11
I did not go straight to my house, I was in an irritable mood and did not want to face the questions of my parents and my brother. They would have easily made out from my expression that something was wrong with me. I raced past my flat and went to another good friend of mine. His name was Swaranjeet Singh and he was studying medicine. On teaching his place, I called out his name and he came out immediately.
“Lalit, what a pleasant surprise, it is very rare of you to come to my place. What brings you here today?”
“Swarn, are you free?’
‘Of course I am, I am always free for you”
“What about taking a walk with me?”
Sure, why not?” He went inside briefly, most probably to inform his parents that he was going out. His father was also in the income tax department.
I parked my bicycle at his place and off we went. We reached the circular road of the colony, the road which went around the play ground. We were walking on the side of the road on which Anita’s flat was situated.
“So Lalit, how are things? You sang quite well last night”
“Thanks but that is not what I want to talk to you about”
“I can see something is bothering you, what is it?”
“Do you know Anita Suri?”
“Of course I do, every boy in the colony knows her, I am sure” Was he also going to tell me what I had already heard from Jayesh and Prakash?”
“What do you mean, every boy knows her?”
“Lalit she is the most beautiful girl in the colony and that is the answer to your question”
“How well do you know her?”
“We are family friends” Oh no, another family friend, I was sick of these family friends!
“What do you mean family friends?”
“Apart from her father and my father being colleagues, her elder brother is a very good friend of mine. But why are you interested in Anita?”
“What kind of a girl is she?”
“What do you mean what kind of a girl, what kind of a question is that?”
“I mean her nature etc”
“Lalit, I know you very well, you are not the type who asks questions about girls. As a matter of fact this is the first time you have talked about a girl of the colony. I smell something fishy.”
“Swarn, I saw her last night and it was love at first sight”
“Love at first sight, Ha HA Ha, what a joke!” He started laughing uproariously. By this time, we were walking exactly in front of Anita’s house. My heart missed a beat when I saw her standing on the balcony. She was wearing a sky blue salwar suit and looking even more beautiful than she had been yesterday.
“Hello Bhayya” She waved at Swarn, didn’t bother to look at me and why would she? I was a total stranger to her. Swarn returned the greetings and we moved on.
“Lalit, Anita is a very nice girl, very friendly by nature and although she is eighteen or nineteen, she is still a child at heart” These words of his were a breath of fresh air for me, at last I had heard someone speak positively of her.
“Let’s turn back’,” I said abruptly. I didn’t give him a chance to respond and turned back, he had no choice but to follow me. Anita was still standing on the balcony but she did not bother to spare a glance for us.
“ Lalit, if you are really in love with her, which I doubt, I would suggest that you forget her”
“Why should I forget her?”
‘Her parents are thinking of getting her married off the moment she completes her graduation and that is only a year from now. They are already looking for a suitable match for her. Moreover, they (the parents) are very strict when it comes to inter caste or inter community marriages, so you don’t stand a chance. It will only result in heart break for you” What was this happening? This was the third person who was asking me to stay away from Anita, albeit for different reasons. It looked like some kind of an international conspiracy, a conspiracy hatched to see to it that Anita and I stayed away from each other.
I walked with Swarn up to his place, took my bicycle and headed for home. When I neared Anita’s place, I looked up nervously and this time she was looking at me, it may have been a cursory glance but I was glad she had taken some notice of me.
Three of my close friends had asked me or rather warned me to stay away from Anita. Two of them said she was not a nice girl to know and the third one gave a completely different reason. To be or not to be, that was the question. Whom should I trust or should I trust anyone at all? Did Jayesh have his own axe to grind? For all I knew he also might be in love with her or he might be harbouring some amorous intentions in his heart? I knew Prakash was a an out and out flirt and also a charmer. He was not very good looking but he had a way with girls. He had numerous girlfriends and he had no scruples when it came to hurting the feelings of girls. Once he had made a girl pregnant and then paid for her abortion. I remember how shattered that girl had been. In spite of his womanizing, I liked him because he was honest and frank with me and admitted to his weaknesses, saying he could not help it. I used to give him lots of sermons; he would listen but carry on with his errant ways. Was he trying to work his charm on Anita? Who knows he may have already succeeded? The very thought made me sick. I was convinced he had an ulterior motive behind his efforts to keep Anita away from me? What could Jayesh’s motive be? I did not believe he had any love interest in Anita, maybe he had really heard rumours about her, that was possible, wasn’t it?
If I kept on thinking like this, I would certainly go mad. It was my problem and I must solve it myself. I did not need the help of any of my friends. I decided to act on my own; I would do whatever I felt was right without taking anyone into confidence. My immediate problem was to find a way to talk to Anita. How would I do that? The very first thing I did was to keep a track of her movements. I would stand on the verandah of my house and keep my eyes glued to the road. A week of this and I came to know what time she left for college and also what time she returned. It became a habit now, I was there when she went to college and I was there when she returned. Only a foolish girl would have thought that I was there by coincidence. It was obvious she had become aware of my presence. In modern language this would be called stalking, stalking, not in the virtual world but in the real one. And then came the bombshell!
One day, when she was returning from college, she suddenly stopped, got off her bicycle and walked straight up to me. There she was, the girl whom I had been in love for almost a month now, standing right in front of me. My heart started thumping against my chest. What would she say? I could not see any anger on her face; her features were soft and her face almost expressionless.
“What the hell do you think you are doing? If you don’t stop all this nonsense, I will go straight up to your parents and tell them you are bothering me no end” With these chilling words, she stomped off, leaving me gaping!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment