Identity Crisis of people of MP

Disclaimer: This is a light-hearted post with a satirical take on the existing stereotypes present in the country. I personally believe many stereotypes are not bad and are just playful and harmless in nature, if you feel hurt or offended or feel personally attacked, then attack voraciously and mercilessly on this post. Pour all your hatred and anger of working late nights, attending zoom meetings and webinars, gaining 5 kg in lockdown, watching your ex posting a cheesy ‘together forever’ marriage post and whatever that is making you angry here. Give counter-arguments and I will give more counter-arguments and let there be a meaningless comment war. Also, spread the hatred, build up a team, don’t fight alone, copy the blog post’s link and spread it in your WhatsApp group so that they can also come with their arguments and there will be more counter-arguments from my side and thus the post will generate huge visibility and attract others and soon there will be a virtual bloodshed here making me earn many followers! If you are angry but didn’t spread the hate to at least 10 people, someone will add ketchup in your 'Poha' next time you eat it, if you do it then you will get a packet of 'Jiravan' shipped at your address by me!

Now that you have understood clearly it is a light-hearted post, let us begin with my whines and complaints on my lack of identity. When I speak, I speak for many of the faceless crowd of MP. I spent the first 17 years of my life in MP, then I went to Rajasthan for a year, came back to MP for next 4 years, spent the next 1 year in Maharashtra, then 2 years in Jharkhand, back to Maharashtra for 1.5 years and then 1 year in Karnataka. In between, I traveled extensively to many states also because that is what a person in his 20s is supposed to do, travel and have some travel stories, else society will never accept you, and your grandchildren will feel ashamed that you didn’t have any adventurous stories to tell.

When I was living in MP, I was happy with my life. The temperature can be a little extreme sometimes but still bearable. Rains are normal. We rarely have floods or cyclones, no history of devastating earthquakes or other natural calamities. The roads post the famous Digvijay Singh era are mostly well built, easy to travel at least in western and central MP. The street food is amazing. People are simple and good, not very ambitious but also not very cunning and greedy. As I was growing, I realized that we didn’t have a big differentiator, we were not in news much. We didn’t have big megacities, we didn’t have spectacular tourist places, no specific food, dance or celebrity, we didn’t have a very well differentiated culture, no movies were based on any city of MP,  basically, we didn’t exist in anywhere mainstream. Nothing much has changed till date.

In a country where stereotypes are so prevalent, where you are first associated with your state identities. Being from a state with no stereotypes is a great drawback. I encountered stereotypes first when I moved to Kota, Biharis are good at maths, that’s the first thing I heard. Coincidentally, it was validated when I was solving a sum of domain/region and did it using a method requiring 2 pages but a Bihari sitting near me just made some graph and solved it instantly. The 17 years old version of me believed in the stereotype from that day onwards, Biharis are good in maths. Telugus are hardworking, Delhi/UP people are aggressive, Marathis are conservatives, Malayalis have a superiority complex, Tamilians have great pride, People from the hilly regions are good-hearted, Punjabis are jolly natured and many more.

A year in Kota was a big revelation for me, it also strengthened my belief in the notion of India as a country. People from different regions coming together, becoming friends, working towards a common goal of clearing JEE. Also, at the end of the year, one more stereotype formed, which till date is shared by many throughout the country, people of Kota are worst in the country. Many of us formed this stereotype mainly basis how our landlords and mess owners treated us. For a pampered generation, this was the first exposure of how cruel, selfish, and heartless the outside world is. A lot of us grew many years in that one year of our life. But also I realized that we, the people of MP are not stereotyped. We had no identity, we were not associated with any behavior, good or bad. We just didn’t exist on the radar of the outside world.

