someone in my neighbourhood is getting married. so lot of noise and loud music. I can’t concentrate. I called my friend sumanth to tell him that I am coming to his apartment, forget about completing the syllabus, I was getting a headache because of this loud music.

I went to sumanth’s room with my ancient indian history textbook and my laptop, you can ask why laptop beacuse I already downloaded a few k-dramas from my wifi itself ,so that no network issues gonna stop me doing any of the both either preparing for the exam or at least I can watch pending k-drama.

I reached sumanth’s apartment, settled at one corner, and started reading for the exam. these days sumanth has become super busy with his new girlfriend (probably girlfriends).

I am trying to concentrate on the upcoming weekly test, and you know history is such a dry subject for me. remembering kings and their achievements, most importantly years, I hate remembering years when the wars. I may love doing trigonometry than remember these years in history books.

do you know what happened few months back in the history class? I was out of town and went on a road trip with my friends so unable to complete that week’s syllabus. then without preparing, I sat for the exam, I came home attempted a few questions, and left many. so thought of attempting those left questions with my creativity, so I choose one question about a king, looks like a easy to attempt then I wrote the answer like below.

he is a king of some kingdom, fought many wars, has two wives and 5 children, and worked for the welfare of the people of his kingdom like that blah blah. expected at least 1 or 2 marks for attempting the question.

My history madam entered the class with our answer sheets, started calling out each student to collect their answer sheets, and announcing marks super loud. then scolding most of my classmates for getting less marks.

My history madam started saying, “some students In our class becoming so imaginative and writing in answer sheets whatever they feel like writing. mr. great ravi yalavarthi made a bachelor king married and even had a family of not one, wrote two wives and five children, wah, mr. ravi, you made one bachelor king who wanted to sacrifice his life to spread celibacy all over his kingdom to have a family. I will call your grandma and tell you if you repeat these foolish things again.

whole class laughed as if they had never laughed for a year. I felt embarrassed and bad at the same time. I said to myself is he a king or what, without queens and children, what he would have been doing all his life, for me he is not an interesting king, some tuppas king maybe, what I actually want to write he had 7 wives and 11 children. he even constructed a kind of taj mahal-like building for his 3rd wife. Imagine what if I had written all this. maybe my history madam went mad and marry again. but I felt super bad for making fun of me, so I decided to top in the upcoming history weekly test, so that’s why all this circus today to complete the syllabus.

But see now I have not completed half of what I actually planned, still brought some K-dramas to watch. when I was thinking how funny I am. suddenly I heard someone crying from the beside apartment, and first one aunty cried, and later one male person scolding in very high volume and after that lot of silence for some time. again cry of one girl. for one hour, this same thing happened. at first, I thought they were watching some telugu serial.

later that day, sumanth ordered food for us. while I went down to collect the food, I saw one aunty buying a first aid kit and some medicines at the medical shop right opposite to our home.

I collected our food. ate and slept for some time. but lover boy sumanth is still on the call talking, talking non-stop talking. It’s an advantage for me. I ate more biryani while he was busy over the phone.

I miss the fresh air, birds coming to my window, my bookshelf, and my fridge filled with dark chocolates in my room. slowly I realized the value of my own study space I created for myself, and I understood how privileged I am in my own place. while thinking about all that, the crying, and scoldings went high. I am that curious kiddo, and I try to listen to what they are talking about. I move my study chair beside near to the walls of apartment that cries are coming and started listening very keenly.

Mother or some middle-aged aunty is asking, ” why are you doing like this? let him go.”
the other person is not replying to anything, just crying in response.

male voice “If I observe any more disturbances in this house and you don’t forget that boy and focus on your studies, then I will stop sending you to college and send you to grandmother’s house for sure.”

I got some clues, but I was still confused about what actually happened. I was waiting for an hour for the breakthrough in this happenings. I even asked my friend sumanth about what happened. he said, “I don’t know, I am going out to meet his girl friend chandana. do you want anything to drink?” I said, “no.”

