...once I was in love

"Everything has a first time in life."


Immediately after we came at the Rashbehari crossing, as we stopped near the famous lamppost for continuing our chat for an extra half an hour, she took out a packet of biscuits from her bag and handed it to me.

I gave it back to her. She looked confused and looked at me.

“You tear the packet…I have filth at my hands.” I said.

“Why is it like always I have to do the dirty jobs?” she laughed out merrily.


I looked deep into her eyes. She was looking straight at my eyes. It was quite a long time I was seeing a girl from this distance, and with this affection. I thought I was in love. Love. For the first time in my life. In real.

I looked around the Rashbehari crossing. People were in their own business hurrying to and fro. And then I thought of something I should’ve said at the very moment I saw her for the first time.


“It’s the first time I am sharing a biscuit with a girl and that too at a place like this.” I said.

“Well, everything has a first time in life.”

And then I got the chance of telling her the most important thing I wanted to say to her.


“You know you have made the first line for my next story.” I said.

“Wao.” She said. “So what kind of story is this?”

“Whatever it is, you are the female lead, of course. And if you want I can make it as a two hero story.”

She started out laughing merrily. God I loved her that point of time.

“Or do you like it to be a three hero one?”

“Come on, one is enough.” She smiled.

We talked about several things. She asked me about my studies…I asked her about her personal life. She told me she doesn’t hang out with people: like friends or boyfriends. I become frustrated. I ask whether she possesses any social site profile, like Facebook, Orkut or Gtalk, and she says she doesn’t. I ask her about how she passes time at home, and she says she does it by painting, dancing and studying. I feel pity for her boring life and make her know about it.

“I know. My life is really boring and monotonous.” She answers.


The crowded Rashbehari crossing ignores both of us. But we become immersed in our own talking and sharing of each other. She tells me about her family problems. I listen to them and make some comments as she responds. My love for her increases with each and every thing she shares with me. I feel like I should touch her every moment she tells me something sad about her but I fear she might take it the other way. I feel like I should hold her in my arms but I fear the crowd might see us in the wrong way. I cross my hands, keep them at my chest and keep listening to her, looking straight into her eyes.


She promises to call me afterwards. She says she has a tariff that provides her make a call at one twentieth of a rupee. I become amazed.


On the way back home I swear to myself that I must forget my terrible past and start a serious relationship with her. It’s clear that she likes me, of course. All I have to do is show her that I really care for her. Given the premise that she doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore, I can really be someone more than just friend to her.


For the next twenty days or so we keep walking all the way from Gariahat to Rashbehari while returning from the institution. We share various things from our lives, both good and bad things. I try to cheer her up each and every time she falls silent thinking that it could salve the bad relationship she was trying to come out of. I make entries in my blog saying that I pity her life and go on saying that even if she proposes me now I will deny her just because she is not a girlfriend matter. But soon I fall in love with her.

And then one day she finds another boy from the institution. She asks him publicly that she wants math tuition from him, in lieu of which she is willing to teach him English. That day I find the guy walking with us all the way to the crossing. I become sad and desolate, as I find her talking to that guy all the time while walking. She buys both of us chocolates. She asks me whether I am angry because she didn’t talk to me at all and I say no. We part from the crossing without saying a single more word.


I walk back home. The fact that the guy followed us all the way made me fuming on her. Why on earth she had to take the guy with herself? For god’s sake it was the day I decided to give her the flower from Lake Market. I become dejected, at the same time the loneliest person on earth.


I keep weeping throughout the whole night. Is this how you treat a person who takes care of you? How can you forget those moments when you needed me and I was right there, beside you? I cursed God for making me look ridiculous when I thought about those poems I wrote for her. I cried, cried and kept on crying. And then I slept for a couple of hours.

I woke up early in the morning and got ready. I was going to visit the Shiva temple after a long time. And after half an hour as I reached the temple and stood in front of the figurine, tears rolled down my eyes. It happened with Pallabi. Now it has happened with her too.

I question myself time and again that why did it happen with me. May be I am the one who could take it all. I saw the last words of the clairvoyant were coming true. So it would be wise for me to let things go. I came back home, sat in front of computer and hurried to finish the copy I was writing. So as I finish the entry here I have no longer the burden to carry at my back of writing something about her. And as for myself, yes, I am single after the incident happened to me last night.


...or may be it's the start of something good in my life.




You don’t understand love, do you?

Well, it has something to do with the attraction for a person, holding hands in public, kissing in the dark, and caring for the person you are linked with. It also includes physical relationship. And people say if you cannot satisfy the other person with your affection level, the love between you decreases. Some say it comes from respect, but that’s arguable.

And there is pain. And longing for the person. And even after a long time they are gone, believing that they will come back at some point in your life.



-Sept '10