After a year in Kota, I was back to MP. Again, back to the region which is full of stereotypes but has none of its own. MP has lots of communities co-existing together. You will have South Indians (Seriously no offense meant to South Indian readers, but most common people of MP can’t differentiate between Tamil, Telugu, Kannadiga, and Malayali), Bengalis, Punjabis, Sindhis, Bohras, Marathis, North Easterns, etc. Most of our stereotypes are negative in nature, negative to the limit of being offensive. “Saanp aur sindhi mein koi jata dikha, to pahle Sindhi ko maaro”, one of my friends told me during my teenage. Now, I had lots of Sindhi friends back then. The Sindhi community is a very rich community here because most of them are associated with trades. But the general views about the community is not so good, at least back in mid-2000. Bengalis are arrogant, Marathis are miser, Bohras are not courageous, Bengalis are arrogant, most stereotypes were negative. We spared the Rajasthanis and Punjabis. Punjabis are always treated as kind-hearted, selfless, and benevolent always ready to party. A major chunk of this stereotype is due to Bollywood and the way they portray Punjabis. But one of landlord refusing to give me Rs 2300 security deposit despite him being a crorepati changed this goody-good stereotype for me. Most of us couldn’t differentiate a ‘jatt’ from a ‘jaat’ back then.

Some of the logics also didn’t make sense. We perceived Rajasthanis as good but Marwadis as selfish and miser. But, we also didn’t have any stereotypes for ourselves. We didn’t exist on our own radar. How can we exist on the radar of the outside world?

When I returned to Indore, the era coincided with the rise of social media, social media further exaggerated all the stereotypes, initially packed in the name of jokes but then state/region wise pages and thus you can enjoy the fight between Mumbaikars and Punekars on which city is better or the fight between Kolkata People and Hyd people on which city has better Biryani at 3 AM in the night before your end term. Indore made good use of social media and it eclipsed the whole MP, we will discuss this part later.

When I came to Pune, my lack of identity became more visible to me. Working in an IT company in a city where there is a crowd from the whole country and when they ask me whether Ujjain is in Rajasthan or Gujarat, honestly I felt hurt. Also, an IT company is full of stereotypes. Telugus are spoiling the work culture by working beyond office hours, Punjabis do not respect their bosses, Delhi guys are flirty and rowdy. The stereotypes increased 100 folds and yet we had none. Indoris tried their level best to mock the Maharashtrians Kanda Poha telling them again and again that the best Poha can be found only in Indore, apart from few jokes on how Indoris think they have everything better, they were not able to gather much attention.

One more year passed, and I came to XLRI, my dream college. This is when the identity crisis hit me the most. We had multiple regional committees, the part I liked the most. They used to have a regional dinner, where they would serve the special snacks and dinner of their state to the entire college. So you got Rajaxi (Rajasthan Association of XLRI), Taxi( Tamil association of XLRI), JMAXI( Jai Maharashtra associated of XLRI). Most states have their own regional committees, except, you could guess it. MP, we have no special committee.

A bunch of state MP, UP, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand were merged and for some reason, we added Assam also and then a committee was formed named COWBAXI (Cow Belt Associated of XLRI). As expected, the committee became heavily dominated by the UP and Bihar crowd with which we share very little in common. Also, If you want to see exaggerated stereotypes, a B School is the best place to come. Everyone is a competitor after all with which you are competing for jobs and thus there are moments where the competition is max fuelling a good amount of hatred also. Having no identity at all, we MP folks sail quietly in these 2 years.

I remember once a meme trend became popular in social media describing how a room of a particular state person will look like. I used to check regularly whether they will feature room of an MP guy, they showed for most states. Bihar, Kerala, UP, Punjab but not MP, we didn’t exist in the meme culture also. When I worked in Maharashtra for 1.5 years again post MBA, I was always confused about whether we were included in the term ‘Bhaiya’ or not which was used to describe north Indians. I never found out an exact answer, but I am pretty sure we were not. Are we even considered North Indians? I don’t have an answer yet to this question. We were part of the famous acronym BIMARU, but then also, people just know that we are poor, upto what extent, they don't know. We are just clubbed together with other poor states.

