On the Valentines...

14th feb has never been fruitful for me. So I always dream about it as I cant really do much about it. But I guess it will be fun to share a story which is well, a nice read, though it has no relation to the famed 14th feb, i dont have such luck :P Though I think it is an interesting story none the less and has love angle, BIG TIME...So here it goes..

The spirits were high that day. After all Deewali was nearing and all the guys were going home after a long gap. All the lads were unusually happy. The atmosphere in the hostel was like nothing we had seen in past few months. So here I was , with lads,in 129,packing my stuff and eating left over namkeen from the previous night. I was the first to leave as I had to take a different bus than and the whole group was to take another bus some time later. So they were all helping me out with my packing and the bonhomie was rare. My things were not been thrown, not a book being taken out of my bag so I was quite, dont know wat..

Anyways, so we got hold of my belongings and went outside. Now these friends of mine, how could they be so generous, I still have no idea to the day. As I was signing the attendance register at the hostel gates, my eyes fell upon a girl, coming from the girls hostel side, carrying a handbag. I had not seen her, ever in the college, and she was quite pretty. None of my friends saw her coming and she stopped by chat with some other girl. So I did some quick thinking. What if by any chance she is also going my way? So I hurriedly signed the book and asked my gang to leave and I told them that I will go alone from there. But those rascals, dont know what had got into them. They were hell bent on not leaving me alone and pushed and wheeled my protesting frame all the way to the college gates. She was still talking to the girl till that time. So I thought, okay, i still have time. But I had underestimated my lads. I mean, they were getting all so worked up, trying to stop each and every vehicle and they finally pushed me on a TRACTOR and I was transported to the bus stop, alone, with that girl nowhere in site.

Thanks to my gang, I was standing there, feeling like kicked away by friends in the time of need.Anyways, I was not going to give up. I decided to wait for her. I left one bus, I left another, all in all I let go 3 buses while waiting for her, with crowds mounting with each passing bus. And finally, she came in all her glory in a jam packed auto rikshaw and I sensed she was alone. So it finally felt like a win win situation.Then the bus came.My prayers were answered as she hopped on to the same bus and sat next to me. Deewali for me had started and how ! After ten minutes of not looking at her, I turned towards her to start a conversation and the first blow struck.

Its hard to imagine to sleep on a short bus ride, on a bumpy road and there she was sleeping, with head resting on the bag in her lap. How could she? I mean that was one crowded bus and it was hard to sit in there as well. But she managed the impossible, girls always do that. So I sat back, planning my next move with Udit Narayan, singing "aye ajnabi" in my ears. We were both to get off at some intermediate stop to change the buses, that much I had gathered when she asked the conductor for tickets. So the plan was to start a conversation at the stop and carry it to our destinations, which I was hoping to be same.

So finally after 40 minutes of agony and Udit Narayan and Sonu Nigam, the stop came and we got off. Now was the chance. I knew I had to do it now, it was now or never. I had never started a random conversation with an unknown girl, so I started to get freaked out. 10 minutes were wasted and somehow I had a feeling she knew that I was looking at her with my uneven and low confidence gaze for some time now. And then came the opportunity...

The roadside vendors always crib about the change. An unsaid rule in these parts of world is that one should always carry some small currency while traveling. But this girl had not followed it and I was going to gain from it, I had to. So when the kurkure wala started to argue with her over the change, I started to move towards them with the solution in my pockets, hope in my heart and stars in my eyes. Finally, I thought, a chance was there and I had to take it. And then the death blow struck...Shut !

When you are going to help the girl of your dreams when she needs you the most, you dont expect a heavy and a very very very familiar voice calling out your name in a crowded place. I mean lets face it, who does? So I decided to ignore the voice and kept on moving. But the voice got even louder now and more urgent as well. I decided to have a look. And when I turned my face, I was confused, shocked, amazed, horrified, terrified and all those feelings which a guy can feel, when he sees his elder brother, hanging from the door of a slow moving bus, shouting at top of his voice, waving frantically and asking the conductor to stop so that his dear little brother can join him. Just imagine the visual. Only 1 thing came to my mind, "bro, what the hell are you doing in this bus, you are not supposed to be here and for god's sake where the hell is your car?" And why do you have to be here only now. And all I could utter while shuffling my face between the girl and my bro was a feeble "bhaiya, hi" . And I was pulled into the moving bus by an outstretched arm of my bade bhaiya. Hell, I was not even able to look at her face for one last time. I say it one last time, because that was the last time, I saw that girl. I gathered she was just there to visit some one. So I left with bhaiya, talking of how bored he was feeling in the bus so far and how slow the driver was and all...And I never had a chance even to ask her name..

So thats a story, which I will remember all my life. No matter how I hard I try whenever I am going to see my bro, I will be reminded of the cruel game that my bro, that kurkure wala and fate played with me. My gang and my bro, they dont know that in trying to be so benevolent what they did to me :P And never again I met anyone remotely related to me in buses or the places I dont expect them to bump into me. And for my gang, they were never so happy again I guess, I never again got to see their senti side :P

The quote by Chetan Bhagat's FPSO seems so accurate here
Life screws you when you least expect it to do so.
cheers to life :)