Like It Happened Yesterday (12 page)

It didn’t take too long for my dream to come true. It happened moments before the zero period, when the peon brought a circular to our class. The teacher read it out. There were names in it of the students who were going to participate in the Annual Day.

I was one among them!

For the next two weeks, the most awaited period of the day was the zero period. There were just the three of us for compèring—Nikita from Class VIII for the English speech, I for the Hindi one and my beloved teacher!

We would meet every day. We would prepare our speeches, and then make adjustments. We would take the updated ones and see how to make the transition from the Hindi speech to English, and back to Hindi. The entire
event list had to be divided between Nikita and me, so that we could focus on it better. We both were very competitive and constantly bickered if the other got the chance to take up a particular event, so we would toss a coin. Ma’am would simply laugh at our childishness, but her smile and her shining teeth were killer!

To get a better grip on the flow of compèring, all three of us would rehearse together. At times, by mistake, we would end up saying something funny or making a mistake that would make us all laugh. We felt like a family. With every passing day, I was getting addicted to English Ma’am’s company. My whole purpose of going to school was reduced to interacting with her in the zero period. Everything she said was like God’s words for me. Everything she asked me to do was a mission, and had to be accomplished in the best way possible.

My mornings, too, had turned beautiful. While I got ready for school, I took great pains to make sure I was neat and presentable, so that she would notice me and give me yet another beautiful smile. I would make sure that my pants were properly creased, and would get very irritated if they weren’t. On reaching school, I would take a round of the primary school’s prayer wing just to be able to see her and make a note of what she was wearing that day. It felt nice to catch a glimpse of her in the morning. It almost became my ritual to do so. I believed her face made my morning turn auspicious.

On the days I didn’t see her, I felt like something in my day was left incomplete. One day, when I found her missing in the zero period, I ran to the class teacher’s room looking for her. I was told that she was absent that day. I was sorely disappointed. After the whole day of waiting to see her, the news of her absence had left me in agony.

I also felt something that I had never felt earlier in my life. I missed her—terribly. In her absence, there seemed to be a vacuum, as if everything had lost colour and life. The computer lab appeared like a dead room without her. The whole idea of Annual Day appeared meaningless without her. My presence in that school without her appeared so unreasonable. In just six days of interaction, she had become a habit for me. I missed her smile, her talking, her face and the beautiful clothes she used to wear. When Saturday came, I could not believe that the next time I would see her would only be on Monday.

I had an awful weekend. Time—which had been running so fast for the past entire week—was now, all of a sudden, crawling. Every minute of that Sunday passed like an hour. Everything around me appeared boring, even my own parents. I didn’t feel like eating, and sleep, too, was miles away from my eyes. Tinku called me to watch TV with him when he found me sitting alone in our open courtyard. I said no. He asked me the reason why I was so lost. I told him he wouldn’t understand.

That lifeless weekend confirmed one thing to me. I was in
love! The better-sounding words to describe that feeling would have been ‘infatuation’ or ‘crush’, but they had not made it to my dictionary by then.

I felt like I was a different person altogether. While other boys from my class were interested in the short skirts of girls of their age in the convent school, I was dreaming of romancing my teacher!
How on earth had I become that crazy?
Guess it takes all sorts to make this world.

That Sunday night I kept tossing and turning in my bed. I was waiting for the sun to rise. I rushed through the morning routine to reach school. I was way too early, and had to sit outside the entrance gate. I kept waiting for the arrival of the school bus at the main gate. The moment that happened, I stood up. My eyes were right on the front gate of the bus. One by one, everyone got down—first the students and then the teachers.

Yes! There she was!

And, suddenly, I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me. It was as if the blood choked in my veins had begun to circulate again through my body. Her presence had fuelled life back into me.

Monday finally filled in the void that Sunday had created. The rest of the week was also full of fun.

Finally, it was the day we had been practising for all this while. It was the Annual Day.

I had borrowed a black suit and a red tie from Sushil for this day. English Ma’am had told me to go for that colour, while Nikita was supposed to wear a red sari. I guess she was wearing her mother’s. She had told me that she was getting a new blouse, but the sari was old.

I reached the school by 4 p.m. The event was scheduled for 6. The whole school was buzzing with activity. On one hand, the stage was getting the final touches; on the other hand, there was chaos in the green room behind it. My life was much easier than many of the other participants, since I didn’t need a fake beard or a bald head or any other prop. I just had to be myself. And I was all set to impress everyone in my borrowed suit and tie.

At 5.30 p.m. English Ma’am arrived, looking for both of us. I saw her from far away and ran towards the stage to impress her. She saw me running towards her. She waved at me and asked me to slow down. But how could I have slowed down! In that black suit, I felt as if I was going to take her to my prom night.

