(This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance with a living/dead person is not intended. So please do not make public guesses about who the characters are.)
“Hi. Well…actually I had something to…actually I need a favour. Can you please come down to the college foyer? It’s urgent.”
“Yup. Just a minute. I’ll be there.”
Mandy put the receiver down. He was feeling nothing. It happens always when you have a multitude of thoughts and emotions to handle.
He had some time before he could see her coming from the hostel. He ambled restlessly towards the college gate.
Usually, he would carry his I-card and promptly show it to the security guard. Today, he had forgotten it. He went past the guard just looking into his eyes. The guard couldn’t ask him anything.
He breathed a long sigh as he approached the foyer. He involuntarily went to the concrete bench he’d thought suitable.
He was sitting with his back to the road that came from the hostel. It was quite pleasant at this time in the campus. Some known faces passed by and waved. Mandy just winked sufficient enough not to invite anyone to talk – people have this habit of eating up other’s time when they are idle. It was the month of February and there were no exams due for two months.
His eyes kept on turning back. The road appeared the only thing that mattered to him tonight. The moonlight in the backdrop and the yellow glare created by the sodium street lights made him feel mixed in his mind. It was too difficult to handle the two ideas together – one, of the relaxed, positive and infinite mood of the moonlight; the other, of the constrained focus of the lamps.
His shoes felt heavier to him, hanging down to his legs.
And there she was, carrying a wallet in her hand. She was wearing her night pyjamas and a round neck T-shirt.
He forced a smile as she apprehensively smiled back and sat next to him.
“Well…nothing to….huh….I don’t know how to start this but see…..there’s something I need your help in.”
“Hey. Anytime yaar. Tell me.”
“Actually, I need your help for….and you are….like…..you can do something about it. The thing is……there’s a girl I like very much.”
Her look changed immediately. She kept her wallet aside, folded her knees towards her chest and locked her arms around them. The apprehension in her eyes changed to curious attention: ’Mandy talking about a girl and that too calling me down unusually….I need to make him feel comfortable….’
She smiled. Her eyes gave him a go ahead to narrate her, his problem.
“See…why I called you down is because…..There’s a girl I like very much. I don’t say ‘I love very much’ cuz love is when its from both sides. I…I just like her very much. Initially, I never had any plan sort of, that this is the girl and I want her or something. Simply, she was the most beautiful girl for me at the first sight. In one of the college cultural events, I happened to interact with her.”
“Then there were some small encounters that made me really admire her as a person….as in…she is so sweet and caring….much like you are….I don’t know about other girls.”
“I just cant stop thinking about her. Actually, I had thought of telling this to her directly….but I don’t know how she will react. I sort of tend to eat up my words and forget my lines in her presence.”
“So the thing is…you have to…please….tell her that I like her – I just can’t think of anyone else so nice. Its actually getting on my mind and I need to shed off that load….there’s no point in consuming yourself like this….I mean, I become hollow at times.”
“Will you tell this to her?”
“Who’s she?” Her eyes were blushing – seeing such a fervent call.
“It’s you”.
There was a deep sigh and then a long silence. None of them seemed to break it. There was an abrupt brake applied, a deafening silence followed.
Her grip on her folded legs loosened and her hair fell down in smooth pleats. Her attentive eyes were now lost into something.
“Did you see it coming….when I was telling all that?” Mandy broke the silence with a foolish look on his face. He was clueless as to what would happen. His thinking process had stalled the instant he uttered ‘It’s you’.
She let a deep breath pass and said,”Yes.” And then she smiled. The smile had more of a hint of admiration than any other feeling.
“Actually….whatever I said is……sorry...I used such a gimmick…but…..I feel so much light now. Whatever I said was so much my thought process since so many days. And I wanted to tell you each time I saw you. I don’t know how you react now…but this is it.”
“I didn’t tell this to you to propose you or something. Just I wanted you to know this. How you react is so much secondary now. The fact, that I admire someone so much and now I don’t have to hide it or suffer under the pressure of hiding it, is sufficient to keep me happy.
Mandy was lost and floating. His eyes had become calm. They looked as if they had survived a torrent – suffered in the process – but still survived by the grace of the lease he had given himself, by facing and embracing the torrent.
She soothed the weary soul by her kind reply. She told him that even she liked a boy in her school and had been through all this. She acknowledged that she admired and celebrated the feeling of someone’s love for someone.
Mandy was relaxed now. They had a long chat like fellows of the same clan. He told her his stories, of how he had composed poems on love and how he would get repelled from good food thinking about her eating hostel food everyday.
He told her how he had sleepless nights and how pure his feelings were – burnished, and out of the furnace where every vice, every random thought is destroyed and what remains is a pure substance.
An hour had passed when they realized it was time to depart. Mandy looked into her eyes, gave a smile and captured the gay and innocent twinkle in her eyes.
He started walking out towards the gate. The guard observed him walk past and felt as if he had seen a moment of truth.
Out of the gate Mandy started walking, his pace increasing gradually, his heavy shoes acting like propellers. He was running now at a decent pace.
His thoughts had been streamlined.
He didn’t feel exhausted and continued to run. People coming in his way, dividers and vehicles on the road didn’t appear to him as obstacles. He ran home.
Reaching his home he walked past his invisible room-mates and collapsed on the bed.
He was not crying. He was too ecstatic to control his tears. In sudden sprouts of smiles in between his sobs, he communicated the thing to his roomies.
Some moments passed and it was all silence. All were floating in their own world. Like after a torrential rain – everything becomes quiet, Mandy lay still on his bed.
