"Disappointed " ... Disappointed he was that it had become dark... Disappointed he was that he had to return home... Disappointed he was that he was still alive... and disappointed he was, when he walked back in the dark, on that day...
She spoke a lot that day... She said anything and everything...and he loved her lips when she animatedly spoke "anywhich ways" ... he never told her that her lips were the most kissable thing on earth when they seductively moved to her "anywhich ways" ...
He could never remember what she said on that day... except for her "anywhich ways" ... and before he could come to his senses, the stars had come out in the sky and she was gone...
She was gone... just gone. How he had wished that he should have taken her number...her address... her college... her street... her colony... anything that could help him to find her.... anything but then again she was a witch ... and she had cast a spell over him.
However, she was his witch.. she was his Ansh... she knew him better. She had left him her number... well not exactly her number.. but her room-mate's number. Mobile were still expensive in those days...and they used to charge even for incoming... " anywhich ways" as Ansh would say... he had her number. She had written it down on his hand... She had written it down with a piece of coal.
There was a time when people used to write to their lovers with blood, later they preferred using pen, but this was Pune, the oxford of the East. Students at his time never carried a pen... but that does not stop anyone from loving. And she improvised... she took a piece of charcoal or coal from the nearby Hawker selling roasted maize and gave him his no. How naive he was ... that small act looked so cute...
Even when he remembered it today, a smile spread on the corner of his lips. It was a cute gesture indeed... if God shows sign from above then perhaps it was God's sign that the relationship was always written in black. God! how he loved her...how madly he was in love with her... those days were so wonderful....Being with her was so wonderful...
"Let's Go Home", he shouted at his dog. The young Alsatian followed his master in the dark alleys.
"Mental Fixation" - he muttered to himself "I guess that's the term they use in Psychology". perhaps something like that happened to him. "She was a mental fixation... she was my mental block...Damn she was.... She was the best thing that happened to me..."
He remembered that night... he came to his hostel and learnt how to sms... It was so tech-savvy thing then and he had texted Ansh for her address. How his classmate had voluntarily given him his mobile and the number of assurances that he would only SMS and not even pick a call. SMS in those days were free... and the bike he borrowed.
And the jump from the balcony on first floor... how he had sprained his ankle in the process... and then jumping the hostel boundary wall and a good 200 metre walk in the jungle to the dhabba...
and then he reached the bike... Students were not allowed to keep bikes in campus and Pune was not the concrete jungle then...
And then it was easy...Just reach at Ansh's PG.. climbing up the pipe to the third floor with a sprained ankle and no light...and just talk to Ansh sitting on the window ledge...
"I was a fool" , he muttered to himself I did everything that they show in movie... "Perhaps there can be no love story without the boy climbing up a pipe - atleast not an Indian love story!"
"Who knows even Prince Salim must have climbed up a pipe to meet his Anarkali! What do you say kid?", he chuckled at his own joke as he patted his companion...
And then it was time to bring his enfield to Pune. He ensured that nobody at his hostel rode pillion on his bike for which he parked at another shanty some two KM away fro his hostel. He even use to pay the Shanty-owner money to taker care of his bike .
Soon he became pro.. at eleven jump out of the balcony on first floor, climb over the barbed wired hostel boundary wall, move soundlessly for another 200 metre, run through the wild to reach the Shanty, reach Ansh's PG, sneak past the watchman, climb up the pipe to the third floor, tie the rope ladder from the bed, help Ansh to get down.. And then UP, UP and AWAY!!! for three and a half hour.
He used to sneak Ansh back in at 3:30, take the rope-ladder away as Ansh's PG was often checked, park the bike at the shanty, run two KM through the wild again, reach hostel by 5:oo, bribe the mess cook with "bidi" & cigarette walk past the sleeping watchman. Get ready, for the compulsory morning exercise and seven KM jog to stay fit !!! He was always the ideal student except he the "ideal" was now spent as "idle". As soon as the projector was switched on in the class, and lights dimmed he dozed.
Grades dipped but Love dripped everywhere....
"Karate made me tough...but love made me tougher..", he laughed at himself ... as he entered his house...
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