 
IN LOVE: ONCE & FOREVER K.KRISHNA KUMAR

IN LOVE : ONCE & FOREVER....

PROLOGUE:

Many wait for someone to fall in love with

In my case, it is you, only you

Why because I have fallen in love with.

Everything in my life went normal,

In the midst you happened,

My heart got besotted with all your thoughts

And my soul got tangled with all your memories

Now I could realise how my life has changed in fractions of a second,

I don't know what the consequences are,

I just want to see your face,

Talk with you, listen to you,

Cuddle you, hug you and lose myself in your arms.

I yearn, to do everything you wish,

I want to remain as your pride, your joy, your smile, your heart and your love.

I like to share all my moments and

Spent my each and every day with you, and

In the end of the day, no matter of the things that have happened,

I wish to confess you,

Since the day, your fragrance came along the love breeze

I have fallen in love with you

ONCE & FOREVER....

  1. FINGERS CROSSED:

"When I saw you for the first time,

Your gaze took my soul and you became my life

Though I breathe, I don't live

So give my life back or take my breath away..."

Will I ever say these four lines to her? Yes I will. Shall I say it tomorrow? No, not so earlier...I questioned and answered myself, to decrease the nervousness of the big day lying ahead.

Tomorrow I will get the result of my class 12th board exams. I am a little concerned, not about the marks because I know I have given my exams well. What I am worried is that she may not come there, and I may not be able to see her. However, I pinned my hopes on my instincts, which murmured in my ears,

"Go to the school, she will surely be there."

I am bored because I have been thinking about this continuously for the last three months, right from the day I finished writing my last exam. Nevertheless, I could not do without thinking of this. Lying in the bed, I thought about the same thing again. I felt tonight will also end as another one of my sleepless nights as it has been for most of my past 90 nights.

" Let me check how my instinct works." I said to myself and closed my eyes. That is the last thing I remember before I fell asleep.

"Wake up Krishna, it is too late today. It is nearly 8'o clock," my mother shouted.

I realised that I fell asleep the previous night, because I am waking up now. After a big yawn, I saw the clock. The time is exactly 8'o clock. I got up from the bed, and went to wash my face.

My mum after arranging the bed went to fetch my morning coffee. For these seventeen years, I have been drinking the morning coffee before brushing my teeth. This might be the reason why my mom's coffee tastes good only in the morning.

I told my mother that the coffee tastes too good (first lie even in the very morning, who knows how the result might turn out)

My father came to the kitchen, saw me sipping coffee with a meditative look on my face, and asked,

"Will you get above 80%? I know you will, but I just asked you."

I was a little irritated with this because it might be the 100th time he is asking me the same question since the day I finished my exams.

"Who knows? I wrote the exam well, but I don't know how many marks they are going to give me. Wait for another three hours but till then don't pester me pa..." I said with a touch of asperity.

I know why my father is asking me like this. It is because he has a doubt that I may disappoint him as I did with my class tenth results. Huffily I got up and conducted my daily morning business. Before I was ready, my father got ready, and he was waiting for me eagerly.

My mom combed my hair neatly and caked my face in talcum. Even so, it is really the kiss given by her in my cheeks, which made my face pretty, as it blushed with bliss when it got its kiss.

Though I am seventeen years old, I am still a kid to them. I am a pampered kid even now as I have always been. I am their one and only son. They brought me up with much affection. They never raised their hands to hit me, not even once in their life, though we have quarrelled many times.

As my house is small, the distances between our hearts are also smaller. Other than the three of us, there lived another member who never paid his rent for staying with us. He is none other than 'happiness.' I know I have been gifted with many things in my life, my parents were the greatest of all.

My father and I reached the internet centre at 10'o clock. They are supposed to publish the results exactly at 10'o clock but in our country, it means that the results will be available at 10:30. Therefore, we had to wait for another half an hour. I saw my father sitting, full of eagerness and tension as if he had written the exam and it was his results he was waiting for. I know there are thousands of thoughts running in his mind. However, he is reticent because he knew very well that in this tension, I would get angry if he asks something to me.

After half an hour, my class 12th result flashed on the screen. I turned towards the left to see my father where he is sitting before. He was not there so I turned right and there he was looking excited. He shouted my marks loudly, patted me, and once again

He exclaimed, "95%, I never thought of this! I never expected that my son is going to get these many marks."

He was very much happy in that moment. With his happiness it seemed that, he will even reject a life in heaven to live these seconds on Earth. Even I was on the top of the world, for in that special moment I have made my parents proud.

Later, he immediately took one rupee coin from his pocket and went to call my mother in order to share his happiness with her, like he did every time. " I am going to school to check out my friends marks," I said to my father, and I headed towards my school.

I reached my school gate at 11'o clock. On reaching my school, my heart started to beat twice faster than before. I went towards the board kept in our school ground, in which our results have been displayed. As I started moving, I saw her at a short distance. She was busy seeing the results.

My whole body perspired. I am fully tensed than even during the time of my result. I went near her. She saw me and smiled. I too returned a smile.

I am very much happy that my instinct has at last worked out. Since I have another instinct whispering in my heart, it is,

"I am the one who is going to marry her."

I then asked her how much percentage she has earned. As I wished, it is a little lesser than mine. She asked my percentage, and I said that to her.

"Which college have you planned to join?" I asked her suddenly.

Little surprised by my question,

"Not yet decided, I will decide it in the counselling" she replied.

Then I saw her, seeing all her friends' marks. I too put my fingers on the board to check out the marks my friends have scored. I first went to Syed and then went for the others.

After that, I wished to get away from that place while she was still standing there. I do not know why I wished so. It might because I do not wish to talk with her when her father is standing there with her. I normally do not care about these things, and then I thought,

"Why do I wish to get out of the place while she is still standing there?" I swear I really don't know why I wished like so. It's something I would regret in my life forever. It might be because I warned myself,

"What you are doing here? This girl is not going to be in your story for a long time then why you are still here and hurting yourself."

When I went out from my school and saw it from the outside it appeared as if I am seeing my school for the last time. At the second, I saw my school, I realised I am missing my paradise. Because,

"School is not only a place, which is filled with buildings and trees

But it is also a relation to which half of our soul stays with

When we come away from them,

Making us remember the places:

Where we once attended classes,

The place where we once sat and had fun,

The place where we once shared our food,

The place where we once bunked our classes and roamed,

The place where we have been there once

And spent the happiest moments of our life ..."

I am worried as much about missing my girl as missing my school. If the places where angels live are called as the heaven, then my school is the real heaven for me because I had my angel near to me only there.

As I was walking in the road, the thing, which everyone says, happens only in the films, was happening to me at that time. She was going in front of my eyes with sitting in her father's scooter. I saw her face. She smiled and shook her head with a flourish. I reciprocated the same to her.

I realised this moment is going to be one of the most beautiful moments in my life because this moment is mixed with pain and happiness. The happiness for I got this moment in my life, which I yearned for. I got a lucky chance to see her randomly through my instinct after my twelfth result. This moment is a little cinematic. Therefore, it is hard for me to forget; in other words, it will be easy for me to remember and I will cherish this as long as I live and feel pain despite the fact that this moment might end up as the last moment, in which I have her near me.

And I knew; it is with the remembrance of this moment I was going to survive, until I get her another moment to be shared with mine.

In the following night, my mother and father slept complacently with pride. Though I was the reason behind this, I was restless in the night. I began to think about the things that happened during my result. In retrospect, I started to regret for failing to ask her about the course she wishes to join.

I am as blank as a last bench student's exam paper, about the course she will join. If I have asked her, then I will also choose the same course in the Engineering counselling. In the counselling students can choose the college based on the % of marks they have got in their 12th public exam. There is a mere difference between hers and my marks but an ocean of students would part us in that mere marks. Similarly, there is only a little chance for me to meet her on the counselling, which is going to be held in the next month.

So once again, I started to regret for missing the golden chance of speaking with her.

After I have fallen in love with her, I regret more than rejoicing. If I had not loved her, then I would have nothing to worry about. I used to rejoice in every single second of my life but now,

"Why should I brood over the minutes, I miss her?"

"Why should I yearn for her now to come into my life?"

"Why am I in love, as never before?"

To me how she happened? Thinking of this always makes me feel great and wonder....

  2. HOW I MET HER:

There are two kinds of lovers in this world. The first kind falls in love at their first sight while the other feels after sometime-some days, weeks, months or years that they have actually fallen in love at their first sight itself. I belong to the second kind, but I did not remember when I had actually fallen in love with her, when she happened to me four years ago.

My father being a government employee, got transferred every three years. So, our family had to shift every time to a new house, which was to be within proximity of our father's office. That time we shifted to a big town. My mother as usual was successful in establishing a strong relationship with the neighbouring families in one day's time.

I had no other option but to leave my old school because I didn't wish to stay in the hostel. I joined the new school suggested to me by one of my father's friends, whose son was already studying in that school.

After spending my eighth standard holidays, I entered as a freshman to that new school for my ninth standard.

It was my first day. When I entered the class, I was really surprised because my father's friend's son turned out to be in the same section of class as I was. His name was Syed. I knew he was studying in that school but I didn't imagine that I would also be in the same section of his class. We hardly knew each other. One time we played cricket together in the ground near our house. Hence, we knew each other's name and nothing more than that.

Then I went to the last bench and sat there, as it was the only seat available for me. Few students inquired about me, and I started responding to them. Few become friends with me even in our first meeting in the class.

In my first period, my class teacher asked the new students to introduce themselves. As I stood up I noticed that I was the only one standing up. I understood that I was the only new student to their school. I introduced myself by saying my name and the reason for which I had left my old school and my hobbies.

When I started answering, I saw everyone turning back to look at me, as I was standing on the last bench.

I didn't remember every face that looked back at me, but I still remember a face which was in my mind as a rain spattered and impressionistic picture looking back at me. I didn't remember my first meeting with most of the people but I remembered hers. There must be some special reason behind this. My brain was cunning enough to remember my first meeting with her, yet it never revealed the reason behind this for a few years. It hid this from me, because my brain was afraid that I might not go with its wish to love her during that innocent age. When you fall in love, you would realise the mischievous things done by your brain even without your knowledge.

That was the first time I saw her. After several years, it was really difficult for me to find out, which was the first time I saw her? One day when I was feeling peaceful and had a lot of time at hand, I thought about this for the whole day. And after analysing all my available memories at last I concluded this moment as the one in which I saw her for the first time.

I still remember the first day she spoke to me and the first time in my life, she was very close to me. Whenever I think about these moments, my heart starts to blossom together with thousands of roses. It was when our physics teacher asked me to go study with her and the other members of her group.

As she was the leader of the group, I fathomed that she would be one of the toppers in that class. I say that because in our education system, only toppers of the class were given the post of group leader. This is done by allotting them a group of some average and below average students to be guided by them.

Mostly, the students who held the group leader post boasted of themselves and assumed that they were holding a Prime Ministerial post. Nevertheless, she was different. She remained humble which suited her calm face. She requested me to open my physics book. Then she began explaining us the structure of an atom as explained by Ruther Ford.

I still wonder why I was so naïve during the time she spoke to me. I should not at any time have listened to her. If I had done just that, I wouldn't have yearned for her and would have never fallen for her now. All the other lovers who don't have their sweethearts with them wish they did the same during the time they met their sweethearts for the first time in their life.

Actually, during that time she had been just a stranger (a little beautiful stranger) to me, and my behaviour with her was as usual as ours' with someone who has been introduced to us for the first time. At that time, I was never overwhelmed by her beauty. She was just like other girls, and I think then I didn't know what beauty really meant. I understood what beauty meant only after I met her. Was she that much beautiful?

Yes, she was much beautiful. Her complexion appeared as if it was made by squeezing the rose petals, which were dropped in white milk for a few days. I wondered whether her shadow would also be pale red in colour. Her common place black hair with its mysterious shining and her exquisite eyes with its innocence like new born baby's eyes just added the essence to her elegant appearance. But the assets that really made her pretty were different; they were not merely the physical attributes. It was the fact that she was ignorant of how much beautiful she was. Her every action authenticating this made her the beautiful angel that was she to me.

I wish not to appraise much about her beauty. Because if do, then I am afraid that, other girls who are beautiful physically, may envy and the other girls who are beautiful only by their heart may feel sad. Her beauty that projected the Cupid's arrow in most of the boys' heart shouldn't be a reason for hurting both.

However, to tell the truth it was my eyes, which saw her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. It is always the love that causes beauty, and it is not the beauty which will induce the love.

  3. ONE, TWO AND THREE:

The relation between me and Syed first began as the neighbouring acquaintances, and then fate twisted us to study in the same school. As the places were new to me in school, I found it hard to return to the same place, whenever I went to some other place. Moreover, our school contained many floors with all the corridors appearing alike. And every class in them looked similar to each other and it really confused me every time. As a result I entered the wrong classes, sometimes in the same floor and often in a different floor.

Hence to avoid confusions, I always adhered to Syed in the school, and I simply went to the places where he went. I even went to the toilet only if he went there. This was the first reason why we became friends.

Since my house was near to him, I borrowed books and notes from him after I became aware that he was one of the brightest students in our class. This added the familiarity fuel and ignited our friendship fire. Sometimes we played cricket together near our house. I liked in playing with him very much, though mostly he hit the ball, and I chased it.

Sometimes we met each other at the bus stop. In the mornings, he usually got ready for school as early as possible. And I had been just opposite of him but when either of our timings matched we met each other at the bus stop. In the evening, both of us would leave the school jointly, else would wait for each other at the bus stop if both one of us were late. And we would come home together. These were the different colours that painted our portrait of friendship.

Thus within two weeks a lustrous friendship bond developed between us. As time proceeded our bond became stronger even more than the covalent bond that existed between two carbon-carbon atoms in our chemistry book.

Three weeks later, during recess Syed asked me to accompany him to the staff room. He wanted to meet the Physics teacher to clear his doubt. For the students other than toppers such as Syed, entering the staff room was as dreadful as to a sheep entering a butcher's place of business.

"I would rather go to the graveyard at midnight than to enter the staff room," I said to Syed and stayed in the class.

Most of the students had gone to the toilet or canteen. I saw that a few still remained in the class. Three boys sitting on a bench called me. I squeezed myself uncomfortably in the same bench.

One of them asked, "How do you find the school?"

Before I could reply "great" I saw from the corner of my eye the other two exchanging meaningful looks (I mildly heard them say one two and three). Before my suspicious brain could warn me, I was already in for their game. Those chaps with the combined force jerked sideways suddenly and shoved me out. I remember only in snatches what happened after that.

I fell down some feet away with my hands hitting a girl's leg. Usually in our schools the girls sat in three or four rows of benches in a column-wise order and boys sat in separate rows of benches in another column-wise order, separated by a small space in between the girls' rows.

It would have been better if I have accompanied Syed, I comprehended at that moment.

But now I realise that they did a wonderful thing to me on that day, as they gave me a chance of touching my girl's leg. As soon as my hands hit her leg, she took her leg and gave an "ssshhh" sound; while I completed saying, "great" word from my mouth.

While others laughed at me, I got up from the place without uttering a word. I was little angry at them but hid my irritation.

After that we all became friends when they later explained to me that they had the habit of doing this to the new students and later apologised for that.

  4. THE PLAY (GAMES AND DRAMA):

We had a games hour that day. Every student was happy with that, a chirpy smile resembled in everyone's face except mine. Because I knew that my rotund body was not decent at games. Like the Pythagoras theorem, the vice versa was also true i.e. my fat physique might have developed because I wasn't good at games.

In the games period, we all assembled on the ground. Then our physical education teacher gave the balls and other playing equipments to us and left the place. " Playing" was left optional for the students. Most of the girls sought the advantage of this option. They just gossiped and watched the other boys playing their games.

The boys of my class took the volleyball and went to the volleyball court to play the game. There were 19 boys in our class, and two boys were absent on that day. So the available boys divided themselves into two groups. Since everyone was belonged to the previous class, they went along with their old team members and they all took their positions. Six boys stood inside the court and two boys stood outside the court. The two boys standing outside the court were allowed only to serve the ball, while six boys standing inside the court played the game.

Being a new student, I was standing there idle and thus my best friend Syed requested them to give me a chance to play. With their consent, I went inside the court as a substitute player for another one. The game started, and the opposing team started serving the ball. When the ball came to me for the first time I missed it and cost my team a point.

"Don't do like this, she is watching you"

I said to myself. I was confident that I will be able to tackle the ball for the second time and save the point for my team. When the ball came to me, once again I collapsed and so I lost another point for my team.

The opposing team marked me as their target and served the ball only towards me, ignoring the other five members.

"The ball is coming near Krishna and the baby's butterfingers will slip it this time too,"

One of my team mates yelled when the ball came near me. And as scornfully predicted I cost my team another point.