He thought of all those he knew who liked/loved someone. He saw all of them sailing in the same boat as he did, as she did, as everyone in the world did.
“Yup. Just a minute. I’ll be there.”
Mandy put the receiver down. He was feeling nothing. It happens always when you have a multitude of thoughts and emotions to handle.
He had some time before he could see her coming from the hostel. He ambled restlessly towards the college gate.
Usually, he would carry his I-card and promptly show it to the security guard. Today, he had forgotten it. He went past the guard just looking into his eyes. The guard couldn’t ask him anything.
He breathed a long sigh as he approached the foyer. He involuntarily went to the concrete bench he’d thought suitable.
He was sitting with his back to the road that came from the hostel. It was quite pleasant at this time in the campus. Some known faces passed by and waved. Mandy just winked sufficient enough not to invite anyone to talk – people have this habit of eating up other’s time when they are idle. It was the month of February and there were no exams due for two months.
His eyes kept on turning back. The road appeared the only thing that mattered to him tonight. The moonlight in the backdrop and the yellow glare created by the sodium street lights made him feel mixed in his mind. It was too difficult to handle the two ideas together – one, of the relaxed, positive and infinite mood of the moonlight; the other, of the constrained focus of the lamps.
His shoes felt heavier to him, hanging down to his legs.
And there she was, carrying a wallet in her hand. She was wearing her night pyjamas and a round neck T-shirt.
He forced a smile as she apprehensively smiled back and sat next to him.
“Well…nothing to….huh….I don’t know how to start this but see…..there’s something I need your help in.”
“Hey. Anytime yaar. Tell me.”
“Actually, I need your help for….and you are….like…..you can do something about it. The thing is……there’s a girl I like very much.”
Her look changed immediately. She kept her wallet aside, folded her knees towards her chest and locked her arms around them. The apprehension in her eyes changed to curious attention: ’Mandy talking about a girl and that too calling me down unusually….I need to make him feel comfortable….’
She smiled. Her eyes gave him a go ahead to narrate her, his problem.
“See…why I called you down is because…..There’s a girl I like very much. I don’t say ‘I love very much’ cuz love is when its from both sides. I…I just like her very much. Initially, I never had any plan sort of, that this is the girl and I want her or something. Simply, she was the most beautiful girl for me at the first sight. In one of the college cultural events, I happened to interact with her.”
“Then there were some small encounters that made me really admire her as a person….as in…she is so sweet and caring….much like you are….I don’t know about other girls.”
“I just cant stop thinking about her. Actually, I had thought of telling this to her directly….but I don’t know how she will react. I sort of tend to eat up my words and forget my lines in her presence.”
“So the thing is…you have to…please….tell her that I like her – I just can’t think of anyone else so nice. Its actually getting on my mind and I need to shed off that load….there’s no point in consuming yourself like this….I mean, I become hollow at times.”
“Will you tell this to her?”
“Who’s she?” Her eyes were blushing – seeing such a fervent call.
“It’s you”.
There was a deep sigh and then a long silence. None of them seemed to break it. There was an abrupt brake applied, a deafening silence followed.
Her grip on her folded legs loosened and her hair fell down in smooth pleats. Her attentive eyes were now lost into something.
“Did you see it coming….when I was telling all that?” Mandy broke the silence with a foolish look on his face. He was clueless as to what would happen. His thinking process had stalled the instant he uttered ‘It’s you’.
She let a deep breath pass and said,”Yes.” And then she smiled. The smile had more of a hint of admiration than any other feeling.
“Actually….whatever I said is……sorry...I used such a gimmick…but…..I feel so much light now. Whatever I said was so much my thought process since so many days. And I wanted to tell you each time I saw you. I don’t know how you react now…but this is it.”
“I didn’t tell this to you to propose you or something. Just I wanted you to know this. How you react is so much secondary now. The fact, that I admire someone so much and now I don’t have to hide it or suffer under the pressure of hiding it, is sufficient to keep me happy.
Mandy was lost and floating. His eyes had become calm. They looked as if they had survived a torrent – suffered in the process – but still survived by the grace of the lease he had given himself, by facing and embracing the torrent.
She soothed the weary soul by her kind reply. She told him that even she liked a boy in her school and had been through all this. She acknowledged that she admired and celebrated the feeling of someone’s love for someone.
Mandy was relaxed now. They had a long chat like fellows of the same clan. He told her his stories, of how he had composed poems on love and how he would get repelled from good food thinking about her eating hostel food everyday.
He told her how he had sleepless nights and how pure his feelings were – burnished, and out of the furnace where every vice, every random thought is destroyed and what remains is a pure substance.
An hour had passed when they realized it was time to depart. Mandy looked into her eyes, gave a smile and captured the gay and innocent twinkle in her eyes.
He started walking out towards the gate. The guard observed him walk past and felt as if he had seen a moment of truth.
Out of the gate Mandy started walking, his pace increasing gradually, his heavy shoes acting like propellers. He was running now at a decent pace.
His thoughts had been streamlined.
He didn’t feel exhausted and continued to run. People coming in his way, dividers and vehicles on the road didn’t appear to him as obstacles. He ran home.
Reaching his home he walked past his invisible room-mates and collapsed on the bed.
He was not crying. He was too ecstatic to control his tears. In sudden sprouts of smiles in between his sobs, he communicated the thing to his roomies.
Some moments passed and it was all silence. All were floating in their own world. Like after a torrential rain – everything becomes quiet, Mandy lay still on his bed.
He thought of all those he knew who liked/loved someone. He saw all of them sailing in the same boat as he did, as she did, as everyone in the world did.
