Love, Loose but Learn to Love Again..

This is the only short story I have ever written. Try reading it and if you are able to understand (my language flow) then I will pat my back (can't pat I know but ya khujli to kar hee sakta hoon..) hehe... Go on..

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Higher Secondary days are something hard to forget for anyone. Those are the days when we really form some strong memories. First bike, first accident, first experience of living out of home, first chance of being on your own, first crush, first love, first visit to disco, first drink, first suit and first of many other things. For this character of my story those were the days of many 'firsts' in his life. Light, camera and action. Kahani starts now.

On a hot summer day, I boarded a train to reach to my uncle’s place and who later enrolled me to a school which was famous for sending students to IIT and AIIMS. Honestly speaking, I didn’t even know that what those acronyms stand for but could hear everybody talking in some cryptic language and Everytime I asked something they would tell me that its either Chemistry or Physics. I thought that people there spoke only one language on the campus and that was Science.

Due to my poor comprehension abilities, I resorted to back bench but in a couple of days I realized that it was too dangerous to sit there because I had to share the last row with these two really naughty people who would keep chewing gums during the lecture and which they will later stick to someone’s dress. Now innocence doesn’t work when you are actually in the company of notorious people. I still remember that weird look that I use to get from 'girls of our class’ and worst was that guys also simply repeated the act. And talking about girls, Sneha was one among them. This is a universal truth that all the good looking girls of your school are always in the other courses but luckily god was a little kind to us. There were eight of them and all were pretty. With curly black hairs, dark brown eyes and a slender frame, Sneha was different from others (not just a figment of my imagination, she was really different).

Sneha was dominating in nature and part of it was explained by her good looks and a smile which can sweep anybody off his feet. In a voting process to choose class representative she got majority votes and given that there were 57 boys out of 65 her victory can easily be explained. At the same time I got this news that my mother met an accident and due to my mid terms exam I was unable to go home. So the falling health of my mother made me grow a shell around me as I tried my best to cut myself off from the world around me. I needed a friend to talk to and the best I could find was my inner-self. I started writing poems. I loved my mom and years of separation use to play on my mind sometimes. My poems had resonance of two emotions: my hunger for love and anger against god. I never thought that my poems will bring me closer to Sneha.

Though I preferred to remain silent and laid-back, my poems earned some publicity for me as many people turned to me for advice on personal matters. Surprisingly most of these personal matters involved Sneha. She really had many secret admirers and most of them turned to me for a shoulder to lean on. I don’t know why they all chose me for advice because for the first six months the only words that I exchanged with her were ‘Hi’ and ‘Hello’. I knew very little about her but I tried not to lie to anybody, I was just telling them what they wanted to hear. However the attraction of these boring counseling sessions were that most of them happened over good food at the place of my choice so this freedom of choice helped me a lot to put on some weight on my lean frame. I noticed two strange things in my behavior, I was opening up a bit due to all these conversations and I started getting interested in her.

Days and months went by and many people suffered many heart breaks during those passing days. And then one day it all happened suddenly in a purely filmy style (kahani hai bhai, don't start thinking that it's a reality!!). My roommate was out to gym and then I get a call with a couple of girls giggling on the other side and calling me names. “Hey don’t you recognize us? Idiot! Why you are acting like this? Come on you are not taking Naazish out for a date? This is not fair man, this is not done. You have to go; we all have promised her and now please say yes. You asked us to set this up and when its all done you are backing up, come on don’t break her heart, we all know you like her”.

I guessed that it was about Abhi (my roommate) and Naazish (one of our classmate). As I knew the background of the story I thought to play along a little while. So I didn’t utter a word for a while and then someone snatched the receiver on the other side and unleashed a flurry of adjectives well directed towards Abhi. I thought that it will be difficult for me to justify this to Abhi so in a plain cold voice I answered that this is not the actual person they intended to talk to. The line went dead. So this was my first brief encounter with the ‘tom boyish’ girlie Sneha Sinha. None of us thought that this brief conversation will change our lives.

She was apologetic for the whole day and I was enjoying every moment of it. In the evening we talked for about half an hour and that was my first interaction with her. Everything about her was amazing. She was witty, humorous, intelligent, confident and beautiful. At that point of my life, I needed someone to talk to and within a week of that first meeting, I started feeling some change in my behaviour. Consciously or unconsciously I was trying my best to get close to her. In library, in hallways, in the classroom, in lab everywhere, I was chasing her. The best thing that happened to me was that she knew it and silently approved of it. For the next few days, books will fall off her hands and I will pick them up for her, she will feel hungry at the break time and we would walk together to the corner restaurant, she will have doubts in some subjects and will call me to clarify them. And sometimes these calls will come after midnight and most often than not, the conversation deviate to "other things".

