EXPEDIENT FRIEND

“Ughh, why is all this so difficult! Why can’t I just be me?”

This was my 10^th day of the new school now, and I was desperately trying to fit in. Everything seemed a little too difficult and every face alien. The only peaceful time I had was when I sat down to write. It was history class and the teacher was trying hard to teach something. The boredom took over me, and I took out my diary and started scribbling.

“Hey, that’s beautiful! I didn’t know you write too…”

Startled, I turned back to see who the intruder of my privacy was.

“I am sorry I didn’t mean to break the chain of your thoughts or startle you. It’s just that I couldn’t stop myself from reading what you were writing. It’s impressive!”

A smile broke out on my tensed face and immediately both of us started talking. Both of us felt a connection somewhere, as we discussed our common love for novels, our passion for writing, our obsession with diaries, and our linked thoughts. We were friends immediately. We started discussing about the smallest matters, showing each other what we were working upon to seek their views, teaching and helping each other grow. Finally, my life at this place didn’t suck too much.

It was one of these days, when she showed me her latest writeup, and it was all about the bullying we were discussing the previous day. What surprised me was, she had written all my points in the exact same manner I had said them. For a moment I was taken aback and couldn’t respond. Seeing my body stiffen, she asked me if something was wrong. I just nodded my head sideways, as I looked for words in my mouth. Ofcourse, I didn’t say anything then, though some days I wish I had. This incident was long forgotten and we went on to become closer and spent most of our time together.

On a black wintry night, both of us were attending some public speaking event, wherein we were both participating. We weren’t really happy with how the event progressed, and every two minutes found ourselves to be saying, “Yaar, isse better to hum hi organize kar lete…” Hearing us say this too often, one of our friends cried out, “Yaar, ek kaam karo na, tum log ek apne khud ka event hi organise karlo…bas abhi ke liye chup baitho.” She was being sarcastic, but giving a short glance to each other, we knew that’s exactly what we will be doing next!

We started with our planning the very next day. It was like working on our dream project. Everything was going on smooth, and we went on to decide upon some crazy stuff. Just one day before our event, I was busy working over our script while one of my other friends moved busily around the room making some urgent phone calls.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

I looked up and gave her a confused look wondering what she was talking about. She pointed her fingers towards the middle of my brows. My hands immediately touched my forehead only to realise I was frowning hard. A little smile curved on my face, breaking the monotony of my tensed face. I gestured her to come over and read what the little bright screen showed. After giving it a two minute read, I could see the confusion on her face.

“It feels like I have seen this before. I just can’t seem to recall where, but I have definitely seen this somewhere.”

“How about the introduction I wrote for myself and showed it to you about an hour ago, before sending it to my event partner for her consent and asking her to share her introduction.” I snapped.

My friend was just as confused as I was. Both of us looked into the blinking screen once again, and except for the change in name, the introduction was exactly the same of what I had written. I took a deep breathe and started mumbling something. We had our event the next day, and we couldn’t afford a fight at the moment. I shifted this information at the back of mind and gave all my attention to the event. With the success of the event, this information took a back seat and I decided to keep quiet one more time.

With corona taking over all of the world, and everybody moving back into their turtle shells, we both went onto become even closer, with daily phone calls and random messaging, we felt stronger than ever. But in the words of Cecelia Ahern, There was a little voice whispering to me-things are too perfect. It almost feels like the calm before the storm. And, indeed it was. My friend texted me one day, briefing me about the anthology she was doing. I was excited for her. After a week, when her book finally arrived, she sent me the picture of the book, with the introduction and writeup she had written. For the nth time, I felt shocked. That introduction was my little work, only with the name changed and some words altered with google words. This time, it felt a little too much to forget and move on. The scenes from the past year flooded my mind, and I saw everytime she twisted my work and portrayed it as her own; everytime she rearranged my words and thoughts to put them as hers; and everytime she took the credit of writing something I had written, whether on Instagram or in school, or in a published book! I remembered the times, my friends and my family asked me to distance myself, to do something, or to talk to her. And it’s not that I hadn’t done anything, there was a time when I stopped writing in school or showing it to her before uploading it, there was a time when I talked to her indirectly and she seemed to agree with how offensive and wrong casual copying was. I remembered the time when I helped her to grow, when I gave her honest opinions so she would grow and when I shared her work so that more and more people could read it. I felt like a fool. I felt like I had allowed her to make a fool out of myself. I felt like somebody had shot a bullet at me from the front, and stabbed me from the back. I felt betrayed and I felt angry.

 I wanted to call her and talk to her, shout at her, tell her how wrong it was to publish somebody else’s work in their name. But knowing her, I knew she would deny it. I knew that if somehow I managed to maintain my cool, her lies would drive me crazy. I had to do something, but I just didn’t know what.

I did a quick rewind again to see where I had gone wrong, to see if ever I had indulged in casual copying. But as far as I could recall, I remembered using quotes from novels, dialogues from movies and extracts from poems or proses in my writeup, but each time I included the writer’s name. I simply couldn’t think how one writer could wrong the other. I simply couldn’t accept the fact that my friend despite being talked to hundreds of times, ignored me and went on to do something she shouldn’t have. I still can’t understand how somebody’s conscience can allow them to cheat like this, and that too not once, but numerous times.

I still haven’t dealt with it, somewhere I don’t want to lose my friendship, and somewhere I don’t want to hurt her. But on the other hand I want ‘justice’ for myself. Penning it all down is currently my way of dealing with it, without hurting anybody, but still being loud and clear. Deep in my heart, I wanted to talk to her, at least once and as my sanskars forced me to sort things out with her, before voicing it out to anybody, I called her. But the truth got murkier and things got even messier. Seeing the possibility of the 'what if' doing a flip and turning out to be something I never expected, hurt and pained me. 

 I don’t know if this would help or not, I don’t know if I would meet more people like her in my future, and I don’t know if fame and name can be so important to somebody and somewhere down the line, they take others for granted. All I know is, at the end of the day, I can look in the mirror, and proudly meet my own eyes and claim, “Hey, this is what I have written. This is my work. It might not be as good as the other authors, but I like it because I have put in time, efforts and love into it, without stealing somebody else’s words or without treading on the road of hurting others.