"I would have tackled the ball had you kept your wide mouth shut" I shouted back but that didn't work out.

My team members got irritated with me and started shouting at me. Few began to yell.

"Who dragged him in? If he continues to remain in our team, then we are 100% sure to lose our game"

After that they asked me to quit the game.

"Being a basketball player for years, it is really tedious for me to play volleyball; both are just the opposite" I said in a jaunty tone and stalked off the court.

I called myself a "basketball player" because in my school, it was the only court which was not seen anywhere and so saying that would be always safe for me.

But from the inside of my heart, I felt humiliated and embarrassed. I was about to cry. And the worst was that she had been watching the drama unfold and was whispering some comments to her friends (a smile playing on her pretty face all the while). The same thing had been happening to me in the old school as well, but I had never been bothered. That night I remained fretful worrying myself sick over the shameful events of that day. I was wide awake that night.

I felt that those were the most painful moments and was something that should not have happened to me. It was because I wished, I to be her hero but on that day all I played was the role of a joker.

  5. THE BIRIYANI CONSEQUENCE:

After seeing the movie until midnight on Sunday, my body felt leaden next morning. My mother brought my morning coffee to me and shook me awake. I rose; during which my mother had kept the coffee and went. I drank the coffee and went back to sleep.

Then a few minutes later my mother came in with another cup of coffee and tried to wake me up. I was stirring so my mother gave the coffee to me and went. Keeping the coffee aside I went to sleep once again. After some time, I heard something disturbing my sleepit was my father saying to my mother,

"I think he is going to bunk the class today."

Then I stood up from the bed and saw the time. I was shocked because the time got near to 7.30. I drank the second cup of coffee of that day, which had gone cold by that time.

I thought for a while to bunk my class, but in the following Wednesday, our friends had planned to go to a movie. If I bunked my class, afterwards it would be difficult for me to go to the movie as I had only one day remaining in my allowable leave of that month. If I didn't watch myself, subsequently I'd have to endure a parent teacher meeting. So I hurried about the business of toilet and ablutions. Then I took my school bag and lunch bag, and as I was about to go,

My mother asked, "Aren't you having your breakfast?"

" It is already getting late. I am a new student. If I go late, then I will be punished as the rules in this school are very strict, that's what my friends said to me" I retorted to my mother.

My mom listened to me and expressed her disappointment,

"Today I had prepared vegetable biriyani, your favourite dish,"

I thought for a while that in any case I wouldn't be getting anything to eat that afternoon. I could trust my friends to empty my lunch, as soon as I open it, even before I can set my eyes on its contents. So I kept my school bag down and went to take the plate.

Although two cups of coffee were doing the rounds in my stomach already, my mum's words were able to whet my appetite. My mother questioned,

"Just now you said that if you go late, then you will be punished. What happened now? You seem to have suddenly changed your decision."

"I am a new student to their school. How will they punish their fresh students? When they know that I am unlikely to be familiar with the rules and regulations of their school. Even if they do, they won't kill your son," I replied to my mother nonchalantly with Biriyani in my mouth.

Though I was fearful of getting punished, I thought that my mother's Biriyani was worthy enough to get punished for. It was that much tasty indeed. My father would even die for it. After eating it, I immediately ran to the bus stop to take the bus to my school.

I was lucky enough that day because I boarded the bus in the nick of time (Thanks to the Indian Road Transports because the bus, which I took routinely, was also late on that day just like me). I was happy that I had reached the school only with a fifteen-minute delay. I prayed to God that the principal be 'on leave' that day.

No sooner had I finished my prayer; the principal stood there to welcome me with a cane in his hand.

"Doesn't his mother or wife ever prepare his favourite dish?" I reasoned for he always came to the school at the correct time.

As unexpectedly there was an oasis in my journey. To my surprise, I saw her standing there, as another late comer student. I was happy for two things: one was that there was a chance for me to talk to her; and the other was that I had escaped from the beatings of the Principal.

She, being a topper in the class, would be more familiar with the principal. He wouldn't be willing to punish her and thus wouldn't beat me too for I might press charges against him for discriminating me, if he indeed beats me.

A few minutes later the principal grinned and asked the reason as to why we were late on that day?

I provided the valuable reason.

I said, "Sir, My grandfather got an unexpected heart attack in the morning,"

I was familiar with these kinds of situations, so whenever I was late to the school, I always said something like this. If I had been absent the day before then I would have said that my grandfather died the previous day.

She said she was late because her father's scooter got punctured on their way to the school.

With those reasons, the principal gave us a last siren call and warned us, against repeating the same for another time.

Then we headed towards our class. I called her and said thanks to her,

She asked me "what for?"

I explained my great escape from the Principal because of her presence in the scene.

She nodded her head with a gentle smile and then asked,

"Is your grandpa all right now?"

I told her "I haven't even seen him, as he was dead before I was born"

This time, all of a sudden she burst out laughing.

Then we entered in our class. I went and sat in my place.

I looked at my palms. I thought that had she come in late the previous Monday, my palms would have escaped the wrath of the principal's stick. I was running late that day as well, because my mother prepared 'Pepper Roast' which was another favourite of me.

In the evening, I went to the home and angrily asserted to my mother.

"I was late because you delayed my breakfast."

"Liar, you woke at 7.30, and you delayed yourself. And now you tell me that I am the guilty although they were your faults" my mother chided.

A short quarrel arose between me and my mother,

And my mother at last told, "See, tomorrow I am going to wake you early at 5'o clock."

Hearing this was jaded to me. During the evening time, when I quarrel, she would say this to me. In the night when half of her anger had gone, she would make me sleep early, thinking to wake me up in good time in the morning. But in the morning when she would see me sleeping, her one heart wouldn't be sufficient to disturb my peaceful sleep.

  6. THE EPIDEMIC:

One month later everyone asked about that my grades I got in my previous school.

I said to them, "I always remained in the toppers list."

Which is indeed the truth, but only a few believed. And even those who believed asserted that,

"Even if it is true then he would be only on the average students list here, because his old school is of comparatively a lower standard to us."

I decided that I should study well and get good marks to prove myself. In our first monthly test, my rank was on the average while she and my Syed were in the top five ranks.

Three months went, then that was the time for the brightest students to crown themselves by bypassing the brighter students. The rest would simply stock up on aspirins and fever injections as it was the time of the beginning of our quarterly examinations.

The exams began opposing our wish. According to our teachers, we were allotted places in such a way that it would be tough for us to copy others' papers. One boy and one girl shared a bench, and they were asked to sit on the edge of a bench on either side.

The teachers had been teaching us for so many years, but still they were foolish enough to forget the universal truth that,

"Always opposite poles attract each other."

Even the U.N.O member election wouldn't have contained these many strict rules which our school imposed. They warned us,

"Those who are caught copying would be immediately chucked out of their exam halls and severely punished. Moreover, their action would be narrated to everyone including their parents."

They thought that, for us getting caught for cribbing someone's paper was a matter of disgrace. But for us, it was something like adding feathers to our school's outstanding performances.

I really owe a bunch of thanks to those who framed that kind of layout as luckily she was sitting on my bench. But what to do there was no use in it. Whenever I looked at her, as if thinking an answer, I saw a spark of fire in the invigilator's eyes, which could even make a volcano eruption to diminish.

It was my friend Ram, who asked me an answer for a question when I said that I don't know, he compelled me to ask her the answer.

So I called out her name for three times. She didn't respond to anything. I called out for another time. And when the teacher went out I fluttered my hands in the air in a gesture (like a forlorn ship wrecked soldier asking for "SOS" on seeing some helicopter flying around him). She then looked at me casually and continued writing by putting her head down, ignoring me.

At that time, I hated her and thought why she was so much arrogant? Because in my old school compared to boys, girls helped me the most in the exams.

Then for the remaining exams I never turned over to see her. During those times I had self-respect, which always governed me the most. Perhaps it was her gaze that shattered my self-respect as the years went by.

A few weeks later, after we had finished the exam, our teachers started to distribute the papers. After that, they assessed our marks and gave us the progress cards. I got 10th rank while she and Syed were in the top five ranks, but I was joyous that I proved myself. Other friends accepted that I might have been a topper in my old school

Few students, especially those, who got their ranks after mine, were angry with me because they would have got one rank ahead if I had not joined in their school.

I wished to surpass her rank at least once, just to teach her a lesson in arrogance. Therefore, I started studying hard and after that in the every exam, I got an increased progress in my report card.

  7. JOKES AND TEARS:

That day, our class was just like a market place- everyone was shouting and playing inside the class. Suddenly, the principal came. He was angry. He called the class monitor. She stood up. He scolded her for maintaining the class like that.

He saw that we, the last bench students, were laughing silently by putting our heads down. Though a part of our brains advised us to stop laughing and give a serious blue face, the essence of the joke still remained and made us laugh uncontrollably. The secretion of the laughing hormones doubled on seeing his comical and serious face, when he called us. All my friends repressed their smiles but I could not. He considered it as an offense. Some things in the school were always different. They would beat us if we would laugh, and if he couldn't (For he is always on logger heads with his wife, he gets scolded from her, which he dares to repay her; so later, he repays it to us. My friends told me to console my pain during the previous time we caught). The principal called each one of us and smashed our palms. We were sure that had we told the same joke to the Principal, he would also have enjoyed our joke a lot.

After he went, we again laughed because for us, those kinds of things were not the first time. We mocked each other and boasted ourselves, of how we over reacted and escaped from further beatings.   
Then we poured all our vulgar words, which were always an important constituent of our education in different standards, towards the Principal. I was decent, as I did not drag his family, most importantly his wife, into this like my friends. We frolicked repeatedly.   
We heard a loud sobbing sound, and so we wondered who was the black sheep among us and checked each other's face. Then we realised that the sound had been coming from the girls' side.

Yes!!! She sobbed after a few moments. We all were dumbfounded after seeing that. We received beatings, and we were enjoying, but she just got scolded and was crying for that. By crying for this silly reason, she not only made us to abash but also dumped the whole students' respect and will into the drainage.

  8. CHOCOLATE WRAPPERS AND THE DETECTIVE:

Soon after some days being spent in my school many became accustomed to me. By the means of colloquial talks, I gathered information about her as much as possible. I came to know that she was a tailor's daughter.  
After some time, I asked some other friends of the place she hailed from. However, as my friends began to doubt about me, I changed my topic and showed myself as if I have very little interest towards those matters. It then became a hard task to know about the details of her.   
As few days went, I befriended Vasanth. He was a nice and innocent guy, but that was not only the reason why I befriended him. In our class, it seemed that he was the one, who knew more details about her than anybody else did, and on top of that, he was a loose talker, both of which were some kind of an advantage.  
Then I started to treat him with the chocolates in the canteen because while eating my chocolates, he would also spill out- some rare details about her and her family simultaneously.   
I came to know that she actually lives in a street next to the Vasanth's, and her father used to drop her and pick her up from the school daily.   
In the middle of the conversation when the chocolate I bought for him ended, Vasanth would immediately question me,  
" Why are you asking this? "  
To shut his mouth, I always carried an extra chocolate shoved in my pocket.  
After that one day, I followed her to our school gate; it was a coincidence and not planned. I saw her father waiting for her with his scooter. I was happy that some of the chocolates I bought for Vasanth were worth of it. So I went home with a little satisfaction.   
On that day, my mother counted the money she had put in the savings' box from which me and my father usually took the money for the bus fare. She at last found out that some money was going out somewhere in the holes, which were present other than in the savings' box. When she asked about that, I first tried to manage it with my father, but I could not. She knew that my father was taking money from that box for the past 15 years and there had never been that much shortage in my mother's treasury, until she introduced my new magical hands to it.   
My mother was one of the best detectors in the world. I found it out on that day. With the chocolate wrappers found in my bag, she correctly deduced that it was my hands, which were doing that magic. I had a habit of saving the chocolate wrappers, which I used to buy, in my bag. In the end, this habit contributed the evidence in my case.   
Then she questioned me as to what I was really doing with the money. As soon as she asked me, I gave her a charming look and said,  
" I am buying chocolates for one of my friends to know the details of a girl. You know, in order to make her as your daughter in law"   
My mother laughed and told me that,  
"If it's so, from tomorrow onwards ask your mother in law for your expenses. And never put your hands in this coin box."  
I said to my mother the truth but all she thought was that I was just kidding with her. Some innocent women like my mother are precisely like this. They might be the best investigators, but sometimes they believe the lies and ignore the truth. Therefore, it was always an easy go.  
"Just tell the truth and escape rather than lie and get caught." I used that chance and said,   
"I have to buy some notebooks so, give the money tomorrow. After my engagement, you can subtract this money (with interest) from the dowry which my mother in law is going to afford to you"   
I always used to tell the truth but only when I am assured that nothing is going to affect me after I said that. During the other times I would not lie, but I would flannel and say something irrelevant to truth.   
With my chivalrous words, I got an extra thirty rupees, and I saved it into my pocket. One day I sacrificed that thirty rupees and extracted the details that she was good in literature, and she had a mania for literature. As soon I heard that; the mania transferred to me. I too started to love literature. For all those days I had hated that most, mainly because of the grammar which was stressed to us for good English. Even English men would not care much about that.  
After some days, I stopped treating him with the chocolates because he started lying to me. I found it because I could conjecture rightly whether a person was lying to me or not. That may be because "One liar knows another liar." I think this axiom exists in the list of proverbs, if not, and then it is worthy enough to be included in the proverb's lists.

  9. IN THE JOURNEY:

Then one day I went to the canteen with my friend Ram. I actually accompanied him (with pocket filled with emptiness). He bought some puffs and asked me,

"Do you want anything?"

Most would just ask that for formality, especially at the times when our pockets were empty, but he was not like that and thus he compelled me to eat. Nevertheless, as a gentleman, I replied no to his offer, as we were not that much familiar then. But what to do friendship never tires in breaking those barricades. By the time he once again compelled me, half of the puffs had already gone inside of my tummy.

Hope God. He did not think,

"I should have asked him, at least shouldn't have compelled him..."

Since, he had only a quarter of what he had bought left to eat.

As I turned, I saw her approaching the canteen with her friends. She came near us; but ignored us. She and her friends bought one chocolate each, after looking at all those six flavours. Most were very talented like that. They would choose the best only after looking at all the available options. Then after sometime they regret and incur themselves with the bewilderment that,

"Have I missed the best?"

I had been buying the chocolates for the past six weeks but that was the first day I actually noticed those flavours because most of them were bought not to be eaten by me. Yet I could take pride that at least I hadn't troubled the shop keeper.

I understood that she was the one looking for the best among the available ones. So I decided to do my best in order to impress her and be her best.

How can I be her best, what would impress her? The only thing that came to my mind was to get good marks and surpass her rank.

Sometimes when we missed our bus, which we routinely took for our home, Syed and I would go to a small Pani Puri barrow. We would eat something for our stomach and with the remaining of the money we had left after spending during the recess. Syed and I spent the money in alternative days, but mostly he paid, because some days, I would have spent all my money in the canteen itself. Sometimes we purposely came late from the school such that we missed our bus, for we didn't want to miss our Pani Puri. In a similar kind of day when we were standing near the barrow, she came to the bus stop. I was shocked because it was tangibly she who came over that place, as she was a rich queen, who always came only by her father's luxurious scooter.

I understood that either her father or his scooter must be under repair. Then she took the bus that went to the other place, in the opposite of the road where our bus stopped. Our bus headed from North to South while the bus she took went in the opposite direction.

During that time, I was standing there still, waiting for my bus, oblivious of other things. If that happened now, then I would also have taken the same bus she took and I would have travelled with her irrespective of the distance the bus covers and the place it destines.

That day was the teachers' day. As no classes were conducted that day I went on time to the school. All the teachers would be busy in greeting themselves and enjoying their day.

She came to the class. I saw the whole class become lively as soon as she entered like the crowd getting lively while a chief guest enters the function after the delay.

There was a huge discussion on what was to be done in those leisure hours, after that they reached a conclusion. She said that she would be arranging something new and at last she organized a game to be played in our class. She started the game of singing competition between the boys and girls. According to that game, every team member had to begin a song with the last letter with which the opponent had ended the song.

This game, which she boasted to be novel, had existed since from the days of our great great grandma's periods. Though I loved her she was not an exception to a normal girl it was the nature of the girls. They think themselves of doing something new and great and at last end up with something old and boring, which had been in existence for years.

Though many boys suggested some other interesting games, as usual boys' hearts only ended up supporting the opposite community than their own. It was the nature of boys.

So we had no option other than playing that old game because it was better than sitting idle. As she started singing, I really began to admire her. Not on the way she sang, but I wondered

"How could she know so many songs?"

After a few minutes, the other girls started to sing as if they really belonged to some great musical community. This musical saga caused a continuous blood flow in our boys' ears.

"We should record those songs they sing and should replay it to them. Then at least they would realise the greatest sin they were committing..." we discussed with each other.