We started talking more often and that helped me a lot to take certain things off my mind. We use to go to shopping together just to sit in this ice-cream parlor where nobody ever bothered us to leave. Those were good times indeed. She would hold my hand and keep looking intently into my eyes. My feelings for her started growing in intensity. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to imagine my life without her. Her personality started growing on me though slowly but gradually.

I never realized when my poems changed their shades to colours of joy and love. Sneha was painted all over them. I really started liking her a lot and longed to tell her this thing. So one day finally I confessed my feelings to her. Her face grew blank with a shade of pale yellow on them. Her bright eyes reflected fear and then a drop of tear trickled down her face. It stayed there for a while and waited for me to wipe her face clean. She didn’t cry but told me that she never expected a guy to say these words to her. I was the first one in her life to confess his feelings for her (pahla pyar, in a filmi ishtyle!!). But she needed some time to arrive to a decision.

We met after 3 days. I could tell from her face that she did not sleep last night; the dark circles beneath her eyes were testifying that. We waited for each other to speak and then I broke the silence with these words “Tell me dear, what?” After a brief moment of silence she finally uttered “I don’t know whether I like you or not, but I can’t imagine my life without you. I think we should give it some more time before we can take a decision. I promise I won’t disappoint you.” She was right. It was too early for us to decide as we were roughly 18 years old and higher secondary examinations were just round the corner.

The frequency of our conversations and even the duration decreased during exams. It was the day of the last exam and Sneha called me in the morning asking me to meet her in evening. I was leaving for home on the next day. Around 6 pm, Sneha knocked my door. She was holding a poster in her hand which she handed over to me and said she will call me later as her father was waiting in the car. They were leaving for a vacation. We shook hands and she left in a jiffy.

I came home and was happy to see that my mother was doing well. She looked happy and the feeling of happiness on her face was all that I was looking for. I let myself loose in her embrace. Those days were wonderful. She was feeding me with her hands; she was stroking my head and playing with my hairs at bedtime. I can say that I discovered my lost love, the love of my Mom (Comeon I was spending time with her after like 10 years). After 3-4 days, I called Sneha but nobody answered the phone. For the next one week, it was the same result. I rang up one of our common friends Reshu and asked her about Sneha. She also had no ideas about her whereabouts. I tried getting in touch with her several times but to no avail. She was gone, it felt like somebody wiped all her records clean. The feeling took some time to sink in and my college buddies helped me a lot in getting over that.

About four years passed after that . I was traveling to Delhi and as I was getting bored I decided to take a walk till the pantry car to fetch a bottle of Coke and water. While coming back, I noticed a known face. It was Sneha. I stood there for a while to see her raise her face above the book. Her eyes captured my gaze and stayed there for a while. There were question marks all over my face but her face was blank as if pleading not to ask any questions. I felt something on my shoulders. I looked at the guy standing behind me he was Abhi my roommate asking me to make way for him. Abhi looked at me startled, Sneha was looking at him and before any one of them could say a thing, I started walking towards my compartment.Delhi was 2 hours away and I could see my train rushing past lush green fields. I got off the train. I felt that she was waiting for me but then I ignored and made my way out of the bustling crowd. I still had four hour of bus journey to make.

I closed my eyes and suddenly the bus stopped with a jerk. A familiar smell hit me and I woke up to a sweet voice calling my name. I was home (my college) where someone was waiting for me. She knew all about Sneha so I don’t think it will be difficult for me to narrate the day’s happening. I smiled finally. Sometime I feel that how beautiful life would be when you'd just be able to forget everything. But yeah, not everything. You should carry the small 'lessons' ahead. After all its a part of growing up.

[Well, about Sneha and Abhi, I later learnt that her father got transferred so she didn’t receive any of my phone calls or letters. The poor girl didn’t have my home number so she contacted Abhi to ask about me. He was not knowing anything about me but instead of admitting this he did tell some story to her about me never bothering about her and all. (come on, I told you folks that she was beautiful and brainy too, too tempting a combination to fall for) Buying his version of story she never tried to contact me after that. Within the next two months, they both came closer and later joined the same design school in Delhi. Recently I heard that they both separated just after that train incident as Abhi confessed everything.]