The sun rose pretty fast in the month of June in Doha and it was almost 5.30 when Abbu came to pull my blanket and rush me to toilet. Wasiq was lying next to me and signaling five minutes more please. I haven’t seen anyone who wouldn’t love to sleep extra five minutes more than their alarm time. After finishing with the Morning Prayer, I packed my bags for school. The first term examination papers where to be distributed and to my luck Dr. Khurshid was my class teacher in charge, I always knew my marks beforehand and it wasn’t something of a surprise for me unlike my class mates.
The hugs and hi-fi's started right from the entrance gate till the door steps of 10th A. Zaheer, Pratik and I always had a morning walk together to the school, Arif and Vaishak Joined us at the school gate, and Nigel, Nakul, Rameez, Jojo, Mobin, Saleel, Ali, Misam all joined on the way to class. Days of results passed by pretty fast as most of the students like to keep it as a saccharine memory for long time.
The summer vacations poured in and almost all my friends had fled for India and I was asked to attend science tuitions as my results weren’t exemplary, it’s always a tensed time for almost all the Indian parents when their wards study grade 10th and 12th. I was to attend Mrs. Meera’s classes for science that was a subject that gave me the worst nightmares in life till then, Four to six every alternate day eve and I thought I had enough reasons to think my summer was spoiled.
The early days in class were pretty boring, I was to sit alone and there were no other boys in the class, it was at five that the door bell rang at Mrs. Meera’s residence and since nobody turned up and I found myself gazing at a cute smiling girl covering herself from head to toe with her black Abaya, her Hijab beautifully covering her face, she smiled and the innocence in her smile swept me off my feet, feeling a little surprised to see me around she asked “ You too here..!!”
Zaheer joined in after his short cricket tour of Pakistan, and so did Ali and Misam, and for once I started getting back my summer which I thought I had lost. Mrs. Meera used to ask me certain things I did while I shopped, while I walked the streets and for once I felt I was being watched by someone. I was curious to know the source and then I noticed Ammi talking to a girl dressed in salwar kamiz at The Bida park and was shocked to see the same girl for whom I opened the door. Things soon became crystal clear and the source got revealed. Soon pranks started being played on both the sides and I used to walk up and down to the tutor when she sat with the girls in the other room to have a look at her, and she turned her head down each time I stepped into ask a doubt. It was Geline my friend Salman’s girl friend who was the link to the beginning of our friendship.
Oh yeah I forgot to reveal her name, well let it be unrevealed behind her Abaya, Soon school reopened and Salman became my full time agent and so did Geline for her. Mobile phones weren’t a common mans essential then, so I did not find one in my pocket, it was the landline that connected us, but it was pretty difficult for both of us because it was to be kept secret from our parents and soon Thursday evenings became the scheduled time for calls as our parents would go shopping. Miss calls on the land line became common and Abbu used to get furious when he picked the phone and there was no answer at from the other side. Life changed and so did I feel I was in love for the first time with her and never did she say a NO. Salman’s foolishness caused one of the love letters to leak and the affair was soon spread among our friends.
Months passed by and boards arrived and it was the school time I was alone at home and we spend hours on phone although not continuous, the other side used to give beep sounds when her mother stepped in at times. We discussed everything that any youth of the age would, from living habits, books to even our chances of a life together. A famous movies song had a line which said “the prince and princes of the storey would reunite and for that they lighted lamps together “, which we thought would hold true in our case too. We hardly met, never touched each other, it was all our eyes that did the talking when we ever met coincidentally at the junior wing ground. Board exam results came out and for my parent’s surprise I scored pretty good, and I always thought two ladies behind my success in school life was Ammi and her.
She was asked to leave for India for her further studies and for the first time in life I enjoyed the pain of detachment, I missed the phone calls that woke me up in holidays, I missed the smile I got from the bus that crossed the gate while I entered, I missed the face that always turned back and gave a sad look when the school got over, I missed the sound on the other side whenever I answered a call. I felt left out in the crowed, but always felt it is few months and she would be back and with little sadness in mind I waited for a call that said “ hmm..hmm.. salam alaikum..”.
To be continued.
TRK
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Serendipity
The girl with the white scarf was one of my crushes in school days, and that had grown as we shared few nights over the phone. Life moved on after I recognized that it was not love that was the reason for my addiction to the girl with the white scarf. The professional competence examination ate up my three months like a small mice eat up a piece of butter, well it wasn’t the exams that ate up mu butter it was the books that I had to burn my head on.
As suggested by my trainers I tried to put in at least ten solid hours of a day with my books, ended up using around three to four hours a day during the first two months and in the last month where I was told to put in only around eight hours, I put in around ten. I increased around sixteen kilos in sixty days, thanks to Ammi, my friends who made me hog at the fast food centers and my craze for food. I remember one fat guy who ate around three hundred IDLIs at a time, and he said people who can eat what they want and sleep when they wished to, are the happiest people on earth, and I think he was true because I thought I was the next happiest man on earth the first two months of my study holidays. Doha is always a happy place to be.
By the time I landed Calicut for my last month before the exams flagged, the second wish I had other than clearing my exams with good percentage was to reduce my waist size, which had gone up, not coz I was too caring with my body shape, that was of no importance because my girl too is little broad than normal. The only reason was that I could not button any of my jeans and buying new ones are a costly business and that too when you don’t have enough time in your pockets.
I thought it was always important to be free of any tensions and thoughts when you write any examination and especially if it is something to do with the second most tough examination in India. I planned to turn off my mobile phone, and I dialed almost all the important contacts in the country just to apologize for the inconvenience that they would face when they dial me.