The competition went on. Other boys of my class, who were little close to her because of the acquaintance over the past years of studying in the same school, sung against her i.e. against the girls' team.

As they sang, I realised that other than humans I was also having some donkeys as my friends because their voices were impeccable in comparison with a donkey's bray.

I sat in one of the corners of the benches and watched others singing the songs. Though I knew many songs, I kept quiet because of shyness. At the end of the game, as usual the girls won and like every time we denied that, cheated and proclaimed ourselves as the winners.

  10. JUDGEMENT DAY:

In my school days, my only aim was to get good marks. So I always concentrated on my studies, but even then, I still sometimes wished to talk with her, see her and become a friend to her. But, I gave very less importance to those things as I was interested getting good marks.

I sometimes regret and think that why I had been so foolish and yearn for those little things to happen while ignoring the gift of being near her. I now realise that I have actually missed some diamonds while I was busy collecting the stones.

Mostly we regret and hate ourselves when we think that why we were once so much stupid? Why did we think that those silly things were the most important and long for some little things to happen. We always forget that, during that time those were the things we wanted the most.

During that time, all I wished was to get a second rank badge at least once. So that I could carry it, near my heart flaunting myself and displaying the capacity of my brain. It mattered so much to a nerd, especially to a one still at school.

But the fact was that, Syed and she coveted much for this second rank badge much more than me. So I am cheering for what I had wished for that day, because in our human lives, in everyday the previous days appear better.

This was the only thought that kept me away from her during that time.

Who knows I might someday regret for loving her this much. But I hope this wouldn't happen, because our hopes to live happily never changes in spite of the ages we attain and the years we live.

That day was said to be our judgement day... judgment for all the mischievous and naughty things we had done so far. It was parents and teacher's meeting day. For me, that month didn't hold much except that I was caught once while copying others' papers and coming in late for four or five days. Those were more than enough for my teachers; they could even paste my photograph on the most wanted terrorist list with the things they had gotten.

I was much more worried that the day actually fell on one of my father's working day. If it had been my father, he would simply listen to the laments of my teacher. Then he would forget them, there itself. Finally, we would be reaching home with an ice-cream. On the other hand, my mother would be asking everything voluntarily from my teacher even though she intends to say a little...

On that day, every student feared that all the teachers only by using their words would be telecasting the movie that they had filmed with their eyes. We were afraid because that movie had comprised all our mischievous and corrupt actions that we had committed up to that day.

I asked my mother to come as late as possible because I knew teachers would be too tired of lamenting about all the students to their parents. Therefore, I could end this meeting with the less trouble. We all said to one another that,

"Today in our home we are going to get various critics and scolding for the movie, which we played in the lead and supporting roles"

But on that day, what happened was something entirely different. The teachers dumped the release of our films, as they were busy with releasing their blockbuster of our friend Pradeep.

The first half of the film was full of romance, and second half comprised of action sequences, lively performed by his father....

The script of the film was:

He had actually proposed to a girl in our class whom he loved. As soon as he proposed she ran to the staff room as fast as if she was running the 100 m race in the Olympics. After seeing her running, our teachers had decided to give the gold medal to Pradeep because he was the one who caused her to run...

In that day of parents meeting when his father came to know about this, he started to beat him immediately in front of everyone. After a few minutes in front of our awaiting eyes, the interesting sequence began. His father and her father started to quarrel with each other.

As all the theatres were busy enough to run this movie, our movies went out of theatre, mainly because of audience shortage...

This incident caused fear in every boy's mind to love a girl... especially the girls who had gotten prizes in the running competition. We actually wondered what the mistake Pradeep had really done was. Her father was very much angry towards him. Had he really raped his daughter or what?

On the next day, Pradeep came to the school. After that incident, he was afraid even to look at her... for he would have thought about the large fist of his father. Nevertheless, we incited him to see her, saying that,

"We think she is casting her sweet eyes towards you because girls sympathise very much. And it seems that she was really impressed, and her heart was touched when you sacrificed yourself by getting beatings from your father..."

"Really?" He exclaimed with a blissful face... and started to gaze at her.

What we expected had happened, and we were happy. The reason was twofold. One was that we did a good thing by joining a loving pair. The other was that we had escaped the subsequent parents' meeting also. We got assured that next time the sequel of Pradeep's last film would occupy all the theatres. Moreover, the mothers would also support the role of the villains in that sequel...

" If hundreds are not going to suffer, then it didn't matter that one is going to. If it was made sure that we were one among the hundreds."

  11. MIRAGE:

And one day I discussed everything with Syed, everything included how some shades of love fell on me.

After hearing this, he said to me,

" We experience this kind of attraction during this stage of our life. Do not yield yourself to such thoughts. If you do so, then your studies will be spoiled, and your result may turn out to be the worst"

He advised and warned me. Though Syed and I were envious of each other's marks, we always wished that,

"He should get very good marks, and I should get at least one mark higher than him."

Our thoughts were selfish but at the same time, it was harmless, and sometimes we needed it for each other's progress. So I completely brushed aside the thoughts about her and yielded myself in getting good marks in the exam. During that time, it was a very easy task for my juvenile and immature heart.

A year went, after our ninth standard holidays, we entered our tenth standard. I enjoyed my holidays so blissfully. At times, most of our school friends went to the common ground and played cricket together. To everyone's surprise I even hit a sixer and took some incredible catches. They hadn't allowed me to bowl but if they had, then I would have also taken some wickets...

Syed and I often ate at each other's houses; we went to both temples and mosques. We went to the movies and returned home with empty pockets. As a whole, we never forgot to decorate those days with our normal activities, because of which they always appear glamorous in our minds when we think of those good old days.

Then our tenth standard began, so much hope and so many expectations were kept on our tenth public exam.

We first went to the English tuition with the intention of getting good marks in the exam. However, in the Sundays what we actually did was something different. We would go as early as possible to the tuition and we played cricket on the nearby ground of our English Maam's house. I hated this much because most of the times when we played cricket I stood only as an umpire to their game.

Our English Mam, in fact motivated us to study. She believed that I had some skills that would make some wonder, if I could succeed to use them in a right way. She often said this to me.

One of our friends said to us that he loves a girl, and he would even give his life to her. After he told that we watched his grades dropping from A to B then to C-may be up to Z if it had existed. The most shocking part about that was he too loved the same person, whom I loved and pretended as if not loving any girl, during that time.

When our English madam came to know about that, she advised us.

"Everyone during the age of 16 will definitely have to cross the barricade of love in their path. Everyone will be having some impression or attraction towards someone. However, they are just illusions in your path. It will vanish after you attain some age so never get into it. They are mirages and when you go near them, you will be realising that they are nothing. With your tender hearts, it is difficult to differentiate between the infatuation and true love. Just concentrate on your dreams and first try to attain them. If your impression or infatuation is a true love, then you will wish to attain your love even after your dreams are realised. So give the preference to your dreams "

I felt what she said was 100% true.

During the age of 16, "Does our heart, which had been obstinate about years to fall in love, was violently being taken by someone's hand at last? Alternatively, does our heart waits for a long time looking for the best one to give itself voluntarily into their hands? We couldn't feel either of this happening because when this happens our heart wouldn't be available with us."

  12. IN THE TALE OF LIFE:

In those days, every student of our class feared to love someone. It was because of the fear that was created for us by our parents and teachers. They gave us impression that loving someone was a sin. This fear given to us was like a red signal, prohibiting our love trains to move ahead. Before we came to know about the true meaning of love, they advised us not to fall in love with anyone at any time. That was the free advice everyone wished to give us, by telling their love stories (most, which would resemble close to some of the super hit love stories of that time). They warned us not to taste the wine of love by any chance and lose our soberness.

It was because most of them had already experienced and read their love stories. In the middle of everyone's tale of life, which we start to write, right from the day they are born, contains a page prewritten by some. After reading that page named "love," few lucky ones are able to get the same person to write their entire other left out pages. Most complete their tales by some other writing the left out pages, while others leave their tale unfinished.

Our teachers and parents, who hold their place in one among these first two, preferred us not to fall in love. Since they were afraid that some of our tales might also end unfinished.

In our school days, the only thing we were much awaiting for was the public exam. Our preparations for the exam reached the peak when we started to count the days of our exams. While most of us were busy in reading our subjects, a few really enjoyed their days at our school. Intense friendship words, special words, lovely words, caring words and advising words filled the pages of our slam books. I could remember the every word I wrote in her slam book. Neither I nor Syed bought a slam book for us. We were too busy in the preparations of our exams so we gave least importance to it.

Syed and I were so serious that we even refused to remember a phone number. We said to each other that the memory portion in our brain that we used to store the phone number could instead be utilised to save an answer for our one mark questions.

  13. SAVING THE MIDNIGHT OIL:

The exam, which we had been expecting for all these days, came at last. Everyone was busy studying his or her subjects. I still wonder how my study holidays ended so fast that I might have watched only one or two films a day.

We all were sad about the exams. However, we were happy for one thing regarding the public exams, that our teachers would not be evaluating our exam papers. For they always gave us least marks. It might because their bank balance came down for each mark, they provided us.

That DAY was the last study holiday of ours, i.e. our exams were going to begin the next day. On my last study holiday day, I started studying in the morning at 10'o clock. I studied up to 12'o clock in the afternoon. Then I thought of relaxing myself for a few minutes, so I switched on the Television. I they are telecasting my favourite, the trailer of which had never been telecasted before that day.

I kept on seeing that film saying to myself,

"I will study after ten minutes,"

The ten minutes time extended, and at last, I saw the whole film, which ended only at 3'o clock. First, one should warn every TV station that they are not to telecast new or popular movies during the exam times of the students. Most of the students fail to study their subjects by watching the films, saying,

"Just for ten minutes," exactly like I did.

Then I went to sleep because of the tiredness of watching the film continuously. I woke up at 5'0 clock and again started studying up to 6'o clock.

Another time I switched on the T.V. With the same thought,

"I will switch it off within 5 minutes."

The next was the India- Pakistan cricket match. The Indian players played awesome like never before. It was impossible to quit the match in the intermediate because every over contained at least one sixer, four or a wicket. I watched T.V. even after the match ended.

After that I went to eat. My mother's dinner made me to doze in my study table itself. Then I again awoke at 10'o clock. I saw the light in the Syed's house still glowing,

I warned myself that,

"Look Syed is studying still now,"

Then I was wide-awake until 12'o clock with a book in my hand, but I did not end up studying anything. I kept the alarm at 4'o clock. I woke with the bitter alarm sound in my sweet sleep. Snoozing the alarm time for five minutes again and again, I finally woke up at 6'o clock. I hadn't got enough time neither to study the left out chapters nor to revise the already studied chapters. I got ready early, at least to avoid the unpleasant situation of missing the exam.

I was much afraid that I hadn't studied anything and with this fear, I entered the exam hall. As I received the question paper, I saw the questions which I had left out had been asked as the detail questions. The questions that I studied thoroughly by expectation had been asked only for the brief answers and for the one mark answers.

On a wing and a prayer I decided to write my own stories. I fathomed that great storywriters, and scriptwriters might have begun their writing journey only in the exam halls. It must be the womb for their thoughts and imaginations. In this serene place when we see everyone writing we would also wish to write something, even if we do not have anything on our mind.

As I started writing I went to the soporific mood and soon after some time I felt like sleeping. I could not control what my hand was really writing. I checked my paper twice to ensure that I hadn't written the story of the film, which I saw on that previous day.

When the bell rang, the examiner grabbed my answer papers while I was only half finished with my answers.

  14. WITH FLOWN OUT COLOURS:

Although I knew, that I had written my exams partially well I ended up replying everyone who bothered to ask,

"How much percentage do you expect?" with a crisp "above 90%."

Almost everyone, who heard this, believed me. One among them was my father. He believed my words, and he was confident about my percentage.

During my tenth standard holidays the only thing, which I was worried about was my results. All my thoughts evolved around getting good percentage and what mattered to me was to be in the toppers list of my class. In those days, I suppose I never yearned for her. I suppose, I at no time thought whether I would meet her or not. I never felt of missing her. I believe that on no account I had used her name in my prayers to the God. Yes in those days, I never loved her; though I suppose I might have had some infatuation towards her.

However, now I could never find out that, in those days whether I loved her or not. When we see things after wearing the green spectacles in front of our eyes, all the things, which we see, appears accomplished with a green coloured shade.

Likewise, at this moment in time, with my heart full of love towards her, when I look back on those past days, in which she was near me, all those days appear to be overshadowed with a shade of my love. I feel like I had been holding the same love towards her on those days, which I is same like now. Nevertheless, I clearly know that what I had felt on those days had been something different from what I conclude to be felt on those school days by me by now.

Whatever the things may be yet I could substantiate one thing to myself, i.e., had she not come into my path after my tenth standard, I am sure that I would not have been in love with her now. She might never have deserved the importance in my heart if she had gone with the shade of infatuation. This beautiful feeling might have happened to me with some other girl. Nevertheless, we can do nothing, as even fate cannot control some inevitable things.

The moment of my tenth result arrived; my father was eager about the result; but at last, it disappointed him very much. All I got was a much less percentage than everyone expected. I knew that I had not given my exams well but that wasn't the percentage I certainly expected. My tenth result proved to me as a great disaster. My result boat stayed in the border of 80s, while hers and Syed's boat crossed the 90s.

The other thing that depressed me was my English marks; that was the worst of all the marks I received. I felt ashamed to see my English ma'am straight to her face. She often said to me that,

"You are my favourite student. I expect that you will be a top rank holder in my subject."

But the marks I had got were not the marks, which a favourite student would get.

Therefore, I did not go to my old school, since I was afraid that my English teacher might be waiting there to present me, her compliments for the marks I have scored. Later, I received the news from my friends that actually, my girl topped in literature. She was a group leader in the physics class but how could she get the top marks in literature as well? Though gloomy as it was, a small consolation was that Syed too got fewer marks in English.

  15. WRONG TURN:

Then after our tenth results, Syed and I wished to join another school that was near our old school. Our old school was not that much standardized as like the new school for the 12th standard. At that time, the apple of our eye was our 12th standard results and getting good marks in 12th standard final exam was of great importance to us and as well as to our family. Though we received some decent as well as bad comments on that school from the passed out students, we were determined to join the new school. After analysing various details we received; we were a lot capitulated by the policy of 'Shuffling' adopted in the new school. We were not considerably clear about the policy, in fragments all we knew about the policy was that they were to provide a special care to every student based upon their abilities.

Along with our mothers, Syed and I went to enrol our names to the new school and pay the admission fees. As I went near the counter, wonderment filled my eyes. I saw her standing beside her father in the girl's queue. She saw me and gave me a peaceful smile as if welcoming his old friend.

I went there to explain that to Syed when, I saw him speaking with another friend of us. Then we came to know that most of the friends of us who got above 70% in our tenth standard had the similar thought just like us. Most of them had already joined that new school. Syed and I were extremely joyous because we had all our friends all together, as well as we had a better platform to accomplish our dreams.

Then after joining in the new school, Syed and I as usual went to the bus stand. We went together for the first day of our school. We entered the school and waited in the common hall, where most of the other students and our previous school friends had been waiting. Few minutes later the teachers from that school came and explained the rules and regulations of that school. They gave us the instructions to be followed in that school, and while hearing those we all felt one thing in common that

"We shouldn't have left our old school."

We understood the real worth of our old school after we left it and joined in the new school which shortly appeared to us like the Military camp. For me something more disastrous had been waiting. They asserted to us that the policy of "shuffling", which we had been expecting with much trepidation, would be more fruitful to us. We reckoned why some of the students who passed out of the school called our new school a 'Jail'.

A teacher came and to explain about the "shuffling." It was after hearing the establishment of such like policies; we wished to join this school. We thought shuffling would be some great policy until a teacher came and announced,

"According to shuffling, the students will be, first categorised and moved into separate sections and they will attend the classes that will be held in their particular sections in a different manner. With the availability of 160 students, the students are now categorised into four sections each containing 40 students. Section A will contain the top-grade holders followed by B, C and D. The D section will be containing the least grade holders. The A section students will deserve all the facilities such as only the best teachers will be provided to them. On the other hand, we will provide more care for the D section students, such that they will have to study at the school itself for up to night 7'o clock. Now the students are categorised based on their tenth standard marks and they will be shuffled to the other sections based upon the marks they will be getting in the upcoming exams."

We listened to those with our mind full of abhorrence. I thought that in shuffling I would fall in some other section than the section in which she and Syed would fall. We should not doubt whether some bad things might happen, if we do, that is precisely what happens.

As I doubted, the same thing happened. I went to C-section while she and Syed went to the B section. First, I hated my C section much but after entering the class, I found many beautiful girls. So shuffling did not affect me much. That was furthermore, a happy thing to have your loved one in the nearby section while many other beautiful girls were in your section. Moreover, in my class I also had some other old friends who would dance to my tunes.

