Chapter 3: Trending All Night

It wasn’t until Didi Suman called to wake me up that I realised the tag about me and Arjun had been trending all night.

Didi’s voice came through the wall first: “Ritu, utho! Dekh, pura internet tum dono pe pagal ho gaya hai! Kya nautanki chal rahi hai, haan?” She’s always the first to know when my name is on people’s lips, whether for good or bad. The faint aroma of her strong filter coffee drifted into my room, almost masking my nervousness.

It was still near the top of the list.

I clicked the trending video, caught off guard by the sight of my younger self from ten years ago.

A face I barely recognised—no creases of worry, no hesitation in the smile. My heart twisted. Ten years, and yet it all came back, like the taste of my mother’s dal—something you don’t forget, no matter how far you run.

It took me a long time to dig up that memory from the back of my mind.

That was the year after graduation—I’d gone with Arjun to Mumbai, chasing acting gigs.

He acted; I worked odd jobs.

While working, I met a man claiming to be filming a documentary. He asked if I wanted to appear in it.

I wasn’t interested, of course.

But he acted like he hadn’t heard me, trailing after me no matter how I tried to brush him off.

Since he just stood there with his camera and didn’t get in my way, I eventually gave up trying to chase him off and let him do as he pleased.

Didi Suman asked if I wanted to call the colony president to handle it.

I thought for a moment and shook my head.

"No need. It’s actually good to get a bit of buzz."

A little attention in this city can work miracles, or backfire badly. Didi only shook her head, muttering something about ‘Bombay people and their drama’, before returning to her morning prayers.

Out of curiosity, I scrolled through the comments, expecting the usual barrage of insults, as if I were some maggot crawling in filth.

But this time, the comments took an unexpected turn.

[Arey yaar, Ritu ka pyaar toh asli tha, but Arjun moved on—kya karein, Mumbai life hi aisi hai.]

[You’re not alone.]

[It’s weird, but honestly, it’s hard not to ship. Did you see Ritu’s eyes?]

[Me too. I haven’t seen such pure, loving eyes in ages. Reminds me of when I wasn’t a bitter woman.]

[Back then, Ritu worked three jobs a day for Arjun. God, I used to bash her, but now… sigh, I don’t even know what to say.]

[No matter how it ended, true love is rare.]

That last line stayed with me. ‘True love is rare.’ In Mumbai, in this city of a thousand broken promises, that was almost a blessing, almost a curse.

Curious, I watched the video again.

I wanted to see what kind of look or gesture from my past could make public opinion do a complete 180 compared to five years ago.

A full decade had passed.

After all that time, my memories of those days were actually pretty fuzzy.

But just like the comments said, in the video, the twenty-three-year-old Ritu’s undisguised love for Arjun was so raw and passionate it was impossible not to be moved.

Even my tired thirty-three-year-old self felt a prick of something—nostalgia, maybe regret—watching that younger me stake everything on a man who hadn’t even got his first big role yet.