The Girl I Loved

It was the monsoon of 2003 and as it drizzled outside I made my way into a coaching classroom full of chattering students of the 10^th grade. There were several new faces and a few familiar ones as well. I found a place to sit near my school pal. The teacher made her way in and we settled down. She hurriedly started off with the roll call which was to be followed by an introduction of the student whose number was called out. It was nice to know about the unknown ones but some of them were actually a turn off. The teacher called out ‘23’; the door of the class flung open and a feminine voice spoke ‘Yes ma’am’.

It was a typical entry like that of an actress in a movie who is late for class. At first, I couldn’t see who she was from where I was seated but as she moved in she was entirely visible. The girl standing there was fidgeting with her crimson bag and was trying to get her long semi wet hair off her face. A little rain droplet was trickling down her forehead and reached her brows, which were twitched with nervousness. She had big black almond eyes and a perfectly shaped nose with a larger bulging tip. Her cheeks were as pink as that of a Russian new born, and as plumper. Her clean face had an unimaginable glow.

‘Your name?’ the teacher enquired.

‘Vidhi, ma’am.’ She grinned.

The trickling droplet had now rolled down to the right side of the upper lip and was resting there. She was allowed late in class as it was the first day. Vidhi was dressed in a scarlet half sleeved top and a red and black polka dotted skirt with frills. She searched for a place to settle down and I only wished that she would sit next to me. But she didn’t. Throughout the span of the lecture my eyes rolled from a string of hair falling on her forehead to the Priyanka Chopra like pouted lips of hers. There was something about her, something that I’d never felt like even after looking at the ultimate beauties. At the end of the lecture the teacher asked Vidhi to introduce herself and she did so with admirable elegance.

I spent the 1^st week of the class by just looking at her in admiration. She sent out positive vibes that were good enough to make a dead lily alive. I felt refreshed and relaxed in her presence just like one feels when there is a fresh supply of oxygen in a suffocating closed room. More than the beauty, her innocence and simplicity attracted me. I tried to make an effort to sit next to her but somehow never got lucky. Unluckily, both I and Vidhi were separated by the division of the class in 2 batches for English, Math and Science because of new admissions, and the class wasn’t big enough to accommodate too many students. However, on the other hand, I considered myself lucky because we both were in the same class for Social Sciences which happened once a week. Every week I’d try talking to her and one fine day things fell in place and we spoke. It was a nice little conversation and slowly we got familiar to each other.

‘You know I’m not good with girls, I come from an all boys’ convent’. I told her.

‘And I’m from an all girls’ convent’. She replied.

I’d laugh about this to myself as we both were so shy and everything remained all so formal between us. My feelings continued to get stronger for her and I always had a gleam of hope that someday we would really know each other well, and something would spark off between us.

On the 5^th of September that year, our professor played a few games with us on the occasion of Teachers’ Day, when no one wanted to study. There was a couples’ game where we boys and girls had to act as quickly as possible as instructed by our professor and the slowest couple would get eliminated. I didn’t want to volunteer to play the game, however, when I saw Vidhi getting out of her seat I jumped out of my own hoping that we’d be chosen as a couple for the game. But to my distaste the professor gave her to another guy and I got another friend. Ironically, we were the 2 couples to reach the finals and I won but I wanted to win the game with Vidhi. Winning didn’t feel good as Vidhi was disappointed and I really felt bad for her. Nonetheless, we bonded well after the game finished.

Just a week later, I fell off the 1^st floor and got my leg fractured, and had to spend 2 days in the I.C.U. and 52 days on the bed. During this entire phase I would sometimes forget about my pain and I’d find myself in the class sitting beside Vidhi, talking to her, in my dreams. Surprisingly my feelings strengthened for her despite being away from her and that was the period when I first felt that I’d fallen in love. I knew it couldn’t be true, I thought that at the age of 14 it might be infatuation or at least I had heard people saying that teenage love is not real. Whatever it was, it was untainted.

When I got back to normal it was Diwali time so there was no scope of meeting up with my friends, and even Vidhi. The Social Sciences portion was almost over by the time I started going to the tutorial again. This left me barely any chance to meet her.

In no time the board exams were near and I’d not met her even once since my fracture days. I lamented about the fact that we didn’t have surnames with the same initials, which would have put us in the same exam centre. The board exams got over and we chose our own paths and there was no way I could contact her since there was no Facebook or Orkut back then. I was too gutless to ask for her number directly or from friends.

2 years passed by and I was unaware about her, what she was doing and where she lived. It was painful as I couldn’t even see her once in that entire period; 2years = 730 days = 17,520 hours of excruciating pain. My feelings for her had reached the peak and I knew it was love surely as I never felt the same for other girls assuming that I was cheating on Vidhi.

On the 26^th of December, 2005, I was with my friends when I spotted a much more beautiful and matured Vidhi, with her family at a mall and I went on and spoke to her. Most of the baby fat had vanished but I could still see the same innocence on her face. I couldn’t talk much and felt shy to ask for her number in her family’s presence. My heart was beating a thousand times faster and I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. My friend Tanya had a tough time urging me to make a positive and an effective move as she knew about Vidhi but all that went in vain. We had to go since we had booked tickets for a movie in the same mall and so it was time out for me.

I could see her in the actress throughout the movie and felt helpless and stupid for not asking her number. When I went back home I couldn’t concentrate on anything but her. I decided to vent my feelings about her in a letter conveying how much I loved her. On January 3, 2006 I wrote a 9 page long letter and always kept the letter in my wallet expecting that I’d bump into her someday and get lucky.

I met her at a local stationery shop in February but she was with her mother so couldn’t give her the letter. Then, 5 months later, I met her at a college where we both were filling up forms for our B.M.S. admissions. She was with a common friend Raj, and I had the letter with me, but I don’t know why I couldn’t pluck up the courage to just give away the letter. We spoke for nearly 10 minutes but I couldn’t just do it, chiefly in the presence of the friend. Vidhi couldn’t get into that college as she felt short of a few marks. This took away whatever hope was left.

3 months later we met incidentally at a restaurant. This time we both were with our own set of friends and I decided to hand over the letter come what may. I waved and approached her and as I went on to remove my wallet I reminisced that the letter got drenched in the bloody untimely rains 2 days back and was tattered. I cursed myself and felt like tearing my hair off and jumping off a cliff.

April 2008, I met Raj, we had a long chat about old times and I told him about Vidhi. He was shocked to hear that and told me that Vidhi had got into a relationship just a month back. It felt like a fully grown elephant had fallen on me from the sky or a million bullets shot from point blank range pierced my heart at once. I was totally devastated and felt alike my shredded letter.

I would consider myself a fool to blame Vidhi for whatever happened then and the things I went through, for she never knew about my feelings. I have only myself to blame, and probably the unfortunate events of my life. The story might have been different had I handed over the letter. But the fact that I could never give it to her will always haunt me. I will always regret the fact that I could not know her as much as I wished to. I hope she has a great life and enjoys every bit of it with lots of love to savour, and yes, she will for eternity be ‘The Girl I Loved’!!!!

P.S. : Forgive my mawkishness people, this is close to my heart.