  16. MA, I FORGOT SOMETHING:

After entering that school my aim of getting good marks in my twelfth standard vanished on seeing most of the students who had gotten very high marks in their tenth standard. I believed it would be hard for me to beat them with my marks. When we become aware that we are not going to win the race then all we will wish to do is walk instead of running.

Moreover, I wished not to study anything in my eleventh standard, in order to take a rest after writing the tenth public exam and before writing the twelfth public exam. These thoughts of mine ruined me. I flunked in the very first exam but there were two reasons to that along with this. One was that I hadn't really studied well for the exams. And the other was that the pass mark in my new school was a whopping 60%. Even thinking of that cumbersome pass percentage would cause fainting in the examination hall.

When I came to know that she and Syed had also flunked, I felt as if my wounded heart had at last been treated by a beautiful nurse.

After that we were all fearful of getting the progress report signed by our parents, as we were new arrivals to the list of failures. However, I made an idea. As per the idea I got ready at 8'o clock: The exact time to go for the bus even a minute's delay would make me bunk my class. Then I first rushed to the bus stop from my home. Half way I turned back and rushed again to my home as if I had forgotten to get the signature in the progress card... I went shouting.

"Ma, I forgot to get the signature," and on hearing this, my father rushed to take the pen.

I took the progress card out of my bag all in a bustle exactly showcasing urgency for which my mother had to give an immediate attention. Then I showed my report card to my mother. When my mother was about to put the signature, her eyes suddenly fell on the grade. So I shouted,

"Hurry, hurry it is already getting late."

I put down my hands over the F grade marked with a red ink as if holding the report card.

She signed without seeing the grades on it and as a continuation of the play I once again rushed with extreme speed and great relief.

In that following night, though I incessantly spoke with my mother about the other topics, she was keen on my report card. As soon as she asked, "what grade have you got?"

"This time I got only B grade, today you saw while you were signing, didn't you?" I asked.

She asked, "I didn't. Why have your grades dropped?"

"Ma what do you think of this school? Even getting pass marks in this school is difficult. Be proud that your son has passed. Don't covet much," I told her sagely.

Then after a few petty arguments I manoeuvred the plane of conversation in a different direction.

However, Syed has been always loyal to his mother. He said about his F grade to his mother, but that would not have been a problem had he not mentioned my getting the same shameful grade.

Like us, our mothers were also close friends. They always gossiped about their life (starting from the day they were born) and it is because of that, that my mother came to know my grade at last.

That day, I came to my house and shouted.

"Today the Chapattis you gave for my lunch are not sufficient. I am so hungry. Do you have anything to eat?"

My mom's face turned red.

"We will see that later, what grade you have got this time?" She asked.

"How many times have I to repeat the same answer for this question" I grinned in mock disappointment and said, "B- grade"

"But Syed told his mother that you too have got F grade."

She asked looking into my eyes, while my father regarded me with suspicious eyes.

"I really forgot to tell you. On that day, Syed got flunked, while I got passed. He was so unhappy and requested me that he would say that I too got flunked in so beseeching a voice that I couldn't help but acquiesce. So that it would be easy for him to manage his mother and convince her that getting pass marks in our school was so tough."

Though she believed this, in her eyes there still lingered some doubts.

"Today's Chapattis you made for my lunch were so fantastic. The opulence in its taste could scarcely satisfy my hunger. Do have them now?" I asked and approached the kitchen.

My father, whose doubts bordered on suspicion earlier would have become unchangeable convictions. My mother would have kept the same Chapattis for his lunch as well and I dare say the notorious taste still stuck his tongue.

I do such things to remove myself from sticky situations. I often lied to my mother because we both liked the lies I used to tell her. Some days later my parents would be laughing at the puerile lies I had told them. So I always liked lying (harmless lies they were though), because I didn't want our (my) happiness to be spoiled by a silly truth.

During those days, the life we lived within those walls was just like this, we lived every moment in blithe contentment. My parents were my world and like the moon that is inseparable with the Earth my thoughts always revolved around them. That was until the day she came into my dreams.

  17. AS IN LOVE AS NEVER BEFORE:

The next week was full of fun and frolic. With the new friends that I had got in my new school and with my old friends we bunked the class and went to a movie. On that day, I saw one of the romantic movies, which left a complete impact on me.

I was sitting on my bench, no one was around us. She suddenly came near me, stroked my hair as gently as my mother's stroke, kissed on my cheeks and then went...

At last as usual when my mother shouted

"Wake up, Krishna it is already late."

I found that all those were just dreams. I hurt myself like the other ordinary lovers for the human inability to give life to their dreams ...

That day I went to the school feeling something different about myself from what I have been these days. I felt that I had gone crazy yet I wished that craziness was not enough for me to love her. When I realised my longing for her, I just laughed at the things for which I had longed before.

When I went and sat in my class, I saw her coming. As she entered I saw her straight into her eyes, she saw me and gave me a courteous smile in her face. I thought for a while whether she too would have got the same dream like mine. I thought this for the whole day, from that day that I realised I had fallen in love for her as never before.

I realised for all these days my subconscious mind was always thinking about her, speaking about her and loving her. However, my mind was busy to lend ears to it. When my subconscious mind explained her importance through dreams, my mind realised its yearning for her, which had been concealed since the day it saw her.

If everyone who fell in love with someone thinks of the day they had realised that they have fallen in love then it would be surely the day, in which they had their loved ones in their dreams for the first time in their life.

That was the day I realised that a part of mine loves her dearly even without my knowledge. My heart hid the true love for her by the false shadows of lies, which I said to myself for the sake of my vicinity. At last I recognised it when my dream threw its lights over them.

I felt that feeling was something different, totally different from the attraction, infatuation, etc., which could never be experienced with anyone other than her. One may be first attracted by thousands, hundreds may infatuate but when it comes to love, it is always one. Love is so damn a thing that it always gives permission for only one soul to exist in our heart by saying its name.

A week later, I went to the terrace to sleep over there. Some nights of my Sundays were spent underneath of the stars in the terrace.

"As you were afraid of seeing her gaze

You came at night, when the whole world is asleep

In order to see how beautiful she really was

With the one sided love towards her

For some days you emaciated

And for some days you grew

For all these days, you thought someday she will be yours

But now I am sorry to say, that the one you loved

Is going to get married to another,

Who loves her more than you do

With the breath that has kissed your girl's heart

I am sending you my first marriage invitation

Come there with your friends! Hide yourself in the huge crowd

And bless us while we walk down the aisle, you the little Moon."

The little Moon was the first one to whom I confessed my love. When I feared that he might also be spell bound with her sleeping beauty, I warned him not to fall in love with her at any cost for she was made for me.

One day in the chemistry lab after doing our experiments, I went near the place where the teacher had kept the concentrated Sulphuric acid and Hydrochloric acid. They advised us that those were hazardous acids and we should not keep ourselves near them. Nevertheless, whenever we got the chance we tested whether what they had said was true or not by throwing papers or small wooden pieces over them.

I saw no one was around there so I decided to use that chance. I opened the book, which was kept in the side of that table, to tear a piece of paper from it. My eyeballs bulged out at that moment because that book's first page contained her beautiful name.

"While, she wrote her name, haven't the pen asked her to show him the creator of the world's most beautiful one word poem? If it had asked then how could she have shown God to it, as he was the creator of her name?"

I thought a poem at that moment.

"You stupid, the poem is old, jaded and faded "I said to myself.

And I took the book home. I read that book until so late at night that even my mother wondered.

" If I were given all her books then I would have been the state first rank holder" I thought to myself.

I rehearsed many times in my mind, the things I had to say while returning the book to her.

In the next morning I took the book and went near her and said

"Here is your book that you left in the lab"

"Thank you very much. I searched it for the past two days" by looking straight into my eyes she answered to me and went away.

That was the day I realised "How coward I was really?"I thought of inducing a conversation with the book, but I failed. I scolded myself for being like that and wondered how I went speechless for the first time when our eyes clashed one another.

"At the very moment I saw her eyes, I felt like

Falling deep into the well named her eyes

How deep is it really, I went on falling

However, I never could see its bottom,

The only thing I could imagine Is that

The depth of her eye well is unimaginable

I know like was the love

One goes on falling but could never see its depth

Being like this how could I say?

That I have fallen in love

All I could say is that I am falling in love

At the moment right now and up to the moment

I could see the depth of her eyes and my love as well......"

Yes I might refuse to concede that I love her but I could never refuse that I was falling in love. Though I believed I could stop this at some moment; I wished not to.

  18. AUTOPSY BY CUPID'S ARROW:

Three months later, we finished our quarterly examinations. In the morning while I was watching the cartoon channel, my mom pestered me continuously about the report card.

I said to her, "They haven't even given half of our papers. How can they give our report card?"

My mother asked "Syed has shown his report card to his mother. You are in the same school then how come you are the only one not getting your report card?"

"Same school, same class, but different sections, our teacher is too lazy to prepare the report card..." I told her, then

I took my bag and said to my mom "Today I have to go early to the class"

To escape from my mother's investigation I had to miss my favourite cartoon that day.

After that, I daily had to miss them because at least once in the morning she would be asking about my report card. The fact was that, I was the first one to submit my report on the next day after they provided the report card. They asked us to get the signature from our parents. I wished not to trouble them so I signed an impeccable signature of my mother right below my red-marked F grade.

From that day, I started to go to my class as early as possible. One such a day after going early to the class, I had no other thing to do. I thought for a while and as usual, I went to the corridor of my school. The wall in the corridor of our school contained many large windows lined with steel rods with 3 to 4 inch gap in between each of them from which one could see the people coming to my school from a distance.

In those days, I liked those things very much. When the rays of the sun would be slowly trying to touch the corridor, I would be standing there in agony for its cunningness to forget me. Then it would please me by making my skin feel its essence before it falls on the floor.

Then I would be simply watching: the children play in a nearby house; wives busy in making their husbands get ready for their office; mothers and fathers buying chocolates and other stationeries for their school going kids in the nearby shops.

On such like a day I wondered about my heart rose, which blossomed when her gaze fell on it like the rays of the Sun. I feared that it would wilt and wither if I fail to water it with the thoughts of her. My eyes began to visualise her through my imaginations.

Then I was startled on seeing her walking over there.

I felt tears running inside my eyes. That was the first time my love was just stirring my soul. I was standing there still. I could not move an inch. On that minute all my nerves, bones, every cell every DNA and RNA were subjected to autopsy by the Cupid's little arrow for which they readily sacrificed their lives within minutes. Yet my soul stood alive, feeling the pain.

She came upstairs suddenly. My corpse standing there, still, was unaware of what was going on until it regained its life by drinking the elixir offered by her gaze.

She saw me and asked, "Why have you come so early today?"

Though my heart whispered "for you" inside, my lips just apprised her

"I like coming early."

She smiled and said that it was nice.

I asked her, "Are you coming early every day."

She nodded her head for a yes.

"Why so?" I questioned her,

"It suits me, there is much time left for me to prepare for the morning cycle tests."

She told and followed her way to her class. She wasn't interested in conversing with me.

I felt, how could she walk in such a carefree way? Was not she really aware that a soul was dying here to hold her arms while she walked away. How could she be asserting only a few words while my life was waiting to hear all those words she could say? Could she not feel the lovely words said by my silent eyes? Why did she pretend as if she hadn't noticed anything? Was it my innocence that asked these questions or her cunning that refused to answer them?

Did this love arise because of her beauty? Firmly and concretely No would be the answer to this question. In my school, I had many girls much more beautiful than her. If beauty caused the love then I would have loved at least another five girls.

"Beauty is merely something which our eyes argue and our mind concludes."

Something other than her beauty really attracted me, 'that something' which I would never find until I live with her at least seven eternal lives by resurrection. Love never reveals itself fully to anyone.

That moment I thought nothing except that if she was not in my life any more, then I wished to my life end there. I begged God to give me her immediately at that moment. For I wished I would love her as much as possible, live a life that no one in the universe had ever lived.

After falling in love I started to understand the depth of my life.

From then, I rushed to the school as early as possible and waited for her. I was so unlucky that she ceased coming earlier to the school.

Our twelfth standard begun, we were really bored of reading those subjects. Our new Physics sir, named Ganesh came to the class. His first day of our class was such an interesting one. He wouldn't concentrate on the syllabus of our twelfth standard portions so some students hated for listening his class lectures for they just wanted marks. At first, even I was one among them.

One week later, I was listening and seeing the blackboard. He asked,

"Hey, where are you looking, am I a fool standing here and teaching you"

Had he gone mad, I thought for a second and answered him,

"I am actually looking at the black board only. I don't know what the problem with it is."

He went that day leaving this argument there. On the next day with a face full of aversion he asked me the same question, which he asked previous day.

I was perplexed as never before. I later thought of the problem associated with that. Then I explained my squint eye to him. He immediately hit his hand on his head and said "sorry".

He worried that he should not have hurt my soul by denoting my squint eye. He felt that it would have embarrassed me when he referred to my squint eye in front of my other friends.

Later, I explained to him,

"I don't feel any kind of embarrassment for being born like this. I really feel great as I consider this as a unique gift, rarely given to me by God for the easy identification of me by others"

He was overwhelmed with my attitude. A close friendship developed between us. I began to like his subject more because of him and he began to like the squint eyed personalities because of me.

Not only for me, but for most of us he soon became a favourite teacher. However, that did not last long. Some other students who concentrated on simply the marks complained about him that he was actually not taking classes in accordance with our prescribed syallabus. He explained how important the knowledge to a human was. He motivated all of us to study and get good marks in our twelfth standard. He said to us,

"If you have the confidence of achieving a particular target in your high school, then that confidence will automatically give the courage to face anything in your life."

He taught us in a way to make us knowledgeable while our school suggested he take classes in such a way which implied that the students should be getting more marks. He always thought of teaching as an auspicious thing when he learnt, that our school wasn't really a temple of education, he left our school, bidding adieu.

  19. AN IDLE MIND- A LOVE'S WORKSHOP:

My mother and father, since the day I born, had imagined me to be an engineer. For them the most important thing they should do in their life was to make me an engineer. My father had been working hard just to earn enough money for making this happen. My mother everyday was losing her nerves by trying to control the everyday expenses. She would be bargaining for one rupee for five minutes with a vendor and the reason behind them would be to make me an engineer.

My father would say that

" I won't be drinking coffee or tea in the day time, it is not healthy"

He would not drink the coffee or tea while others in my father's office would, the reason behind that would be to make me an engineer. For the middle class people these things were some of the sweetest burdens, for which they willingly volunteered themselves in order to be uplifted with pride.

When I learned that my twelfth marks were going to be the foundation of my parents' dream, I decided to yield myself fully on getting marks as much as possible. Therefore, that I would be saving most of my father's sweat and my mother's energy in the form of money.

I spent most of the time in studying. I would get a flask full of coffee prepared by my mother and I would study for late nights as much as possible. My father was affected the most because of my exams. His habitual action to hear the daily news was ruined.

I would not allow television to run in my home, claiming that it was a great disturbance for me to study. He didn't have any other options than to see the news in the newspaper. The routine duties of mine such as going to the grocery shops, getting milk packet and such fell on my father.

I thought to preoccupy my mind with some other important thing, so that I could banish her thoughts away from me. I concentrated much on studies in order to get relief from the newly aroused feeling in my heart.

Syed and I started to study voraciously once again like our tenth standard. We would be studying while we walked, while we talked, while we were on the bus, and sometimes even while we ate. Thus most people in our surroundings placed a bet that either of us would be the state first rank holder.

I was already injured in the race of my tenth public exams. I unnecessarily competed with my friends and others and I ran looking at them and not on the target that I was running for. Hence I fell even before reaching the target.

Even in the beginning of twelfth standard I had decided that, these things shouldn't be repeated again. I set my mind in such a way that I may walk but I have to finish the target in an efficient way.

I never let the same foolishness that happened in my tenth standard to happen again. One such was sleeplessness for long hours that caused me drowsy on the examination hall. I slept well in the night before the exam and entered the exam hall with confidence. In the question paper I found some of the questions which I hadn't studied had been asked. I left all those and concentrated on answering the questions for which I knew the answers. Since I did not mug up the subjects it was indeed easy for me to write the answers.

I left the examination hall as soon as I finished my examination. If I had to remain there then I have to bear the bitterness of having written some wrong answers. Those mistakes would be pointed out by my friends (They will be very much happy in doing so). This would be like a thunder stroke and I might lose my hope for other exams that were yet to come.

One by one, I finished every exam from English, physics... to computer science. I hoped that I would be excelling in English and Physics because of those teachers' influence on me during my tenth and twelfth standards.

