CHAPTER 13-IGNORING HER IS BLISS!

My ego was hurt, my heart was broken. I had imagined the camp to be one of the most memorable and happy chapters of my life but it had turned out to be a tragedy. I couldn’t understand why Preeti had reacted the way she did. As soon as we got back from the camp Preeti’s elder sister who was equally hot came up to me and gave me a lecture on how they were from a good family and if word got out about Preeti and me her name would be tainted forever and her dad wouldn’t allow her to attend tutorials anymore and if I did not give up on persuing her she would get her cousins to beat me up. I was a little scared but now getting Preeti to agree to become my girlfriend was a matter of pride for me. How could her sister have insulted me in front of my gang who as a matter of fact just sat there and saw the whole tamasha? I was even more motivated now and that is when love also became war for me. But I was really confused too, so I decided to share this with the boys at school. None of them had any experience in wooing a girl but I just wanted to get the burden off my chest. Tarun couldn’t help but laugh his heart out because for the first time in his entire life he got a chance to pull my leg. The others too were sarcastic rather than being sympathetic and I felt like a loser. But Andy gave me an idea. He said he had seen a Telugu movie in which the hero tries to woo the girl but fails and after that he starts ignoring her and making her feel insignificant and finally the heroine realizes what she is missing out on and makes up for her folly. I thought it was a stupid idea because that was exactly what Preeti had asked me to do, to leave her alone. Anyway, I had nothing to lose and decided that I should give it a go, what other choice did I have anyway? So I started ignoring Preeti in the tutorial, I would smile pleasantly and say hi to her friends Shruti and Samreen but when she tried to make eye contact I would make a face and look the other way. If she was coming towards me from the opposite direction I would suddenly change the direction in which I was going and made sure that she knew I was running away from her. I ignored her completely. I did not ask about her to her friends anymore and when they tried to bring up her topic I would tell them without any hesitation that I was over her and did not want to talk about her. I could see that my strategy was working but I wasn’t really sure about it.

One day while talking to Rehman, a tuition mate who I spoke to often because of our common interest in cricket the topic of girls came up and he told me that his cousin Ruheen had a huge crush on me and thought that I looked a lot like Shah Rukh Khan and wanted to be friends with me. I had seen Ruheen around a lot in the tutorials and also when she came to pick up her younger brother after school who was three classes junior to us. But I had never given her any real attention up until then. She was really pretty and made all the boys’ heads turn every time she stepped inside our school gates and the best thing about it was that she was oblivious to the fact that she was so gorgeous. I was happy and relieved at least some girl wanted to be friends with me but I had already signed sealed and gift wrapped my heart, ready to be given to Preeti. But my mind started working faster than a computer and I came up with a master plan. I would befriend Ruheen and talk to her after tutorials everyday and make sure that Preeti was looking. I thought that would make her jealous about the fact that the importance given to her by me would decrease and anyway girls are a weird lot, even if they don’t like a particular thing they wouldn’t want anyone else to have it.

Rehman introduced me to his cousin and we were friends. Now every time she came to school I made sure I was either batting in the nets or if sometimes I was bowling my run up would become longer and I would bowl a couple of miles faster. I didn’t know where the sudden burst of energy came from but she had that effect on me. I would try my hardest to impress her but I was careful because I did not want the teachers to notice I was flirting with a girl in the school campus. We exchanged gifts on our birthdays, valentines and friendships days and pretended to talk to each other everyday after tutorials but there was no real conversation. She was really pretty, elegant and lady like but the spark between us was missing. I could never imagine her as my girlfriend no matter how hard I tried. On my birthday she gifted me a musical card that could sing Happy Birthday and looked really expensive. She had addressed it from- Me, I couldn’t take a chance and have anyone at home become suspicious that it was given by a girl so I changed the Me to Mizbah (If you remember, he was Tarun’s arch enemy in school because he had told on him once and gotten him badly beaten by Suzie Miss.). But my folks wouldn’t know all that. Now it was her birthday and my turn to gift her something equally good if not better, so I thought hard and bought her an audio cassette of the upcoming Shah Rukh Khan movie Dil se and got it gift wrapped for her. But as soon as I got home I couldn’t stop my urge to listen to the songs once before I gave the cassette away so I tore the gift wrap, removed the seal and enjoyed listening to the songs a couple of times. I was engrossed listening to the songs and lost count of time and was late for the tutorials and mom was shouting at me to get out of the house right away. I realized that I did not have enough time to gift wrap it again so I removed a few stickers from the birthday cards given to me by my friends and stuck them on the cassette case and gifted it to her. She really loved her gift and the decoration too. But I was actually happier than her because Preeti had seen me giving the gift to Ruheen and ran away from there. The next day her friends told me that Preeti might have a soft corner for me because she kept mentioning my name a lot of times since the day I started talking to Ruheen and was very anxious and eager to know if we were seeing each other. They also told me that she was almost in tears when she saw me gifting something to Ruheen. Just then Preeti arrived and extended her hand towards me as if she was signaling a sign of friendship. I wanted to jump up in the air and celebrate but instead I shook hands with her and smiled. I was happy my plan had been successful but Preeti did something that totally swept me off my feet she went down on one knee and said the three magical words “I love you.” I was blushing like a girl and quickly replied I love you too and grabbed her hand and brought her up. I cleared things with her about Ruheen and told her that she was just a good friend and nothing more than that. I had won my love and also the war but I lost a good friend that day. Ruheen never spoke to me from that day on and for many months I thought it was because she liked me and was disappointed that we couldn’t be together but one day Rehman cleared my misconception and told me that it was because one of the stickers on the cassette I had gifted her read “I love you sweetheart” and she thought I had proposed to her and then cheated on her. My stupid mistake had resulted in a huge misunderstanding which eventually helped me in getting my girl. Life is like that- cruel and unpredictable. I had found love but at the expense of breaking another fragile heart.

