Ola.

Cult Following
-----------------

It was love at first sight. Love at a glimpse, actually- the glimpse of the tight slacks up her skirt as she climbed up the stairs to her classroom. I barely saw her face but i was smitten. When I told my friend, Mr.P, he trained his diagnostic eys at me for a second and concluded gravely, "Yeah, you are a goner." So at the break time all my fellows gathered around me and we brain stormed. We agreed that I had to find out more about her. We would start with finding out where she lived and go from there. Mr.S suggested that I should buy a card and give it to her- nothing fancy, mind you- said he- just a simple declaration of my true emotions. As the Moral Science book says, friends in need are friends indeed.
After school Mr.P and I waited outside the school gate. I was not sure if I would recognize her. But he sure did. When she walked out we slunked behind her about fifteen feet away. She walked majestically away from me. She had her arms crossed and seemed to look down on the road as she walked, her black backpack slung carelessly down her left shoulder. But I was engrossed by her legs. She had pulled her socks right up to her knees. I could see a small patch of her skin on the back of her knee just below where the skirt ended. If I could see future I would have seen myself following her down the same road a million more times in the future. Her house was one story and was painted yellow. It looked cosy.
After seeing her home, Mr.P and I returned to the Status. Let me tell you about Status. There were these seedy joints around our school where we hung out smoking and having tea. They were named so and so hotel or such and such bhojanalaya but those are too grand the terms to describe them. So when we first frequented these places we were strangers to the Saaunis. After some familiarity we build some goodwill - status - at the place and we got smokes and stuff for credit. That's when the place became our Status. But the agony is that it does not last long. When debt accumulated and the Saauni started to nag, we simply switched to a different one and worked on a brand new Status. So the fellows at the Status were impressed that we now knew where she lived and apart from the glimpse of her slacks, I now had the memory of her lovely legs to see me through. Not only that, Mr.C had come to find out from his sources that her name started with a S. That was certainly a good sign, we decided. Mr.S reiterated about the urgency of the card. "Nothing fancy," he reminded. Mr.B was certain we would find her name by the next day. (............later)

Ola.............

(here goes tyehi_moro_ashish...)

I asked Mr.S to buy a card for me as he had an eye for the romatic. I also asked him to write something cute on it, that would make her knees weak because Mr.S knew how to write. He was always reading all these books about these Hardy boys and that one kid names Tom Sawyer who painted his aunt's picket fence white. As we left for home I was giddily in love- romance was in the muggy air inside the crowded bus as I rode home.

Mr C. had good news the next day. He had found out that she was either Sunita, Sarita or Sweta. Mr. B had gone a step further. From his pocket he produced two pages of the attendance sheet from class 9, section C. He had gone to the teachers' office and just tore out the pages from the attendance register. He had crossed out all the names of boys from the list. Since we were certain that she was a Brahmin we crossed out all the other castes. We had seven bahunis left on the list and sure enough there was a Sunita, a Sarita and a Sweta. I liked Sweta but anyway it felt good to officially narrow it down to three names.

But I nearly broke down when Mr.S gave he the card that he had bought for me.A little girl on a pretty pink dress swinging on a swing, her eyes closed, bunny rabbits and piegons looking at her intently from the ground below as a heart-shaped sun from the left hand corner hued the sky in the colors of the rainbow while an arrow of cloud pierced the centre of the sun-heart. And inside Mr.S in his characteristic hand had written:

The God Almighty made you
But my eyes makes you
more beautiful than
He ever imagined.

It was perfect. Mr.C volunteered to deliver the good news to her. And during lunch he tip-toed into her class and slipped the card inside her bag. Sure enough after school when I along with Mr.P followed her home she had the card in her hand. Mr.P said it was a good sign. He patted me in the back and I let out a long breath and went to her. She turned to me and in a swift motion tore the card into pieces and yelled, "I hate you."
Stunned, I mumbled, "But you don't even know me."

(......later)

(...........contd)

Back at the Status the guys did not seem as discourgaged as I.
"Atleast she acknowledged you," said Mr.S. Mr.C added,"They all start out that way, you know? Now you are in line for her friendship. And everyone knows friendship is just a launching pad for romance." That sounded right. Atleast she knew I existed and that I was interested on her. By the way Mr.B had made it official- her name was Sarita. Sarita said she hated me but everything was going to be fine.

So the days passed and kept on following her home. She kept on ignoring me. I dreamed about her day and night. I saw her face on my morning tea. I read her thoughts on the class. I schemed and planned to wow her. I daydreamed of taking her to Pokhara and on the wide blue waters of the Phewa we would row our small boat as the water reflected the face of Machhapuchre intermingled with her bight face. Love at its best is love not attained.

One afternoon our school took us to the grounds of Kritipur University for sports meet. I was never a sportsman except khalbad (I had a bag full of marbles that I had won) and chungi. But ask me to run track and I did not see the point in all that exertion and the pounding of heart, gasping for air. I went because Sarita was going. You could say I followed her. As always Mr.P was at my side and when I say I followed her I mean I was stalking. But she seemed to run out of patience when I waited for her outside a ladiesroom. Later Mr.P and I were sitting on the hill discussing about the futility of it all when a group of girls marched towards us. It was Sarita and her friends. In no time they surrounded us. I had never faced so many angry women at once but Mr.P remained unflustered.