At the end of our last exam, though we were grateful for the excellent coaching our school provided, we never forgot those days when we were just like the prisoners. Hence in order to avenge, some of the courageous students among us broke the fans, benches, desks, etc...At the same time some other students, especially girls, bought wall clocks, greeting cards and other such things to be gifted by them as a remembrance. While I assisted some of the students of the former, she led the girls to the latter. We once again stood like the north and south poles.

"An idle mind is a love's workshop"

I understood that during my holidays.

Whenever she was near me

I found my heart hanging around her

Whenever she was not near me

I found my heart missing somewhere

Is this love? I do not think so

Whenever she speaks something

I feel as IF there was nothing inside my ribcage

Yet weighing so much

Is this love? I do not think so

Whenever her gaze falls

I realise I have become selectively blind

That I could see ONLY her, nothing other

Is this love? I don't think so

Whenever I think of her,

I am confused that whether I am dreaming of a life

Or living a dream

Is this love, of course, yes it is.

During my holidays I had nothing to do other than the habitual actions so I researched myself and I understood what love really meant?

To kill the time or to use it effectively, I dreamt about her, imagined the marks she would get, etc.. I questioned myself about the college she was going to join, the course she will be interested to study.

In spite of all these, I was bored with bewilderment

"Whether I will see her or not" but I had an instinct that always murmured to me,

"Go to school, she will come there surely"

  20. LIFE TIME FESTIVAL FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS:

All families of the 12th students will be waiting for the counselling as the most important festival of their life time. Every mother will be busy in preparing pillows, clothes and other items such as soap cases, etc. for their future engineers. While all the fathers would be busy in repairing their old trunk that they had used during their hostel times and given to them like a legacy from their father.

As habitual, I woke late in the morning and that too because of some noise that arose. I got up from the bed and went to see where the noise was really coming from. I saw my father doing some hammering and tinkering works to a trunk. I asked him what he is doing. He replied to me that,

"This is the trunk you are going to carry to your college to keep all your clothes. This is really a lucky one. I got from my father",

After seeing that box, I understood that my ancestors are educated enough because the trunk must be at least 100 years old. I warned immediately to my father

"I won't be carrying this at any cost."

After seeing my twelfth standard result and my girl for the last time I lived through my twelfth holidays harder with her thoughts. As my parents waited, my letter for the eligibility of the Engineering counselling came. After the letter came, a real Utsav began in my family. My father on each day would arrive with the name of a few engineering colleges and courses that were popular.

My mother on the other hand was indeed worried. She asked me,

"In the counselling can't you take any nearby colleges and be near us?"

I said, "I will be near with you and I will be studying some other degree than engineering. Is that ok for you"

As in my hometown no good engineering colleges were available I wished to study in some of the reputed colleges mainly because of good the marks I have scored in my twelfth standard and the effort I have put in that. And moreover I wanted to see how the world was outside my hometown.

My mother's face dulled and lost its brightness, like a bright moon hidden by a huge cloud. It was hard for my parents even to imagine me being someone other than an engineer. Not only for my parents but for most of the parents making their sons or daughters engineers or doctors is an acute and common disease that prevailed. They are unaware that sometimes they affected their children's dreams.

As Shahjahan wished to build Tajmahal, middle class men had a great dream penned in their diary. It is to become a father of an engineer or a doctor.

For all these days, my mom had been praying to God to make me an engineer. She could never guess that for each step God made his work on making me an engineer, he also made an equal step in making me to move away from her...

  21. MASTERPIECE:

I have no one to call me by a nickname

I have no silly jaded stories to be told again and again

I have no one to buy me something when my pocket is empty

And no one to share my money resting in my purse

Once I had all these things done by a few but I left all those

Because I believed these were little things

And life has many things more than these

I was right these are little things,

But why I yearn? For those little things to happen

Why I cry? When these little things fail to happen

Because I know very well that

Only these little things filled as the ink of the pen

That wrote the masterpiece named friendship.

When I was near to the counselling day, I realised that I was missing all my school friends. We never expected that all those beautiful days would end so soon. With the different marks that we got in the public exam we prepared our own report card and decided the college and course that would be best for us.

Syed and I were in a dilemma because we did not have any intention to choose any of the courses in particular. Soon after that, I was shocked to hear that his uncle would be taking him to his home so that he will be getting a good education over there. His home is in another state, we understood that we are greatly going to miss each other, as we still have many other important things to attain in our life.

Whatever it might be? We have done many things that will be unforgettable for years. Even our grandchildren would be so keen on listening to our stories, when we explain this to them, as they are filled with more fun and happiness. We assured each other that though our school days ended, our Friendship will sail in our oceans of life forever.

Then In each day, the affection from my mother increased by 2 to the power n times where n is the number of days that went close to my counselling date.

She pleaded God to do some miracles such that, I should study Engineering as well as should remain with her.

All the preparation for my counselling is over. My cousin and the three of us gathered at a bus stop to take the bus for our counselling.

  22. A WINDOW-SEAT:

Cool breeze makes me feel something weird. I feel like it is carrying me away into another world of dead eternity. Then I hardly come back to reality and realise that I am still living. That is what I have yearned for. To me sitting near the window in the bus is a delightful thing and thus I often wait for hours to get a window seat. Sitting on that seat I would be thinking about some of the happy moments of my life.

I thought about my college life. It felt like I had been on the same bus that I took four years before for my counselling. Now it is hard for me to realise that my college life travelled so fast and it seems that it ended even before the bus I took had reached its place. Now I feel that I am missing my college life as much as I thought of missing my school life four years ago. I thought about those moments. Those happy moments teardrops began to fall on my eyes. I started looking back on those days. Every moment came before my eyes. The days of counselling, my first day in the college, our Farewell day, etc....

It was the day of my counselling. We three along with my cousin brother (my mother made him to come in order to assist me) entered the counselling hall.

I always yearned to join the course and college she would join. I was not interested in the courses and colleges. In those days to make me an engineer was my parents' dream and my dream was something different than that. I dreamt to love her, my only aim that filled my heart was to marry my girl...

In the counselling hall, it was hard for me to guess the course and college she would be joining. It was the most complicated thing in the world and I was never confused for anything like that. Then at last I took the college and course suggested by my cousin.

Though the college name sounded familiar, I doubted that there were only few chances for her to choose that same college in the counselling. I chose the computer engineering for that was the course that most girls did chose. Might because computers mostly did what their velvet hands wanted, which some other machines (Mechanical engineering) denied.

Yet my heart weighed when I thought about "How I was going to survive in the college if she wasn't there."

After the counselling I saw my mother controlling the tears that were about to flow. The tears arouse because of the combined effect of ecstasy and pain; the ecstasy, that her dream had come true at the same time, there was pain induced in her because I had to go a distance from her.

Then we went to my college to begin the first day. In the college there was a huge crowd formed by the students, their parents, their relatives and their relatives. Yes, all the relatives and friends who would be coming to the marriage eve were present on that occasion.

After paying my huge college and hostel fees, we went to the room allotted to me. In our college, three students shared a room and I was the first one to reach my room. My mother cleaned my room and advised me to take the cot near the windows. She knew very well that I always found great joy in looking on to the outside world through the windows. After doing all these they went and bought me all the necessary things that I needed...

My father, who carried his lucky trunk all the way, at last kept that in my closet.

Then it was the time for my parents to leave me on my way like an eagle leaving its eaglet on its way after it had learned to survive by itself. They went on their way, saying goodbye to me for at least three times before they reached the gate of my college. During the third time while saying goodbye my mother's voice went cold and I understood she was crying. During the first day in my school I cried on seeing my parents leaving me and during the time they left me in the college, it was their turn.

  23. IN (-) FORMAL INTRODUCTIONS:

When we introduced ourselves for the first time, our professors asked about the aim of our life. My only aim during that time was to marry my girl but I thought it would be embarrassing to say that. So I said my aim was to become a scientist. Saying it was easier for everyone mostly for the ones who didn't wish for it. Then I came to my place and sat

My roommate introduced himself by saying his name as "Sakthi Praveen". When he was asked about his aim he said

"My only aim in my life is to marry a girl whom I love the most". Whole class first laughed and everyone clapped their hands for his aim as it was most of ours' unsaid aim too.

I should not have said my aim as a scientist because it gave me a nerdy look. Everyone after that started to ask some of the subjects' related doubts.

I really yearned that my girl should be studying in the same college. I knew it was too stupid to think like that since it was a quite an impossible thing that could happen. Fate didn't work as we wish; if it had then our life would not have been this much interesting.

I searched her for some time in all the places of my college as much as possible. I returned in the half way leaving some search incomplete for the next day. Because it was hard for me to bear that I was going to miss the chance of being near her for at least four years. So, I decided to divide the pain for a few days.

I would search for some time in one day and I would leave for my room with a hope and complacence that I hadn't fully searched her, so she might be in some other place ...

During the first week, Sakthi and I decided to go to the gym and build our body by reducing our tummy size. Most of our friends had already begun calling us as 'Fatso'.

All of our friends advised us to not to go to the gym because there were chances for us to get caught by the seniors. However, Sakthi and I were oblivious to their advices and went to the gym.

We first went to a shoulder workout section. There stood a short and lean boy watching us keenly. We thought him to be gym boy, so Sakthi asked him to fetch a 6kg dumbbell. That boy grinned and asked whether we were first years or not. We nodded our heads as first year students.

He told, "I am a mechanical department student."

"Oh! Sorry, we thought you to be a gym boy, anyway pleased to meet you," I said and stretched my hands for a handshake.

"I am in third year, your senior" he said and we sighed.

. They took us straight to their rooms and after that they played the music and made us to perform to everything starting from a circus jester to an actor, a swimmer in land, etc. We escaped because most of the others were our department seniors, who were comedians and they didn't even know how to rag a new student.

After that, we ceased to go to the gym as we got the confidence that, our mess food would automatically take care of reducing our tummy.

  24. HARD TO SHOW AS WELL AS TO HIDE:

At first, we had a few problems with room sharing such to as our cot position, table position, etc. But, those problem settled by themselves. In college, I met various kinds of friends. One of the most humorous was Sathyan my other roommate. He woke up only at 8'o clock by the time everyone would be busy with going to the college. As soon as he wakes up his immediate question would be,

"What is the today's breakfast in the mess da?"

Sakthi would say "Idli da" his immediate answer will be
"Will anyone eat that food? I really wonder how you people are eating it."

After saying this he would get up from his bed and he would leave his room. He would go straight to the mess. In the mess we could see at least 10 Idlis stacked on his plate...

We mocked each other by identifying everyone's weakness. During those rough hours, I saved Sakthi and he supported me while I mocked others. According to the rules of mocking, when one was affronting your friend by saying some cracks over him, you should not laugh. If your friend was affronting the others, then you should laugh or at least pretend to laugh as though nothing funnier than that joke was ever cracked.

If we were silent during the time when the others were mocking at us, then they would double the mocking. In addition, if you oppose then it would multiply in quadruples.

Our classes' strength ratio decreased and attendance in the canteen increased as time went. With her thoughts in my heart, I wasn't really interested in providing sweet eye to the girls. I met many beautiful girls. In fact, even my class contained one girl and she was next to me in our attendance order. They used that chance, linked her with me and they shut my mouth at every possible time using this. I thought for a week and asked help from Sakthi. He told that I had no other choice than saying,

"She is like a sister to me."

I thought about that and I said as he said, they ceased linking me to her. I felt relief after that. But that was a great failure as after that everyone started to call me "brother-in-law."

I understood the toughest job in the world was to be a brother to a beautiful sister. As they worsened, I said she was no more my sister. As soon as they heard that from me, those monkeys once again climbed the same tree which they climbed before. If I were not in love then I might have accepted their cordial mocking.

When someone doubts and asks me

Whether I am in love, I reply NO

Before they could close their lips

When I write some love poems, I destroy them,

Before someone could see it

When someone says their love experiences

I just watch them silently with my mouth shut.

When I see some love couples, I cry

Inside my heart for my unluckiness,

Yet, I could hide them through my facial reactions.

Though I become insane sometimes

While imagining my future with her

I could even hide that through my intelligence.

I do all these things in order to hide my love from others

And show myself to them as if I wasn't in love

But, when I stare at something forgetting my surroundings and

If someone could ask me what I was thinking

I knew I would say your name spontaneously

Making all these efforts in vain.........

It is hard for me to show my love to you and

It is even harder for me to hide my love from others eyes as well.

Yes, it felt hard to hide my love from the other's eye especially with my roommates. My roommate Sathyan, was flirting and chatting with his girlfriend through the phone. I asked about his love story he said that he saw her two months ago when his friend introduced her to him. He then got her phone number and after messaging one day, he proposed her. From the day she accepted, he had been continuously recharging his phone for 50 RS a day. That was his costly love story.

Then I said about my love experience to him. Hearing that he said to me,

"Your girl should be lucky if she could get you as her life partner, for no one would love her this much."

My heart wished the same. Sathyan then explained me about the "Love Logic of God." According to that, God will be giving the person to one who love him/her most. Then he told

"If you love her more than anyone in this universe then God will surely give her to you." I wished that it is the real logic of God because

"If I am the one who loves her more than anyone let me get her. If not then another one who would be existing only hypothetically shall get her."

Both were satisfactory for me to live a happy life.

  25. NEWTON'S LAW OF SLEEPING:

The regular classes of my college had begun. As the professors would start to write their subject title, we could imagine ourselves dizzy with five sleeping pills. No nightingale could ever sing a beautiful lullaby to make us sleep like the professors' low pitch tone could during the lecture hours.

According to the Newton's law of sleeping,

"The intensity of your sleep is directly proportional to the food you ate before attending the lecture. And inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the professor and the bench in which you are sitting..."

As I always ate a full stomach and I usually sat on the first bench, the intensity of my sleep was hard to imagine. Sometimes in the class I would be interested in some other things when sleep didn't beckon me. It was mostly due to the harsh and high-pitched voices of some of the professors. During those times, I would be interested in imagining my future with her.

Sometimes I would marry her in a temple, sometimes in a church or in a register office. Sometimes we would feel warm in the Australian Culburra beach and sometimes we would feel cold in the Siachen glacier of Kashmir. If there was a lot of time i.e. during the guest lecture hours she and I would be thinking a name to keep for our daughter. By the time, I would suggest some modern names my mother would be protesting about it with her words and the argument between my mother and me would go on until a chalk piece, in the size of a small stone, would hit my head.

As I had sent my marriage invitation to the moon even during my eleventh standard, these imaginations were easier for me. To me anything was possible in my dreams and imaginations.

Throwing the chalk piece straight on my head the professor would ask me some questions. However, I would confuse his question with my unimaginable answers and I would manage. Like that went my college days and lecturing hours.

  26. WAITING FOR THE SATURDAYS:

For me, it was first difficult to stay in the hostel, because I never missed my mother like this ever before. My sleep was disturbed without my mother, who would wake up in the middle of the night to make sure that the blanket had fully covered my body. During the morning, it was tedious for me to wake up without my mother's habitual coffee. After a week I too joined in the Sweet Smelling Engineers Association because no bucket full of hot water was waiting for me like in my school days. The members of this Association, saved water by bathing once in two days, yet they smelled so nice with flavours of the modern deodorants.

For the first few days, our college proved to be the world's strictest college. They told us to study compulsorily during the study hours (in between 6'o clock and 9'o clock). However, we knew that these comedies could last only for a few days.

For two weeks, our mess food sounded to be great, the third week it was palatable and in the fourth week our mess food just reminded the missing of our mother's food. If I truly hadn't remembered my mother at any time, I certainly got her remembrance when I saw my dirty clothes. I felt that for all these years she washed my filthy clothes. She took care whenever I got ill, and she was the one who thinks about me all the time. Though I loved my girl, my love for my mother never decreased but increased in proportions. It was my yearning to get her love that made me to realise how much of a gift it was to be loved by someone truly.

I would ring my mother every night, and I would say that,

" I am not thinking for you most of the time as my time goes busy with my friends. I am really enjoying these days."

After I went far from my mother, I always liked to speak the truth to my mother.

My mother would say as

"Here is the same. We don't often think about you. We are also busy with our works"

I knew very well why mother was lying to me. In a day, she would be taking the phone at least for five times to ring me up in order to hear my voice, but she wouldn't. She would think that I might get disturbed, and so she would keep the phone back. She missed me more, but she didn't want to show this to me because she felt that I might feel sad, if I know that she really needs me. She always gave me immense love. If she had given me some droplets of love, then I would have compared it as the rain that the sky gifts to Earth. But, she gave me love like the ocean that I always felt hard to return.

Our relationship being like this, how could I stay more than five days in my hostel? As soon as the Friday evening arrived, I would be standing at the bus stop near my college to get the bus that was destined for my hometown.

