“What’s love?” asked Miss Braganza. Anjali was blank and seemed to be staring into a void. Rahul then piped in. He said, “Love is friendship. Agar wo meri sabse achhi dost na hoti toh mujhe use kabhi pyaar na hota.”

This was Rahul’s (Shah Rukh Khan’s) dialogue in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

This scene has a lot of relevance to my life too.

I am now in the sixth semester of my college. I had not had even a single fling or a boyfriend until my second semester. One day there was a Valentine's Day celebration at our college. All sorts of entertaining acts were being staged. But I was impressed by this guy called Rahul (I have changed his name here).

I lost my heart to him when I saw him dance for the first time. I was pretty sure that it was infatuation but the truth remains that I had never felt like that before in my entire life.

 Like all other normal teenagers, I told him that his dance moves were amazing. But I kept repeating the same thing to him. I was embarrassed by my display of fangirling when he said, “How many more times will you tell me the same thing?”

He then followed it up by saying, “By the way – you look like Pulkit!" I immediately chirped back saying, "And you-you look like Mariya!” Things bloomed really well between us and we were good friends in no time.

But I never really got to confess my love for him.

I remember the day when one of my friends told him that I loved him. I had to cover it up by making fun of him and denying it outright.

I buried all my emotions in my heart and locked them away because I was waiting for the perfect time for him to realize that I loved him. I was waiting for him to fall for me. He was that one person who really mattered to me.

We would meet often and study together too. Then Teena (I have changed her name here) happened. She was a senior and had recently broken up with her boyfriend.

My Rahul became a shoulder for her to cry on.

I was not really bothered by her presence because I never for even a moment thought that I would lose him to her. After a while, I had to accept the reality that both of them were dating each other. 

I was scared and out of my wits now. I confessed my love to him. He was shocked, to say the least.

He reminded me of the countless times he had asked me if I felt anything for him and how I had brushed it aside so casually. He assured me that he cared for me deeply and told me that he really loved me but only as a friend.

I was so shattered that I stopped responding to his texts and calls. I stayed out of his life from then on until last week. I missed him and when I saw his Snap chat stories with his girlfriend, I only felt worse. So I texted him.

To my surprise, he told me that he had not reached out to me because he thought I was mad at him.

I cleared that up and caught up on what was happening in his life. It was while we were chatting on that day that I realized something. In a cruel twist of fate, I had become the ‘Anjali’ of my story.

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