They say the most beautiful things in life start in the most bizarre ways, and I AGREE TO THIS BIG TIME. Life has stupid ways to surprise you, and while, I had left all my will to let it, life manifested in making me live otherwise. Which is not the worst thing always, as I believed it to be. And not to forget, problems sometimes lead you to solutions that you didn’t know were needed. Funny. Let’s go back to 2018.
“Hey, this number will call you. Negotiate the budget, hope that’ll help”, the seventh option from a friend came in, meanwhile, I am already done with the unbelievable prices these guys were pitching. 7-8k for four hours! I mean what even?
So, by then my day was officially ruined, I was thinking of not spoiling it anymore and giving my best in focussing on the present. I did my chores, blocked a few tinder dates, and got my breakfast. The day went quite normal, went to my college, did my office work, and successfully reached my apartment’s staircase. And that number came in.
“Hello Ma’am, your friend gave me your number, said you needed….” A feeble, nervous voice came in from the other end. Sounded soft, very convincing, and kind.
“Hey, yeah, is it okay if I call you later? I am in the middle of something”
I hung up with a gush of hollow heart dropping on the floor, asking me to pick it up as if I was gonna need it real soon. What was it again? A voice seeking my heart, asking to get it, and however common it sounds, for one person, it happens only once. And that, my friend, when happens, it becomes the most extraordinary feeling your organs ever feel. I don’t call this emotion to be love. How much can a voice even do? A nameless, unknown, soft voice. Aphorism? All humans should feel this once to know how cliché turns into a novel in no time. Two hours passed, I realized, I have been too drowned in my lake and it’s been months later I have allowed myself to breathe underwater. I realized I need to call the voice and not let life divert my pledge towards myself.
“Um, hey sorry, was so stuck. What’s your name?” “Hi ma’am, Madhav this side. No issue at all. Shall we discuss this?”
Madhav. M-A-D-H-A-V. So this voice has a name that sounds like a sigh of relief, a fragrance of a newborn, a cozy bed. Wtf is wrong with me! I am supposed to not give in.
“Okay Madhav, so we need a videographer for supposedly three hours. We have a small budget as we are a start-up. I will not waste your time and be straight about it. I won’t be able to pay you above 2k.” Okay, was I too direct?
“Ma’am 2k is too less, I don’t work under 5. Let’s settle with 3?
That voice, that damned voice. “Cool, see ya. I will text the date and time.”
Did I just give in to a guy I have never met? Yes. Way to ruins. Do I regret it? No. There is a thing about sound, a few kinds of sound synchronize with your heart and let it become a harmony. His was that kind. Strange yet comforting. My heart wondered about too many things at a time. Not about him, but for me. In the past, why did I always drag myself into a hole and let myself be stuck there when I could always free myself from this misery of feeling that my house never had a door? Weird how the most real emotions flood with the most unrealistic happenings in our life. Realizations that tend to push us back to a kind of helplessness, remorse….shame.
I hated liking this new voice. I felt desperate for comfort, I felt incapable of keeping myself warm. I felt easy. But I felt a need. A need to not stay sad anymore. I always told my mom that there must be someone, waiting for me, telling his mom the same thing I wished for, wanting the same love I craved, patiently like me. And I believed I would cross his path someday. Someday.