FOLLOWING

“We plan so many things in our life. And if it goes wrong, we just think that it’s the way of destiny. But destiny is just any other plan. Difference is that it is not written by you, but on you!”

  Just think… When you start reading a story expecting a smooth narration and end up with a messy one, how irritating it is! If it is the case with a story, what would be the case with the life? How does it feel to be in the middle of a chaos not knowing what exactly lead you into that? Nerve snatching! Right? It was my situation, but I tried to be cool, as recollecting and re arranging the happenings is the only hope left for me. I tried to recall where it exactly went wrong. Come, follow me, lets get out of this confusion.

DAY 1:

It may not be the day when it all started, but it’s the day exactly when it got diverted. I broke the only rule I set as my principle. I, Ravi, am just any other 22 year lad, with lots of passion down my blood and my passion is writing. My goal is to write a novel and not like just any other one. I wanted all my characters in the story to be perfectly normal and real. To make them that way, I started following people, Just randomly. I used to follow them and observe their way of living. It worked. Following a person, noticing what he does, how he behaves, what’s his mentality, was an informative thing to do. It got rid of my loneliness. And gradually it became an addiction. To keep things under my control, I took an oath- “Under any circumstances, I wouldn’t follow same person twice! ” just to avoid stalking. And this is the day I broke that oath. I saw a strange person, fair, brown haired and all he did was to write down something. I just don’t know when this ‘informative’ changed to ‘interesting’. It became more interesting when he broke into some random houses, de-arranged the things but did not steal a single penny! I was shocked. My mind tempted me to follow him once again and I broke the oath. Following him became a habit.

DAY 20:

At last I did meet her, in real! Her stunning look dazzled me at the first sight. She was an absolute beauty and was better than what she was in a portrait. My brain was warning me not to fall for her but her precious smile slipping out of the beautiful lips gave enough strength to my heart to over power the brain and I fell for her in the first sight(may be second)! I did what I was  supposed to do- follow her. It was a bit easy as I already have been in her house before and it made my following look casual as I knew the details.

DAY 22:

I asked her out for coffee and she agreed at first instance! It was like our first unofficial date. She was stunning, as always, but her precious smile was missing! She looked as if in some trouble. She refused to tell her trouble at starting but after enough pleading that is required to make a woman speak, she unwinded her trouble. She broke up recently and since then her ex was black mailing her about the house documents which he made her sign when they were in love and ought to be married. I thought this is the best chance to help her and make an impression on her. This is the best chance for me to enter into her life. And the only person who can help me out on this is Arya.

DAY 5: 

It has been five days since I’ve been following this guy and every moment passed increased the zeal in me to know about this guy more and more. As usual, he went to the coffee shop early in the morning. I followed him. As I was waiting for my order, he got up and came straight to me.

“Hi, I’m Arya” he said with a stern voice,

He was about my age and height and he had a pretty serious look on his face.

“Ravi” I said.

“May I please know, why the hell are you following me?” he shouted in whispers.

After certain hesitation, I told him the entire story behind following him.

“Hmm… your honesty and approach! I like both of them. You can come with me if you want. I’ll teach you something useful.”

“Sorry, but I don’t fancy robbing someone’s house.”

“You know something, I’m a writer and I don’t rob houses. I just break into them, study them and displace things so as to study their feelings! It helps you a lot!”

That sounded interesting. I joined him. It was fun. And we got to study mentality of different people more closely. It was better than following!

DAY 10:

It continued- breaking into the houses of different people. Not only his hobbies, he made me convert completely into him. Now I too was alike the person I found interesting. I too was brown haired and exactly dressed up like him! I liked all this.

DAY 15:

This was a lucky day. We broke up into a house as usual and were taking details. In the bedroom, I saw a portrait, which changed my life forever. It was the portrait of a young girl, sparkling eyes and a dazzling smile. She stole my heart at the first instance. But I had a fear of meeting the girl whose house I broke into!

DAY 25:

 Arya helped me out in the pre plan session. Everything was ready- cell phone jammers, dis alarmers and a pistol! But destiny had a different plan for me! That day while coming back to the house, Arya met with an accident and died. His last wish was that he wanted to retain his identity in the society. He want his name to be shining more than it actually is now and to carry the last plan of his life with elegance! He made me promise to do that and then lay dead in my arms. I decided to make his last wishes true and hence made his death certificate on my name and I took his name. I am his identity from now on.

DAY 30:

  I wanted every bit of the plan to be executed perfectly. It would be a tribute to my friend and chance to me to earn her. I went to the bank and placed the jammers and dis alarmers as planned. And I made my way to the locker with a gun pointed to a civilian, whom I took as hostage. But when I broke the locker, it was empty! I was startled. I started breking all the lockers in disgust and in no time I was surrounded by police. 

NOW:

I was ready to face the consequences and agreed my fault in the court. But the judgement came out to be a big shock to me:

“This person, Arya, has been sentenced to life time for 28 robbery cases and a probable suspect in the recent assassination of the minister”

All I could do was to plead and shout out my true identity, but they wouldn’t even consider it saying that “the person you’re claiming to be- Ravi is dead 5 days ago and there’s no way to cheat us”

As I was being taken away, far among the crowd, I spotted two known faces, Arya and the girl smiling and hugging each other. Entire journey of mine flashed before my eyes-

“Being suggested to follow the people, made attracted towards the actions of a person and breaking my oath, changing my appearance, plan to break into a house and finding a portrait of very attractive girl, meeting her in real, persuading me into robbery and giving his identity to me!”

Who followed whom? I’ve fallen prey into this carefully spun web of him and this time, it was not destiny, but him, that had other plans for me!

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ORIGINAL STORY BY : CHRISTOPHER NOLAN.