‘You look dashing, Ravinder!’ she said, and put her hand on my shoulder.

I looked at her hand on my body, and then at her face, and then took in the whole of her. She looked stunning in that golden-black sari. She had left her hair open. Her lips had a wet gloss and her perfume was magical. She looked
taller in her heels. Her small blouse offered a nice view of her slender waist.

She was like … Okay, I wanted to marry her.

‘Thank you, Ma’am,’ I said, quite blankly, as I didn’t know how to react.

‘What happened?’ she narrowed her eyes and asked me with a naughty smile.

‘You look so beautiful, Ma’am!’ I gushed.

‘Oh … ho ho!’ She laughed, gracefully holding her hand over her mouth. As she spoke, her head swung from side to side, and then right back towards me. Her hair followed her head like waves in the ocean. I swear that moment was worth capturing on camera!

‘Thank you, Ravinder!’ She bent forward and adjusted the knot of my tie.

I felt very important.

She asked me to follow her to the teachers’ room. I asked her why. She didn’t say anything, but took my hand in hers and started walking.

I was about to faint! My hand was in her hand! Was this really happening?
Oh boy!
It really was!

Beyond an iota of doubt, I can say that that moment had the potential to drive me mad or even strike me dead with an overdose of unexpected joy. I had wanted this to happen—for her to hold my hand—but the timing of it was all wrong. In the next half hour, I was supposed to be on stage, in front of everyone—the school, the teachers and the chief guest. And her sudden touch had made me forget my lines!

I lived through this adrenaline rush till we entered the teachers’ room. There was no one inside. The lights were off but the leftover evening sunlight was good enough to be able to see. Ma’am let go of my hand and went to get something from her cupboard. I quickly brought my hand to my face, and, smelling it, gave it a kiss.

She turned back with something in her hands, which she didn’t show me immediately. She took a chair and asked me to come up to her.

‘This is for you,’ she said, revealing a red silk pocket handkerchief.

I was beyond happy to see it.
She had actually thought to get me something!

She looked into my eyes. I felt shy and blushed. She smiled and tucked the handkerchief in the pocket of my coat. Underneath that pocket, my heart was beating fast enough either to register itself in the Guinness Book or to get admitted to the local hospital.

As she was so close to me, I breathed deeply in the scent of her body. I wanted to tell her what I felt for her. But then, I hadn’t prepared myself for that revelation. And, even without it, that evening was magical. I felt as if I was on top of the world! My luck was rolling and God was generous enough to make my wishes come true.

Half an hour later, I was on stage.

I looked at Ma’am sitting right in front of me in the front row. She gave me a thumbs-up sign. I looked at my pocket handkerchief and smiled at her.

The next two hours were awesome. I grew more and more confident as I spoke, and the transitions from my speeches into those of Nikita’s happened very smoothly. People clapped every time we came on to the dais to close the previous event and introduce the next one.

And then, just as it had started, the evening came to an end. Nikita and I took a huge applause—another moment I would never forget.

After the event, I met up with English Ma’am near the entrance of the green room. It was where most of the performers were getting their make-up removed and changing their dresses. Even before I could say anything, Ma’am approached me. Nikita, too, was right next to me.

‘Brilliant!’ she said, as she congratulated the two of us. We thanked her. But Nikita left us as soon as she heard her father calling her name from a distance near the podium.

I bade her goodbye and thanked God for allowing me some private moments with English Ma’am. It was the ideal time to celebrate my newly formed bond with her. I didn’t want the evening to end. I wanted to hold her hand. I wanted to feel her. I wanted to smell her.

I thought the best way to prolong that moment was to return the pocket handkerchief she’d got for me.

‘Here,’ I said giving that red silky square back to her.

She made a face and asked, ‘Didn’t you like it?’

‘No, no. This is just beautiful!’

‘Then keep it. I got it for you.’

I felt bubbles of love coming up inside me.

‘Really?’ I asked. I wanted to make sure that that handkerchief was for me, and that she had thought about me and bought it especially for me. She gave a huge smile and nodded.

Then it was time to go. It was the last day of school for that year. Ahead of us was the winter vacation. For the very first time in my life, I didn’t want to take a vacation.

The realization that I would now see her only the next year was making me emotional. I wondered if she too was going to miss me. It was close to 9 p.m. when she bade me goodbye at the main gate of the school. She waved. I wished her a merry Christmas and a happy new year in advance, and waved too. But she looked at my hand, and then brought down her waving hand to shake my hand.

She left the place, and I left only when she was out of sight.

I had discovered my first love at the age of fifteen!

That night I couldn’t sleep.

I began making a new year’s greetings card for her.