I

It was an early winter night, when a group of rowdy final year guys encountered a lavishly illuminated marriage tent, half a mile away from our hostel. One of the most audacious amusements of a college life is to attend marriages, uninvited. All you need to do is put on your best formal outfits, wear the most decent attitude, and carry yourself in a highly virtuous manner into the party tents. Basically, there are two whimsical perks of being an anonymous part of such marriages – one is you can relentlessly gobble the pieces of chicken without bothering of being caught in the lens of a camera; and the other is you can generously spot girls without the fright of discovering a family relationship with her at the end of the day. When you are attending a family party, you cannot eye beautiful girls because somewhere or the other you might end up exploring a far family relation with her. Anyways… By this time we had been experienting with the phenomenon of penetrating into such ceremonial atmospheres, UNINVITED. As always, we dressed up in our best party wears and set on a mission to enjoy a feast tonight. Until now, we had mastered the act of showing up in such unsolicited celebrations.

We had hardly been able to make our way through the high-class crowd, when our attention was dragged by the aroma of the tempting food orderly arranged in one corner. In such a situation you need to exhibit the finest of your attributes. Having exchanged some unrecognized exotic smiles and gestures with the other guests out there, we crept to the food corner. We stole a set of crockery and  tissue and walked towards the methodically arranged food. The standard of the party could be well presumed by the lustrous crockery that we were carrying. By the overall package of the set up, I had built up the perception of the food to be heavenly appetizing. Well, what was next… I heaped a mountain of rice, poured in the best of other dishes and wandered to locate a secluded table to attack my cuisine.

“Hey..!! Look at those beauties out there..”, exclaimed one of my friends.

Ravenously munching my food, I turned to where he pointed. There was a group of presumably five or six girls – all dressed to kill. While my friends were busy electing girls for themselves, I was stunned by the elegance of a lovely girl out there. For a moment, my senses did not co-ordinate with each other. She caught my attention and I could in no way take my eyes off her. I felt as if my eyes were pinned on her angelic looks. Fixing my eyeballs on her, I tore a piece of tissue considering it to be the chapatti, dipped it in the gravy and chewed it until one of my mates nudged me. Realizing my silliness, I abruptly spitted the half chewed tissue. Such a denounced act made us noticed in the crowd. I, however, covered it up with some courteous looks and gestures.

“What’s wrong with you Akshat?”, a friend grumbled in my ear, while another kicked me from under the table. I looked at them with apology in my eyes. They hardly noticed my concern and resumed gazing at the pretty girls.

“Hey, the one in blue is mine. Which one is yours?”, one of them whispered to me.

“The one in glasses.”, I replied focusing all my attention on the girl that had become the feast of my eyes.

“Glasses?”, all my rowdy friends exclaimed together.

For a moment I felt alienated by their looks and before I could frame a reply, one of them said, “ Where can you see glasses? Akshat are you out of your senses? None of them have put on specs.”

Holding that girl to my eyes, I pointed at her, “Look. There she is.”

Four pairs of eyes including me were now looking at a girl standing way behind the group that was being examined until now. Everyone of us noticed her pretty white dress with a black belt on it. Her midnight black hair, brilliantly falling on her chest, flowed in waves to adorn her glowing radiant face. She had round cheek bones with a proportionally straight nose bearing a pair of specs on it. Her dazzling serene eyes, with framed long lashes seemed even more fascinating behind the glasses. The dimple on her right cheek complimented her charming smile. The long rings hanging from her delicate ears made her look no less than an angel. She carried a perfectly sculpted figure and was stunningly gorgeous like a painting of goddess brought to life. My heart skipped a beat each time I saw her smile at the guests.

She stood near the dessert section, exchanging disinterested and passive smiles with others. However, looking at her gave me knots in my belly. She was like making things happen inside me. Before my group could hold me back, I had already left my place and started walking towards her. It seemed as though my senses were hypnotized. Cutting through guests, I managed to position myself at about four or five feet away from her, so that I could make myself noticed. My heart suffered a tremendous jolt when her sight crossed over me, and her lips split into a charming smile. Although I was vividly aware that my staring business would drown her into an ocean of awkwardness, yet I couldn’t dismiss my attention off her. Each time she turned to me she found my eyes locked on her. She made sincere efforts to ignore, but couldn’t overlook me.

