Ravinder Singh the author is a software engineer by profession who works with a prominent IT company in India. The book is his debut novel and is based on a true event that occurred in his life. It is dedicated to the loving memory of the girl whom the author loved, yet could not marry and begins with a very meaningful line ‘Not everyone in this world has the fate to cherish the fullest form of love. Some are born just to experience the abbreviation of it.’
The story begins in Kolkata in March 2006 when four friends including the author working in different places reunite after their college days, and since all of them were at the marriageable age, decide to register in a matrimonial website. The author narrates that although numerous girls who fitted into the details that he had asked for responded to him but he did not find anyone who appealed to him. At last when he had almost given up hopes and had stopped browsing through the website regularly as he did earlier he suddenly received an SMS from a girl living in Faridabad who had responded to his registration in the website. After browsing through her profile in the website he called her back and that was the beginning of his love story!
Ravinder and Khushi chatted every night on the phone and the conversations went on till late at night. Khushi was working in a BPO firm in Gurgaon and used to return home late at night but Ravinder used to wait up for her return to talk to her. Gradually through the conversations both of them fell deeply in love even though they had not yet met each other. Their relationship extended to their families as well as both of them also interacted with the other family members over the phone. It was only in October when Ravinder was on his way to USA for a month and stopped over at Delhi did they finally meet. The meeting was a historic one as they were both extremely nervous before the meeting in case they found that their dream persons were not as they had imagined them to be but their doubts were soon dispelled when they actually met. In fact Ravinder found Khushi to be even more beautiful than she appeared in the pictures that she had uploaded on the website. Ravinder went to Khushi’s house and met her family members and their wedding was officially finalized. Ravinder Singh then touchingly describes an hour which they spent alone together in his hotel room which he claims to be the happiest one in his life.
The wedding date was set for the 14th of November next year but the engagement was to be on the 14th of February in Khushi’s place. Her parents came down to Bhubaneswar to meet Ravinder’s parents to fix the dates and struck an instant chord with each other. Ravinder then describes the preparations for the engagement party. Ravinder’s parents were supposed to accompany Ravinder for the ceremony and both the families were looking forward to the event. Both Ravinder and Khushi were extremely excited about the engagement, especially Khushi, who enthusiastically described the dress that she was planning to wear for the ceremony to Ravinder over the phone. Ravinder and his parents had planned to reach Faridabad a couple of days before the ceremony and Khushi had also taken a few days’ leave from her office for the event.
Unfortunately just the day before Ravinder and his parents’ departure, Ravinder received a phone call from Khushi’s home informing him that when she was returning home at night the day before her leave started the car in which she was travelling had met with an accident. Ravinder and Khushi had spoken to each other just before she was leaving her office and were planning to continue the conversation after she reached home and Ravinder was in fact waiting for her call when he received the ominous news.
Ravinder immediately took a flight to Delhi and went straight to the hospital where she had been admitted. On reaching there he found that she was in coma and the doctors could give very little hopes of her survival. Ravinder then describes the dreadful condition of all of Khushi’s family members who had been in the midst of preparing for her engagement ceremony and also narrates his own mental condition on seeing his loved one hanging between life and death with her face and body mutilated beyond recognition. After a couple of days the doctors attending to Khushi felt that she might recover in a few days even though she was still in coma so Ravinder decided to go back to his village where his parents were living and bring them with him so they could all be present when she opened her eyes. He returned home to his parents and constantly kept in touch with her family members through phone. After a few days when he heard that the doctors were a little hopeful about her recovery he started off on an overnight bus from his village for Bhubhaneshwar to book air tickets for his family.
The most touching passage in the entire book is Ravinder’s description of his bus journey which was where he had a most amazing spiritual experience. He says that it was about four in the morning and all the passengers in the bus were sleeping. He too was dozing fitfully when suddenly he opened his eyes and found Khushi sitting next to him. She was looking just as beautiful as she looked before her accident and was as loving and affectionate as she had always been. She smiled at him lovingly and put her hand on his forehead. Ravinder, who was struck dumb with surprise, asked her how she had reached there when she was supposed to be in hospital. She replied with a smile that she was always with him. She then took out the ring which she had bought for him for the engagement and put it on his finger. Ravinder noticed with surprise that the ring which he had bought for her was already on her finger. She then fed him his favorite dish and then lovingly wiped his mouth clean. Ravinder then took her in his arms and she lay there quietly for some time. She then said, ‘Thank you for giving me the love of my life.’ Ravinder writes that he did not know how long they remained like that but he suddenly hit his head against something and was suddenly brought back to reality. He found that he was in the bus and his phone was ringing. He looked around for her but she had disappeared and he found that the ring which she had put on his finger had also disappeared. Still in a confused state he picked up the phone and found Khushi’s father on the line, informing Ravinder in a broken voice that Khushi had left them a few minutes ago. At the end of the chapter Ravinder describes his mental situation, the situation of his family after hearing the news and the deadfall condition at Khushi’s house.
The book ends with a heartrending description of Ravinder’s own condition of life which appears worse than death more than a year after Khushi’s death. He says that they plans to write many story of success on the site and said he never knew that he will be writing that tragic story. So with feeling he writes, ‘She died. I survived. Because I survived, I died every day. I was bound by my stars to live a lonely life. Without her I felt so alone. Though the fact is that it’s just she who is gone and everything else is the same. But this ‘everything else’ is nothing to me………...
