Today I’m 27, fat, ugly, unhappy with my job, and don’t feel good about myself right now. I’m here sitting in my PJ’s reminiscing about 10 years before this day about the College Love. When I was 17 in my freshman year and met this guy from class at the bus stop to college. It was my first time traveling by public transport and it scared the hell out of me. You would understand if you ever visited Hyderabad, the land of biryani and unruly traffic. Just when I had given up hope of finding the correct bus to college I found a familiar face in the crowd.
I said, “Are you in DTDP?”
He said “yes”
I asked, “Do you know which bus goes to college?”
He said, “I’m new to this city, I’m not sure.”
I said, “Ok, let’s figure it out together.”
That’s where the never-ending friendship started. From that day to the last day of college we went to college together. He waited for me every day while I got late every day, I mean every single day.
Slowly we became the best of friends, shared everything with each other, talks, laughs, food, gossip and finally a fight.
The first fight I can never forget! Somehow, he doesn’t remember it clearly but I remember it in great detail. Those few months were the worst months of my life. Worse than, the Sri Chaitanya days (any aspiring engineering student from Andhra Pradesh will know the depth of this statement).
The first day, I came back home in a daze and the first thing I did after coming home was calling him from my home’s land phone (I did not have a mobile phone yet and yes I remembered his number). We spoke for exactly 11 minutes 23 seconds (don’t ask me how I remember this, I just do!).
We told sorry and we laughed about it and forgot by the time we met the next day. It was fine for a few days and then, we fought again. This time he didn’t want to speak to me and that shattered me, the thought that my best friend did not want to speak to me gave me a low BP and I fainted in class. Then again fainting had its own perks, he ended up being the person who helped me and shipped me home safely.
Everything went on smoothly for another few months and then the biggest fight ever happened. It was because of a silly photograph and truly speaking I still don’t know why I had stopped speaking to him (hands down the worst decision of my life ever) we did not speak for months. Initially, it was very hard. I cried every day and slowly pride crept in. “Pride,” I tell you, is the worst thing for any relationship, also for any person in general. I didn’t speak, he didn’t speak and life went on bumpily.
On my end, life was a rut. I was just going to college, coming home, reading the Twilight series, feeling miserable, and not eating in the initial months, and then binge eating because I was depressed. For some reason, for all those months, it felt like there was a thorn stuck in my heart and it was beating around it. With each heartbeat the pain was felt but, the heart continued to beat.
Then, the trip happened. Okay, it was not a happening getaway. It was just a pilgrimage to Tirupathi with the family. I do not believe in God or idol worship as such but, I believe that there’s some sort of power that runs this world. It is from this higher power that I had asked that it righted everything wrong in my life.
The day I was back to college it rained, just when I had come out for a break and stopped right after I was sufficiently wet. Then, the sun came out and everything looked bright and beautiful. I felt very positive and for some reason, I thought about my wish from the greater power. Well, then time was up and I was on my way back home.
Just when I got down off the bus, I heard someone call my name- Shruti. I neglected it thinking it was for someone else, but after a while, I realized it was for me and that I did not know this person.
I was like, “What do you want?”
He said, “I’m Ravi’s friend and wanted to talk to you.”
I said, “Okay but, what?”
He said, “About your fight.”
At this point, I was thoroughly and sufficiently shocked. Many things went through my head but the final words that came out of my mouth were, “how do you know?”
He said, “I’m his school friend and I want this to be sorted so that he becomes himself again”. Then, he asked me, “would you be ok to talk to him?”
This was when I realized that the wrongs in my life were being given a chance to become right. Grudgingly (pride, you see) I said, “Ok”
He went aside and called him. After about 15-20 minutes he arrived at the restaurant. I just said hi and smiled. He smiled back, his crooked smile and I realized how much I missed it (his stupid face and crooked smile both). His friend asked, “Are you both okay to talk to each other”. I said,” yes” without even thinking twice.
He said, “let’s see tomorrow because you said so multiple times and never talked the next day.”
We all went home on this note.
The next day, we both saw each other, I smile and he didn’t. It hurt… I stayed back and when he was alone I asked, “don’t you want to speak to me?” (Maatladava Inka?)
He said, “I wanted to make it easy for you so I didn’t speak”
Then I asked, “Are you okay with missing a class?”
Without missing a beat he says,” I’m okay.”
We skipped all the classes until lunch. What did we do? We sat at our spot and I talked endlessly about all the happening from when we last spoke until that very morning. I also told him about a stray cat that had come inside our home and how my sister was scared and jumping on the bed (Stupid, and hilarious). And, just like that the thorn was out and the heart was beating as usual but I didn’t feel the pain. It was like therapy.
This was the beginning of our truest and purest form of friendship all over again. The motto of which was to live, no questions asked and no expectations set. Our friendship went back to normal without skipping a beat. I realized how easy he was to be with.
The academic years would of course not stop for our adolescent theatrics. The dreaded semester exams came. The best thing about these exams was that I always studied thinking about how I would explain that topic to him. Why do you ask? Because he never studies for exams. On the day of the exam, we used to go two hours early and I would explain the entire semester’s syllabus for that class. All that I explained was all he studied. Yet, he passed and also was in the fifth position in one semester. Me? Duh! I was the topper of course.
