Love and Joy

Episode #7

It was the first time a person mentioned my name. Yes, I am Ashwath. But that doesn't matter. The only thing that mattered was Jessica Magnus. I froze on spot. Stiffly I turned round and stared back at her with almost a frightened look. Of course, I knew her. How could I forget?

I had a pretty tough experience with her during my school days. We both did our schooling in Bangalore. She is actually from Bangalore. I was a boarder at the school's hostel. I hated my school days due to the tough times I had there and noteworthy fact remained that she was part of my bad memories, having caused me considerable amount of trouble. She was kind of a mean girl. She always tried to dominate others with her behaviour. I had hoped that all those days were over having completed my school days. Now I felt both stunned and frightened. Stunned at having her as my classmate again and frightened for the possibility of suffering her ill behaviour yet again. For propriety sake, I managed to smile back at her, internally praying that she might have changed, after all these years.

I replied "Hey what a surprise! How are you?" She replied with an unusual smile "How do I look to you?"

Guess, she hasn't changed a bit from school days, same complicated as ever. Her smile, though, was better than in the past. We started a chit chat about the past, of course, touching only the nice memories. And we also compared notes how we had joined the very same college.

While talking to Jessica, all of a sudden, I felt as if someone was watching us. I turned around. Aasha and Ashwin were staring at us all this time, curious to know how I was talking so casually with a new girl. Ashwin wore a all-knowing smile. He then turned and started walking towards the dormitory and shouted on his way that he will be waiting for me in the canteen. He pretended as if he was not willing to disturb us.

Aasha, though, had a typically different response, evident from her face. Matter of barely seven hours spent together attending the class, but, I could sense her not so happy feelings. She came near and tried asking something to me but hesitated while looking at Jessica. I gave her a smile and gestured good bye to her. She refrained from whatever she wanted to ask and left with a low volume “good bye”.

Within few minutes, Jessica also departed. Her driver came to pick her up. It was a Black BMW.  The licence plate was all designer and flashy and bore the number TN 01 JM 719. She got into the car after bidding me good bye.

I started walking towards the canteen. Ashwin might be waiting for me there, I thought. Probably he might have been waiting for quite a long time. Indeed, Ashwin was there. So was Aasha! While I felt glad to see them both, I hoped that seeing both together didn’t imply that they were together. I fervently hoped that they were just ‘good friends’. I reached their table and heard Aasha telling Ashwin, "Hurry and order! I want to go home early. I want one veg-puff".

I understood that she was running late. She looked quite disturbed and I wondered if it might be because of me. I started to ask her but Ashwin at that instant, having noted my presence, asked me "Hey! There you are. What do you want? Puff or....." I quickly replied "Yes, puff." Ashwin left us to join the queue to buy those puffs.

I knew the queue was long and gave me enough time to speak to Aasha alone. Aasha, though, appeared reluctant to talk. I felt thus as she turned towards the wall and looked through the window, while curling specks of her hair with a pen. Gosh! She is really beautiful. Only in these rush hours do we boys find the time to admire a girl like Aasha. All of a sudden she turned towards me and I was caught. I started blabbering, in order to hide that I was admiring her beauty. She stopped me with a stiff voiced "Your School mate?" I actually didn't expect that she would be asking this question. This might have been the reason for her agitation- I assumed, not quite sure though. I replied "Yeah, she is just one my school mates. I haven't talked to her much during the school times and this was probably my first lengthy conversation with her."

She replied "Ohh,... Okay Okay." I hoped my words would have comforted her. Her face did bloom after that. I started to talk with her in what started to look like a flirty conversation. It was turning out quite an enjoyable session when suddenly a puff came in between us. Yup! A veg-puff. Dutiful Ashwin came with our ordered puffs and unintentionally broke our tete-a-tete. From then on, I started calling him ‘Puffs’ and soon the whole college started calling him the same.

Aasha started to come in her two-wheeler to college. It was a "Bajaj Krystal". Me and Puffs always used to walk her to the parking lot and only after biding her a bye we would walk towards the hostel, talking a whole lot of things. One fine day, the evening routine of bye bye was done and we started to walk to the hostel, but suddenly, Aasha's voice came to my ears, "Hey! Ashwath!, do you have a drafter? I have a spare one in my scooter. If you want one, come now and get it." Instantly I turned towards Ashwin, as if asking for his permission. He laughed at me and said, "Just go and get it man, I will be waiting for you in the hostel".

Finally, I got some private time to talk with her. We started to walk together. Instead of riding her bike she was literally dragging her bike with me walking by her side. I guessed she wasn't in a hurry today. We were discussing about our childhood, family etc. By then, I came to know that she was playful and fun loving and also she did not have a licence to drive, but still dared to ride. She is a kind of girl who tries to do all kind of modern day activities, even though it doesn't suit her.

I received the drafter in my hand only after going half way down the college gate. I started walking back to the hostel with broad smiles. I was literally on cloud nine. Actually, that was the moment I felt that I've attained something, which I was missing in my past. I turned and looked at her speeding towards the gate. There I saw "Kumar Anna". He was the watchman, peon and all in all, in our college. He used to wave bye mostly to everyone in the college, especially to Aasha. When she comes in her bike, he makes an arrangement that the gate be fully opened and clears the path as like a traffic policeman. First I thought he too was trying to impress her by doing this. But later, I came to know about a funny incident. During the start of the first academic year, she drove straight into the gates and dropped her scooter down and was blinking like the comedy actor "Senthil". This repeated a few times before Kumar Anna finally started doing his bit towards maintaining the college property and student safety!

Today too she rammed into the gates although she was only travelling at 12 kmph speed!

Kumar Anna lifted her vehicle saying, "Wicket number 20" and she stood in the same way, like the previous 19 times. By hearing him and seeing her standing that way, I could not control my laughter. I was laughing till tears came in my eyes. Nearby, others could hear my laughter. So could Aasha. I realised only after composing myself. Aasha was staring at me with anger and a bit of tears in her eyes. Man! Why should she cry for this?? Girls are girls. It’s very natural for me to laugh on seeing a person in such a situation, but because it’s Aasha so I apologised. "Oh please! Forgive me this time please, I’ll try not to laugh the next time, ha ha" was all I could manage before collapsing into another bout of laughter. Wordlessly, she walked up to me and just plucked the drafter from my hands and went back to her bike. I was rendered speechless. I did not realize that I should have said "I am Sorry" and stopped laughing there and then. She looked back at me and then sped out of the gates.

Crrraaaash!!!....

Again I heard tyres screeching along with a high pitched human tone. It was Kumar Anna shouting in pain. Oh no....!!! She had hit Kumar Anna this time. He was limping in pain.

HA HA HA!!! No way I could control my laughter this time ha,.. ha.... ha....

To be continued...!