A Song For Every Occasion - Part II
Shaking his face vigorously to man up and hide the tears
that threatened to flow, he quickly moves along the list and deletes a few more
before he reaches to that one song he had put there what seemed like ages ago
and during every pruning of his list had never been able to delete it. He
smiles a half smile thinking no rains down this memory lane. As his fingers
linger over delete, his mind wanders back to a life left long behind, but a
girl never forgotten…
Ab Na Jaa…
As was with almost everything he knew, he had been
introduced to the music of Euphoria by his elder brother. He loved the passion
behind the lead’s voice and had his favourites but he had never quite
understood the pain behind this particular song.
One day in the maths class when he was again getting a hearing from Mrs Mishra about writing the steps to solutions, a girl, definitely a new student, walked in with an apologetic face and a letter from the principal. With a final pleading look at him, Mrs Mishra welcomed the girl into the class asking her to seat herself and resumed teaching. The girl finding no other empty spot ended up beside him and started taking copious notes. He continued his ceremonious doodling until his piquing curiosity got the better of him and he stroke up a conversation with the new girl. Seeing his doodles the girl asked as to why he wasn’t taking any notes. Before he could answer Mrs Mishra asked him to come up and solve a tricky one on board which he did with all the casualness he could muster without bordering on indecency. When he came back and was about to answer the girl’s query, she stopped him and said, “The act was excellently explanatory Mr Know-it-all. Hi!” They both shared a giggle and that’s how their friendship began.
Soon they found out that they were complete opposites of each other like yin and yang. He hated school while she loved it. He loved sports while she barely set her foot on the field ever. He harboured a desire to kill Justin Beiber while she wished for nothing else than to marry him. But like yin and yang, they became inseparable. They poured their hearts out to each other and helped each other through this confusing state of growing up. It didn’t take much time for the obvious to happen. It’s not like he was new to being friends with girls but none other had sparked similar feelings in him. Soon a tiny crush on her at the back of his mind took a central stage in his consciousness and deluded him to feel that it was true love.
Though nothing much changed in the way of their conversations but the casual flirting became quite earnest from his side. The day he made up his mind to propose her, the girl told him that she had been keeping a secret from him – she had said yes to a guy over facebook and was in a relationship with him. Crushed, bemused, angry, bewildered he just stood there with a gaping mouth until logic said it was a long distance thing - what were its chances? So he held out on his proposal and provided her the shoulder she needed to overcome the emptiness in these over-the-net relations. But soon the girl began changing, sneaking out, ogling at her boyfriend’s friends to make him jealous and soon these petty games between them started affecting him.
She made him the source of her boyfriend’s jealousy and when the playful arguments became serious fights she broke it off. He smiled, thinking finally she had come to her senses and gave her time to recover a little before he could finally say his true feelings. But the effect of that relationship was deeper on her than he had fathomed. The girl started hanging out with the very loafers she detested and her petty games with guys reached to an ugly level soon enough. Distances cropped up between him and her. There were moments when she was the girl he knew and in one of those moments when he could no longer control himself, he proposed, singing “Ab Na Jaa…” asking her to come back. The girl refused, saying that she needed his friendship not the complication of love. Then, at that moment, he understood the silent cries of the singer. He agreed to be a friend and watched after her.
Before they knew, school was up and they had moved to different colleges. News of the girl’s philandering reached him time and again and finally, in disgust he had a terrible showdown over the phone and broke all ties with a stone cold heart to her whimpering and quivering voice. There were times he blamed himself that he might have been able to save her, bring her back. But then with maturity he understood that he could no longer punish himself for her deeds. With help from friends he uprooted the last of the remnants of his delusions about her and finally moved on. But the song, that moment, were etched far deeper and won’t go away for a long time – a fact he had made his peace with.
One day in the maths class when he was again getting a hearing from Mrs Mishra about writing the steps to solutions, a girl, definitely a new student, walked in with an apologetic face and a letter from the principal. With a final pleading look at him, Mrs Mishra welcomed the girl into the class asking her to seat herself and resumed teaching. The girl finding no other empty spot ended up beside him and started taking copious notes. He continued his ceremonious doodling until his piquing curiosity got the better of him and he stroke up a conversation with the new girl. Seeing his doodles the girl asked as to why he wasn’t taking any notes. Before he could answer Mrs Mishra asked him to come up and solve a tricky one on board which he did with all the casualness he could muster without bordering on indecency. When he came back and was about to answer the girl’s query, she stopped him and said, “The act was excellently explanatory Mr Know-it-all. Hi!” They both shared a giggle and that’s how their friendship began.
Soon they found out that they were complete opposites of each other like yin and yang. He hated school while she loved it. He loved sports while she barely set her foot on the field ever. He harboured a desire to kill Justin Beiber while she wished for nothing else than to marry him. But like yin and yang, they became inseparable. They poured their hearts out to each other and helped each other through this confusing state of growing up. It didn’t take much time for the obvious to happen. It’s not like he was new to being friends with girls but none other had sparked similar feelings in him. Soon a tiny crush on her at the back of his mind took a central stage in his consciousness and deluded him to feel that it was true love.
Though nothing much changed in the way of their conversations but the casual flirting became quite earnest from his side. The day he made up his mind to propose her, the girl told him that she had been keeping a secret from him – she had said yes to a guy over facebook and was in a relationship with him. Crushed, bemused, angry, bewildered he just stood there with a gaping mouth until logic said it was a long distance thing - what were its chances? So he held out on his proposal and provided her the shoulder she needed to overcome the emptiness in these over-the-net relations. But soon the girl began changing, sneaking out, ogling at her boyfriend’s friends to make him jealous and soon these petty games between them started affecting him.
She made him the source of her boyfriend’s jealousy and when the playful arguments became serious fights she broke it off. He smiled, thinking finally she had come to her senses and gave her time to recover a little before he could finally say his true feelings. But the effect of that relationship was deeper on her than he had fathomed. The girl started hanging out with the very loafers she detested and her petty games with guys reached to an ugly level soon enough. Distances cropped up between him and her. There were moments when she was the girl he knew and in one of those moments when he could no longer control himself, he proposed, singing “Ab Na Jaa…” asking her to come back. The girl refused, saying that she needed his friendship not the complication of love. Then, at that moment, he understood the silent cries of the singer. He agreed to be a friend and watched after her.
Before they knew, school was up and they had moved to different colleges. News of the girl’s philandering reached him time and again and finally, in disgust he had a terrible showdown over the phone and broke all ties with a stone cold heart to her whimpering and quivering voice. There were times he blamed himself that he might have been able to save her, bring her back. But then with maturity he understood that he could no longer punish himself for her deeds. With help from friends he uprooted the last of the remnants of his delusions about her and finally moved on. But the song, that moment, were etched far deeper and won’t go away for a long time – a fact he had made his peace with.
Read on in Part III...
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