Our recollection of certain dreams will begin to fade as we wake up, and so do some of our memories in time. Here is a compilation of such memories of a person, before it completely fades from my mind.
Prologue
Bengaluru, Madiwala, present day, 2022.
“Hey, 6 o’clock,” he said while holding the hot cup of tea, during our daily evening tea break at the usual bakery at the junction with the view of all four roads. Even before I turned back I knew what it’ll be, and there it was, a pretty lady passing by. After gazing at her as she passed by, I turned and nodded back at him in acknowledgment and sipped my tea. I know him for more than one and half decades, almost more than half of my whole lifetime. And I still remember the first girl that he pointed out, a decade ago and she laid a whole new track in my life.
Amrita vidyalayam, 2010.
We were standing on the first floor at the veranda during an interval break while chatting he pointed his eyes at a junior girl passing by, someone I never noticed before. I asked him who she was, and he said “You really don’t know her? That’s Ganga, the singer; she’s in the prayer group and all. Also, we are in the same school van.” I looked back at her, although she would be on the stage every morning almost all of the school day, I didn’t recognize her until today. I kept looking back at her as she walked away in the crowd of children during the interval commotion. After that day I never lost sight of her in any crowd, she was the only one I saw everywhere. I paid more attention to the prayers, looking devotedly at her in admiration. I didn’t really know what was going on, too immature to understand the concept of love. All I knew was that looking at her made me at peace. That was the same year I got pc and internet connection at home. At that time Orkut was the one connecting people & popular among the youths. From the intel I acquired, I got to know that she rejected the friend requests of strangers. Of course that wasn’t going to stop me from sending her request. I sent her a request and in a few moments I received notification that my request has been accepted. Without wasting any time I send her hi, which indeed took a lot of courage. She replied “Hello”. I asked her if she know me. She said, “Yeah I do, you are in Xth rt. And do you know me?”. I texted “Of course, you’re famous darling.” I still don’t know what the hell I was thinking while I send that. Her reply came “Darling?”. And that is how our first conversation started.
A couple of weeks later.
I was walking through the veranda during a break and heard somebody calling out my name. I knew that voice. “Yeswanth Etta.., Hello!!!” I looked up from the ground floor and I found her on the first floor on the perpendicular side of the school waving and smiling at me. I was dumbstruck and waved back at her & said hi. She said, “You said I never talk to you from school right”. we both smiled at each other and went back to our classes.
On other days I’ll be receiving a "hi" out of nowhere with a slap on my back. Sometimes she use to give me chocolates. And on my birthdays I always had a dairy milk bought especially for her, but I never had to go and find her as she would always come to me and demand her treat.
Right before the noon and evening prayers, I had the routine to go out of class to drink water from the water filter, even if I had the water in my bottle, just so that I’ll have to pass the mike-point and then I could meet her, who is getting ready to sing the prayer.
With gods grace, we were always in the same school group, which I never used to care about but now I never missed any chance to get her attention or to be with her in the group activities. I chose to volunteer for the notice board duty just coz she volunteered too. The same goes for the collage-making competition that I participated in.
An introvert who used to stay away from school functions, which were like public holidays to me unless attendance was compulsory. But now I attended those programs just to watch her programs. Even if I am assigned any duty, I would leave it all at the moment her name was announced on stage.
School camp, 2011.
During school camp, we had an activity to adopt a plant from the school garden, name it, and take care of it. I chose one and was trying to find a suitable name for it, along with our biology teacher. Ma’am did suggest a couple of names but I rejected it all saying it was old fashioned. And then she walked up to us, we all talked for a while & she left wishing me luck in finding a good name. then I looked at Ma'am and told her I found the perfect name ‘Ganga’. Ma’am looked at me with a smirk and told me to carry on. Then I went to the school store & told them that needed something to decorate the name while I labeled it. Premeella Aunty found a bouquet cover and gave it to me, another teacher in there helped me with pasting the name inside the bouquet cover. I fixed it on the plant with a rubber band and left for the session I had to attend in the library. After the class I got out of the library, from the second floor I looked down at my plant in the garden; the name tag was missing. I rushed towards it, and when I finally reached there I saw her holding the name tag and trying to fix it back on the plant. She said “I found it on the ground” and gave it back to me. With a smile, she said “Nice name”.
And there was a plant that she adopted which she used to water every evening after school. Someday I would wait at a distance just to see her reaction when she sees it already watered by someone. I think she never knew who did it.
One day before, School exhibition,2012.
Everybody was busy with the assigned duties and setting the stalls. The 12th science and science club were sharing the same classroom. While I was busy setting up our Farmville model, she walked into the class towards the science club head teacher and told her she need assistance in typing and printing the labels for the exhibits, the teacher told her that everyone in there was already tied up with work, look for someone whose free. The Farmville project was very important to me & I dropped it right then and there, walked up to her, and said I was absolutely free. The teacher told me “Good, go and help her then” and went back to her busy work. We both walked out together and towards the computer lab, only to find it locked and we couldn’t find the keys. But I didn’t give up, I couldn’t give up. I went to the IP teacher and told her the situation we were in and she gave me the IP labs keys. When we went inside the lab, it was just two of us, all alone. I had never been with her like this, when ever we met there will be students all around us, but not today, not this moment. She read out the labels and I typed it, I never typed this slowly in my entire life. While formatting the labels we had little conversations. She told me she was a bit tensed to come up to me after the sports day incident and issues with juniors and that around the same time, I changed my profile picture on Facebook to a No Girls icon. I briefly explained to her what had really happened and our conversation went on. And then the angel who lit the path towards her came knocking at the doors like a devil. My best friend was at the door, he said: “Where the hell did you suddenly disappear into, I was looking all around for you”. I signaled him to get the hell out of here behind her back but my dear friend kept walking towards us like an idiot. She stood up and asked if I could finish it and let her know. I said, “Of course, I’ll complete it and get back to you”. As she walked away from me, I wanted to beat the hell out of him but I was too excited and thrilled about the fact that I was able to spend that much time with her.
Day of exhibition, 2012.
I kept a book for the feedback of visitors. she too came to view our Farmville and wrote her feedback and signed. Once she left I took the book and marked her sign important. Indeed it was the only one that mattered to me. Later that evening after the program, while we were about to leave school I met her at the school entrance and while we were talking she asked me if I had the book of feedback & if she could read the comments. I handed it to her with pride as we received some very good reviews. Then when she came across her sign, she looked at me suspiciously and told “Look someone marked my feedback as important. I just grinned at her.
College Days ( 2013)
I was at some boring seminar, I should have fallen asleep a long ago, but I wasn’t. I was listening very attentively, just not at the lecture on stage but the narration going on from my phone through the Nimbuzz app. She had just finished reading the book ‘3 Mistakes of My Life’ by Chethan and was summarizing and narrating the story to me, while we were thousands of miles away, mountains and oceans apart. And I continued to listen to her attentively.
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To be continued
Writer - Dr. Yeswanth S Nambiar