In my mother's calendar, the Saturdays and Sundays always yearned to taste themselves with the delicious dishes that she would be preparing; decorate themselves with the new things that she would be buying; and please themselves with the soulful stories that she would rehearse in her mind during the other days to be said on those two days. It was because those were the days, in which her little prince would be returning home from the hostel. Another one, who enjoyed all those stuff, was none other than my father. He would ring me up for at least five times within 10 minutes, after I had said to him that I had started from my hostel.

The Saturday would end so soon. In the Saturday night, she would be little worried as she was left with another one day. On the Sunday night, my mother's thoughts would be frayed and preoccupied. She would say

"These miserable Mondays should never come once again."

Just like, I wished while I was a kid. She would give me a kiss that could last up to one week, and she would send me back to the hostel. She knew very well that my studies were important than these, and those significant things shouldn't be disturbed by her love.

One day Sakthi asked the toothpaste from me and I gave that to him. Then one day I borrowed the shampoo from him. If he woke early in the morning, he would bath and put my bucket in the queue formed in the bathrooms, in the order of it we bathed. Sometimes, though rarely, I woke early and I put his bucket in the queue.

We went to the college together in the morning and returned together often.

Few days went. I ceased buying the shampoo, and he ceased to buy the paste. This was the story how Sakthi and me became close friends in two months. I felt I had Syed by my side, just with a different name.

I became curious to know about this mysterious and interesting Sakthi. I saw his note books, there were some poems. On an evening walk with him. I understood he was an aspiring writer, though all he wants to write was nothing but love poems.

One day during our mathematics period, Sakthi wrote something entirely unrelated to mathematics in his notebook. I doubted and when I was about to see, he had hid that from me. After some time in his absence, I took that note and saw what he had written on it.

There he wrote,

"Our love is constant with time

If it is differentiated it becomes nothing...

On the other hand, if nothing could divide our love,

Then it becomes an infinite love"

Differentiating (constant) =0

Constant/0=infinity.

Later, I understood two things. One was that Sakthi was good in maths and the other was that he was also like me; that is he too was in love with some girl.

I started to like him because he was, in fact, similar to me. I loved someone, and I was afraid to express it. He must also be just like that or else he would not have hidden what he wrote.

  27. TRAPPED (BY THE TREES AND EXAMS):

During the winter season, the trees that were soaked by the rain; the droplets that were accumulated on the leaves, waiting to fall straight on my head; the benches underneath those trees; the scent that prevailed by the combination of all these, never allowed me to go to the class. They always begged to me,

"Sit here for five minutes," like our grandparents asking for our time to hear their stories.

After that they would say to me,

"Dream about your girl as you doesn't have any other pleasant thing in your life other than this."

I would be sitting on it, sometimes for the whole day. Those were the main reasons that caused the poor attendance percentage for the class. Most of the days went like that and then soon our semester examinations began.

I had not prepared anything for my semester examination. Though Sakthi also hadn't read or prepared anything, I liked to believe that he would write the exam well because he had some prenatal powers of knowledge.

In the morning, I first woke him up at 6'o clock, and I slept. He went to sleep after five minutes. Then he woke me up at 7'o clock and he went back to sleep. I went to sleep on at 7.01 AM. At last my other roommate woke both of us at 8'o clock.

Then Sakthi gave me some quick review of the few important questions. I grasped some of them, and as it was our first semester, the subjects were somewhat related to our twelfth standard, so I hoped to get pass marks.

I entered the exam hall, and I got the question paper. I searched for a question to attend from the available questions like a man searching for a new pair of slippers from the available pairs to compensate the one he lost in the marriage ceremony.

For the one-word questions, I managed with "Inkie, Pinkie and Ponky." I had a good faith in them. At least, I would be getting half the answers right whenever I adopted this technique.

First semester was over. We all said goodbye to all our new budding friendships, as we would be meeting each other only after a month of semester holidays. Everyone planned their schedule for his or her holidays. I was worried about those holidays because I could at least kill the time if I was in the college. Being at home and being idle would make me go mad especially towards her.

Every time when I went away from my college to my home, all I would be thinking was that,

"Won't I see her today?"

Yearning for this, my eyes would be searching for my girl with the thought that she might be hiding amongst every girl I could see.

During the semester holidays, all our school friends met each other. I was happy as well as sad that I found most of my school friends, except her. I was keen on asking about the college she had joined but like me, all of my other friends were also unaware of the college she had joined.

It was mainly because of the fact that in our school, boys and girls rarely conversed with each other as our school was a highly dignified one. She was even more dignified than our school that she wouldn't talk with most of the boys. Some other boys, who had some close relationships with some other girls of our class, would know the college she was studying, but I was not in contact with them. So in fact, knowing the college she would be studying in was a mystified mystery to my brain.

Another semester ended with this thought of finding a solution to this mystery. The second semester in a college life always moves so fast. As days went, as we shared our paste, shampoo and other things with each other, we started sharing our thoughts and our secrets of love kept locked in our hearts for these days.

I told my full story of love to Sakthi. He told his love story, his school sweet heart. He explained about how beautiful she was. He said that her phenomenal Indian complexion was just like the wheat flour grinded along with the yellow daffodils, her green eyes and protruding lips could never be found so bewitching in any other girls. He told me, unlike me he had been expecting someone to demonstrate him what love meant. And when he met her, he couldn't control falling in love with her.

  28. HAUNTING MEMORIES:

I never hesitated to take his things or give my things. Similarly, he never hesitated to give his things or take mine. Whenever I was in a problem, I would say "I am alright", yet he would understand and run to be with me. I would tell some lies for his happiness but he would identify the truth beneath my lies. I would go with him when he was right and he would support me even when I was wrong.

At first, we were strangers. As time went we became accustomed to each other, then we named our acquaintance as friendship. As the wheels of time rotated, we both understood that we were not only friends but also enemies sometimes. We argued with each other, we quarrelled and fought with each other most of the times, yet we never let those blades to slash the friendship thread that tied both of our hearts.

Though there were many friends I hung on with Sakthi. Every friend is special, and a best friend is something of a jewel. Like Sakthi Praveen was to me.

Whenever I was depressed when thinking about my life without her, I drew sustenance from his words. Whenever he was dejected I was there as the sustenance. But at times we both got depressed, so we had no other options than approaching the Master. It was during the second year, that Sakthi and I started to go the temple in our college daily.

We went to the temple because we found that to be a serene place, which offered patience and confidence to our wishes.

Perhaps, I was indeed angry with God...

I always believed in the existence of him

I always prayed to him

I always shared all my happenings with him

I have always been like a trusted friend to him

And I always have been unselfish to him

But how selfish he was really

"Oh! God how silly he was

He doesn't want to give her to me

Because he was afraid that

I may forget him if I get her..."

Even in the temple, my mind would revolve around her thoughts only. The Earth cannot do without revolving the Sun, isn't it?

It would take 15 minutes by walk from our hostel to the temple. And we spent nearly 30 minutes in the temple just by sitting inside it idly.

On some days, when we finished our laboratory work early, we would have plenty of hours so we both went to see some of the movies. In that turn, we never missed even one of the romantic movies that came at that time. We went to the bus stops and travelled to the places, which we never heard of, and returned only when we wished. We explored new places in our college.

We were lucky enough that we had a beach (it was a shore to be said absolutely) very near to our college. It was at a walking distance, only a few Kilometres away. We went to that beach and sometimes we even slept on its sand. For our love minds the shore was same like a beautiful background for an attractive photograph.

In that place, we discussed about how our future would be, he often asked how we would be after five years. We conjured the things lying ahead in our lives. Sometimes they brought us tears and sometimes they brought us the smiles. On that day, I asked him how the day of his marriage would be. He was the one, who talked about it often.

He then started demonstrating about his day of marriage:

I am sitting there as the groom, a groom who is little nervous and fully excited about being the centre of attraction. The floor bedecked with the red carpet, the aromas of blithe and different flowers of various colours are wide-spread over the whole place. The pleasing music of the marriage eve can be heard everywhere.

Almost all our friends and relatives have gathered in the place to visualise the happening of a heavenly marriage. It is my day and her day- our day. Our parents made all the arrangements in the mint condition with a keen focus that the day falls short of nothing, in terms of anything.

The relatives and friends have been busy with their colloquial talks, yet their eyes clearly focussed on me. I am little afraid that I can never be a perfect match to her, in terms of appearance, but my fear vanished when I saw our parents' faces. In our parents' face, a hundred splendid suns glowed together flaunting their happiness.

The pressure in my brain rose a bit every minute, because I have never been at the centre of attention like this before. Wearing the traditional Indian costume, my body smelled with the Red Sandals, which my mother applied all over me before, soothed my mood.

As a feast to the eyes of everyone, she came downstairs with her slow steps like a swan. The musical notes of Nadhswaram gained their pitch and their volume too rose highlighting the entry of the moon-faced bride. My tension got a little relieved because, as soon as the people's gaze caught her sight, their attention turned towards her from me. Now she became the centre of attention like every time. Another four girls accompanied her. They too are beautiful, but none could compete with her. (I am little worried that my license to ogle at these beauties is going to be cancelled soon; but how are the pennies of beauty would tempt me when I am going to become a billionaire of beauty)

Her hands are decorated with ornate Mehndi. The ornaments she wore sparkled but isn't noticeable much, as her blissful countenance shined over, surpassing it. The pink silk sari sewn with the golden embroideries of foliages and blue & pale green borders captured the eyes of all women. But none of the above adorned her like the nature did; it perfectly adorned her by gifting the flawless beauty.

The excitement and exuberance of the surrounding air billowed by the crowd of relatives and friends rocked the whole Mahal. Then she came near me. I saw her eyes; they conveyed me how her heart is bouncing inside. Her visage appeared like a serene pond, while her feminine shyness is the reverberations on it, when a leaf of a demure smile is dropped by her protruding lips.

She came and sat near me. The whole attention of the people rested with us. I put my fingers over hers, unknown to anyone. She suddenly raised her head towards me as soon as my fingers touched hers; then with an inhibited cute smile, she again put her head down facing the Earth.

Few moments later, I felt the auspicious thread resting in my hands. I felt as if I attained the whole world.

The music from Nadhswaram and other instruments once again gave loud beats and notes with a high tempo exhibiting the arrival of the most precious moment.

Then I indicated the whole world that she is mine, mine forever by tying the auspicious thread around her neck. The flowers, which our friends and relations bestowed, reached us like a shower of wishes straight from the heaven. I am so elated and engrossed by the splendid things happening in my life. I fathomed that I am forever blessed. Then I recognised the things, which were running in her mind. I realised what she felt. Eventually, I comprehended the fact that our two souls tied to each other by this sacred thing has ultimately become as one.

Then I saw in the eyes of some men, who came over there, filled with jealousy of how I could be born as the one to deserve this priceless boon. Subsequently I visualised some of the faces brimmed with the sadness of their love being gone as an unrequited or untold one. And I was sorry that I am the one responsible for that.

We both travelled across the other romantic worlds for some time, and then came back to reality. I thought in mind never to ask him things like this anymore, because the words of this romantic idiot caused my body to secrete the love hormone in excess.

After some days, we found few oak trees which had grown over that place. We went near them and we both etched our names and our loved ones' names in a tree. We wished that someday we should take our loved ones there to show the love we possess towards them. Sakthi was indeed more romantic than I was, might be more romantic than anyone in this world.

We often went to that place and looked at those names we etched over the tree. We wished that our marriage plaque should also carry the same names etched over there. Only that place relieved us from the haunting memories of our girls.

  29. FIRE IN THE FOREST AND RAIN IN THE DESERT:

Few days went and I came to know about the other thing Sakthi loves very much. It was poetry. He was a genius because he knew most of the good, famous poems and other love poems reading those would cause anyone to fall in love. One such day we both discussed about how our love for our girls have changed our lives.

That Tree on the shore always spent its time in loneliness. The Tree, worried about the alluring river, which was deceiving him with its crests, rising up with a gesture of reaching him and going back to its home shattering his expectations. Sometimes we the love rascals went to hear its laments in the cool breeze.

During that autumn day we all three were sad thinking about our untold love. I requested him to write a poem for me. Sakthi expressed all his emotions in a beautiful poem which I could never forget and I often read that poem. And his poem was,

Sometimes when I feel disturbed

Her thoughts make me feel peaceful

Sometimes when I feel lively

Her thoughts make me feel deserted

Sometimes when I feel happy

Her thoughts do feel sad

Sometimes when I worry

Her thoughts make me joyous

Her thoughts sometimes bring the rain in my desert

And it sometimes brings the fire in my forest

Whatever it may be, until her thoughts are with me

My soul will be breathing somewhere in this world."

I understand how the love tree has made its roots deep into his soul.

Sakthi, wished in his life to become a writer and a screen writer. I believed that someday he would really become someone great because I had read many of his works and I always admired his skills. I suppose that it was a boon to him for the love he possessed towards his girl.

Then began our second year semester exams Sakthi and I were hardly aware of that. We messed with the dates of the exam and concluded that the exams might be on some other day. We both went for a night show then returned to the hostel and because of the tiredness we went to sleep.

Sakthi woke me up early in the morning and said

"Today is semester exam da."

"Why haven't you said this yesterday?" I asked him, angrily.

"Just now Sathyan said to me," he answered.

I then slept again. I woke at my habitual time of 8'o clock. When I got ready it was already ten minutes late to enter the exam hall, so I rushed into the exam hall. I got the question paper and I was eager enough to know what the exam was. As I dared the exam was not an easy one it was fully problematic one, which was favourable for Sakthi. He had the talent even to derive the question from the last step of an answer. Therefore, Sakthi would hit the ball outside the fence, but I was afraid that whether I would correctly meet the ball at least.

I smiled at myself thinking how my days have changed. Once I cried even if I wrote a one-word question wrong but then I came to know the name of the exam only after entering the exam hall.

Love would do miracles; it works like a charm especially in case of studies and exams. After I left the exam hall, I realised that I would surely fail because of a silly mistake. The silly mistake was that I forgot to study for that exam.

Then second year of our college ended. Once we said to each other that we both would be going for each other's house. As we wished, we decided to go to each other's house; both our houses were more or less same as we both belong to the middle class family. So we had enough money and enough contentment in our lives.

Sakthi had lost his father during his seventh standard. His mother was also affectionate like my mother and at in his home; I never found any difference between his and my own. Though I refused, his mother filled my plate with all the stuffs she had prepared.

When I said that to him, he said

"Don't be shy da. Eat for your stomach da. I know your capacity"...

We called those called the friendship-bites. Thinking to give the same bite during the time he would come to my home I ate all the stuff.

Two days later, I dragged him to my home. As I presumed, my mother stuffed his plates. I repeated the same friendship-bite to him.

After that he went back to his home, our holidays ended.

The second year of college gave us bundles of memories. Then we started our third year. During that time everyone was busy in the social networking sites. In those sites, they just chatted and expressed all their problems. If they didn't have any problems, they created their own problems and updated them to get some comments and likes. We first searched whether our loved ones might also have an account. But we were unlucky at that time. Our girls did not have any account on those sites during that time. If our girls had an account, then we would have pinned all our times on the wall of all those sites.

  30. MISSING A MISS:

Sakthi told me that after speaking with one of his close friends, he got her phone number and the address of the place where she was residing.

He said,

"Love favours the brave." I was brave enough to go the place where she was living now. I saw her without her knowledge and returned back."

I wondered then how he could call himself as brave since he was afraid to speak with her.

He said all those to me and advised me to seek help from other school friends who know about her. As soon as he said school friend, Syed's name sparkled into my brain like an electric current.

As our second year started, I expressed everything to Syed I told him that how I have fallen in love with her. He tried his most and at last, he got her phone number as well as her e-mail address and gave it to me. I was very much happy and for the moment I felt as if I have her.

That happiness didn't last long when Syed told me that she had actually chosen "Civil Engineering" and the college she had chosen was so far from my college.

I might have typed those ten numbers in my phone for more than hundred times but I wasn't courageous enough even to give one missed call to her. That was mainly because I was afraid and thought that I should not annoy her. It scared me that she might not become mine. So I thought it would be better to enjoy these days believing that she would also be in love with me. My entire mind whispered one thing often that,

"She is playing hide and seek with you, she will come as soon as the game ends"

It has been so long since I have seen her

I have even forgotten her face,

The words she spoke with me,

But I feel every day as same like

The days that I have spent with her,

Because when I think of those days in which

She was near me, it feels like

I am living the same day once again

Though she went far I never miss her

Because even when I close my eyes before the sleep

I could feel her in myself....

All I missed is the chance of missing her.

Though I haven't spoken to her much, never have held her in my arms, never have kissed her cheeks, I felt her as my beloved.

Yes, I was not much worried about missing her but I was worried of another thing. I was worried that she might never know the part she had been playing in my thoughts and dreams. She might never realise the life she was living with me without her knowledge.

That week ended, I went home and I was waiting at the bus stop to return to my college.

I got a window-seat in the bus and I thought...