Meanwhile, let’s get back to the Indore equation. Indoris perhaps too much disappointed by this lack of image went a step above. They carved out an image of Indore. In that process, they did quite a few things which annoyed me to a great height. First of all, they highjack western MP culture. Now as I said earlier, MP didn’t have a very distinct well-defined culture. Western MP shares traits with Rajasthan, Eastern MP with Uttar Pradesh. Even I don’t have any idea about North & South MP. North MP did get some attention due to the famous Chambal region of Bhind Murraina famous for the stories of Daku. Central MP particularly Bhopal who was ruled by the Nawabs for a long time had a little distinct culture but not so prominent. The most you might have heard would be Jagdeep’s famous role of Surma Bhopali in the movie Sholay.

Western MP includes many cities like Ujjain, Indore, Dewas, Ratlam, Mandsaur, Nagda, and many other small towns. They all shared a common culture. Most of us started our day with Poha Jalebi, sev is a staple diet in most households, our street food includes Samosa, Kachori, Kandavada, Aloo Bada, Sabudana Khichdi, Fafda, Bhutte ka kees, and other fried snacks. Most of us speak a local dialect called Malwi, because we belong to the Malwa Plateau region. So all in all, a great deal of homogeneity in a wide region.

With the rise of social media, the influence of Indore also grew. So, Malwi became Indori. Poha Jalebi became something that is specific to Indore only and the tastiest one can be found only in Indore. Even the youtube cooks started using the term Indore Sev, Indori Poha, Indori Bhutte ka kees. This became a reason for frustration for a lot of nearby small towners like me. We felt further identityless now. Already, we had no stereotypes in the country. But the few habits we thought were unique to us was now hijacked by Indoris. The poha we ate daily while growing up was unique only to Indore, we felt reduced to nothing. Funny fact, when I was in Kota, during winders a Poha Thela opened in front of my house with the name ‘Ujjain ke prassidh pohe ( Famous Poha of Ujjain)’, you can imagine my happiness back then. Indore took away everthing from us then. Funny thing is many Indoris don’t know that Sev was originated in Ratlam (the same city which was portrayed like a brothel in Jab We Met) and Poha is native to Maharashtra,.

This was also bearable but then came round 2. Indoris started insulting us. If you will upload any picture of eating something that you were doing since your birth like eating bake samosa or eating poha. You will get a message from many Indoris like:

“if you want to eat the real shit, come to Indore.”

“Real Poha can be found only in Indore”

“Best Bake Samosa is in this shop of Indore, you are eating substandard thing”

It further annoyed many of my friends. How come our food became cheap, bad, and not original.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Indore as a city, many Indoris are my good friend. But I can’t tolerate this hijacking of culture and insult of my food. There are many things unique to Indore. Being the cleanest city of India for 4^th time, people there did a great amount of work, one can always see the difference. The sarafa market of Indore is quite unique, none of our city can compete with it. But the basics, the pohas and the jalebis, the sabudana vada and bhutte ka kees, let us enjoy our own. We, the people of small cities, face 2 crisis, we don’t have a city-level identity, and our identity is being stolen by Indore. This just reminded me about the chapter we had in our 11^th Class English Book (CBSE), the last lesson, where the invader stops the education of native language and language is associated with identity and freedom. We associate our food and habits as our identity, don’t steal it away from us.

Now let’s come back to the main topic. We, the people of MP, still don’t have any identity. We don’t know whether we are north Indians or not. We don’t have any specific language. We don’t have any particular distinctive food. We don’t have any unique dress. We do not even have any dance form of us. We are not seen as either selfish or good, hardworking or lazy, cunning or stupid. Nothing, we just don’t exist.