CHAPTER 12- LOVE IS IN THE AIR

I was trying my hardest to get Preeti to like me but to no avail and out of nowhere God gave me an opportunity. The Yuva Sangh- a non-profit organization that worked for the development of the youth through various programs was organizing a two day camp for hiking and trekking at a place called Gun rock. It was a really beautiful place filled with hillocks and valleys and greenery everywhere. It also had the best spot for rappelling down a hill. Unfortunately Hyderabad has really expanded far and wide now and there are no guns or rocks left there anymore and all you will see there is a concrete jungle.
It was the ideal place to fall in love with nature and with each other. The Gang was going, so was I, like we always did but this time Preeti and her friends were coming too and I was really excited about it. It would mean I could spend two whole days with her, turn on my charm and make her fall truly, madly and deeply in love with me. I did my best to impress her by being really cool and pulling other peoples leg. I thought I was really smart to do that and I would win her over and to an extent I did because she changed places and came and sat closer to us in the bus with her friends. But my superiority complex was shattered when the faculty taught us how to tie different types of knots and I couldn’t even get one right, I still cannot. My bubble was completely burst when they taught us how to tie a harness and I needed at least six goes to get it right. Kaalu was the first one to try out all the activities. He did rock climbing really easily using the three point technique the faculty had demonstrated to us and when it was my turn I was clumsy and slow and I hurt my elbows and shins but what hurt most was my ego being shattered. I realized then that everybody has some or the other talent in them and I should respect them and learn from them. But my pyar ka bhoot hadn’t died down yet I was still trying my hardest to impress Preeti. In the evening during the camp fire I did a stand up spoof on all the expressions and rumblings I had seen and heard from the group when they were asked to rappel down a cliff or squeeze through a gap between two rocks and made everyone laugh till they cried and I finally could see my hard work reaping some rewards. When I was having dinner with the gang, Preeti’s friend Shruti approached me and said she wanted to talk to me about something,

Shruti- How was your day today?

Me- I had a lot of fun. (while on the inside I was still coming to terms with being such a jerk for so long)

Shruti- How are the elbows now?

Me- Its nothing, being a sportsman am used to such minor injuries (still grimacing with pain every time I moved my hand from the plate to my mouth to eat)

Shruti- Well, you were really funny during the camp fire.

Me- ah! That was nothing (trying to act modest but blushing with pride)

I was getting restless because this conversation was going nowhere so I finally asked her what was it that she wanted to talk to me about.

Shruti stumbled and mumbled and finally asked and I quote “We were wondering which one of us you do not consider as your sister?”

I wanted to burst out laughing and say there’s no way I would consider any of you as a sister because I think all of you are totally smoking hot. But better sense prevailed and I thought over it for a couple of minutes and said –“Preeti”, she gave me a huge smile and walked away. I thought I had finally made my feelings known to her and it had been much easier than I had imagined. I did not share this with the gang as I wanted to hear it from Preeti before I told anyone and besides my experience of sharing a secret with my friends and expecting to be a secret was unrealistic. The whole night I couldn’t sleep as my heart was singing with joy. The next morning I was the first one to get ready and I waited with bated breath for the girls to come out from their rooms so that I could see Preeti and give her one of my best heavily dimpled hugest of smiles. But when I did that she stared at me with never seen before hatred and anger. I couldn’t imagine what was wrong. I was really curious to know but we had a lot of activities lined up and I couldn’t get a chance to talk to her till noon. Finally at the lunch break I managed to get some proximity to her and she told me that she had only considered me as a friend and nothing more than that and if I ever tried to talk to her again she would complain about it to her dad and get me beaten up by him. My heart started to feel really heavy as soon as I heard those words, my heart beat was racing, my legs felt lifeless and numb. This trip was not going as I had expected. My elbows and shins were injured, my ego was hurt and now to add insult to my injury my heart had been broken too. I tried to put up a brave face and told her I had never thought of her that way and she had mistaken my intentions and moved away from her with my tail between my legs before she made a big scene and stripped me of my self respect or what ever was left of it. I had been rejected even before I could propose. Love was in the air but unfortunately that was the only place where it was.