After I had fallen in love with her  
she had become a part of mine  
And losing her is like losing a part of mine  
Because of that I am living a handicapped life right now  
Thinking of this, causes tears in my eyes  
Yet in the midst of crying arises smile in my lips  
While thinking of the fact that,  
My tear drops mingled with the breeze  
Will reach her heart someday as the air she breath Expressing my untold love towards her

What would she ever think about me? Would she ever think about me? Did she have anything that would remind me? What would be the things that would bring my picture in her mind? When my picture arises in her mind, would she hold on it for some time? Am I important in her life? Did she like me, dream about me, like to live with me or love me? Or just am I, an acquainted stranger in her life, who is little more than an introduced yet unfamiliar person.

Sometimes we feel as if we had reached the summit of happiness and at the other times we feel that we had fallen into a huge abyss. These roots of love tree were deeper enough to be seen while its branches are taller enough to be climbed. All we could do was that to stand in the middle and astonish.

I was very much worried that my love might go unsaid. There is nothing more hurtful in this world when we become aware that our sweet heart had also been in love with us, but by that time, when the life we had chosen forbids embracing each other.

After returning from my home I said the same to Sakthi.

Sakthi also feared that his love might go unsaid. He was very much afraid that if he goes on procrastinating to express his love towards her, then some day she might become some other's possession.

Discussing that, we went to the temple as our heart started to ache, thinking of those.

He said to me that in all these days he was feeling as if he was doing something wrong

"I love her, it wasn't my fault

If she doesn't love me then it wasn't going to be her fault

Those weren't the love's fault either

Because to do the fault love is not a commitment

It is just a happening,

In the normal life of ourselves

Making our souls feel as if living beyond the life"

In the temple, he prayed for a longer time than the usual so I asked him,

"Are you praying to make your love successful?"

"Yes, I prayed to make both of our love stories to be successful and give a happy ending to both of our love stories" he retorted to me. After that we went outside to drink tea. When we were drinking tea in the tea shop, the new habit, we started to practise in our Saturdays. Sakthi got a call from his friend and he looked shattered with that call. How couldn't he be? When the news is, Pavithra is about to marry the one fixed by her parents and her marriage being tomorrow, she looked very happy with it. I consoled him. We both decided to meet her and face whatever come may. But he then suddenly refused me I should not come. I argued against him but he forced me that he was going to deal it personally with her and asked me to stay patient and pray for his happy ending love story.

And he bade goodbye to me saying that he would be returning with glad news the next day. I wished the same from my heart.

  31. WHERE YOU WENT YOUR MOTHER WAS SEARCHING:

The whole night I was sleepless thinking about Sakthi's plight. I called him five times. Two times he had picked up and said he would call me back. I messaged him to call me soon praying everything was fine with him.

In the next morning I rushed to the beach as soon as I heard the news from my other friends. There was a huge crowd in the beach milling the police men. I went to that place. He laid there still with a letter in his hands. I was dumb folded for a moment. I said to the police men that I was the roommate of him. I went near him and took the letter from his hand. I started reading his letter that he titled as

" My last & lost dream" contained the following

I never thought anything more important than you

All I thought is to sacrifice my life for your happiness

Everyone believed this as love but

I felt this, as something more than that

I believed nothing could divide us

Until the day you said no

I wondered how this could happen to me, but when happened

My heart cried like the baby who doesn't know anything

Since it believed only tears could lessen its weight

Yet I never blame you for this, how could I

But if God was in front of me

I would have pelted the stones at him

Because all my prayers to him was ignored

He made me to love you

Only because one day he wanted to take you away from me

After you left I went and hugged the oak tree

In which I had written the names of the both

Everywhere all my eyes could see

Is the image of thee

But my hands couldn't catch them

I chased them then, ended to sleep on the beach

After a few moments I could not believe that

I realized that I was in a temple

Surrounded by all our relatives and

The music of the marriage eve was hitting my ears

I was sitting there as the groom with the auspicious thread in my hands

You were there, near me as the bride

I felt as if I attained the whole world

I will never open my eyes anymore, because

I knew if I open my eyes all these things will go

After reading these pathetic lines, I wailed and moaned for a long time. I took the poison bottle from his hand and kept that inside my pocket. I was angry with God because if he had created everyone to love someone, then he should have given him the person he loves the most. Was God a rude illiterate? Did he not know the value of the book, named love?

It would be hard for many to believe that people die for love failures that too for one sided love. But one sided love is hardest love of all, here the pain is felt by one and shared by none. Its merely a nightmare that steals our love forever. People die in love failure because, they lose their meaning to live without their loved ones.

I could understand what had made him to take a decision like that. He had told me,

"I can't shield my heart and try not to love her, when all it comes spontaneous to me after the moment I open my eyes was to think about her and love her. I don't want to live a false life lying to myself that things are okay. And it's no problem that I didn't get her so my life has become something other. Instead of all this, I would not fear to take a journey ahead and see whether I could live with her at least high above in the sky. I may leave her to live a life without me but I wouldn't live another life without her."

Even I do feel like the same without my girl, even I couldn't live a false lie. It's better to end my life here than living a meaningless one without the ones we love.

A rose that blossomed with his girl's gaze, watered by her thoughts, at last wilted and withered, unknown to the girl herself- the rose was nothing other than his heart.

I knew if Sakthi had not died this early, he would have become a renowned poet. I always admired his poems and now that, this poem was going to be the last one to be admired. He had gone too far in seeking the place from which his love for his girl had come from. He was no more here to write poems.

After an hour, his mother and his younger brother arrived there. At that time, he brought his mother and me together to the place where he has gone. He made ourselves to console each other for the grief he had given us to the remembrance that he had gone too far to the place somewhere. Then I went near his mother to be a support for her, she actually fainted at the very moment she saw her knight laying still. After some time when she became normal, she sobbed and mourned continuously making my grief to be cumulatively multiplied in quadruples. At the end of that most painful day, I explained the whole thing to her when she asked me about that.

She said to me,

"Last week, Praveen told me that he loves a girl so much and he wanted to be with her till the end of his life. I warned him in that very moment".

She cursed the girl he loved and she lamented to me that his love came as the nemesis to him. And when I was about to depart she moaned by holding my arms that,

"If I had known that these are the things that are going to happen, then I would have never let him go"

On hearing that, tears ran down my cheeks. I consoled her by saying that I was there for her as the son.

Three days later, I returned to my home. I cried and told my mother everything about that fatal incident.

My mother found something unusual in it. She asked,

"Why was Sakthi idiotic like that? Was she the only girl to him and was all these because of that silly thing?"

"What was that silly thing you are saying about?" I asked her.

I understood why parents hate love, because it sometimes took their lovely kids away from them...

But only I know why Sakthi had done like this. Only people who were in foolish love with someone could understand this. It wasn't merely his love failure. He had lost the hope to ever be with her again, to ever get a chance to experience what he wanted to. It was that the girl he thought to be carrying his life in her soul had gone with another and he didn't know what to do on this Earth. It was that he knew he couldn't be with her anymore and that he didn't want to be anywhere where he couldn't remain with her. It wasn't merely love failure it was actually his life's failure.

"Do you love someone? If so, then tell us first, don't hide anything from us"

I should have said 'YES' to her but I didn't. Something prevented me. If I had proposed to her then I would have said those to my mother, but I haven't even proposed her yet. Even she was not aware of the part that she plays in my life. I wished that no one in this world should become aware of my love, if she didn't. I wished that let my love go untold if it was destined to end as unrequited. Let all believe that I was not experiencing any pain or love. The pain was within me, sleeping inside the blanket of love, I decided. I thought that it wasn't the right time to explain my love story to my mother.

Then she asked, "Wasn't his mother aware that his son is in love with some girl?"

I was stunned for a moment, "Some mothers don't, " I told her desperately.

"You or he should have said about those things to me... You are still young chicks. You won't know the life's ups and downs..."

"What would you have done if we have told you about that?" I asked her,

"I would never have let him go down this wrong path," she answered

I didn't know why mother was continuously asking about him. Might because she once offered food to him, in which she also mixed some affection for him. She then felt very sad for his demise and advised me to visit his home often, so that his mother could have some satisfaction by seeing me.

After that, my mother understood that I was very much worried about that. Then she told me some beautiful stories of my childhood life and made me sleep, making me forget everything. Whenever I was in a foul mood, she would wipe them out with her icy words. Her love was like a rose that gives equal fragrance to the breeze and the storm. She gave her love equally in spite of the mood that I was in.

  32. IN THE MIDST SHE HAPPENED:

My life was a tranquilising drink,

She came, shook it, tilted it upside down, and walked away.

Chaos remained after, and then it was slowly intoxicated.

My life was quite a peaceful flow,

In the midst she arose, reverted the flow and went

At last it forgot the place where it ends, it flows and flows.

My life was a beautiful portrait,

She saw it, added colours to it, left it halfway

It remained unfinished and incomplete.

My life was a serene pond,

She passed by, threw a stone in it, and vanished

Its calm was shattered and it was restless

My life was a perfect journey

In the midst she stood, held my hands, took me to new places and left

I stood there pathless and perplexed.

My life was good,

In the midst you happened, changed its meaning, and went

My life was not the one, which was before,

If she was not going to be with me forever

I wish she never happened to me.

The queer nature of the love lashed the knots of confusions unto my soul. When I hardly realised that my girl might also give the same answer to me like Sakthi's girl, I wished I had never tasted the intoxicating drink of love.

It was the end of third year. It had been three months since Sakthi had left the world. Since then, my mind was fully surrounded by the thoughts of him. It was hard when someone who used to wake you up, who talked incessantly, who fought and argued, was suddenly missing. I went to his home once again and returned after seeing his mother and his brother.

Long after, I went to see our oak tree on the shore. Then I was the only person to etch my footprints over the shore.

On seeing that tree, I thought,

"Why did he love a girl like this in his life? Was that to leave his life for her love?"

If his love for her that at last brought only endless grief to him and others then, what was the meaning of the love he possessed? Love was really a happy thing but he made that a sad one. It made me despise his love.

After that unforgettable incident, I went to a mood of not thinking about her much. Whenever I thought about her, Sakthi's mother came in front of me, making me think

"Will my mother also going to have the same plight as her, if my girl says no to me?"

I understood that Sathyan's "Love Logic of God" didn't work out. If it had then Sakthi should have got her surely. He didn't, because the amount of love one possesses towards the other could neither be measured nor be compared. There is no greater love or smaller love. Even God wouldn't be able to gauge the intensity of love one possessing towards the other with another one's love over the same person.

  33. A DREAM TO COME TRUE IN ANOTHER DREAM:

Though I tried hard, my peculiar love for her, deeply anchored in my heart refused to move away from me. In a strange manner my love for her increased in the times I tried to wipe it out.

My girl by coming in another dream of mine confirmed herself of deserving the same love of mine which I had for her before.

I thought about it on a peaceful day and suddenly realised that I wasn't even aware of my second valentine's day in my year i.e. I haven't even known her birthday. I didn't know what are all the things she likes, things she hates.

Those things were just like an enigma compiled with the various mysteries of my own answers. I was very sad about this. I became determined that if I was going to delay my proposal then I might end my life without getting the answers to all those puzzles.

How could I say that I love her?

For it had lesser intensity

I loved her so much

That no one in the universe has ever made

Yet I never expressed her

For I believed you may not be mine

Days went on I was afraid that my love may go unsaid

So I decided to make her understand the part she was playing with mine

And I don't know how that happened

All of a sudden I proposed her through the mail

Her silence makes me think of that

She may never have noticed my mail or

She may be thinking that I may be ok to live with

I am waiting for her consent as a response and it has been just

Like waiting for a dream to come true in another dream

Because I still doubt, do those things were just a dream

There are more chances that her consent may positive

Yet I knew it may not, whatever may be

In this world everyone is loved so crazily by someone

Though they do not wish or care for them

And for her let it be me.....

I would cry even on hearing of the love stories that had a sad ending. How could I survive if my own story was going to have some ending like that? I started to live with that doubt. Every day I opened my mailbox with great hope and determination that

"Today may be the most beautiful day of life." But I never got a reply from her so every night I went back to sleep disappointed. I was afraid that I might never get one.

Before I proposed her, I was ashamed to be a coward but after I proposed her through the mail I believed myself to be the most courageous man in this world. I was not fearful of my placements. Because of my less CGPA and attendance percentage in the college, they told me that,

"You are not eligible for the placements of the core companies,"

I really didn't care or worry about those. An average company came for the placements. Most were nervous and terrified for their placements but I was causal. Because I had undergone many of the bad things and nothing worse was going to happen if I was not going to get a job. Since there were thousands of companies, wouldn't I get at least one job if I could visit at least ten a week. I entered the interview hall with confidence.

The interviewer asked about me, and then we both started discussing about my love story. We didn't know how the discussion on this topic began. He was keen on listening to it. And at last he wished me best of luck offering a job.

I found a job. I have thought of this day many times before, but this day wasn't like the one I thought of. Some things wouldn't be happening like we think. Certain things happen to signify the importance that human mind and thoughts still hold certain limitations.

  34. TIME FOR THE BIRDS TO LEAVE THE SANCTUARY:

Even thinking of this day, will have a question,

"Why this day should have come?" Because if it hadn't come then our college days would never have ended, it was our Farewell day. All my friends were speechless. Our heart spoke everything, which were unendurable to hear even by ourselves. They us asked one question,

"Will you in your life journey, ever find another enchanting encampment like this?"

The dream that filled everyone's eyes

The stories that were said under the trees

The time that was spent in the benches

The treats that were kept and borrowed

The hostel food that reminded the missing of mother's food

The gazes of the beautiful ones that made

Our loved ones to be forgotten in seconds

The results that came proportional to the movies

Those were seen before the nights of the exams

The heroic acts that ended up in great comedies

The cakes that were bought only to waste

The bumps that were given on the birthday eve

The demise of some dear ones and our sobbing for their departure

The innocent proposals and the paining humiliations

These were happenings

But, today these all are memories

The tear drops that runs down the cheeks

When we think of those moments

While we travel lonesome in the window-seat of a bus

In one or more ways

All these were beautiful college days.

As the bus reached my place, I wiped out the tears that fell near my cheeks while getting down from the bus. After that all I felt was that all my happy days have ended at last; because she is silent to my proposal so mostly she won't be accepting me, if she had loved me then she would have immediately contacted me. But she didn't.

I don't know for how many days I am going to think and yearn for her, nevertheless, now not only trying to forget her but also thinking like that has become an impossible thing.

I at least used to console my heart by saying that,

"Believe me, today she may not be yours but tomorrow surely she will be yours" in my college days.

To the cruelty, even the college days have ended, though we might not have achieved our dream during those days of our college, we wouldn't have worried about those since we had the thought that,

"Tomorrow is there to accomplish our dreams, so be happy today."

As I reached home, I became worried about all those things and I became uninterested in anything. My father and mother understood the unusual of being of me. My mother came near me and asked, "Do you love someone?"

One of the most difficult phases of love was confessing it with our parents.

I said "Yes" to him.

"Does she love you back?" this time my father asked the question.

"I don't know", I said to them and explained my full love story to them, though my father first couldn't accept that, he accepted it later. And then he said "Do not worry about anything, you will be surely getting her as your wife, I will make all the arrangements for them".

"You just show the moon, I will make it to float forever in your sky," my mother displayed her crystal clear love for me.

My heart that was close to become still, started to oscillate after it became aware that my parents are also in its side.

"You always made us happy by earning pride. And we would do anything to make our prince live his happy life", they continued.

The moment my parents said consent to my love I felt that they are the perfect and the best parents in this world. I don't know how many parents in this world will give the same feeling to their sons/daughters. But they gave it to me and this will be the best legacy a parent can give his son. I wished to be a good parent, just like them someday.

During the whole night I slept in my mother's lap with the thought that,

"If I could get her, then I would be the perfect and the happiest man on this planet because I have got: an affectionate mother, caring father and my lovable dream girl with me".

She is the most important thing to me. She is the most indispensable one of my life. I am ready to do anything in my life for her.

If I had followed her in all the way she went, might she turned back and loved me. If I had done her something in such a way that by looking at it she might have felt so touched, she might have understood and love me. If I had written some impeccable love poems and gifted her, she might have admired and loved me. If I have become a great rock star and said all those things happened because of her, she might have understood my unselfish love towards her and loved me.

Have I ever done one of these things or have I even tried one of them? No never... then one might ask me, being like this how can I expect that she might also love me? But let me ask one thing

"Did she ever do any of these things to me?" Perfectly no... then how did I love her?

The answer to all of them was that,

"Love just happens. It should happen by itself. If it doesn't then we can never make it happen ... it intensifies itself when we miss our loved ones..."

