Wondering...

While returning from the fete the only thought in my mind was how nice she looked that day, along with me were Shubhankar and Akshay. They discussed the girls that they found to be attractive that day, I mentioned her name and waited for their responses, Shubhankar claimed not seeing her that evening and Akshay offered a small rebuttal telling me that she looked average and compared her to a few other girls for effect.

I didn’t mind their not having anything positive to say about how she looked that day, because my mind was set. I definitely knew that I was attracted towards her.

Then comes the phase when the mind works on ways to convey the feelings of attraction, it cooks up situations where it can catch the other person somewhat unawares and give away itself. Or is it the heart thinking it all up. There are times when a person let’s the heart decide before the mind, and these situations become dangerous.

School was closed after the pre-boards for the preparatory leave and thus I had no opportunity to ‘tell her’ how I felt. In the mean time I kept myself busy drawing, eliminating and redrawing scenarios where I’d tell her how I felt, and I fixed up our valedictory function for the day I’d tell her that I am attracted to her. And I didn’t have a contingency plan or an aftermath plan, which is I didn’t know what I’d do after she would agree to or refuse to my proposal.

The tradition of our school to say fare-well to the passing out batch and give a party to the present class 10^th was somewhat rooted in the fact that many of the students left for want of (what they thought were) better schools. And the seniors made it a point to hold it as close to valentine’s day as possible. Just to juice up the situation a bit. It was supposed to be a formal sort of affair, with tie and all that. We all had to say something on the stage for a couple of minutes, reflecting thoughtfully on the past years spent in school. However, what the students were generally faced with were minutes of awkward silences and stammered thank-yous. Shubhankar, Sanshit and Akshay had all written down ‘speeches’ on bits of papers, because there was also some sort of competition where a Mr. and Miss Personality was chosen on the basis of their on stage ramblings. I on my part was contemplating the possibility of going on stage and declaring my love for her in front of the millions and millions…. It seemed like the perfect plan and I had seen so many goddamn movies that perhaps for some half fraction of a second I’d almost thought of carrying it out. It was after all, a farewell function, and I was pretty much sure I was going to leave the school after 10^th because my father had an impending transfer coming towards him. So I had this safety catch with me. I even practiced my self a couple of times in front of the mirror. I was waiting for the valedictory function for weeks, or to be exact I was waiting for this function ever since I fell for her.

However, on the final day when we all walked on stage accompanied by cheesy James Bond theme music, I forgot everything cause all I could see was the cheering and smiling faces of my class-mates, I cracked a lame joke about James Bond and an obscure communist country, sang a couple of lines from a linkin park song and then proceeded to walk down from the stage.

There was one precise moment which could be termed as slightly god-send. She was standing near the drinking water stall, waiting for someone (or something), and she was all alone, sipping water from a plastic cup. I thought that IF there was a moment, then this was it. So I darted towards her, clearing the crowds with my hands, I distinctly heard a couple of my friends call up my name but I paid no heed. I ran words through my mind, trying to pick up a suitable phrase. However I was beaten to her by her friends, God how I hated that gaggle of girls at that instant of time. They’d robbed me of the chance of a lifetime. Bless them.

After my board exams my father got shifted to Agra, and I went to Kota with the aim of preparing for IITJEE. I met her one last time when we were finally leaving Baroda, and that last meeting didn’t exactly result in a long and fruitful conversation in which lots of unsaid things were cleared out. Instead, it was just a few words from either side, so you are going? Yes I am going. Take care. I will. Bye. Bye. (I love you.)

For the next one year in Kota, I wasted my life away academically, and continued to do so through out my stay. My thoughts did turn to her now and then, and I found solace in the annual class photograph, which was the only photo that I had of her. Sometime in November I received a mail from her, usual stuff, how are you and all that. I fully suspected the mail account to be a dummy, made by perhaps Sanshit with the intent on playing a prank on me. So I quickly headed for the nearest PCO and called him up to give him an earful, but he told me that the account was genuine and she had indeed asked him for my e-mail address, which thankfully he had remembered and given to her right. I headed back to the cyber café from where I had checked my mail and quickly replied to her. This was with the hope of starting something, as always.

Then in January I got another mail, this time from Shubhankar, and it contained the news that the single status of two of my friends viz. Sanshit and Akshay had recently expired. And the fucker decided to keep the names of their respective girls as a national secret. So I repeated my running-to-nearest-PCO exercise, and called Shubhankar up. He kept me guessing on the names of the girls, and without remorse he told me that she had hooked up with Akshay. Oh, I said.

Akshay?

Yes.

Sure?

I had a pivotal hand in it!

Goddamn you.

What?

Nothing, Akshay?

Yes.

So it was Akshay, who got the girl. And in many cases there the story would have met with an end, and the guy who didn’t get the girl would say Oh well, or words to the effect and go out whistling in to the sunset.

However, I do not know how to whistle, and I had called up Shubhankar at a time when there was not even a hint of a sunset. So I persisted, at that time I tried to convince myself that I was a perfectly normal phenomenon for two persons to get into a relationship, and that it had not much to do with me. Because I reasoned that she was a friend, but perhaps not too close a friend. Hence, I played down the hooking up incident and continued existing normally.