KATERINA

Long back in time, Rehan had met an accident.

It was not a Major one one but a General one (pun intended).. As Rehan said it was..

The accident was so small that it had taken 2 months for Rehan to recover and walk on his own... After the first month he used crutches, in the same time he used to work online and his most of the time was spent on facebook, I sometimes feel that I have noticed him talking to his laptop, it seemed weird but given Rehan's condition it somehow made sense.

In the month of October 2011, Rehan took me out for a drink, there he told me a story, those days there was storm which was creating a mess of the American Island.. Looking at this Rehan remembered Katerina.. He told me a story which I still feel should have happened with me.

"I was online one night as usual unable to sleep and trying to scratch my plastered leg and failing miserably everytime. I was browsing through various sites to find some useful information other than youtube videos which are now bombarded with advertisement. However, I did not realise that my yahoo messenger was buzzing for some time.

I was avoiding it assuming that it would be again some of the stupid people trying to know how was my broken leg after the accident, although I did not have any problems with them but simply failed to understand how could I consider these people caring when I had to call these people and tell them that I had been advised bed rest due to broken fibula and yet these guys were only available on chats and calls, well maybe older are wise when they say, Mumbai is a city of heartless people.

 However, to my surprise there was someone else who was buzzing me.. Her name was Katerina. I had never known someone by this name, usually I let these names go to spam but somehow this interested me. I replied...

I asked her if she knew me from somewhere, as my hopes were high I was assuming her to be my distant friend's cousin which she was not.

I asked her what her real name was and she replied Katerina.. I said it's the same name, Then she gave me two more names.. Here is the excerpt of the messages she shared..

katerina : my name is katerina

Rehan : it's the same name

katerina : yes,its the same name, katerina or katrina or kate

Yes, she did share her last name but I chose to keep it a secret. However, despite my all beliefs of not talking to strangers I chose to talk, maybe I was sick of talking to myself. Believe me, when you need the people who can make you feel better and they are never around you feel like fool who did not have the pure sense of time investment.

However, we started to chat very casually with the generic ALP(Age/Location/Profession), and got to know that she was 22 living in Big Island and an Actor by profession but was studying too.

I don't know why I disclosed the my relevant information to her maybe as it was of no harm to me. We chatted for a while before we realised that we had been chatting for more than an hour.

She requested me for a live chat and here I was thinking of what to do, I was deeply engrossed with the kind of topics we were discussing, since she was a student of greek philology, she told me a lot of stuff which was very exciting to me. I was thinking about the live chat then she sent me another ping it said ' sent a friend request on facebook please accept'.

I checked her profile, in the first impression I felt it was a fake profile. I had never seen a girl like her in my life. She was very different, she had everything similar to a common girl but yet she seemed very elite and apart. Her eyes were something that I can still see when I close mine, they were misty and moist as if searching for something with great hope. It lacked the mischief of the teenage as if she had gone through a lot. She had the most beautiful face, oval shape, cheek bones to give a run for money to Julia Roberts, but yet there was this smile of hers..there was sorrow in her smile. It was hard to believe that this girl exists so without even thinking I dialed for the live chat.

Unfortunately, my purpose was unresolved as she did not turn on the web cam. However, her voice was distinctly clear, it was husky and I don't know why I told her that she sounded like one of our actresses, I was hoping to get ashamed of my remark but she liked it maybe because she was an actor and she did not know that I was talking about Rani Mukerjee. Similar to her DP, there was something different about her voice, there was poise, she was calm and had great control over the discussion.

Finally, after 15 mins I asked her to turn on the webcam and she apologised to me a couple of times as she did not realise that she had missed to turn it on, I feel she did it purposely to make me feel desperate. But to my pleasure she was exactly same to the DP I saw on facebook. I was amazed at her beauty, she had dressed herself in simple pajamas and a jacket. But there were two things strikingly beautiful and different, her specs which made her look wise and her nose ring I guess they were studded with diamonds which made her look strong and sexy.

I told her how I felt about her smile and eyes, she was quite for sometime and then she said, 'lets talk something about you'.

I said 'very well' and I don't remember for how long I had gone on and on and on.. And she kept listening with some interventions when she felt that I was a stupid or a fool or just a fun moment she laughed and then we continued...

That day we had a chat for almost 1.5 hrs and then we talked for good 5 hrs. But I still remeber the last 15 minutes.

The last 15 minutes:

I was very sure that Kate and I have something in common, after all we had been chatting for past 6 hrs, I was sure that there was something. Then suddenly Kate asked me to hold the line and only listen to what she has to say, I had no thoughts of denying her and I simply agreed with a "hmm..ok.."

Then she started to take me back to my life, she told me what were my mistakes, she told me who are the people I have really cared about and who have been the people I should have cared for. She made me realise that I have been living a life which is far away from the reality, I have been running around for all the stuff which does not matter to me. The biggest thing that she pointed out was that I don't take my life seriously. This had completely broken me, I knew what she was saying is simple truth but I wanted to revolt, so I did.

I said to her that 6 hours ago she did not even know me but now she has become a person who can judge me? I had a lot more to say but noticing my angst she stopped me and said "I have known you since the day you have opened your eyes in this world, our talk was necessary so I was commanded to meet you, I just want you to remember two things that I have told you, live for yourself and not others and take life seriously, you are the architect of your own life".

After this I could not see her on the screen, her voice was still in my mind but I could not hear anything over the headphones.

She was gone, I checked her profile on FB, there was nothing, it was nothing, as if Kate never exist. I dunno why I started crying but it made me feel light and I went into sleep, the next morning was very new and refreshed as if I had found a new ray of life. For me Katerina was not a destroyer, it made me.."

Till this day I have never seen Rehan this happy while telling a story to me. I wish I had a chance to meet Katerina..