But my wait is over, and I got the full story, when I listened to what the girl who cried is on the phone previously, talking with her friend secretly on the phone call.

crying girl “he said we are not gonna together anymore because he said we are not meant to be together. after listening to what he told me, I just replied, don’t do this to me surya, Likitha(girl on other side of phone), you know how much I loved surya, how much I changed after he came into my life. I even avoided you, my other friends to spend more time with him. you people always told me that not to bunk classes and not to many other activities, but I didn’t listen. now paying the price.”

she continued, “you know how I am feeling right now, all the doors closed upon me, and everywhere I can see only darkness. though we are in the second year of intermediate, I have already planned my whole life with him. now I am feeling empty inside, and I just want to die. I even cut my hand with a knife in the morning. I knew I wouldn’t die out of this cut, but I didn’t know how to handle this pressure, total emptiness in my thoughts, opposite person on the call shouted at this girl after listening to she her herself with knife “why can’t you listen to us sirisha?

Sirisha replied ” before shouting, let me complete what all happened in the home, I don’t have much time to talk to you over call, my father may found out I am talking with you anytime soon so please listen to me likki,

she continued “my mother is crying just by seeing me like this, I have never seen her in that much sorrow, but I am helpless, I can’t able to figure out what to do. I am telling all this to you not to frighten you likitha. I just don’t know whom to tell all this.

meanwhile other person on the call told her something

the she continued, ” yes likitha you people told me and warned me many times not to love him, but he looked perfect for me at that time. but now I just don’t want to love anyone in my life. fuck love fuck all these relationships, he just made me to hate my life”

“now I understand why you and keerthana are staying single though you get many proposals. probably you people are true, help me to come out of this heartbreak as soon as possible, but my parents are not allowing me to meet anyone or go out to get out of this situation. my inside person is more hurting me than the cut on my wrist for trusting in love and trusting him.

She crying out and continued and saying “sirisha can you arrange those tablets I asked for as soon as possiable? okay, I am disconnecting the call now. my mother came from the market. don’t call to this number and I will call you when possible for me. that girl cut the call, quickly ran into her room after seeing her mother coming.

I listened to it very carefully and understood that she recently had a break-up and the rest is, as usual happenings in any breakup story, so I lost interest in knowing it any further. I forgot about her for a while and continued reading for my exam.

I get bored sitting inside sumanths room for a long time. I wanted to go out of his room but after looking at the pending syllabus, I didn’t dare to go out and roam. Instead, I took my books and decided to read on the terrace.

While I was climbing the steps towards terrace of our bulilding, I saw one girl standing at the edge of the adjutant building to us, I felt very suspicious. after seeing me, she stopped everything she was doing, acted as if nothing had happened, and settled on the floor watching the sky, she just glancing at the sky with bulgy eyes.

if you see her eyes anybody can easily say she cried a lot, those eyes are red, popping out and looking restless, with a long bandage on her left wrist. she is probably the girl I listened to in the afternoon talking about her break-up. while I was at the terrace silently preparing for the remaining syllabus. that girl’s mother shouted from the below floor, “what are you doing up there, Sirisha.”

That girl replied, “nothing, Mom, I want to fly a kite, so I came to the terrace. you can check I even kept my phone down itself. not talking over the phone here with anyone, so let me be here for sometime please”

her mom replied, “okay, come down fast before your father reaches home from the work. he will definitely scold you if he sees you on terrace.”

while all this discussion is happening, I can see she doesn’t have any interest in flying a kite and she just came here to cry her heart out. that’s what she is doing exactly right now.

I completed my cup of coffee. though we both are in different buildings, they are just beside one other, so we can clearly see each other, and I felt I should give her privacy so I decided to go down.

while stepping down, many things ran in my mind. what if my suspicion of her try standing on the terrace wall to jump out of it, hoping that’s not what she is going to do but what if my doubt is correct and I even listened to her in the afternoon call telling her friend she cut her wrist. I don’t want to take a chance. so I made up my mind to go to the terrace once again and talk to her for a while or at least be there on terrace till she get down without doing any harm to herself.

after sometime I started the conversation with that girl..

i started with few random questions they went like ” which college are you from?” ” I want to join my cousin there, is your college good” like that normal stuff, and she is replying uninterestedly in single lines.

at one time of that conversation, I wanted to quit what I was doing right now, go down and mind my own business, but it’s okay. I pushed myself to bear her anger.

I knew all the frustrations and anger was not on me. so finally, I asked her, “what happened, love failure?”
Sirisha ” no, I am okay.”
Me ” Really, what happened to your hand?”
Sirisha “what the hell will you do after knowing what happened to my hand.”
Me “Okay, but I really want to know what’s on earth made you cry like this and make you cut your hand by yourself, I never cut mine till now I am curious to know how it feels. I tried some foolish lines

I continued ” If that was because of break up tell me, I really love listening to break-up stories more than love stories. and I don’t stay in this builiding, and I came to this apartment just to meet my friend, so no worries I wont share with anyone.

it’s okay if you decide not to tell me. but if you feel like saying to someone, you can tell me I will listen, like wise I convinced her to open up a bit

She started taking she said “okay, fine I will tell you, but on one condition. you should listen to what I’m about to tell you completely without passing any fucking suggestions to me and you don’t talk or say anything, I just say and leave that’s it.

Me ” sure, I already told you, I will just listen to what you are going to tell me , no suggestions or no questions asked unless I have a doubt in what you are saying.

she started narrating, ” his name is surya, my inter-college classmate, he is super handsome, talkative and not so super close to me in the initial days at the college but one day he sent me a friend request on instagram, and I accepted it, later we started talking, and I don’t know when we become that close, we can’t imagine a day without talking to each other. my days started filling with his thoughts, and everything went super perfect for six months. we even planned our lives together, and now he broke up with me stating we are not meant to be togther. that’s it. end of the story.

Me ” what is this? you yourself didn’t tell me the complete story. tell me why you people broke up sirisha, that things I should know atleast”

sirisha” I usually stop here, or listening till here people whom I already shared this happenings in my life they either come to conclusions or pass judgements and start giving me suggestions. so to save our times I stopped here, I will continue for you if you want

i nodded yes then continued “we planned our life together, though we are in intermediate, we planned for which careers to we both settle in and even planned about family wala stuff, how many kids to have. our discussions went that far.

he only proposed to me one day, and I said yes after a day. but after six months, our mid-annual results came. he started complaining and blaming me for his low performance in the exams. and started saying he was so into me and couldn’t focus on his studies.

finally, last week this discussion went to the next level. the blaming from his side thing took a new turn. he started questioning me, ” sirisha, you are getting good marks, though we are in love with each other, I am not able to concentrate on my studies, thinking about you and me, but you are doing pretty well. How can you do that?, are you not loving me truly and are you even thinking anything about us just preparing all the time for the exams?

he himself come to a conclusion that I am and the love with me are the reasons for all his problems in life and says it wouldn’t work out anymore let’s break up, left the town to his uncles home and left my life too just like that, by collapsing every dream we had together.

” at that particular time I really don’t know what I should tell him, how to convince him. should I get low marks to prove that I love him too? I don’t know. I just felt lost somewhere understanding love.

do you know how disturbing these days I am unable to sleep for an hour straight, and head is hurting me at peaks like someone hitting an iron rod on my head and telling me the last words that surya said to me when is leaving me to this hell.”

she started crying and in a flow to tell me every bit of what she is feeling right now. “Is this love this much painful? maybe that’s why most of my close friends always warn me when I tell them I am in a relationship with surya, not just surya they just advised me not to love anyone, they say that that golden era of love is passed away, I don’t have any answer to tell anyone when I myself had so many questions are running in my mind making me restless and losing hope on every thing.

she wiping out tears and told me, ” thank you so much for listening to all this. I really wanted to tell someone all these things, and I tried telling my mother. she stopped at the beginning of the story and started hitting me shouted “we sent you to college to study not to do stupid things like this.