As a matter of fact, I have no idea of how I felt. I then stared at her discretely but in a way that she knew that I was glancing at her. After a couple of eye-contacts, she inflated her confidence to raise her eyebrows, as though she wanted to question me. She then turned her head around to ensure herself that it was none but she that I had been staring at. The skeptical expressions on her milky white face made me sigh in a way that I wondered whether my act was making her feel clumsy. Enchanted by her looks, I stepped a foot forward and through some silly signs and movement of hands, showed her that she was incredibly beautiful. With a sheepish smile playing on her lips she turned her face. Gosh..!! that smile tossed my heart into a world of fantasy. I was cut from the surrounding and could visualize pink balloons and ribbons flying all around; violin and flute melodies echoing in my ears.

Suddenly, the romantic musical notes were interrupted by a crackling voice in my ears. “Akshat, what are you up to? Come on we need to leave,” a horrified friend whispered to me.

“Okay!! Give me a moment”, I pleaded.

I, then walked to where the angel, I mean the lady was standing. Gathering all my spirit and wrapping it up with confidence, I extended my hand, “Hi! This is Akshat – Akshat Verma!!”

“I…”, and before she could further speak, a lady grasped her hand and excitedly remarked, “Come on Kavya, mumma’s waiting for you.”

‘Kavya’. The lady said it once, but it echoed thrice or more in my ears while I watched her gracefully walking into the hall. Before I could follow her, one of my friend arrested me from behind and pulled me to the exit gate.

I went to bed early that night, changing into my boxers, before crawling under the covers of my bed, which was one of my favourite places on Earth. While my roomies discussed about the ladies that they elected for themselves, and the food that we robbed, I kept painting Kavya’s face in the darkness that filled my room. Each side I turned, I could hallucinate her cute face smiling at me. That night, even my cozy bed could not soothe my troubled uneasiness of thoughts. I tried to go off to sleep with my headphones still on, but “Kavya” was all that reverberated in my ears.

In order to put my heart at ease, I logged in my Facebook profile and searched for ‘Kavya’. Probably more than a hundred profiles existed by that name. I tried to be a bit specific, when I typed. ‘Kavya, New Delhi’. Damn! Innumerable profiles again. But my heart was not ready to admit defeat and give up its desire. Scrolling down the screen, I again brought her to my mind’s eye. Imagining her graceful slender walk into the hall made me sigh a number of times. While I was lost in her thoughts, my visualization, was all of a sudden concentrated on a sign-board at the gate of the hall that she entered.

“Holy shit !! How could I ignore that?”, I mumbled to myself.

The sign-board displayed, ‘Bakshi Villa’ .  Without a second thought, I searched for ‘Kavya Bakshi’. No wonder, several profiles again, but this time I was just a step away from success. After scrolling down and skipping somewhat fifty or more profiles, the laptop screen finally displayed my angel’s pic.

“Yes! I found her”, I proclaimed, not without some pride. However, I felt deflated to learn that her current city was Nanital. Whatever, I couldn’t simply give up the hope and sent her a friend request.

Furthermore, I investigated and explored from the neighborhood that Kavya Bakshi was the eldest daughter of her family and was practicing medicines in a college in Nanital and was on the verge of becoming a full scope doctor. In the meanwhile, I kept waiting for that fortuitous moment – the moment when Kavya would accept my friend request.

II

Probably a week had passed but there was no response from Kavya’s profile. There was silence at her end. A calm deadly silence, that would make you feel worse than being yelled at. Perhaps, she was a kind of lady who hardly paid heed to unknown friend’s requests. Ouch! My ego was crushed.

