When I woke up this morning, I felt something unusual, as if I was racing thorough my life in a train leaving behind a collage of images of my home, my family, my dance class and my school friends. Was it because I would be turning 28 in week’s time? Or the desi bland air that was hung with smell of guava leaves and rain coming from my balcony? Or the letter I received from my alma mater of its 12th reunion? It was a Sunday morning of languor as I kept changing sides creating wrinkles on my bed, recalling those days gone by.
“Nilu”, her name was. How I smiled when I first saw her. A chubby girl with exactly two ponytails, her school bag stylishly resting on her right shoulder walked into the classroom. I wish I could relive those days of adolescence yet again but then I have to endure the time of pain that were hidden in my joyous childhood as well…
She had an unusual haughty vibes telling her early education was at some posh boarding school. Her skirt was neatly preened, not very short like those of Delhi girls and the contour of her spotless white shirt told, she had caressed the warmth of teenage life. I dint knew the first poem I penned up for her, would make her cheeks turn red … “Roses are s red, Violets are blue and now I See u, in everything I do…”
I kept thinking as my life was rewinding like that in a videocassette and picture frame around me turned into black and white. I started climbing down stairs from 4th floor of my apartment facing opposite direction, boarded train that zoomed in retrograded motion as if the last compartment was pulling its engine. In minutes time I hit my country road, I see the newly built malls turning to tea stalls, the tarred roads becoming earthly where sounds of morning fruit seller echoed. My mush starts turning smoother as if I had never shaved, I become more leaner and shorter and then there I was in St Paul’s school, exactly 12 years back, my last day before the boards. It was English class, when Father Thomas was construing the lines of Merchant of Venice and whose beard just turned black from grey as he became younger just like I did a few clocks back.
“Antonio: In sooth I know not, why I am so sad, it wearies me and you say it wearies you, but how I c aught it, found it or came by it, I am to learn…”
As Father was engrossed in teaching the excerpts of Shakespeare’s play, I was staring at him pretending to concentrate but moving my eye balls sideways tying to sneak into Nilu’s eye. As I was about to hurl a paper ball to her, Father knew there was something cooking as he eyed me up with ferocious steps, held my cheeks with his old stubby thumb and pulled it a zillion times. And then raining spit he hurled his clichéd words, which he had already uttered a thousand times…
“What’s wrong there?…Whaaaat is Wronnng there?”
“ You rotten sac of potato, don’t build castles in the air…I feel sorry for u !!! Study hard or else your carrier is ‘goona be marred”.
He continued reprimanding and I continued lending my ear bowing head down until the bell had gone for lunch.
In the break, at the corridor just outside the class, many students gathered. Some threw pranks laughing and pushing each other. Some just stared at the girls with budding round contour clad in tight sweaters and some for no reasons. Few paces away Nilu stood looking for a moment to console me. She looked beautiful as she came near me. Her white bra was thinly visible under her translucent shirt. It made me yearn for more. I waited for the school to call it a day, when I would meet her over a date and that would be more intimate unlike few furtive kisses earlier. I knew she would never say a “ No”. Nevertheless I cheated everybody eye as I nimbly handed over a chit asking her to meet me after the last period.
I ran to the football ground and so did all the guys. Yes, “Game’s” was our last period. It was battle between red house and blue house. All the twenty-four of us frantically ran after one ball. Some girls went for a stroll gossiping and some peeped us from the class window that over looked the ground. I saw Nilu stealing a glance from the sidelines of one of the window. Her boy friend was not less too. He was an exhibitionist and boastful. When I had a chance I dribbled the ball first left and then right, hopped it more forward, fumbling to beat another one but some one from behind always snatched the ball. I used to whack the ground in abject but Nilu would giggle cupping her nose enjoying my hopelessness .It did not matter to her whether I was a “Pele” at the game or a mediocre, after all she had fallen in love with a guy who cuddled her and kissed her at times she was most forlorn, talked whenever she needed him and when she was happy, he multiplied.
Finally the last period called it a quit, as I waited for Nilu in an abandoned room just behind Father’s quarter. It was sheltered with unlimited mangroves from the top and school boundary wall from behind that just separated our school from the railway track. This was the most risk fully safest place at the bay of our campus. Safe because no one dared to saunter at the circumference of father’s quarter and risky because after all it was by the shadow our principal’s home…
Each second of her delay made me more restless. The hands of my clock ticked as fast as the beat of my heart and there she was tiptoeing towards the most mysterious place of our school. Her almond like eyes gloomed like never before. Thoughts of the afternoon stormed my mind as her pony-tailed head lay on my lap. I cleaved a few stands of her hair and kissed the black mole on her nape. We lay among the dusty bench as my hand trailed on every detail of her neck and shoulders. I unbuttoned her top as I saw the strap of her bra that firmly shaped her authenticate curves. My heart pounded unusually faster and our breath became shallower.
“You fool, did you locked the door”, gasped Nilu as I saw twinkle in her eyes. I dint not wish to offend her as I run and twisted the lever of the door. We had devised our indigenous of locking the door from outside.
She looked more tired today as there were streaks of perspiration on her chubby cheeks-but that only made her look more stunning. Even I reeked of the playground smell as my temples were smeared with dust. But where do these impurities matter when your are in love. I kissed her forehead, her eyes, her lips and I dint knew when I had cuddled her bosom. She did not stop me for sure. I set aside her necklace and left a trace of my wetness on the lines of her neck and more below. My hands then fondled her back in circles as I unhooked her bra.
This was the last time Nilu was so close to me. The door which was confidently locked from outside was cruelly broken and there stood a tall figure named Father Thomas with a fury in his eye. We froze with terror and the next morning there was a letter of or suspension on his table. I picked up mine as I kept mulling over the tragedy of errors.
There were many days unfolded since then and after the boards I tried to contact Nilu… But each of my phone call were received with silence and every letter of mine were unanswered.
To be continued….
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