When I started telling to my close friends, they stopped me in the middle. they said, “we told you even before going into a relationship, most boys are like that, cheat us, they would leave us with a silly reason if they found one more beautiful girl.

When I tried to explain things to my dad, his reply I didn’t even expect, I wouldn’t have told him in the first place ” He tried to hit me with a chappal and stated that I was born in this family to ruin all the family prestige.” after telling him I cursed myself for getting a thought to have a discussion with my dad about surya.

that’s it, since then I didn’t even try to tell my problem to anyone, at first I felt it was useless to tell you anything because you are a complete stranger to me and I have already seen you a few times at sumanth apartment.

You always seemed that studd type of person always into books, I observed that you are like on a mission to complete something as soon as possible, by the way, what you are preparing for?

I replied, “I am in my final year of graduation but preparing for IAS, Okay bye I got to go, have my history exam this weekend and only one thing I want to tell you, don’t make your mother to cry more, she looks as helpless as you are”

sirisha ” really, you gonna be that IAS who solves all India’s problems soon, but it’s gonna be tough reading those many books and understanding everything, all the best.”

I replied, “completing the syllabus for civil services exam is not as difficult as it looks but I am somehow managing it. I even came in the top 10 in most of my institute’s exams but should improve a lot in a few subjects. hoping I may crack it soon.

sirisha “I think you will, you seem very intelligent and composed, most importantly you tricked me to tell you everything about me. so before solving total India problems, I am curious to know how will you solve my problem, let me see if this IAS brain had anything spectacular idea to cope up with my present situation and before answering any first tell me do you have a lover right now, while you are preparing for most difficult time consuming civil services exam?”

I replied, ” seems you are pulling my leg to suggest you something so that you can say I don’t want your fucking suggestions to satisfy your ego, but I don’t do that. let it be, stick to what we agreed in the start of our conversation.”

sirisha ” arey baba, I really want to know what you think about this for many reasons, one you are a complete stranger so you won’t judge me, second through this discussion I have seen your real concern about taking care of me and third you going to appear for India’s toughest exam, I read somewhere that to crack IAS you should need to read everything under the sun, and I think love is also under the sun, I myself asking you to tell me, what’s your problem or you are that full on nerd who never anyone till now? she smiled and that was the first smile I saw in her sad face.

I replied “no, I don’t know much about love, since myself failing, winning and again failing at it, so I don’t think I am in any good position to suggest to you what to do exactly, but I can tell you something about it.

If what I am gonna tell you made a sense to you, use it for yourself, otherwise we count it as I didn’t said anything, I will tell as if my younger self who broke his heart for the first time come before me and ask for a help to answer to his present situation sirisha?

Here it is ” how can I start? you have a kite beside you right now correct?, If you fly that kite into the sky, it may cut off from the tread, it may be stuck in trees and at the end of the day you may lose it completely. so if any person afraid of losing it, kept his kite in a safe place without ever flying it into the sky, what do you call him?

sirisha ” a fool probably, we buy and someone makes kites to fly in the sky, if you don’t fly what’s the use of even buying it in the first place, so you are about to call me a fool because me not flying this and crying here?

I replied,” now, listen, just like kites are made in the first place to fly. If you read human evolution and the world history of human beings, we are made to be love people as much as we can. If you keep your love with yourself, afraid to show on somebody thinking they may cheat on you again and leave you at one point of time in the future is as foolish as buying a kite and keeping it safely all your life.

you know something, there are mostly two kinds of people in the world. one is searching for what he wants, finding it, later knowing this is not what he wants, finding what he wants again and pursuing what it takes to fulfil his dream and passions. while on the other side, the second type of people doesn’t aim at anything at love or career. they just simply sit there passing judgements, comments on the first person who is trying and failing for what he wants.

you know what sirisha, those who aimless sat on the shore and start laugh at one who failed at trying to achieve his dreams and when he fails again they will come and try convincing him not to try again to increase the number of people who sit along with them to watch people failing. just like how frogs do when you keep then in a jar, no frog appreciate other frog coming out of that difficult situation, rather helping it some frogs even pull hard on the other frog which relentlessly trying to come out.

