OBLIVION

He was a nobody. On every street, there walk scores of nameless, faceless people like him. He was one of those you meet everyday at a number of places and forget immediately thereafter. They're way too common, too similar to leave any noticeable impact on you whatsoever. The way they look, talk, behave-it's almost too standard; each face a slight variation of an assortment of a certain set of features. So it's understandably difficult for us to distinguish among them. They make the crowd, the "masses", the society. And he was just one of them.

A crowd, as such, has no name, no face and no character. Perhaps no soul either. They just exist, forever. The more heads in a mob, the more they signify nothing; the more arms you can count, lesser the actual strength they imply. What the crowd does have though, is a meek voice and a sleepy conscience, but all that is drowned beneath the humdrum of confusion and the clamour of arbritariness more often than not. Very occasionally, some of the voice manages to get heard above the noise, and that is when histories are rewritten. But that is very very rare....

At other times, what binds the crowd together is the one common underlying desire budding in every heart- the desire to be someone, someday. He, too, was a noone who wanted to be someone, like everyone else.

A side-hero even in his own stories, he was at best perhaps the perfect best man at the hero's wedding ceremony. There were many things he wanted, and many others still that he'd have liked to want, but just didn't. He had his share of successes and failures, apprehensions and fears, kindness and gratitude, disappointments, enthusiasm and selfishness in life. He was never a brilliant student, but did passable well always. He had his own ambitions in life, but they were controlled and measured, and almost ever-changing in nature. He found a lot of people good, influential, successful, talented, and he wanted to be like all of them. He tried a lot of times, and mostly failed. Yet he lived on...

I have always wondered why she loved him, and loved him with such passion...It just completely defies logic to me, though I must admit anything to do with love has the same effect on me. Still this one was a weird match, and wierder were the circumstances...She was a beautiful, intelligent, talented, popular girl-indeed there were many who'd have done anything to obtain her consent, but she was simply not interested.The most bewildering aspect of the whole thing was the way she hid her love so completely, from the whole world, from him, and maybe at times from herself too...The fact that I knew was merely because I as her best friend, had rather easy access to her diary, and well, accidents happen!!!

When I first confronted her, even then she denied the whole issue, and later on simply said that it was a mere infatuation-something even she was not sure of- and that it was probably over. But I knew more than anyone else that it was a passion that was growing stronger every second, an obsession that was slowly but surely gobbling up every inch of her existence..And a madness that was becoming more dangerous, more total, all the time!I asked her to atleast share her feelings with him, he had the right to know more than anything else...But not only did she refused me point blank, she also took a promise from me that I'll never bring up the issue, that we'll never discus this, and that I'll never tell anyone. Reluctantly, if only for her sake, I agreed, for the sake of our friendship.And life kept going on.

At times she found herself so drawn towards him she cried, at others she wanted to be near him, yet far. There were so many days when she was even irritated with the fact that he was so "human", so far removed from the superhero of her dreams...But in all this, it was only love that emerged stronger each time, and silence. I had given up on this issue when she maintained her silence even when he told her about another girl he had a mild crush on, and then started going around with her. The next week I left town, and was back yesterday after a complete year.

Almost the first thing I did was to call her, but since no one picked up the phone, I decided to drop by unannounced. There was nobody home, and a neighbour who knew me told me the shocking news about her being in coma since the last nine months, and some complication a few hours back that was worrying everyone...Stunned, I reached the hospital immediately. All her parents know is that she had been to a friend's wedding, and on her way back collapsed for unknown reasons. She had suffered a nervous breakdown! I immediately knew whose wedding it was...

And ever since yesterday I've been crying for her, as well as I'm so angry at her I can't tell you...The doctors say she's sinking...And somehow I think it's all because of me..I should never have listened to her, I should have broken the promise.

Where is he today, I don't know? For me he's long been disappeared into oblivion. And because of my foolishness of listening to her, today I stand to lose a friend and this world a true love-all to oblivion....