !!

It was a horribly mutilated face with mass of ugly scars!! The mourners told me that last year in a major car accident he had lost his legs and had got his face in a mess by the flying shard of glass from the windshield. There in the room was a wheelchair and a diary, on which it was written in a beautiful handwriting that was blotched in dried tears. "How can she see me like this, I feel it is better to die".

The pain pierced through me like a searing hot lance.

The pain. Oh the pain!

PRERANA PAL KAUR

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