On a sultry summer night...

Anirudh. I asked him to sing his favourite song to me. He sang this song to me. I was slightly drunk. We sang until 2 am that night. I remember waking up K's new flat mate. He was bewildered to see a woman wake him up. It was hilarious. We sang The Beatles and even California Dreaming. He is so divine on his guitar. I'd say Anirudh's version is actually better than Paolo Nutini's version. He is also one of the sweetest people I know.

I didn't want to go home that night. One more fight. I was angry, sad and fed-up. I wanted a girls night out. C, T and I went to play Question Mark at The Beach. I bumped into K there. I decided I didn't want to go back home. K asked me to come over for an after-party and told me I could crash. K has always been super-nice to me. The first time I ever went to Bangalore - for the AOL job interview, he gave me a place to stay. He always had a place for me to crash. After all we just live 10 minutes apart. I didn't exploit his company though. I ran from it, rather.

I didn't talk to K so much after a while. I was petrified. He liked me. He was serious. I started avoiding him. I didn't take his calls. I didn't reply to his texts. I would talk to him once in a while and tell him I wasn't avoiding him or anything. Only that I was just too busy. I always felt really bad doing it to this really nice guy. He was right in a way when he told me that (even nice) girls like me do things to hurt nice guys like him. I am in complete agreement with him. Except, I always denied the fact that I was avoiding him. I just pretended to be very busy.

When I think back now, I don't know what it was in K that didn't draw me towards him. He is like the perfect recipe. Any girl would die to have him. He is well read, very intelligent, has good musical tastes, is extremely respectful, writes like a pro, absolutely loves his job, follows his passion, has a super-cool mom, very considerate - a perfect gentleman, so to say. There is nothing about K not to like. Every mother should raise her son like IB did.

There was no chemistry. I felt bad all the time about avoiding him.

I was crashing at K's. And Ani was his neighbour. I didn't think much of Ani when I first met him. He was this quiet guy who sat in a corner drinking his beer. K introduced his as his neighbour.

When Ani started playing 'Loving you', I momentarily fell in love with him. I have never felt attracted towards guys younger to me. But I was having a crush :) He stood next to me while singing. His fingers nonchalantly played on his guitar frets. They were magic. He looked into my eyes and sang. Just gentleman to lady. Nothing more, nothing less.

I remember looping the song at work the next day.

A couple of months later, at the stroke of midnight, Ani played Happy Birthday on his guitar for me. There was a random chocolate rum ball in the fridge. I cut it along with K's room mate. I can't remember his name but we shared our birthdays. I'd made pasta that night, they all liked it.

Following the birthday song, he played 'Loving you'. He knew I loved it when he played the song. It was my little birthday gift. We went to the terrace. I got totally drunk that night. It had been a long time since I allowed myself to do that. I didn't cry after drinking like I had done for a whole year. I laughed a lot and sang a lot. He played the song more than once for me. I was depressed again. But, the song made me smile. He even made up his own song for me, about how awesome I was. Ani used to conjure up songs all the time. It was like he just made it out of thin air. It was fascinating. Random lyrics and random chords. It blended perfectly well.

He was a nice guy. We went to Peco's later and had dosa-chicken.

I haven't spoken to him in a bit. I don't know why.