CHAPTER 11- I AM IN LOVE

It was a Sunday but our tenth class board exams were approaching. Geeta Mam had planned a full day study camp for us to revise a few important chapters. I was in a very irritable mood because I knew I was not going to get any rest and recreation for the whole week now. I reluctantly had a bath and called the gang to make sure they were attending classes today and left for the tutorials, I was a bit earlier than the others and was waiting for them near the entrance when my eyes wandered to who all were present in the class room. I saw a glimpse of someone pass by and my heart skipped a beat. I was eager to know who it was, so I moved a bit closer to get a better look and realized it was Preeti. I had seen her everyday for the past couple of years but she looked different today. She had tied her hair in two plaits like little girls do and looked really pretty. Her tiny nose, small eyes and fair complexion made her look almost like a Japanese girl. The green colored dress that she wore was really pretty and she looked breathtakingly beautiful in it. I had never felt anything like this before and I did not know what it was but I just wanted to keep looking at her. A touch on my shoulder from behind startled me and brought me back to my senses. It was Muez and he was wondering what I was up to. We headed inside the class and I made sure that we sat right behind Preeti which was unusual for us because we were known as compulsive back benchers. But I convinced Muez that we needed to pay attention in class today as our Tenth class Board Exams were approaching. For the first time in life, tenth class had benefited me in someway. The others in the gang were a bit late in arriving and I was pleased that they couldn’t sit with us that day because I did not want them to know what was going on because even I did not know what was going on. Was it what they call falling in love? Or did I just like the way that she looked today? For the rest of the day I couldn’t take my eyes of her. Before today I had always made fun of her and her friends and called her names like Japanese Fan, and Chinki (thats how us racist Indians call the Chinese people) but things had changed now. During the break when a guy tried to tease her I targeted the guy and made fun of him till he cried. I realized I was being extra nice to her from that day on. The care a damn attitude was gone and I was gentler when talking to the ladies. I couldn’t gather the courage to ask her to be my friend but I spoke a lot to her friends now and tried to impress them with my sense of humor. Whenever I got a chance I would sit behind her in class and keep admiring how beautiful she was. I loved everything about her, the way she smiled at her friends, the way she looked confused when she did not understand a question, the way she said thank you with a tilted head when I picked up the pen she had dropped and gave it to her and especially the way her hair moved when a gentle breeze was blowing.
I was in love for the first time and I wanted to share it with someone, so I told Billu about it and asked him not to tell anyone. He promised he wouldn’t but he told Sallu anyway. So now the three of us talked about it in signals in the group whenever she was passing by. Muez suspected something fishy was going on and asked me about it so I told him about it and asked him not to tell anyone about it. He went ahead and told Timmy anyway who in turn told about it to all the others in the gang. So now all my friends knew that I was in love and every time Preeti and her friends went past us they would tease me by saying “abe saale dekh Bhabhi jaa rahi hai” and I would blush too as if we were already blissfully married. I did not even know if she knew about my feelings for her or if she liked me, that is when Billu told me that two of her closest friends, Samreen and Shruti already had boyfriends who were in our class and he was well acquainted to them. He said that I could befriend them and they would help me in getting my girl.
It felt really strange but I had to approach Rajesh and Ameet and share my feelings with them. They gave me some inside information on what Preeti liked in a guy and what was her favorite flower and chocolate and stuff like that. So now whenever she was around I would talk loudly to my friends about how I loved the smell of jasmine and why red was my favorite color. I even spent 37 rupees and bought a Snickers bar that she loved and shared it with her friends and her which was abnormal for me as I hardly shared anything with anyone let alone expensive candy. “Oh the things we do for love.” But all the hard work paid off and she considered me a friend now. We still did not speak much but she smiled and said hi every time she saw me. I hated it now when we did not have tuitions and felt sleepless and restless if I did not see her for a day. I thought about her all day and all night long. I imagined where I would take her on a date and how good we would look together even before knowing if my feelings would be reciprocated. Those were the best days of my life and those were the worst days of my life. Best because I was cut off from the real world and lived in my own dreamland and worst because I did not know what would happen with my sports, my studies, my life. Meanwhile the news of me being in love with her was spreading like wildfire and I guess everyone except her knew about it now and that is when I learnt a really important lesson in life, never tell anyone a secret and tell them not to share it with anyone because people don’t like to be instructed on what to do and what not to do and one mans secret is gossip for the rest of the world.