Even our news didn’t exist. VYAPM scam was such a massive and compliated scam, yet many do not know about it. MP was 3^rd in the Covid cases for a long time, doing far worse than the entire country, yet people were focusing on Gujarat and UP. Then we improved, now we are at 15^th position, but no praises for us also. Our CM got covid, no one cared. Rahul Dravid, Salman Khan, Lata Mangeshkar, Atal Bihari were born in MP, but they are associated with some other state. We don’t have any popular celebrity associated with us. Even Kishor Kumar was born in Khandwa, a small town in MP. Many people born in MP, moved to other states and became famous and they are then associated with either their native background or their new state. That’s what people of MP do. Born, get out of MP, become famous, die there.

Although, we don’t face that kind of crisis like my fellow North Easterns who at times are not even considered Indians. We don’t have to give any identity proof, yet we don’t exist. We don't even have a good noun form for us. Bihari, Bengali, Maharashtrian, Kannadiga, Telugu, Punjabi even Chattisgari ! But we can't be referred as madhya pradeshi, we are just MP wale! How to solve this problem? I am open to ideas. Let’s discuss this. Fellow MP walo, let’s assemble, brainstorm and devise a solution. Rest of India, do study us, give us some stereotype, anything will do, we can improve on later! Let us feel included.

PS: On a serioius note, no offense meant to anyone !! It's just a collection of observation I have found while working and travelling to different part of the countries! Yet, the beauty of this country is the way we coexist despite so many differences. Just reminds me of 'Mile Sur mera Tumhara' and 'Desh Raag' videos of Doordarshan, we are one, we are whole, we are India ! :) :) 

Miss Me ?

Sitting in front of the beach, carelessly sipping my beer, enjoying the sunset, what a blissful time to be alive. I was in some next level of trance, everything seemed so surreal, so tranquilizing. The amber-colored sun like a big fireball slowly getting swallowed by the vastness of the sea. The sound of waves like some melodious music, the occasional chirping of the birds adding to the effect. The rising waves were touching my legs at a regular interval like some natural therapy. I was bothered about the fact that why none of my problems were bothering me, how come life was so peaceful suddenly, I did not have any idea how I reached this amazingly beautiful place. I was practicing mindfulness at its best, completely living in the present, no thoughts of past or present. Then I saw her outline darkened by the sun rays coming from the opposite side but her body, her hair, her hands, everything about her was so deeply engraved in my mind that I could recollect her from anywhere.

"She can’t be here, she is miles away from me, in a different city, happy with her husband", I told myself. 

"This person is someone else, my mind is hallucinating, my mind justifying the position of being my greatest enemy is playing a trick on me.  My mind who can’t stand me being happy even for some minutes, my jealous wicked evil mind who after failing to bring any regrets of past or any worries of future bringing the image of many of my sorrow in front of me to win this contest.", I started cursing my mind mentally. The figure started coming close, she was wearing the same shiny red dress she wore in the college farewell party. Crazy coincidence, after all that happened between us, the drama and the bitter parting away, no conversations not even the formal birthday wishes exchanged from last 10 years and yet I found her slowly approaching me in the same dress she looked the most spectacular once. A part of me who craved her so much was becoming heavy again, I forcefully brought all the negative thoughts back in mind to end this mental coup.

Life has changed so much since we last talked. From my menial job which was too small for us and from my unknown college, I got into a high paying job after doing my MBA from a fancy college. She got married in between, she didn’t invite me and I was glad I was not asked to come because had I gone there, either I would have surely created some drama to vent out my frustration or I would have gotten lost between the thoughts of self-pity and why life is so unfair to me. We were still friends on social media though, that is how I got to know about her marriage, I rarely talked to our common friends, I didn’t want even a shade of her involvement in my new life. A life I created for myself, where I am successful, powerful, and happy at least superficially and not the helpless me which she made me once. She was not very active on social media ever and after her marriage, she didn’t post anything. I didn’t care, though once in a while I did use to go to her profile to check if there is anything new.