On the last day of the exams, I don’t know what went into me. Out of the blue, I asked him, “Today is the last exam right, do you want to go to KFC with me”
I could see that he was shocked but as always he said, “okay let’s go.”
I can never forget that day. It was the worst fried chicken I ever had. It was around 40°C and we walked for over 4Km to reach a public garden that overlooks a lake. We sat there talked, talked, and talked about everything under the sun until it was too late and I had to go back home. The bus ride back home was also a memorable one with deep talks about family and the future. Now, I realize that it was our first date that constituted plan failure, talks, food, and comfort.
We kept on being friends laughing, joking, and basically being happy. One fine day, (of course there’s one fine day what else did you expect) so yeah, one fine day it was college holiday but still, I manage to get out for a movie. When I say managed I mean lied to my parents that I had college and went to a movie with him.
After the movie we went for lunch, I was eating chocolate ice cream and I notice that he was smiling at me when I was eating it with the entire world’s concentration put together. I chucked this thought away just like many such ques over months like accidentally/ purposely holding my hand and accidentally calling me “my love” and not noticing it. Why did I not acknowledge all that, pretty straightforward I guess I valued our friendship way too much to ruin it with my mind playing games.
Since it was a beautiful day I remember it vividly, we decided to take a walk around the necklace road. We walked and talked about random stuff and then we sat on the railing of the lake (well, I sat and he stood beside me). The talking which is mostly on my part continued and all of a sudden he took my hand and my brain froze, I knew what he was trying to do. He took my hand and said, “I know you will say No but I just want to say that I love you.”
Then the waterworks started, I just sat there, tears rolling down my cheek and I said, “You know me so well Teju and the answer is No.”
He said, “I knew this was going to be the result but I just had to do it so that I knew for sure.”
He dropped me home in an auto-rickshaw, which basically means that we took an auto-rickshaw to my home, and then he took another one from there to his hostel which was in the opposite direction that we came in. The whole ride we didn’t say anything and just before getting down he said, “I still will be your friend but give me some time to get out of this.”
I just went home and I don’t know what I did after that but the next thing I remember is that I was telling my sister about what happened and she just said in a matter of fact way that it was the right thing to do, saves everyone the emotional trauma since we all knew that our parents would never agree.
That night I did not sleep, I was making my list. I make a list when in doubt, the pros and cons list (a mental list of course, where would I find a pen without waking the entire family in the middle of the night), and this time I was making it for my decision of saying no. I can never forget that list and it goes like this
Pros:
- No confrontation with parents
- No becoming the bad daughter
- No judgment from society
- No becoming, Shruti that Bengali girl who married the Telugu guy from just “Shruti”
- No eloping if it comes to that
- This is easier
Cons:
- Will impact our friendship, it will never be 100%.
- I know that I will regret it.
I kept weighing this list and playing out different scenarios in my head until we met in college the next day, I don’t remember how I got there though. We couldn’t concentrate so we skipped class and went to one of our places. He was visibly upset and hurt but he asked, “Still playing around with your list?”
And I wasn’t surprised by this. That’s exactly when I knew that, this is it, no one in this whole wide world would ever understand me like this. If I let him go now I would definitely regret it and I wasn’t ready to live with that regret. Also, we never know what will happen when we go to my parents with this news, I can convince them and they love me so they can move past their beliefs (eventually).
College Love – Confessions of a romantic heart
All this was bustling in my head and I was so happy with my decision that I was going to tell him and the phone rang. We got called in for urgent assignment submission and we were not alone again until the end of college so I didn’t get a chance to tell him. By the time we got out of class the sun was almost setting and he was walking two steps ahead of me.
I mustered up all my courage and that’s my first-hand experience which says that it takes a lot of courage to do this. Well, I didn’t say those three magical words, what I ended up saying was not a lengthy confession of my love for him.
What I said was, “I think the answer to the question that you asked yesterday is now yes.”
He stopped, turned around with his stupid Pink Floyd t-shirt, the sun slightly on his face, and his crooked smile, and said, “I don’t think I heard you right, what did you just say.”
Yes, I had to repeat and yes, I blushed.
The next thing he said was, “oh my god I didn’t realize that I’m hungry” and I realized he was right, we hadn’t eaten in the entire day. We walked straight to the juice stall. I did not have to order since my man (Yes! I kept repeating that in my head he was my man now) knew my order. That was the best day of my life and it was 6 April 2010.
Today, 9 years after that day we have come a long way, endured a lot, learned a lot, we have grown together from teenagers to adults. Today, I find myself wanting to be that girl again who was carefree, lived in the present, and loved without fear. Mistake me not, I’m sure that I am wiser than that girl; Knowing what I know, from the lessons life has taught me in these past years I can say that though I’m still unchanged, fear had crept in.
When I say fear it’s all sorts of fear, it is the fear of being judged, the fear of failure, the fear of getting lost in this huge world of ours, the fear of being original, the fear of not being accepted for who I am, the fear of losing everyone that matters. This fear is what makes me not like myself but, having him by my side gives me the confidence that I can consciously break free, from these chains that fear has put around me.
I am ready to reach my potential fearlessly.
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