The Other Side
Vivaan did not sleep that night and kept thinking and planning.
Thinking about what actually happened to him and planning his further moves. Or statements maybe. Maybe he planned how he would face the opposition lawyers? Maybe he thought how he would explain his role in the case to his defense some day? Maybe he was wondering how good his defense would be? And what not?
He sleeps the next whole day. And this day, he saw his girlfriend in his dream. She has long hair, with streaks in between. Around 4-5 strands he sees are shining differently. While dreaming, he remembers telling her one day, “You will look the best in an entire blonde look” while gently caressing her hair.
“Then maybe someone else takes me away from you?” she replies while teasing him.
But this is not this dream. I shouldn’t think of all this. What she actually did to me is true. What side she chose to stay on to is the only truth that I should be aware of now. All that caressing and love is past now. Vivaan literally wiped his forehead, during sleeping, to remove all the sweat including the thoughts of her girl.
In this dream, she is seen taking the other side. The side chosen by most people. Because this group just knows Vivaan as a man who has been involved in all the possible bad things there in this world. Be it drugs, be it trafficking, be it everything Vivaan has done in the near past.
Manya, Vivaan’s then girlfriend is seen taking the cops’ and the media’s side while shaping a story. “We all were partying downstairs. Then there was this gunshot and we hurried to come up here. Here I saw Vivaan, who I was looking for all the time during the party”, she is seen by him now. She is telling the journalists that Vivaan was not anywhere to be seen during the party. Which is obviously not true.
He was present there all the time. He was drinking and dancing also. He was out of the scene just a few minutes before. But she lied.
This shattered Vivaan in the first place. But then he thought maybe he was wrong when he chose her. Maybe she was not even worth his love which he had given to her all the time. Maybe all the time he had spent with her was a waste altogether? Maybe.
The most heartbreaking for Vivaan was when his group of friends also went against him. They were namely- Adi, Jay, Hardy and Shivansh. Adi and Jay were the best of friends. This group was complete with Vivaan as a part but now just four of them are here. Five of them were like the best buddies for each other.
There have been a lot of happenings in the past few years at school. It was at the beginning of class 11th that the five met for the first time. And by the first three months they were the best of friends. Since then they have been part of most activities denied by the law or considered illegal. The first such was a case of human trafficking and the last such was selling drugs at a rave.
But now, the four were on one side and Vivaan was on the other side. And as most people saw Vivaan at the crime scene, they all believe that being on his side will do no good. So they chose the other side and so did most people at Marina, that night. Meanwhile, there are a lot of media reports waiting to be seen by Vivaan that day.
It’s a crime show now. And the editor in chief is present here, talking about Vivaan’s past involvement in all sorts of crime.
Vivaan has earlier been arrested for cases such as drug smuggling and trafficking of girls and he was also found guilty by the court but always managed to get away because of his dad. Everyone knows that its Varun Ahuja’s image that works well for Vivaan and helps him nearly always in getting out of such cases.
Interviews of the people present at the party that day also surfaced in news reports. Many of his classmates said that his past explains his present and his present will later explain his future.
He was thinking of all this when weeks passed. He went completely into himself these days. Was not talking to anyone, was not taking any calls, wasn’t seeing DM’s and wasn’t even sleeping actually. Maybe he was worried how to get himself out or how to blame someone else or both maybe. His dad suffered a great loss in shares due to the much expanded controversies around Vivaan. He was almost bankrupt.
Everyone has been wrong in some or the other was at some or the other part in their lives. And most of them admit it now but didn’t admit then that yes it was I who was at fault. Maybe the guilt is heavy then. Time heals the weight. It reduces stress and also gives a feeling of satisfaction when realization is done. So why don’t we realize at that very point of time? If people do realize then, then a lot of time invested in making them realize will not be wasted and the person can invest that somewhere else. Realization of something also instills a feeling of maturity and sympathy for the victim of your deed. Still we don’t. In spite all the resulting benefits, we don’t realize then. This is because the moment when a crime is done, at that time the weight of the guilt is more than the satisfaction of the realization. Also, at times there’s a fear of hurting the other person’s feelings so much that realization has no scope. But in this case, hurting has a multiplication in its magnitude when realization comes later.
Vivaan was a great thinker. And he was thinking of all of this. It was he who was involved in all bad deeds in life and was kind of trapped. Karma hits badly and Vivaan realized this.
All this was going on and the first date of the case arrived with curiosity for the country.