Read It Wasn't Love at First Shalini and I Online
Authors: Prashant Sharma
The first few months of college were a time when the freshers
kept a low profile. There was the usual ragging in the hostels, but
nothing out of the ordinary. I met Hari the second day we were in
college and that was a friendship that was to last for a lifetime. He
was also from a small town, but from the eastern part of the country.
Girls seemed to be a new species to me and I was overly intrigued
by them at first and then in completely awe of them. This was the
first time that I was studying in a co ed system of education. My
only meaningful interaction with the fairer sex had been in that train
journey and I was a little uncomfortable around them. But as we got
talking, exchanging notes, and at times, even going for movies with
them, I began getting a little more comfortable. I learnt that girls
were just like guys. They were insecure, they were alone, and they
also wanted good and genuine company.
I had started shaving now and looked the part of a seventeen year
old. I had an athletic frame, was decently tall at 5 feet some inches,
had the skin color typical of an Indian, wore glasses, not the ones to
keep out the sun but the ones which come when you watch too
much television or study too much. I had the normal small town
boy hair for the first few months which I later started to style in a
different manner.
There was a girl name Roshini, who was from Delhi, and we both
kind of developed some kind of a bond. It was the first time I had a
‘girl’friend and I started to enjoy her company more than the company
of guys around me. She had a different perspective of things and I
liked her point of view. She was not utterly beautiful, but was pretty
in a non conventional way. And when you really start liking someone,
looks cease to be important. And I think she started having a thing
for me as well. But I used to be a pretty focussed guy at that time.
Focussed to make a good career for myself, to earn money so that I
could take care of my parents and make them live the life they had
dreamt for me. It had taken me a lot of effort to reach the college of
my choice and before I had come here my mother had told me, in no
uncertain terms, about what affect a girl can have in your life. And I
had not been in hostel long enough to disregard what she said. I
guess Roshini’s mother would have said the same to her as I could see
something in her eyes. She wanted to say something, but just could
not. I think she would have seen the same in mine.
We started hanging out quite a lot during those days. She was a
nice girl. Different from other girls, but yet the same. Honest, but
yet holding something back, serious, but yet fun.
The days of college kept passing by and were made beautiful by
the very presence of Roshini. Slowly the things that my mother had
told me before I had left for hostel stopped making sense. Slowly I
thought that having a girl to love would only make me more secure,
slowly, I started to have the urge to be more than just friends. We
used to go on dates, me and Roshini. We never called them dates,
but that is what they actually were. If you go out with one girl, for
more than 5 times a week, it is a date. But we never called it that.
And I think that even she had slowly forgotten what her mother had
told her about young boys. Even she was reciprocating.
This went on for around 4 months and we were in December. It
was the college fest period and a time where even ‘dedicated to studies’
or nerd type of people, like Roshini and I, could take it easy and
relax. On one Sunday, when our college fest was on, I had asked
Roshini for breakfast and she had agreed. I could not sleep the night
before that, the third time in my life such a thing had happened. I
knew that something had to be said, something had to be done, but
my upbringing could not let me come out with it yet.
If she said no, I would lose a friend, and if she said yes, I
would lose my mother’s trust. It was a lose lose situation for me
but I knew that it was not possible to continue the way things
were. We had decided to go for breakfast to Connaught Place. I
woke up from whatever sleep I had managed and looked at my
roommate Hari. He was still in a slumber and I smiled at the
easy life he led. He had nothing to do with girls, or books, or
with anything for that matter. How he made it to college was
beyond me. His only love was cricket. Something he had given
up in class ten to study for entrance exams but had pursued
with a renewed vigor now that he was in college. As it was winter,
the fog would not let him practice for atleast three more hours.
I got out of the bed and went into the balcony. The low lying
clouds spread over the cricket field, and the sun just making its presence
felt over the horizon gave the morning a surreal look. Some over
enthusiastic seniors had taken to jogging and there were some students
from other colleges who had come for the fest who were just sitting
on the ground, enjoying the warmth of the early rays of the sun.
Delhi mornings were beautiful and having breakfast with Roshini
was the perfect way to start the day. I got ready quickly, the cold
water in the hostel ensuring that my bathing time was limited. I
wore a new pair of pants and a new shirt which my mother had sent
with a relative who had happened to visit Delhi. It gave me quite the
look. Then I removed the shirt and changed into an old one. And
then I again changed into the new one. Hari in the meantime had got
up and was looking at me and was laughing.
This was the first time someone had actually said it. So far it had
been an unsaid thing between me and her, but this was the first time
someone had put it down in words. I looked at Hari, smiled, or
maybe blushed, and moved out of the room.
Roshini was to meet me at the campus gate. She used to live at
home but due to the fest had put up with one of her hostel friends.
We were to meet at 7:30 and I got there 10 minutes early. I was
waiting at the gate, looking out for her in between the clouds when
she appeared. Like a goddess. She was wearing a white salwaar kameez
which was camouflaged by the white fog, her hair were open and
were wet, first time I had seen them that way. She was around 25
metres from me and it appeared as if she was floating in the air, like
an angel, like a goddess. She was looking too pretty. She approached
me and for the first time, there was awkwardness between us. We did
not know whether to shake hands, give a little hug, or just say a
normal ‘hi ‘.
