My English Teacher

Real Story-based on incidents in 2014, IIT Powai

I saw her for the first time during the college placement season. I had gone to the placement block to hand over the CV file of my senior to the management. While looking for the submission desk, my eyes caught a glimpse of her, for just a few moments.

Her red pulpy cheeks were radiating with the orangish sun rays falling on her face through the window in the adjacent clock tower.

I had never ever seen a girl as beautiful as her.

It was truly love at first sight. I tried to follow her for a few steps, but she left the block with her friends within no time, and reminded of the urgency to submit my senior’s CV, I returned to the submission desk.

I was surprised that I hadn’t seen her in my 3 years of college life, how could it have been possible? After submitting the documents, I left the block and immediately went to Anup Shekhar, a senior in the hostel, and told him the “characteristics” of the girl so that he could identify her for me.

He said-” Oh, it seems like you are talking about Treesa Pandey, she was the Miss Fresher in the first year of our batch, did she have big wide black eyes?”.

I- ‘Yes, as deep as Pacific I guess’.

He laughed and confirmed that it was Treesa Pandey for sure.

Then he started telling me about the beautiful girls in her batch, and I was finding him sounding too idiotic, probably he assumed that I was interested in his beauty rankings.

He did not know that I had fallen in love with Treesa. I just wanted the contact number and branch of Treesa Pandey. Once I came to know the branch, I knew the go-to- guy.

I rushed to the hostel room of Vivek Kumar Pandey, a senior but chirpy-friendly guy who hailed from Gorakhpur.

I asked him about Treesa and he said- ” Why? Fallen in love at first sight once again?’

I – ‘ Am serious Sir, have been thinking only about her for the last few days, only you can get me her contact number”.

He smiled cunningly, and replied- ” I have her number, she is my friend, I can give it to you too, after all, you are also my friend, but it’s no use“.

I – ‘Why no use? Is she already committed? Does she have a boyfriend? Who is the guy?”.

He smiled again, more cunningly this time-

” No, she does not have a boyfriend, but she dislikes Biharis”.

Amused at this revelation, I thought for a moment and asked him to leave that issue to me.

He gave me the number and asked-

” What will you say to her? She hasn’t even seen you, what will you talk about, why will she entertain you, she is a very reserved kind of girl, and does not talk to even her batchmates, many have tried to befriend and propose, but all futile.”

I did not have an answer about what would I talk about.

After a brief thoughtful pause, I asked him about some peculiar features of Treesa.

He replied-” Her English is exceptionally good, the best in our batch”.

After some chit-chat with him, I left the room and dialed Treesa in the evening after gathering a lot of courage, that courage came after gulping a can of beer.

Courage was needed because one miscalculated step could lead to one year of infamy in the college ( she was in her final year). She picked up the call and I can still recollect the sound of that first hello from her side.

No one could say a simple hello as beautifully as her, it sounded like tens of wind chimes ringing in my ears at a time. I requested her to help me with English, and since I hailed from rural Bihar, my English wasn’t that good.

She denied.

She asked me how could I not find a single guy in the boys’ hostel who could help me with English. I told her that I got her number in the process of finding that single guy and all such guys suggested her name only.

Though initially reluctant, she succumbed to my requests and agreed to help me, but only on phone calls, no personal meetings. I readily agreed.

We started discussing different topics on phone every day, I would deliberately speak in the wrong English and she would correct me.

Three days later I told her that I had written an article for my summer internship project and I felt that it needed an evaluation, so I needed to meet.

She denied. But I insisted on one single meeting, as my project submission date had almost arrived.

Finally agreeing, she told me to reach the mechanical block canteen at 7 PM sharp.

I reached by 6 PM with a notebook in which I had written a one-page article, with deliberate grammatical mistakes as it would give us more time to interact in the process of correcting them.

She was having food inside the canteen, and the guy sitting beside her was none other than Vivek Pandey, the senior who had given me her no.

I wasn’t sure if he had told her about me but had he, then Treesa would not have been talking to me and correcting my English on calls. He had asked me to not reveal who had given me her contact number.

Probably he also didn’t know that we were up for a meeting. At sharp 7 PM, she got up from her table, I rushed towards the adjacent parking lot where she had asked me to wait for her.

I was standing like an innocent guy revising the article in my notebook, in the dim light of the parking lot. She had not seen me yet, she dialed my number, and I was observing her from a distance.

She asked me how would I identify her, as I had never seen her, nor had she ever seen me.

She did not know about my love at first sight in the placement cell when I spotted her in the sky blue top and the black jeans, and that red scarf with black dots. That image was imprinted in my mind forever.

I told her to gradually move towards the big banyan tree in the civil block parking area and I would be able to spot her as there was no other girl around. She disconnected the call.

A minute later the most beautiful girl in the world emerged out of the gateway to the parking area. She was wearing a strict look and scanned me for a moment, asking me to hand over the copy, without an iota of expression on her face, she did not even wish or greet me. Probably because of her dislike for Biharis.

I handed over the notebook to her. We were walking side by side while she was scrolling across the pages with her beautiful eyes, I could feel the sweet fragrance of her body. Unable to read the article properly due to low illumination in the parking, she gave back the notebook and asked me to read.

I started reading.

She interrupted midway and said- ” I think your English is good enough to clear placements, you don’t need my guidance, there are some grammatical mistakes but it won’t matter in technical interviews”.

Though disappointed, I tried hard to convince her that she should guide me for a week at least, after all, it would not cost much of her time. A daily half an hour meeting could brighten my chances for a good placement as I would be able to handle the pressure of speaking in fluent English in a face-to-face interview.

Hesitant and reluctant, she finally nodded yes.

A week passed meeting her daily, and discussing English and miscellaneous topics, she would behave like a strict primary school teacher with me and any divergence from the topic encountered her rebuke.

Finally, the last day of our ‘English class’ arrived. I knew I did not have more time with me, so I directly proposed to her, and spoke nonstop for ten minutes about how I fell in love at first sight with her, how I arranged her number and faked the English class thing.

Feeling cheated and deceived by her time wasted, she reacted very angrily, shouted at me that she had guessed my intentions during the first call itself, but still agreed to help because she assumed that it might be a genuine case.

She threw my notebook and went away with hurried long steps.

I stood there for an hour like a statue. I wasn’t sad actually, just that I had lost the sense of feeling, I was numb and thought that I had aggravated her dislike for Biharis by my lies.

Two hours later, I could be spotted buying Thunderbolt at the beer shop near my college. While drinking in my hostel room balcony, I made a promise to myself to never call her again.

One week later, winter vacations started, and I went to my hometown in Bihar. Final-year students were still in the college as it was their placement season.

One fine evening, I received a call from Vivek Pandey.

He said-” Treesa was asking me about you, I didn’t reveal much, I just told her that he lives in the same hostel”.

It raised my anxiety and curiosity to the seventh floor of my brain. She had asked him about me the same day in the morning. The call was more to confirm if I had revealed his name in this whole ‘conspiracy’.

For a moment it struck me that I should call Treesa but I reminded myself of the promise I had made, and the humiliation I had faced when she threw away my notebook.

The next evening, while I was sitting in my drawing room with relatives, my phone rang.

It was Treesa.

I rushed barefoot to the terrace to take the call, but by the time I reached she had disconnected. I started roaming in anxiety, not sure whether to call her back or just send her a smiling ‘Hi’ text message.

Within the next ten minutes, my phone rang again.

The same ‘Hello’, the best one in the world. 🙂