But I sensed her presence that day. As they say, the world is a small place. That day was 31^st December and I was enjoying my vacations in Thailand, a popular tourist spot, many Indians go there these days. As they say, the ambitious middle class of India has shifted from Goa to Thailand. I thought maybe she had come here with her husband. A coincidence, a painful one. I didn’t know if there is an antonym of serendipity, but if there is one, I was going through it. Her outline was becoming clearer and clearer with every passing second. This was definitely her, I was convinced now. For countless times during my college, I had wondered at her physical beauty. The way her hair moved with a passing breeze amplifying her beauty so much that she looked almost like an angel who had come from some other world. How can anyone born on this planet be so beautiful?

As I was getting deeper and deeper into the thoughts with my past and present getting one again without any visible boundaries and I was losing sense and the memory of what all happened in the last 10 years, there was a sudden halt. I was suddenly brought back in the present. Do you remember when you are having a very clear dream and then someone wakes you and you get back to your senses pretty quickly while still retaining the thoughts of your dream? I suddenly remembered that it was 31^st December 2019, I was in Thailand and she was not here.

Was I hallucinating? But it felt so real.

I have always wondered whenever I read the stories of people going through schizophrenia and other mental condition, how it feels to imagine a person. I guess I experienced it that day. The subconscious mind is indeed a complicated yet magical thing, it can bring back someone in front of your eyes, someone of whom you rarely think about these days. I threw the remaining beer into the trash, maybe the nature vibes with the alcohol had made me lose touch with reality for a while.

The next 3 days were horrible, I was haunted by her thoughts again and again. As if I had never moved on as if I never accepted my fate. I went through a series of mental states. From self-pity to cursing her for my misery, from laughing at her new mediocre life to imagining the ‘what if…’ . I came back to Hyderabad on 4^th January and I felt relieved immediately. Although I hated my job and the fact that I put in 14-16 hours a day. I knew my job will be my savior now. I would get busy juggling stuff, firefighting , and bitching about the toxic work culture of my company. I would forget her soon. It happened exactly the way I thought. The villains of my present took the place of her thoughts and I forgot about her completely.

I woke up with a very dried throat, cold sweat coming from the side of my head and a mind spinning furiously. I had a terrible nightmare. I have had nightmares before. But none of them felt so real, and none of them had such lasting memory after waking up and none of them made me almost shit my pants while replaying them in my mind. I was back to the same beach, same setting, and the same scene. She was coming near me. I was having the same chain of thoughts like that day and a strong déjà vu. Like I was not sure whether this is real or not and if it is real, it felt like it is happening again. But this time she didn’t vanish, she keeps on coming close to me. She came almost at a 1 foot distance to me and then she asked:

“Miss me?”

I was startled by the question. It’s been 10 years, why did she want to have a confirmation on whether I still think about her or not. I made my mind that I will say very rudely that I neither miss her nor do I feel anything about her. She didn’t exist in my mental landscape anymore. I made eye contact. Her facial features were slowly changing. They were becoming very aggressive. The eyes were getting bigger, some lines coming at the temple, she stood so tall and her stance was so aggressive as if she was ready to attack me. Her face was slowly turning red, violent red as if reflecting some deep-buried anger.

Do you remember the scene from Bhool Bhulaiya where Vidya Balan argues with Akshay Kumar near a temple and Akshay notices her change of expression, I felt the same. Her pupil became enlarged and now all I can see was pitch black color. I was transfixed, I couldn't move, she was looking directly into my eyes and I couldn’t run. I couldn’t do anything. I was trembling. She put a hand on my shoulder, I had never felt an icy touch like that, then she came 2 inches away from my face, looked directly into my eyes, I was able to see my frightened face in the reflection of those dark voids, and then she asked again in a very disturbing high pitch echoed voice.

“Miss me”?

I woke up after this. The clock pronounced 3:03 AM, the hour of the devil as they say. It took me a while to become normal again. My heart was racing like an engine, my breaths were heavy, uneven, and very fast. The sweating never stopped. I went to the kitchen and had some water. During the whole journey from my bedroom to the kitchen, I felt like I was being watched, someone was there, lurking in the dark corners of my house. It is said that whenever we feel we are being watched, we are being watched, as evolution developed our senses to work effectively, especially in darkness to save us from any predator attack. I was not sure whether my senses are working overtime or my miserable life has finally broken my mental sanity and I was hallucinating a lot.