If the things that we never got are always priceless,

If the things that we never bought are always precious,

If we always like to be near to the one, who went far

If we crazily love the ones whom we miss the most, then

It doesn't matter that she has gone far and I miss her a lot

Even if I am the one who misses her a lot,

Then I am the one who is happy about that

Because I feel that I miss her, only to love her more

I know what I feel is a quiet sort of craziness

But only those who love someone will know

How beautiful are the feelings of mine, because

In one or more ways all the ones

Who love someone are crazies.

I miss her to the utmost of my life; likewise, she too would be missing me if she loves me. If she did not then, missing me will have made her realise the love she may be possessing for me. If it didn't then anything wouldn't.

If she never felt the love towards me by herself then neither I nor anyone could ever make her to realise her love for me.

With this thought I lived another year beautifully. We, the college friends, met less in number of times than the number of times we assured of meeting each other. We got together less, even lesser than the number of times we spoke of it before.

I thought of proposing her by seeing her directly, but I postponed it every time being afraid of her answer to it.

  35. WHITE MOUSE:

I am afraid. My heart is filled with some apprehensive thoughts; I hear her screaming with pain. When I go near and ask her, "Are you alright," all she says is a YES. She is trying hard to give me a smile, in spite of the pain she is going through. Soon, the doctor arrived and I got out of the room.

Since from the day she has conceived, I have been taking care of all her activities. We have visited this hospital more than required (our doctor is a little worried with my obsession towards this).

My mother was unable to understand that why I was very much concerned over this. When I explained my worries regarding it, she gave me the confidence explaining how simple it was and not as hard as I think.

The doctors have been working inside now. Unwillingly, I try to peep into the room; later I recognise what I am doing and step back.

Our love, since from the day we married has been increasing proportionately. We both just love each other while the miracles revolve around us to see the miracle of a true love. Every time, I see her I wonder how I struggled to marry her. I still remember the difficult yet lovely phases in my life: the days I waited for her favourable reply; the days I proposed her; the days I thought of proposing her; the days I loved her so much. She was an angel to me during those days and since then my love never changed, instead it increased by the passage of day, she is still an angel to me.

Now, I count every minute restlessly.

Then I thought about the day she whispered in my ears with her exquisite eyes, and her whitish face brimmed with the demure happiness that she is pregnant. I can never easily explain how I felt in simple words. The thing is that it can never be explained merely with words. It is splendid in the way happened and nothing more. Tears stagnated in the corner of my eyes, which I could realise, yet couldn't control.

How could I? When I heard that my white mouse is going to become a mother, I wished that let my milky mouse shall give me another white mouse of a daughter closely like her, since I missed all of her childhood days. It is a golden chance for me to live them.

Then my mother took care of her daughter-in-law. She never let her do the household work. Though it had another reason, that she was not satisfied by the way she does the work.

I explained my wish to beget a daughter to my mother. However, she didn't care much about it. I know she was hoping for a boy, in the resemblance of me. My girl was also on her side. But my father is on my side as he has a clear knowledge that if it happens to be a boy, then he will be just like me, not obeying his words.

I once again saw her.

I knew her sweet kisses, and immense care is going to be shared by another, yet when I realised I am going to become a father I am excited and engrossed oblivious of other things.

My mother came near me and asked me not to panic and stay calm.

I went and leaned on the wall.

My girl never forgot to smile, indicating how happy she was every time. She always leaned on my shoulders and I regularly hugged her. We wondered how delightful it was for us to live a life like this on the Earth. While she was pregnant she, my mother and I often spoke to the gorgeous angel growing inside her womb. For first few months, my daughter had been silent but on later months, she responded to us with a kick to her stomach.

Almost all our relatives and friends are keen on the date in which the beautiful among the most beautiful is going to see this world.

We allowed my wife only to sleep on the velvet mattress hearing her favourite songs, reading her favourite books and of course helping me a little in my work and nothing other to do. I took care of her based on the advice of our parents.

Her parents are much happy with the life their daughter is living with me. They just stayed away from us and never wanted to interfere in our life. They have a good respect for me, and I too respected them.

Six months passed like this.

A week before I consulted the doctor, she said to me that the delivery might take place the next week. Then to remain on the safer side, I admitted her in the hospital the same day. My mother and I fetched her, pomegranate and other of her favourite fruits and foods. Since then I have been on leave for my work and remained with her in the hospital. The days passed and now she is inside the operating theatre, and I am standing here outside, tensed saying a strong prayer to the God that everything should be fine. My mother gave me the confidence and stood as a support to me.

A few minutes later, I heard a sensational voice, the crying sound of my baby. Every face surrounding us brightened up. The nurse came out. I thought of kissing her hands, which first touched my little angel. I was so excited to hear what she will be saying, yet before she opened her mouth I asked.

"Is my wife alright"

"Yes," she said

"You got a boy..." she told me.

All my hopes shattered in a second; yet, I am not disappointed. I went inside to see how my boy was. Before me, my mother took him in her lovely hands, and then she pampered him by saying her sweet words. My boy is passing around the hands of everyone. I went near, stroked her and cuddled her. She smiled, but her concentration seemed to be resting over with my boy.

Finally, my white mouse's little boy came near me. I stretched my hands. My mother gently placed him in mine. He mostly took her mother's appearance and a part of mine.

I saw my hands and wondered,

"Will these things happen?"

Then I returned from my sweet imaginary dreams to the sour reality. I have been like this since from the day I joined in the job. I will be imagining my future with her. I loved doing this, and these kinds of things made my life go.

I never expected that these years would also be adorable like my past college and school years. That was because of the good friends I have at the job. I realised that it was the right time to propose her face to face, seeing straight into her eyes. I believed something that she will also love me because if she hasn't, then she would have refused to my proposal through the mail. But she has never done that. So I arrived at the conclusion that she might be afraid of her father or else for her family to accept my wish to live with her.

My each and every neuron carrying her name back and forth in my brain made me sense the threshold ecstasy. This weirdest yet tranquilising feeling induced the hate of dying. They slowly increased my hatred towards ageing.

  36. CLOSE YOUR EYES I AM COMING NEAR YOU:

With your gaze my heartily rose blossomed

I always feel great and wonder

To me how you happened

Like the peaceful sky hit by the thunder

The day you came into the dreams of mine

I realised that I was as in love as never before

When you smiled as if you had the same one

All I felt is that someday you would come and adore

When you were near, I never spoke because of shy

So the time got angry and flew somewhere

Oh! God Just give me the wings to fly

Since I had to catch that time back and keep it there

If you love someone and if you say

Then I will never come in your way

If you don't then come soon without any delay

As I am waiting for you everyday

Because who will listen to everything you talk?

Who will call you with nick name?

Who will hold your hands in all the way you walk?

Who will give you all their fame?

I will always hold you tight

Never leave you away from my sight

And will neither induce a fight

Nor argue as I am right

When your beauty wilts and when you become old

Who other than me will love you this much as I do?

The depth of my love could never be told

So you think well before you say no

Whenever I am happy, I feel thee

You are there with me as the happiness

Even if you take everything away from me

You will be still present there as the emptiness

I don't know what on Earth

Could convey my love underneath

If you can't give yourself then give me myself

Which I have been, before the day I saw you- yourself

I wrote everything which I experienced all these years and what I felt in the form of a poem. Because I thought it would be a remarkable incident in my life if I could pen all my emotions into a poem. She indeed possessed love towards poems and she might at least like my poem if not me. I still remember the day she topped in literature.

Aeons might pass but I would be holding the poem near my heart and I would find some pleasure in reading it. If God permits me then I might be reading this to my daughter, demonstrating her how I wooed her mother. This beautiful poem will always evince the enchanting music I ever heard in my life.

Then I went in search of her. First, I called on her number which I have got from Syed. I found that the number he gave me was no longer in use. So, for the first time in my life I went to the college she has studied.

After seeing that college, I wished to study once more in the same college along with her. The day being a holiday I went to the class she studied and sat in it. The things that she used are loved by me more than she did. These things waited for the arrival of her lover (me) knowing that I would give them importance though she was the one using them.

I asked about the details of her by saying her name. I was a little luckier to meet her classmate, who worked in the same college. He gave me some details about her. Then I went to the place, where she had stayed two years back, and after a day's search, finally I got the address where her relatives are living now.

Then I got her phone number from their relatives by pretending as a friend to her. At last, I found that she was not far from my home. She lives just 5kms away from my home.

I came home, my parents, who thought for these two years that I have forgotten her was little shocked with my new intention. But they didn't impede my way.

The next day, I called her on the phone and heard her voice after a long time. This time I am not afraid of anything. Might those missing years have fed the courage to me?

I told her, "I am Krishna, hope you haven't forgot me. I need to talk with you tomorrow, can you come to the Lourdes Park"

She retorted me that, "Sorry tomorrow I have some important things to do. I am right now near the park only. I will come there and can you come now."

On hearing this, my mind understood that she does not love me but my heart couldn't concede that.

Soon I went there. I saw her, long after six years. My imaginations are not good enough to imagine her, I understood on seeing her. She looked just in contrast of what I have imagined the way she will look after these years. Even nature loved her it seems because it filled her with the beauty and elegance as ages went while it takes away some charm in case of other humans. She looked more stunningly gorgeous than I imagined.

For every step that I took, I felt every second that I am getting close to her I am missing the bullet that is pointed towards my head. I am about to stumble when I went to close to her. Mainly thinking of the answer she is going to afford me.

"Close your eyes I am coming near you

Forget yourself, I am coming into you

Just lose yourself, I am searching myself

Shut your ears I am going to say I love you

Imagine yourself that you are just born now

You know nothing in this world except me;

For a minute let I be yours and you be mine,

Both of us shall decide what else we need to survive

Oh! My girl, just love me or at least lie to me as you love me"

I said these to her image, which is sailing around my thoughts.

Then I gave her the letter I wrote for her.

She did not even intend to read that fully.

"I know all these right from the day you proposed me through the mail. I am surprised that you love me. I was not that much close to you. I have spoken to you only a few times...You don't know anything about me. Then how could this happen."

She expressed her bewilderment and the criteria one needed to fulfil in order to love someone.

How could she be aware that I too was wondering the same criteria, about love, which I failed to satisfy yet happened to fall in love with her?

She shook her head in disappointment. In that moment, she was worried thinking about my plight. My love for her could deserve only that happy thing from her.

"I am not interested in you. That's why I haven't even replied your mail." She told me.

"My parents said Ok to my love, they will speak with your parents if you have any trouble with them," I blabbered something.

Tears are ready to flow from my eyes but I dammed them through my eyelids.

She said to me,

"I know him for many years; he is my relative as well. I love him and he too loves me. We are about to marry soon. So please, you go on in your way and never mingle in my path."

While hearing this, I didn't felt any differences, either physically or mentally, except that I froze while my heart melted inside. Her mesmerising eyes still looked innocent. She went immediately after saying this.

I thought of calling her name but I know she will neither stop to listen to me nor she will turn back to see me, as she loves another person. Therefore, I left it there. My girl, who made me feel myself as nothing, had felt nothing because of me. When I hardly digested that my beloved is in love with some other and was willing to spend her life with him, all I wished is that I should not have born.

  37. A BEAUTIFUL LIFE:

_The next day it is going to be Diwali. In that evening time, I saw people bursting crackers and the whole sky got decorated with various fireworks from various children. Nothing could distract me and when I imagined my girl getting married with another, all I wished was to end my life the same moment._

_Then I walked towards the oak trees in the beach where I and Sakthi once wrote ours and our lovers' names. My heart weighed too much all the way. I went there and hugged our oak tree. In that moment I felt the same suffocating effect, which love offered to Sakthi on that day he proposed to his girl. The same strangling effect that took Sakthi away from us, made me fragile._

_I sat on the beach. I thought about many things, tears streamed down my cheeks. I felt it drop by drop. I thought about my life which was about to become dark without the love she could reciprocate. I thought about the one she is going to marry and her life with him._

_Is he more handsome than me? Does he love her as much as I do? What made her to love him? Is it me or he, who came into her life, the first? If he hasn't came into her life then might she have accepted my proposal? When it is happened to me to fall in love with her then how could she be in love with another one? Because of my love towards her, is she gifted? Or am I deceived? These questions running in my mind soured my soul. I was restful for few minutes so that the patient medication would heal my wounds._

_Later, I prayed to God,_

_"_ _You made me not deserving of her. At least make her deserve the same or more amount of love, which I possess for her, from the one she is going to marry."_

_With sobs, I brooded about the sin I had committed, for I was at last cheated and defeated in the game of love._

_Then I thought about everyone who possesses an unrequited love._

_Everyone understands the depth of their life only after falling in love with someone. But in this world everyone who loves someone doesn't always gets loved back by the same one. Now it was confirmed that she is not going to live with me anymore "Should I stuck to drugs in order to forget these abominable things or should I leave my life?"_

_NO...._

_I will never do that because I started to love my life only after I started loving her. I should never hate my life just because she is not with me now. If I do so, then there won't be any meaning in my love towards her. I feel that though she doesn't love me, I could never take her away from my life. Even if I empty my heart she will be still present in it as the emptiness._

_Perhaps, This is not the end of the road but beginning of another journey. I know first love is always special and unique and all other is going to be an illusion of it created by us. But, what could be done... When I loved her, I found a new hope that my life is going to be beautiful in an extraordinary way and that hope is going to be there with me forever in making my life beautiful. Whatever she does, I couldn't stop loving her and that I end up loving her more. Though I like to cover it up by building a false barrier of hate or angry towards her the truth remains the same that I want to live with her up to the last second of my life. Now I shouldn't regret falling for her just because she doesn't fall for me because I still know how it felt when I realised what she was about to mean in my life and how beautiful it could be if I get her. I still know how much I enjoyed previously dreaming about her all the time. To love this beautiful girl, I have given in whatever it had taken and now I can't take anything back. But this doesn't mean I shouldn't move on._

_One may ask what the good has my love done to me. Because of her thoughts I lost my concentration on my subjects, I could not get good marks and I haven't even got a job in any of the good companies. Nonetheless, to live a happy all these things are not necessary. One can live a happy life even without them; once if we could understand the real meaning of our life. When I realised my love for her, I understood what my life is meant for... AND_ _NOW I DON'T WISH TO MAKE MY LOVE MEANINGLESS WHICH MADE ME TO UNDERSTAND THE REAL MEANING OF_ _MY LIFE..._

_Her love once showed me the beacon of light into my life to guide my path. I still believe that her love will be always there in guiding my life in the best way. I will surely marry some other girl and live a beautiful life which I thought of living with her._ _Let the love that went as unreciprocated remain as an unfailing source I wish to have in my life. This doesn't mean that I would completely be able to forget her and love another girl. This just means that I could never be able to forget my girl but that doesn't going to affect the love I am hoping to possess for my future wife. It is merely going to get increased. After all, I have understood what is love, what it means to love someone and to be reciprocated with the same amount of love. I have become loveable, and still I have a life ahead. There may not be another love story, and sure first love would always be special yet, even when I didn't get her, my life is still going to be blessed one with the love I possessed for her._ _And it is my love towards her which taught me, how to love someone. I know how beautiful the feeling of love is. Let me give that feeling to someone who yearns for it. Let that someone be the girl I am going to marry._

_If I have got her, then it will have been the happiest thing of my life. Now I haven't got her this causes the yearning and saddest thing to me. After all, I knew that the yearning and sadness for a happy thing, which has failed to happen, can be forgotten by undertaking some other happy things in my life. I will forget the sadness of not having her by living a beautiful life with another girl. With her affection and with my love towards her, I will convert these worries into ecstasies._

_I will do all these because someday in my life I want to look back and feel happy that all these great things happened because once I loved her so much. I want to make myself and others including her to understand that my love for her is always been a great gift to me in making my life a beautiful one._ _When I loved her I wanted to bring as much of happiness as much as I could in her life... She didn't gave me that opportunity, But I will live a happy life and one day I will make sure that she finds happiness when I tell her that my life became blessed with the love I possessed for her though she wasn't able to reciprocate the love. Because more than all she was a girl worth loved, the same way my life worth lived.... For_ _love is a mirror, the image of happiness or sadness depends on the way we look on to it._

After spending some time at the shore, I returned to my home. I called my mother and father, they were eager to know what has happened. I went to sleep in my mother's lap. After that I explained everything to them.

My mother couldn't utter a word, because of the shocking news. For all that, she tried to heal my wounds by saying various consolations and stories.

My father asked me

"By loving her so much, how will you love another girl after you marry her?"

"Though I loved her, my love for my mother never decreased. Like this, though I love her, my affection won't be decreased for the one I am going to marry. With the girl I marry, I will begin my life with an intention that it should be as happy as possible", I told him.

My father said to me,

"You understood the real path of life. Tell me, what kind of girl do you want to marry? I will search her and show her in front of your eyes"

"Any one, but not like the 'Investigative girl' you married" I said to him.

