Ek choti si love story - Part # 2

The e-mail neatly written on a flowery back ground containing all sort of flowery wordsand all cosmetics to give that extra impression. But only thing which I could not endure was the first word, it was beyond my tolerance. The address was “Hi Gopal”. I was not accustomed to this hi followed by my formal name. It would always be either “My sweet heart G” or “Darling G”, may it be a one liner mail or a fifty liner like this one. She would always call me G pronounced as “zeeeeee” or may be with a yet more prolonged e, long enough to give me the soothing pleasure and short enough that I would demand more. I could not hold my eyes any more and took them off, I found the corner of my eyes filled with two tiny droplets of the most transparent and innocent liquid called tear. It was involuntary, I could only know when the image before my eyes went blur and a sharp compulsion to close my eyes evoked in me. I gave in to myself and closed them, and it all came back as a fast flash back. The first day we met, was in an over crowded BMTC bus. I used to be in Bangalore those days and those daily struggling through the running crowd and stopped traffic to reach at work had made me robust to tolerate physical pressure with out any reproach. With a disgusting sigh I would look at every one who would look at me, and I would spend my flat 40 minutes journey standing and frowning.I hurried into the bus and some how managed to get a ten square inch place to stand on, I don’t remember if I was standing on some one’s feet or some one was standing on mine. And I started the same old style of pretending to make all those good looking girls fell the “I-am-not-looking-at-you” factor. But I knew it was false as I sneaked my way to grasp every single sight of their faces and some thing more too, in fact intention would be more than face. While doing so hands would automatically move to set the hair, just as a false try to convince myself it would make me look handsome. Then the half of the standing crowd got down at some stop and then I saw her glittering face, with the innocent smile and two dimples just to complete the perfection. A pink salwar with white dupatta, tight enough to give you the sense of her perfect figure. I continued looking at her until I found her looking back at me from the corner of her eyes. I don’t know why I took my eyes off her at once and struggled to show that looking at her was just incidental. But I don’t know whom I was trying to convince that notion, as I knew the truth and no one else was looking at me, may be it was for her. Then I looked at her again and just hardly a second had passed as she looked at me again with a stealth sight, but this time I decided look straight into her eyes. And we were eye locked. Later I figured out she was working in the office opposite to mine. Then I would often see her with her friends and colleagues, I knew she is as desirous to talk to me as I was to her but neither she would ever start nor I. I took it for granted that it was crush, just a mere infatuation the advanced phase of ogling. I could never know when this infatuation became love and the love became craziness. It was the juice center were I found her standing alone one day and I gathered all the courage, took some long breaths, had a final look of myself in a rear view mirror of a bike, adjusted my hair for that same false reason, tried to expand my chest little more with the belly taken little inside and moved closer to her. Later I thought all those process are there always whether you want or not, this is male psychology I suppose. Moving a little closer I said “Hi”. Spoken not in the usual way but like “Haaii”…. Just to show that was my style. She responded “Oohh Hi…. We met in the bus right?”. It made me uncomfortable, I was not ready for such a straight question. I fumbled and said..’ ya ya… right. You work with Infotech correct? 3rd floor raheja IT towers.” She was chuckling as she responded … “Ya but how do you know? You have any friend there?”. I don’t know where these mice come to you gut from, when you desperately struggle to be confident. And mostly while with a girl, a beautiful girl. “No no.. yes.. I mean, you know like, I mean its just that I happened to see you getting in there.” I spoke looking away from her. But I don’t know what my eyes were searching there at the ground. I fought with all my strength but my eyes would not move to look into hers. Then I was quite and she was too, she was looking away from me as I was looking at my foot with hands promptly in the jeans pocket, that was a habit. I said ‘what would you like to have?”, “No nothing just that… can we go for a walk if you won’t mind. I had my lunch just now so may be that would be a better idea.” She told what I held in my eyes ,throat and every where. I jumped off my feet just to end up looking funny. ‘Sorry actually I got excited about the idea of going for a walk.” I defended. “But that was nice.” She told with a blinking eye, slightly tilted head which made a small bunch of those silky hairs dangle by the left ear, moving freely in the air, I suddenly found myself comparing her that look with Aishwarya Rai, just to conclude that “Aishwarya Rai does not look that good.”. We went for the walk with each step we got closer as the distance in meter came down to centimeters. I did not notice when our hands had started to strike each other so lovingly that I could walk for the rest of my life like that. I falsely became an attentive listener as she spoke with all that zeal and like we have been talking since ages. How holy was the feeling, I thought, crystal clear like a flowing fountain, which drives away all that is unwanted, like the seamless blue ocean which would never keep anything inside and just like the endless sky, the more you look into it, the more it looks into you. I was not listening to any of her words, I was submerged in my own thoughts. She than said some thing, all I could here was the word, love , and you. I don’t know what she said but I replied, ‘Ya I love you.” “What? Again… what you said. Are you all right?” Then I realized she had not said “Do you love me?’. But it was something else. “Sorry actually.. I mean you understand… hhmm… I mean I was thinking something else.”. She smiled and I was gone again. But the sentence that followed the smile was eternal, “Buddhoo, I love you too.” I could hardly believe. It felt like, like…. Like what I am yet to figure out.I have reiterated this story to all my close friends more than a thousand times. Then everything continued and life felt like heaven, until the evening of that rainy day. It was pouring heavily I parked my bike in front of the CCD and we hastily got in… But just the moment I pulled the door open for her, I was numb. (Continuing…).

Truly
Abinash