the second kind of person gets happiness from seeing that failed person even joke them that I told you already there is no such thing as pure love and any goals. eat food, breathe air, and don’t love anyone so that they won’t break your heart. so that you can die one day peacefully without any pain of trying and failing.

but if you see that first person, he constantly tries to fly his kite and feels happy for the little heights his kite gained day after day, but the same person feels sad if he damages his kite if it struck in treas. he does patchwork make to fly again but never stops flying. It’s a quite high and low kind of thing, but nothing compares to the amount of happiness he will get seeing his kite flying high in the sky. though its may stay for few moments or life long for some lucky ones.

nowadays, people become such that they even say, they decided to be single forever. when I listened to this sentence I find it is as foolish as someone saying I wont keep any aims in my life. Then if you don’t have any aim, failure, or success doesn’t bother you at all.

But the point is all the fun and adventure is out there, not with someone who keeps their hearts in the locker. But before flying your kite in the sky. you should know basic things.

you should never select the wrong sky so go out find and no hurry to find the best sky to fly your kite, don’t settle down thinking that all skies are one and the same or whoever trying to impress you with false promises, yes sometimes it takes a lot of time and patience because the world is filled with the second type of people are just kite keepers or they may cut down your kite all of sudden.

lastly, you must know one thing love as such never hurts you. only some person who doesn’t know how to love you hurts you. don’t blame the complete thing as love gave you pain. for example, when I ate the pizza for the first time, in that resturent chef didn’t do that pizza properly. I hated it to the core, but after so many days, my friend Kavya took me to a restaurant where only pizzas were available. I ended up eating pizza since I had no option.

though my comparisons sound funny and didn’t make sense to you right now, but think for a while, you will understand what I am trying to tell you.

sirisha “It’s quite different from what I know till now. I understood that I shouldn’t be afraid to love someone again, but what if the next person also leaves me or what if I don’t like him after sometime?

I replied, “let it be, let him go. one basic rule is never to ask anyone to love you, or don’t force yourself to be with someone when you don’t like it. one should love us for what person we are rather than because we asked them to love. not all people come into your life to disrupt or discourage you about your trust in your love. few just come to clear a few things in your vision, just like a sudden blow of wind at first disturbs the kite, but that’s what makes your kite fly a little higher.

This concept of loving only one person and marrying him is as good as going to a shoe store and buying any pair of shoes, and keeping them for life though they are hurting your feet. everyone is just afraid to leave those hurting shoes because of many reasons like your friends told those shoes to look good on you, you afraid that you can’t find any more shoes at this time or most stupidest thing is believing that there are no shoes existed for you in the world which fit you perfectly, that’s what most people settle for, and they manage things with a lot of unsatisfaction and frustrations all over their lives.

sirisha” that’s okay. what if I never come across a person who had this much of clarity and love to show up on me?
I replied,” Let me think, you are asking what if you love someone and he doesn’t know how to love you as intensely or as truly you love him, right?
First, clarify what you expect out of your relationship. Most importantly, show other people what is love according to you. Once he experiences that high in love, other people will understand what you mean. Like if you have never seen an ocean in your life, you can’t explain what an ocean to other people is. Once he knows the taste of love, he would never settle for something lower than that. That’s basic human common sense.

Silpa, “It’s funny if I keep changing whom I love like in your example keep changing skies for flying my kite. people around us would judge me, and they would call me a bitch for sure.”