I was done ringing almost all the important ones and was left with the girl with the white scarf. I thought I would inform her too, with no second thought I rang this beauty that had made me go crazy in my school days. After few rings the other side answered with a sound that was as sweat as the cuckoo during spring, so crisp so smooth and soft that anyone would love to play it more than once. I was lost in it before my nephew stamped on my toe with his new shoes, showing off the new purchase. We had a small conversation and she asked if I would be in Chennai after my exams and she would want a coffee together, I felt it would be interesting to meet someone after quite some time, and that too someone whom you never would have thought of meeting again in life.
Exams went like a rollercoaster making you feel horrible at the beginning and once you are done with it kick on the ground and ask your self was this all? I and my friend made plans that were had nullity in execution. The first three days after examination were so dry that I begged for exams to happen again, It was later that I was kept busy with the family matters and other illogicalities that any youth would do. Days passed so fast heavy showers and thunder and lightning came and went by the blink of the eye, Sun shined and Ed poured its happiness and charm. It was fun sacrificing the buffalo in the name of the almighty, and equally fun in distributing the meat to people around, and the family day out at the water falls added to the beauty of Ed.
It was one day later, I got a call from the girl with the white scarf, that she had reached Chennai the morning and I thought It would have been the same even if I was present there in Chennai and she would have come, I would not have met her, not because I wouldn’t want to but just because I would have been in office when she would be around and going to the place where she would be lodged would be a big problem. Later in the day she called me asking if she would get to eat MacD in Chennai and then KFC and then Pizza, and I thought she was angry enough to eat me because I couldn’t be there, I asked her for the hotel she was lodged and the name she told me was so familiar that I for few seconds felt that it was something that I see daily and it happened to be the one opposite to my hostel. All that I got from her side was words of anger of not showing up there in time.
Three years before when I walked into Doha airport on the same day she was flying to India forever I wished that her flight was delayed by few hours and we would have been together for some time and now that she has come to my door steps, and walk the street that I walk daily and I am miles away is something that makes me believe in destiny, had she been two days late to Chennai I would have received her at the railway station, but destiny or fate has got something else for us. It might be good or bad that we haven’t met; its your fatom that decides it, for the time being all I can say is that this is one of the best forms of serendipities.
TRK
As suggested by my trainers I tried to put in at least ten solid hours of a day with my books, ended up using around three to four hours a day during the first two months and in the last month where I was told to put in only around eight hours, I put in around ten. I increased around sixteen kilos in sixty days, thanks to Ammi, my friends who made me hog at the fast food centers and my craze for food. I remember one fat guy who ate around three hundred IDLIs at a time, and he said people who can eat what they want and sleep when they wished to, are the happiest people on earth, and I think he was true because I thought I was the next happiest man on earth the first two months of my study holidays. Doha is always a happy place to be.
By the time I landed Calicut for my last month before the exams flagged, the second wish I had other than clearing my exams with good percentage was to reduce my waist size, which had gone up, not coz I was too caring with my body shape, that was of no importance because my girl too is little broad than normal. The only reason was that I could not button any of my jeans and buying new ones are a costly business and that too when you don’t have enough time in your pockets.
I thought it was always important to be free of any tensions and thoughts when you write any examination and especially if it is something to do with the second most tough examination in India. I planned to turn off my mobile phone, and I dialed almost all the important contacts in the country just to apologize for the inconvenience that they would face when they dial me.
I was done ringing almost all the important ones and was left with the girl with the white scarf. I thought I would inform her too, with no second thought I rang this beauty that had made me go crazy in my school days. After few rings the other side answered with a sound that was as sweat as the cuckoo during spring, so crisp so smooth and soft that anyone would love to play it more than once. I was lost in it before my nephew stamped on my toe with his new shoes, showing off the new purchase. We had a small conversation and she asked if I would be in Chennai after my exams and she would want a coffee together, I felt it would be interesting to meet someone after quite some time, and that too someone whom you never would have thought of meeting again in life.
Exams went like a rollercoaster making you feel horrible at the beginning and once you are done with it kick on the ground and ask your self was this all? I and my friend made plans that were had nullity in execution. The first three days after examination were so dry that I begged for exams to happen again, It was later that I was kept busy with the family matters and other illogicalities that any youth would do. Days passed so fast heavy showers and thunder and lightning came and went by the blink of the eye, Sun shined and Ed poured its happiness and charm. It was fun sacrificing the buffalo in the name of the almighty, and equally fun in distributing the meat to people around, and the family day out at the water falls added to the beauty of Ed.
It was one day later, I got a call from the girl with the white scarf, that she had reached Chennai the morning and I thought It would have been the same even if I was present there in Chennai and she would have come, I would not have met her, not because I wouldn’t want to but just because I would have been in office when she would be around and going to the place where she would be lodged would be a big problem. Later in the day she called me asking if she would get to eat MacD in Chennai and then KFC and then Pizza, and I thought she was angry enough to eat me because I couldn’t be there, I asked her for the hotel she was lodged and the name she told me was so familiar that I for few seconds felt that it was something that I see daily and it happened to be the one opposite to my hostel. All that I got from her side was words of anger of not showing up there in time.
Three years before when I walked into Doha airport on the same day she was flying to India forever I wished that her flight was delayed by few hours and we would have been together for some time and now that she has come to my door steps, and walk the street that I walk daily and I am miles away is something that makes me believe in destiny, had she been two days late to Chennai I would have received her at the railway station, but destiny or fate has got something else for us. It might be good or bad that we haven’t met; its your fatom that decides it, for the time being all I can say is that this is one of the best forms of serendipities.
TRK
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)