When you and me are feeling mushy this season, one Dilli da munda is nursing a toota dil. So, today no I-Me-Myself. Instead let’s peep into this 23-year-old bleeding heart. Nizamuddin Basti’s Ashraf (name changed) speaks good angrezi, looks like a model and works as a... butcher!
Two years ago, Ashraf was at the 3C’s mall in Lajpat Nagar when Shikha, a student at Dayal Singh College, spotted him with his gang of Basti buddies. Ashraf’s sparkling eyes, hot-shot body, and winning smile won her heart. Bold and bindaas, Shikha approached him, exchanged phone numbers and their pyar-mohabbat started.
Once when her folks were out of town, Shikha invited her beau to her house in Lajpat Nagar where they kissed in the darkness of her father’s medical clinic. “It was my life’s first kiss,” said Ashraf.
Soon their puppy love became more regular. They would go to malls, multiplexes and McDonald’s. Nothing would come between the lovers. So what if Ashraf was a school-dropout and Shikha a grad student. One afternoon they went to a friend’s flat in CR Park and had sex. “We crossed all limits,” said Ashraf.
The love intensified even as a jobless Ashraf got a day job in a butcher’s store. His life got some routine. During the day, he would slice off dead goats; in the evening, he would take a shower, slip into jeans, t-shirt, spray deo and go to south Delhi hangout zones to meet his girlfriend. One freezing evening, during the dying days of 2008, when they met outside Priya cinema, Shikha declared it would be their last meeting. She said she has her parents to think of. “I went paagal,” said Ashraf. “I asked her where were her parents when she first eyed me at 3C’s.”
{{/usCountry}}The love intensified even as a jobless Ashraf got a day job in a butcher’s store. His life got some routine. During the day, he would slice off dead goats; in the evening, he would take a shower, slip into jeans, t-shirt, spray deo and go to south Delhi hangout zones to meet his girlfriend. One freezing evening, during the dying days of 2008, when they met outside Priya cinema, Shikha declared it would be their last meeting. She said she has her parents to think of. “I went paagal,” said Ashraf. “I asked her where were her parents when she first eyed me at 3C’s.”
{{/usCountry}}The poor guy cajoled, pleaded, cried. But it was over from Shikha’s side. And as it usually happens in such cases, the dumped ‘ex’ sank into depression. So there was our Ashraf reaching home late in the night: his eyes always red, his steps always faltering, his breathe always stinking of booze. “Mere kaleje ka keema bana diya,” complained our butcher. “Once she got me, she had lost her interest.”
Meanwhile Ashraf’s ammi, unaware of her son’s private grief, warned that his drunkenness could risk the shaadi chances of his two sisters. That consideration rescued Ashraf from becoming another Dev D.
Of course, our Devdas still drinks and still has Shikha’s picture saved on his Chinese mobile phone but... well, a few days ago he sms-ed a basti girl. “U r so masoom. I want to talk to u,” it said. The girl replied back. This V-day, they met behind Ghalib’s tomb... and kissed. The girl’s name is Saara.