Nevertheless, I was almost always preoccupied with her thoughts. Though I was present in my lectures but with an absent head. I could see her anywhere and everywhere I turned my eyes to – in my books, on hoardings and posters, in mannequins and music videos were the best place for a virtual romance with her. I wrote her name on my palm, on the covers and last pages of my books, almost all the tables of my lecture halls, and even some tree trunks were engraved. What was wrong with me? I couldn’t realize what was I actually feeling. Could it be love or a mere infatuation??

While my roomies were busy completing their final semester projects, I sat before my laptop running my eyes through Kavya’s Facebook snaps and waiting for her to accept my request. I often caught a glimpse of her pics over and over again.

When a few more days had passed, my roomies comprehended that I was going to spoil my final semester and the placement formalities. They, however, made innumerable efforts and put their heads together to make me realize that I was falling for a girl, who doesn’t even have an idea of it. And eventually, in a way or the other I was indeed ruining my semester.

Well, it took a week time, but soon I got in terms with my lessons. I gave up pondering upon the friend request, that remained unaccepted up till now.

The exams were knocking at the door and the placement cell had started forwarding the names. Now, there was no more facebook snaps, no carving names and no hallucinations. Thanks to my rowdy roomies. By the end of the final year, fortunately each one of us had bagged a job and all in reputed firms.

None can deny that the best four years of your life is the one that you spend in your college. It’s always difficult to accept the uncertainty of meeting friends again in the future. But that’s destined. I was placed in a leading firm in Bangalore, one of my friends in Pune, and the other two opted for MBA from the Delhi University. And then with tears in our eyes and memories in our hearts we departed, promising each other to meet soon again.

III

Time moved on and two winters had passed. All of us had been in touch with each other since the past two years. And one fine day we planned to catch up in Delhi to re-live our college days once again. Through a conference call, we fixed a meeting – a get together rather. And then busy in our scheduled lives we eagerly waited for that point of time when we could celebrate our freedom as we did in our graduation years.

After a fortnight, all thrilled and charged, I boarded the train to New Delhi. While, my train moved forward cutting through the foggy weather, I moved backwards into the realm of memories. Gazing out of the window, I recollected all the fun and merry-making we did in those best years. Bunking classes, bike racing, beer parties and the most amazing part – attending marriages, uninvited. Oh! That all of a sudden pressed me with the thoughts of Kavya – Kavya Bakshi. Before I would be drown into her serene eyes once again, I was shaken by the loud shrill horn of the engine and I pensively grumbled to myself, “No… No more Kavya. I’m done with it.”

The twenty four hour journey seemed to be extending at a very slow pace. Hovering between despair and excitement, I didn’t realize when I closed my eyes for a nap. Gradually the day was done and the dark hours were given a way. Halting at the scheduled stops, my train kept heading towards the north.

Next morning when I arrived at the New Delhi railway station, I found my rowdy group waiting for me at the platform. That inexpressible happiness of seeing them once again after two long years, still lingers to my heart. We hugged and greeted each other with the domestic foul terms as always.

In the evening, we again met at our all time favorite tea stall. We sat there sharing a single cigarette and competing with each other’s smoke rings. While we laughed and mocked recalling all the silly things we did, one of us said, “Hey, how about another party – uninvited? While driving my way here, I’ve spotted a marriage tent. What say..??”

There was indeed no point denying. All of us unanimously proclaimed, “Let’s start!” As always, dressed up in our decent formal outfits, we stole into the marriage tent that my friend had spotted. This pushed us into the days when we used to be the uninvited guests of such parties. Furtively, picked up the crockery, filled them with the food and sitting in a secluded table, elected gorgeous girls.

While my friends were busy making silent comments on the beautiful girls, my eyes were locked on a figure. I looked at it with recognition in my eyes. One of my friends then nudged me with his elbow, saying, “ The one in blue is mine. Which is yours?”

Fixing my eyes at a point, I said, “The one in specs.”

All turned their heads to me and before they could be judgmental about my state of mind, I pointed, “Look. There she is.”

Four pairs of eyes including me were now gazing at the girl on the stage. Our jaws dropped to see Kavya looking extra-ordinarily beautiful in the bride’s dress.

It was Kavya’s marriage that I was attending – uninvited.