I discussed the dream the next day with my best friend. As expected, he laughed it off. He teased me saying that even after all these years, I was not able to move on from her. I searched for the meaning of the dream in google also. All I got was some random shit about unfulfilled needs and desires, blocked expectations and stress. In short, no solution at all. A part of me wanted to visit a counsellor or psychotherapist for some professional help. But then I thought maybe I was overthinking it. There was one random hallucination and then a random dream, maybe the former was the cause of the later, just a random emotional phase. I should not give much heed to this. I felt loneliness was getting to me now and I should think about getting married. For the first time in my life, I felt lonely and sad about me being lonely. For the first time in life, I craved for some companionship.

The next few days went normally. I usually sleep the entire noon on Sundays. My life has made me an introvert lately. I have stopped going out with people. I just don’t like being with others or maybe I interact so much with people during my work week, it’s better to stay alone on Sunday. I ordered a heavy brunch and then watched a movie and fell asleep. I woke up when it was late, it had become quite dark. There was no light turn on in the house and no light coming from outside also. Usually, my room is decently illuminated by the lights coming from outside. Perhaps a power cut I thought. It took some time for my eyes to get adjusted in the darkness and get some vision. Suddenly my mouth went dry and I got goosebumps all over my body as if electricity is flowing through my veins. In the dimly lit corner where some blue light was struggling for its existence. She was standing, in the same red dress and with the same dark black eyes watching me intently and angrily as if she was trying to pierce my whole body through her gaze.

Miss Me?

She asked again. My paralysis returned. It was real, it was happening, it was the reality, it was no dream. She started walking towards me while maintaining eye contact. She kept on asking “miss me” in a tone that was frightening. She came very close. I saw her illuminated by that blue light in the room. Her dress was tattered, her face was rough, dry, and splitting from many places developing cracks like dry clay. Her hairs were very dry and scattered everywhere. She had come to punish me. Punish me for no faults of mine, it was her decision to reject me, it was her decision to move on from me, it was her decision to kick me out of her life. What was she punishing me for?

“What do you want from me?” I screamed with all my might.

She touched her head with my head as we used to do during college. Then she smiled. It was a very creepy smile and then I had no memory. I opened my eyes and I was on my bed. I checked my phone, it was 9 PM. The room was well illuminated as always. I slept for like a good 7 hours. My whole body felt tired. Was it a dream again? It couldn’t be. It felt so real this time. I was pretty sure it happened but then I thought maybe my mind was playing games with me again? I was very confused. Should I discuss this with my mother, but then she will get unnecessarily worried. I thought of talking to her directly. That seemed to be the best solution. Thousands of thoughts were running parallelly in my mind.

“Just drop a hi, do a casual chat, nothing serious. This will calm my mind. Her ice-cold single word replies will convince my brain that she is alive and still the same. It will move on. These thoughts will go away.”

I didn’t have her phone number. We didn’t have any common WhatsApp groups also. So the only place of communicating was Facebook, the medium where our love story started, it felt like a poetic justice that I was to reach out to her on Facebook for a much-needed closure. It is true I hated her for a while. Who wouldn’t? After all those tall claims of how much she wanted me and needed me in her life, after those flirting, after spending so much time together, after expressing our feelings for each other, after so much future planning, being kicked out unceremoniously like that.

I had hard feelings for a long time but then I moved on. I had bigger and better villains in my life to give me a hard time and I forgot about her. She became a blurry image in my head till that unfortunate day of 31^st December 2019. I opened my Facebook and surprisingly she was online. Generally, she keeps her messenger offline. I opened the window. I thought on what I would write. I never used to write ‘HI’ to her before, so it would be really awkward to write it now. Suddenly the window flashed that she is typing. Again, too many coincidences for a day.

