Pehla Nasha

It was one of those subjects you would rather forget in school. I was no different, I had as much interest in the subject as a cat would have in taking a dip in water. I mean its just not natural for a teenage boy who loved nothing better than being on the football field to sit and learn that. As was natural for all students in Trivandrum at that time I too went to a coaching class. The logic was simple, if you flunked you had someone other than yourself to blame.

I knew her from sometime back. She had struck me as one of those overtly lively people, so lively that once she actually picked up a snail to admire it. All of 14 years at that time I couldn’t let her get away that, could I?? No sir. I too admired the slime sliding off its back and I still remember eating with a spoon for a week after that. That is another story for another time.

The tuition classroom was designed in the shape of a “T” with the teacher standing at the intersection. There was a big gang of us and we sat directly opposite the girls (some amount of segregation was prevalent; Trivandrum hasn’t yet managed to escape from its conservative straightjacket). So one fine day as I sat and perfunctorily glanced across, I caught her eye. Its hard to describe what one feels in such instances but somehow I kept staring. I didn’t see her face just those eyes glued to mine and like one of the charmed cobras or like a dumb dog or like a drug hazed junkie my glance never strayed. If it was a Hindi film, the whole class would have risen up in song and dance and I would have probably kissed her on her neck. Hmmm

The accident blossomed into a true infatuation. It became so much of a routine that the first thing I did in each class was to pick her out from the crowd. Unlike those space flicks contacting Houston was not a problem; our frequencies were perfectly tuned. But I could never muster the courage to speak to her outside class. I was afraid that the one thing that I looked forward to every week would somehow be lost.

Unlike a bollywood film there was no happy endings (life s not like OSO). One day she stopped looking and then I……………………………………..............