Let them, Shilpa,
let me tell you the most important thing. Look from here, can you see different houses? Can you see how many people living in those houses? Can you see that Blue colour saree aunty walking down there?
Superb, now listen, you don’t give a damn what any or all of those people think about you or your life. Why should you even consider what other people sitting on the other end of the world decide whom you want to love? And don’t allow them to come into your thought and make you decide with whom you are going to share your bedroom.
People judge you for everything, whatever you do. If you keep your kite safe in your locker, they will call you Timid. If you come out of that painful thing and try to fly again, then they may call you bitch. I would tell you it’s okay to be called bitch rather than be that person wasting all his energy and time on passing judgements and calling some other person who is trying to do something with their lives as bitches.
I think most people think that what they know about love or for saying anything is correct and complete. But you should know about something until you experiment with it rather than believing everyone follows and trusts that as the final and ultimate truth. You know what? For more than 100 years, people believed the earth was flat until Pythagoras proved the earth was round. So that’s how most people are. Don’t completely believe what I told you. Know yourself, and put everything you know to the test. Things that worked for me won’t work for you. If you test yourself, you will know yourself. Never come back to me or to anybody else asking more questions about what to do. Rather than believe something and keep experimenting with it, know yourself, Silpa.

And finally, it is worth flying your kite high up in the sky, and I can tell you that’s for sure Silpa, Take my word And Bye. I hope you can’t understand a few things I said to you now, but once you start flying your kite, every word of mine makes sense.

Silpa “It’s actually quite different than what I used to listen to from the people around me, and by the way, what’s your name? It will be funny when I look back and think that I shared my whole love story with someone I don’t know his name.

I replied, “Ravi Yalavarthi.”

Silpa ” Nice, Do you have any love stories? If you had one, please tell me, after listening to all this, I really want to know who would you love someone with this much of clarity on love.”
I replied, ” Did I tell you I got complete clarity?, not at all, I am still figuring it out myself, I will tell my love story some other time, I should go down and read for my history exam, I didn’t expect our conversation went this long actually.

She smiled and said all the best. I too said the same and left that place.

While coming down, Sumanth was waiting for me at the steps with a Juice in his hand to give me, and I took that and asked him, “How’s Chandana? Where you people go?”
Sumanth Replied, ” Forget about that Ravi, You have an exam tomorrow. Why waste your time like this, that girl doing so much nonsense and drama for some week or so, don’t waste your time.”
I replied, ” You know one thing Sumanth, When you are on the road, if you see an accident, you go to the victims and try to help them to come out of that pain, you show some sympathy to those victims, and try to help them to come out of that as soon as possible. Losing all your money, meeting with an accident, is as tragic as breaking your heart with someone whom you loved so much. If you can’t show them any sympathy or help them a little to come out of that tragedy, you should at least not call it nonsense or as drama. Do you forget how many days you suffered after you broke up with that Vizag girl?

Sumanth ” So you yourself with nine failed love stories trying to suggest someone how to love How funny.”
I replied, ” See, I proudly say I have nine love stories, and that too they failed, but the point is I never failed to love someone again, and I never loved two people at one time at least, and most importantly, my stories failed of different reasons which are not in my hand so I can’t do anything about it, but you know why I say I had nine failed love stories proudly, if any person sees me now after their love failure, they should get little hope that there is still life after every break-up and there are people like Ravi Yalavarthi who had many failed love stories and still happy as hell.

Suppose I want to tell one thing to those people. In that case, I will tell them that there is one person on another side of the world, in India, from the small city of Vijayawada, who will understand your pain and what you are going through your life now, and all this pain will decrease one day, and there is life after this.
If I can create that little hope in one person, I am super happy. You know what, after my first break up, no one helped me to come out of that. When my grandma told me about her experiences and what she went through in her teenage years, I never forgot what she meant to me. When you are in a sea of bad thoughts going into your mind, one single thought will have an impact. One little hope you can hang on to come out of that mental torture. It’s okay people feel like it’s funny, and you also know I don’t care. By the way, Juice is nice, and when are you going to tell break up with Chandana?

Sumanth ” Soon, I try to convey her today, but I can’t.”
Ravi ” As soon as better if you decided to say so.”

Sumanth ” I will see. Actually, I want to make a phone call, waiting for you to come down from the terrace for a long, I will be back, by the way, Chandana gave me some sweets to give you, they are delicious, so no sweets for you for arguing with me ” and he left to terrace smiling.

I followed him to the terrace for those sweets, and I spotted Shilpa untangling the thread to fly her kite.

This is Ravi Yalavarthi and I will see you soon, Click here to read about other women who influenced me