“What she has to say to me?” My mind created 100s of scenarios.

“But at least, she is here, she is real, she is alive, there will be a normal conversation and this ordeal will end. Maybe I will share the dream with her and we can have a good laugh on that, like the old days. We can have normal conversations, we don’t despise each other anymore.”

It seemed like she was typing a really long paragraph, no message came even after 5 minutes yet it kept on displaying the typing message. I became frustrated after a while. Maybe it’s a technical glitch, they used to happen a lot during early 2010 but haven’t seen anything like that lately. I visited her profile. She had last put a post 5 years back. She was not tagged in any photo for the last 3 years. I kept on browsing her older post and saw a message she had shared. I knew that post was about me when she had put it. It was a subtle jibe, aimed at me, where she portrayed me as a villain, as a sadist, as a jealous and immature person who ruined our relation. My mind filled with rage. I closed my laptop. I didn’t care what she was typing or what she wanted to say. I even forgot my own purpose of talking to her. I felt intense anger. I punched the wall with all my mind and felt the sharp pain on my knuckles. Self-destruction is not always rewarding.

It felt like the real her was as evil as that hallucinating haunting version of her. After all, what she did to me, she still considered me as the villain. I suffered daily because of her and now I was the oppressor and she was the victim. It took me a while to calm down. I took some deep breathes. I opened my Jack Daniels and gulped it down neat like they show in the movies. It burnt my throat, but I felt better after a while. I made a civilized peg after that, then one more peg and then again. I played some old melancholy music. I didn’t know when I passed out into deep sleep fully drunk and out of senses. When I woke up, my laptop was on and a song was being played. It was her favorite song. Youtube was also playing games now I thought. I reached the laptop to shut it, I saw the screen, Facebook was still open, and her chat window was also open with 2 words written after our last chat there 10 years back.

“Miss me?”

I had reached a stage beyond fear now. Partly because I was not sure whether it was a dream or it was another of hallucination and party I was curious now what is happening. I replied this time with a rude block lettered NO. As soon I entered the text, I received a video call from her. I turned it on. I saw not her pretty face but the same disfigured haunted face. She tilted her neck, took a breath, and then she said something that made shook me so much that I dropped my laptop from my hand.

She said, “I will make sure, you will miss me”!

It was 3 Am in the night. I was so scared, I just left my home. I went to a nearby 24*7 café just because I wanted to be surrounded by people. Whether I should visit a psychiatrist or a priest I was not sure now. I needed to talk to people about this. I stayed away even from my mobile because I was scared she will contact me from there. I had 4 coffees in the café and I stayed there till 6 AM. I put my usual “not feeling well, can’t come to the office” message to my boss. I started scrolling my contact list to find the best person to talk to. My fingers stopped at the name of a common friend. She might still be in touch with her. I had no idea what to say to her also. She also used to be a good friend but we hadn’t talked for the last 4 years except exchanging likes on social media posts. Should I discuss the events with her? Should I ask her to do a conference call to resolve everything? I had no idea what I will achieve from this call, but I felt a great instinct to call her.

I checked my Facebook on my mobile. There were no conversations of last night. It just displayed our old messages years ago. A part of me was expecting this.

I called the common friend immediately knowing she would be asleep at this time. She was not a morning person. She responded after a long time still very deep in the sleep. I hadn’t even thought of a good excuse by that time on why I was calling her so early. But she sensed the trembling of my voice and asked me what is wrong. She was always a sweetheart when it comes to helping people. I explained to her what I was going through in a single breath. There was a long pause afterward, I thought the phone is disconnected.

She said my name in such a grave tone that it shook me. She then asked me the date of my first such a bizarre experience. I told her that it was 31^st Dec 2019. She paused again but I could hear her breathing. She told me that my ex-girlfriend died on the same day in a car accident. The moment she uttered those word, I got a FB messenger notification from her account with the same 2 dreaded words.

“Miss Me”