Not many words were exchanged as we left the campus gates and
towards the road. I was a big believer in letting the eyes do the talking,
maybe because I did not have the courage to speak. We stopped an
autorickshaw and got in.
The ride to CP from our hostel was a good 20 minutes. The cloth
on the side of the auto was down on account of the chilling cold and
it was as foggy as I had ever seen. When the ride started, we were
sitting on opposite sides of the auto. An unknown easiness had creeped
in between us over the past couple of weeks, and had culminated in
the morning, but it was not an uncomfortable uneasiness. It was a
beautiful uneasiness. We both knew there was something unsaid which
our eyes were communicating but our lips had not gathered courage
to say yet. And I knew that today, only eyes would not do the trick.
I moved a little towards her. She looked at me surprised. Then looked
down and then looked up again. The surprise then gave way to a
smile and I came even more close. I lifted my hand and put it behind
her, on the seat. She moved back and her back touched my hand.
The message had been given. I was just about to put my hand
around her when I heard a loud bang. We were stopped at a red light
and right next to us, sitting on a rickshaw, a girl had thrown a plastic
bottle of water on the windshield of a car.
The moment was lost. I got out of the auto to see what had
happened. All I could see was that a girl was running after a car, the
occupants of which I assume had tried to tease the girl and had got a
bottle of water on their windshield as a prize. The car zoomed away
and the girl, in full public, mouthed obscenities which I find difficult
to even reiterate. The girl had her hand in the air as if she was ready to
slap them but they had now run away. She then turned around and
got on the rickshaw. The poor rickshaw guy did not know what had
happened to him and was too stunned to move and as a result even
he got a mouthful. He started moving ahead.
She was in a pink dress. She was fair, had a dimpled chin which
gave a something special to her smile, long eyelashes, curly at the end,
like a princess would want them, kajal around her eyes, kajal to keep
away the bad omen from her beautiful face, a small parrot nose, which
twitched when she frowned, and black flowing hair, which I would
later know, she thought were brown.
The rest of the morning just passed. I was with Roshini, a girl
who I had feelings for and who also felt the same for me, in the
romantic winter of Delhi, in Connaught Place for breakfast. The
setting was perfect but nothing seemed to matter. I could not get
Shalini out of my head. The dimpled chin, the flowing tresses,
she brought back memories from an era which had been locked
in one corner of my heart but was suddenly opened. The way we
had first met, the way she had taken me to the train door, the way
we had our first conversation. My mind was too preoccupied and
Roshini was a little confused as to what had happened. She had
expected something to happen between me and her that morning,
she had expected me to tell her that I loved her and wanted her to
be more than just a friend. But I was completely lost in some
other thoughts.
We had our breakfast of sandwiches and coffee and were back in
the campus within an hour. Not many words were exchanged in the
whole period. Just silence, and not the good silence. This was the
awkward silence.
Hari was getting ready when I entered and he saw me and said
“You are in love.” I just smiled, fell on my bed, and went to sleep. I
had things to dream about. I got up around noon and lazed around
till the evening. My college had a cricket match in the evening and
Hari was playing, so I decided to see that. I knew Roshini might be
there and I was wondering as to what I would say to her. But I let it
be. I had to support my friend in the match. He was the only first
year guy in the team.
The match was a day night affair. We had installed flood lights in
the ground and the match started around 4 pm so that it could be
over before the fog set in. We were facing some other college from
Delhi. I was least interested in cricket but the atmosphere was electric.
Our team won the toss and had elected to bat. My usual friends used
to be Hari and Roshini. Hari was playing, so he was not there, and
there was this awkwardness with Roshini after the morning so we
just said ‘hi’ to each other and she left to be with her other friends. I
was sitting alone, in one corner, when someone came and sat right
next to me.
It felt as if everything stopped for a moment. The noises around
us, the lights, the chit chat of the people, the abuses on the field. It
seemed as if it was just me, and just her, just like the way we had first
talked, just like I had always imagined, just like how I wanted it to
be.
I had a moral obligation towards my friend Hari. I had to support
him by my presence but just then I saw him walking back towards
our team. I looked at the wicket, it was uprooted and the rival team
was celebrating. Our man had fallen first ball. “Let’s go” I said.
“It’s ok. In fact, it’s pretty nice. More than I could have asked for.
Honestly, more than what I deserved. I have always been lucky with
exams. My preparation was never that great that I could make it to
such a college. I just had a very good day.”
“So what are you studying here? Okay, don’t answer that. I am an
arts student and I like to maintain my distance from the sciences.
Plus I know you nerdy type of guys, once you start, you just don’t
stop. Leave what you are doing, tell me, it must be fun studying
about what you have always wanted all these years.”
“Fun? How can studying be fun? I am not doing this to have fun.
I am doing this for the things you said before. For a secure future. I
didn’t like studying when in school and believe me I hate it as much
right now. What I am doing is of no interest to me. What comes
after this is what I really want. The secure future, the long car, the big
house. You know. The happiness.”
She gave me such a puzzled and confused look. “So you are telling
me, that you do not enjoy what you are doing? That every day, you
do not wake up with the feeling that today, I am going to learn
something new about what I love.”
“No, I wake up groggy and sad that I have to goto college and
study physics and maths. I am not a big morning person, plus the
whole routine of classes till 5 pm really gets to you. So there is nothing
really to look forward to. In fact there is- the holidays.”