"What is your problem? Can't you leave her alone?" said one, pointing her accusing finger at me.
"But..."I could not complete the sentence.
"You are too much," thundered another.
"I said I hate you," said Sarita. That hurt.
"What is the problem?" Mr.P said in a gentle voice.
They looked at him as if they had been woken up from a nightmare. Now they aimed their wrath at him.
"It is not a freaking movie, you know, that you keep stalking her like a dog."
"Yeah, it is a movie," Mr.P replied.
"Oh,yeah. Movies end in time. When is this going to end?"
"This is a teleserial. It goes on till she loves him." Mr.P knew how to argue. He should have been on our school debate team.


(..........later)

mG.

Hola Mindgames!
Your story sounds more like lust at first sight. Bichara, she called you a dog and you were still in "love" with her?

Very interesting! Cant wait to read how you finally get the girl.....or is she another Shivani?

Hey J_D, leave shivani out of this, will ya :P

MD> keep going...will read as i get my breaks from deconvulation all day long!

(...........contd)

I could not sleep that night. Life was futile. Everytime I closed my eyes those angry, accusing fingers pointed at me, threateningly close to poking my eyes out. So the next day I went to Rosie for advice. If ever there was a person who had a fitting name it was her- she was a rose blooming in spring. On her mid-twenties, she worked at the school library. At times all the fellows had had crushes on her but she was older than ys and sensing that she was unattainable we had all settled for being her friends. And she did treat us as equals, friends not mere pimply-cheeked schoolboys. She folded the book on a bookmarker and listened to me intently as I recounted my plight. "What should I do, Rosie?" I asked.
"Bichara, she called you a dog and you are still in "love" with her?" she half-mocked.
"Yeah, I think so. Is that bad, Rosie?"
She seemed to think so. She explained me the difference between harmones and heart. But she would not tell me what to do. She told me that I had to pick my own poison and sure, I may stumble and fall but I should learn to pick myself up. Nobody but myself could teach me the lessons of life. Rosie was like that- she had all the answers but she wanted us to figure it out by ourselves.

Yeah I wanted to find out by myself. But there seemed to be no answer. Life was futile. My puppy love had reduced me to a dog and an insomniac. It was easy for Rosie to dismiss my feelings as lust but she was not the one who stayed up all night, unable to sleep and thousands of plans and schemes running my mind wild. Hers were not my sleepy eyes that searched a crowd for that familiar flicker of heaven. It was not her knees that went weak whenever I saw Sarita. If there were answers I did not have them, if there was a way to get over it I never found it. And now I agonized if my emotions were genuine.


(.........later)
mG.

heyy mindgames....ur "mind" really has the ability to play "games" with words.....that really makes u a great writer!!!!Keep going!!!!:)

MindGames, u sure have the gift for writing.Enjoyed your postings very much.Please keep them coming.

Regards,
Bhanja (Singapore)

MG,
That was cute - tres mignon. I like the librarian Rosie's character :)
I am sure that when she said those things, she was not mocking you. She was probably just recalling experiences from her own teenage, when her hormones had taken the better of her and her cult of friends had led her on to believe that she was in "love" with a certain Mr. S....

Like someone already mentioned, you do have a way with words and with people. Your presence in Sajha is a joy for all of us.

ola, remerciements!

(........contd)

Genuine or not it was pointless. Guys said if you had feet, you could have shoes aplenty. But my Cindrella heart was stuck on these magic pairs. My heart was irrational, it did not understand logic. Moving on was the easy way out but ler go I could not. So I was right outside the school-gate nervously waiting on her. She walked out and heart stopped. There was this immense feeling of emptiness that engulfed me to my core. I approached her, with sweaty palms and racing heart and a strange sense of unreality.
"Listen,"I said. "I acted like a goofball." We walked on. She was at my side but I could not look at her. I knew "sorry" was said best when you looked at the person's eyes. Try as I might I could not face her. Looking at the passing cars, I mumbled, "I am sorry that I hurt you." She said nothing. I did not know what else I could say. Words were hard to come by. "I want to be your friend...talk with you..." She did not say a word. That night I could not sleep again. Once again, I promised myself that I would really, really forget her. But the next afternoon I was waiting for her agian more confused, more empty, more nervous, dogged in my aimless determination.

I said,"I cannot sleep." I told her I had gone about her in the wrong way and now I realized my mistake. I told her what Rosie said to me about life, the answerless big questions of life. We walked in silence. The cars and the motorbikes passed by. The afternoon was cool and it looked like it would rain in the night. The other students walking by stared at me in confused amusement. I felt like I was walking through vacuum.
"I just would like to talk to you," I said again.
"You are talking to me," I heard her reply and could not believe my ears. She was not cold-hearted, I could tell.
"I thought I was talking to myself. Great to know you were listening."


