The First Proposal- Which was never made !

‘It’s sometimes better to speak out our minds, irrespective of consequences.

The burden of silence is too heavy to carry lifelong.‘

Narration by the Author.

I had recently shifted to PG accommodation in M block of Netaji Nagar, New Delhi, after being expelled from the school hostel for 3 months after a brawl with hostel mates. The PG was recommended by my classmate whose house also fell in the adjoining sector A.

The place was suitable as my school was within a radius of 1 km. Also, I could travel with my friend in the adjoining block, so conveyance was not an issue. But the place was very calm and serene, in complete contrast to the hostel evenings where there were too many friends to spend time with, a sports complex, and the library.

But there I used to keep lying in bed for hours, with all unknown people around. So I would go to my friend’s house in the evening and we would simply chat for hours.

One fine evening, while I was preparing an assignment sitting at my friend’s house, a badminton cork flew inside from nowhere and hit my head.

This small incident was going to have a Butterfly effect on my life for the next few months.

By the time I could figure out its source, a girl appeared at the room window-

‘Hi, can you pls give back that cork’.

I – ‘Yes, why not !’.

I handed over the cork to her, and she went away juggling it on her badminton racket. I stood there for a few minutes watching her play, with her friends.

She was too beautiful for me to remove my gaze from her, dressed in a white shirt and blue skirt, probably her dress, sweating profusely, the wet face adding to her beauty, with her hands reaching out to her forehead repeatedly to wipe out the sweat with the band.

A few moments later, my friend appeared and I asked him about the girl.

He replied-‘ She lives in this block, she is a Garhwali beauty, isn’t she?’

I nodded yes. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

After the game was over, she came and sat on a scooty parked outside the room window. I pretended to be looking elsewhere, around the field. While she was still sitting, I thought it proper to leave my friend’s home, as I had already been there for hours.

But not before noting the timings of her play.

As soon as I reached my room,I entered the timing of her game in my diary. Now my timings at my friend’s house had to coincide with her badminton timings. I had developed an infatuation, indeed a very strong one.

The next day, I reached my friend’s house at the exact time and asked him to do me a favor, for the sake of my newfound ‘love’. If she would come and sit on the scooty outside the window again, he would have to leave me alone in the room for a few minutes.

He gave a wicked smile and said- ‘She does that daily after her match’.

It was no less than opera to my ears. I stood at the window watching her play, for half an hour, before she walked towards the scooty sipping water from a bottle, with drops dripping through her chin and neck, then over her already sweaty top. As soon as she seated, I complimented her-

‘You play so well’.

She turned towards the window, paused for a few thoughtful moments, and said ‘Thanks’ while turning again towards the playground,a nonchalant acceptance of the compliment with partial ignoring.

She turned back again –

‘ Haven’t seen you earlier, are you new to the colony?’

I gave her a brief introduction to myself and then she turned towards the court watching her friends play. I stood at the window for a few minutes, and left with a soft ‘Bye’. She didn’t listen or might be she just ignored it.

The next day onward our interactions started, she would reach the scooty punctually, and I would be already there hanging at the window for an hour, daily. It used to be the dark of dusk.

One fine day she asked me to move a few steps behind the window. On enquiring about the reason, she said that she had gotten a scolding from her mother the day before when a neighboring uncle who had been seeing us interacting complained to her mother.

I had a solution.I switched off the lights in the room and asked her to sit facing the field while talking to me. No one would be able to see me and no one sitting far would be able to decipher that she was talking to someone in the room behind. We had started interacting for a long by then, generally 6 to 8 pm.

She would only leave when her mother would shout at her. She was a class 10th girl, Ayusha Rawat from Sadhu Vaswani International School, almost a few hundred meters from my school (DPS) in the same R K Puram area.

I was in class 11th. Infatuation had developed into love within a week, and presumably for her too, at least I felt so.

Unable to keep my feelings under wrap for longer, I decided to propose to her. I had grown impatient, to an extent that even my landlady could figure out that something was wrong with me, as I was not having food at times, used to come after 8 pm, etc.

My landlady Raji Iyer, who hailed from Kerala, stepped into my room post-dinner on a weekend evening and asked if something was troubling me. She was a frank friendly woman. With some hesitation,I narrated the whole situation to her. She asked me to do whatever would ease me mentally and left the room.

I knew what would ease me. The next day I didn’t go to my friend’s house, but directly to the badminton court. Ayusa was surprised, checked for that ‘uncle’ in the ground, and rushed to the side of the court-

‘ Why here, you wanna play?’

I replied- ‘ No, can you meet me after the game, I need to talk.’

She said- ‘ Ok, wait outside the gate of the block at 6.30, after it gets dark, under the neem tree, but only 5 minutes’.

I agreed to it and returned to my room. Reached the spot 10 minutes before, with a hesitant mind. It struck 6.45 PM when I spotted her walking hurriedly towards me.

‘Yes say, but be fast, my father will come anytime soon’.

I was silent for 3 minutes, but seeing her getting irritated due to silence,I finally uttered-

‘Ayusa, you must be having NCERT 10th History books’.

Wondering if I had called her there to ask about history books, she asked – ‘ Did you not have it last year in the syllabus? Anyway, yes, I have the books.

I replied – ‘Yes, I had, but do you have that chapter on the Bahmani kingdom, we didn’t have it last year in the syllabus.’

She – ‘ No, the syllabus is the same, but why do you need to read about Bahmanis, you are in the science stream, aren’t you?’.

I replied –‘Yes, I am in science, but just wanted to read about Bahmanis once, heard from a friend that it was a great kingdom‘.

I went into silence again as I did not know what I was talking to her about and how did History and Bahmanis replace the ‘I love you Ayusa, will you be my girlfriend?’ that I had been rehearsing the whole day.

She had become annoyed by then.

‘You could have discussed History Geography even at the window after the match, what was the need to fix the timings and place for a secret meeting, I felt you have something urgent to talk about’.

I told her that she was right and that she should leave as her father might come any time.

She whispered- ‘Ok, see you at the window tomorrow’.

I stood there, watching her fade away to the other side of the ground. I could not tell her that I loved her like anything, that she was the first love of my life, and that I had been spending sleepless nights. I could not dare to convey my true emotions. It was a moment wasted, a moment of life.

Though her expression said that she had realized why I asked her to meet alone. I was not sure if her annoyance was due to that or because I was not able to tell her what she was probably hoping for me to say.

I returned to my PG and didn’t discuss anything with anyone, not even my friends. An unknown feeling of guilt had overpowered me as if I had spoiled a good friendship. I didn’t visit my friend’s house for the next few days. Days passed and my 3 months of PG time were going to be over,I had to return to my hostel the coming weekend. I decided to make one final visit to the block, to bid her goodbye one last time. I waited for her to end her game, and she came and sat on the scooty.

I gradually walked across her, paused, and murmured- ‘Am sorry’.

She didn’t say anything for a moment.

As I stepped further, she whispered- ‘It’s ok, nothing to be sorry about’.

I walked past the ground looking back at her, our eyes were in contact till I left the block gate. I had a feeling that she wanted to say something more, her eyes seemed to be murmuring.

My first love story had ended, without proposing to Ayusa. I returned to the hostel the next day and got back to normal schooling life, but she was always around, I had been missing her, wanted to see her one more time, talk to her standing at the window for long hours, watch her play, wait for her till the dusk.

It was not going to happen again.

It was the 19th of October that year when I received a courier at my hostel gate, with a ‘Happy Birthday ‘ greeting card and a gift-wrapped pen set.

And a small letter which read as :