----------
mG.

oooh, dude, thats cool! she talks! she friggin talks! i m happy!

Really nice read. Please add one more fan to your list.

akawi (अकवि)

(..........contd)

She did know how to talk but I did most of the yapping. I noticed that she had written S.W. on her knuckles. I asked, "Who is S.W.?"
"Someone," she said teasingly.
"Your boyfriend?" I asked, a little crestfallen.
"No, he is a cricket player. Do you watch cricket?"
"Not that much. You know what they say about people who have nothing better to do?"
"Yeah, I know all about how only fools watch cricket."
"It's fools who play cricket, the maha-fools watch it."
"Don't talk about something you don't know."
"So is it Shane Wayne, the Australian. I know more than you give me credit for."
She laughed. "Yeah, I can tell. His name is Shane Warne, not Wayne!"

So she watched the boring game of cricket - that was cool and all - but I was totally floored when I learned that she knew more than me about Nagraj comics. She said she had read all of them. I personnally was a fan of Super Commando Dhruba but anyone who knew Nagraj knew he was cool, shooting those snakes out of his hands and saving the world from those bad guys. It was surprising how similar Sarita and I were. She had high hopes of becoming a Fashion Designer. I for one was stuck on being a commercial photographer. We both had the same disdain for the strict discipline of the school and we liked to make fun of the teachers. Both of us felt strangled by the demands of academic excellence that our family and the teachers placed on us. We talked daily- during the lunch break we would go to the corridor in front of the library and we would look down on the playground and just talk. She liked Salman Khah who I despised but we both thought that "Khamoshi" was a great movie. Once talking about the songs from that movie I was so excited that I blurted out that Manisha looked so pretty on that movie and how "I wouldn't mind doing her." As soon as I said that I was real concerned that I had offended her. She just laughed and said, "You horny beast."

Girls were not so different after all and love was just a word. I did not have much close relationship with girls before I started talking with Sarita. My friends and I used to just dismiss them as mere objects of lust. We talked about how hot someone was and how the other one's breasts were so luscious and how we would all like to kiss a girl on the lips. We never thought that it would be cool just to talk with them, share ideas and talk about comics or sports. I could totally see myself sharing a smoke with Sarita in the Status and making naughty jokes. She was cool and she opened my eyes to a different way of looking at half the population. Though I did long for a chance to hold her and whisper tender words on her ears and touch her lips, I was just as happy to be her friend. We talked about our friends and when she passed by my group of friends she said "Hi" to them and made small talk. My fellows gave me all the hardtime for what they said was a lie to myself because I had claimed to them that I did not think about her in sexual terms. But guys would be guys.

I still walked with her to her home after school. One day we were ready to part just near her house when she said, "Listen, I like you. You are a great friend. We will always be."
"So?" I asked amused.
She produced a piece of paper from her bag and handing it to me said, "Would you give it to your friend?" It was folded into a rectangular shape and was stapled on the corner and it was addressed to Mr.P. I acted as if I did not know what it was.
"I cannot convince my heart so I want you to make the decision for me. I would not want you hurt," she said looking at me straight in the eye.
This was just great. Love a woman, bask on her friendship then be her messenger of love to your best friend. This really was great! Mr.P would need some convincing but I knew how to make him understand that it was all right by me. I knew the strange ways a heart worked.
"Will you do it?" Sarita asked.

I knew fully well that I would ache for her for the rest of my life. But I was young and life was not a hundred meters dash. I was in for a marathon.
"Yes, babe,"I smiled. "Anything for you."

***

mG.

Correction. dyam sajha should have a way to edit your posts. the last line should read:

"Sure, babe," I said. "Anything for you."

......

mG.

ohhhhh.....so u did not smile:(.....the smile changed the whole perception.

Great narration Mindgames!

Life is not a 100 meter dash, neither is it a marathon; it is a hurdle race!

You jump over the obstacles when you can; crawl under it when you can't; circle around it when you want to and knock the blasted bar off if you can't do any of the above! ;)

"though tangled and twisted the course of true love this ditty explains,
no tangle's so tangled it cannot improve if the lover has brains!!!" Shakespeare!

hehe! The blasted internet in KTM is so slow (I'm getting used to it, now), I've had to wrestle with the mouse, the refresh button and my fingers to stay focused!!

yeah monika, I just wanted to change "yes,babe" to "sure, babe." somehow the smile got lost. I think "I" did smile:}

thanks sitara, I am a newcomer to sajha but I have browsed thru your past posts and loved them a lot. have fun in the good ole' ktm.

mG.

Nice going mindgames.

Twinkle twinkle Sitara Kathmandu ma?:0 We will wait what you will bring to sajhaland all the way from sweet home :) Have fun Sitara.


Lizard King

Mindgames and Lizard king:

Thank you! One of the best things about KTM is the "bombastically" HOT aaloo achaar with timboor! ;)

SITARA, that alu ko achar with timboor reminded me of home too---

Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought's escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me...

mG.