I thankfully dedicate this post to the blog's recent followers Ravinder, Roshan, Janani and Titu.
Reviewed by Ridhi.
After that incident, after the election results, I distanced myself from Shantanu. I believed Shantanu’s chapter was over, once and for all. This made me get closer to Gokul. I almost said ‘yes’ to him.
I showed all signs of ‘yes’, though I didn’t say it. I started talking to him over phone, and the call times exceeded an hour. I listened to all the crap he spoke. I turned my face away from his eyes, whenever he gave a compliment and all such non sense for which I forever feel so embarrassed.
That weekend he flew from Bangalore to meet me. We spent some time out and he bought me gifts saying that they are from a ‘friend’ after which I couldn’t say ‘no’. He dropped me back at college. At college he tried to hold my hand, but I withdrew sharply.
Shantanu proved me wrong. He not only avenged Kiran, but it was more than just hurting back. He made Kiran apologize to Anu. I appreciated his patience and planning. We became friends again. It’s a universal truth that, after a duel out of misunderstanding the bond gets stronger.
Classes that were long forgotten due to internship and elections had to be taken care of. I learned 2 important subjects of that semester namely Distributed Systems and Computer Networks from Shantanu. After a little apology to Padma ma’am, she didn’t mind, and she taught me the 1st unit all over again.
College life was back to normal. The first assessment test was bad. Never mind, I had two more assessments, where I could prove ‘I am ELVIA’, as the mark consideration was best 2 out of 3.
Most of my classmates had become had made strong friends, who were said to last till the life’s end. Most of them hung around as gangs. A few gangs did name themselves like Pepsi gang, Five Star gang and lot other creepy names. They managed to abbreviate their names into some of these popular brands or products.
The gangs consisting of both boys and girls together were mostly from day scholars. There was always some sort of cold war between the bisexual and monosexual gangs. The chitchat of both these gangs was mainly constituted by gossips about love pairs in the class and college; thankfully they didn’t speak much about GPA or grades, with geeks like Ragu being exceptions.
“Hey heard that, Sivaranjani got a proposal lately”
“Oh from whom?”
“Hey guys”, Ragu enters the conversation.
“Hi Ragu, we are speaking about something interesting.”
“Oh well. Ya I do have something interesting.” Certainly after 3 semesters of being his classmate none expected him to speak of proposals or love, “Advanced Networking by Ferozoun was exemplary. I spent the whole night with that book”
However they had expected this kind of a statement, people still couldn’t control their annoyance. They hit their heads with a stressed, “Shiiiit”.
Coming back to the cold war, though the 2 types, may be 3 types, gangs with girls only, boys only and both, all gossiped, but the bisexual gang always accused the monosexual gang of defaming their friendship between guys and girls as love affairs.
At times, a few day scholar girls did say that, they hate most hostellers as they speak ill of their friendship with guys. Walking hand in hand and spending hours together in some corner of college did look oddly friendly for most hostel girls and of course for hostel guys, who were not born and brought up in a modernized city environment.
Certainly hostel girls had friends in the opposite sex at school in their home towns, but the relationship was restrained. They never walked hand in hand. They never hid themselves in a corner. They were good friends, who shared things right from their tiffin boxes to family problems and academics, but never hung around the campus outside their classrooms and definitely not for hours.
I did roam around with Shantanu, and people considered it love and I never protested against it. I never disguised it in the name of friendship. I acquiesced how I felt for him to my friends, though I couldn’t do the same to him.
I had to convince myself, that Shantanu and I were destined to be just friends, like the other city girls and guys, we were only friends. With such solacing explanations to our relationship, I tried to forget all the romantic feelings for Shantanu in my mind.
It was Thursday night. I was spending time with my laptop, partly studying, texting smses and chatting with my roommates. I got a message from Shantanu asking me to come to the Ganesh temple the next morning.
I asked him why? He called my phone and said, “Just come”
“But.. why in the morning? Why not we go in the evening as usual?”
“Tomorrow is special; I want you to come in the morning.”
“Ok”, I just agreed. Not again, I wondered what was so special about that Friday. Full moon day, no moon day or what else? Whatever be it why can’t it wait till evening?
Looking at my confusion, Divya who spent most of her time with us in our room asked me, “Hey what did he say?”
“Who?”
“Who!! Wasn’t that Shantanu to whom you just spoke?”
“Oh Ya, he called me to the temple tomorrow morning.”
“Morning? But why?”
“That’s what is bugging me”
“Whatever! you will find out tomorrow morning. Why do you bother yourselves for this?”
“No but, isn’t it strange?”
With a sarcastic smile, “My bro Shantanu does everything with a reason.” Anu retorted.
I decided to wait, but I couldn’t. Somewhere in a corner of my mind thoughts raced about his love for me. ‘May be he wants to propose me’. Certainly temple is not a romantic place, yet what else a spiritual person like himself would go for. He might even had requested the examination authorities to change his exam hall to the nearby temple.
My rational mind kept pushing these thoughts down. It kept saying, “Don’t bother yourselves with such thoughts, or you might have to face another big disappointment that will lower your spirits for the whole day.”
Finally my intuitions about his proposal gave up, and I stopped having hopes that he will ever propose me, and tried to sleep, but you know I couldn’t.
Friday morning, Shantanu was waiting at his usual waiting spot a few paces away from our hostel gate, to avoid the eyes of our warden. He was dressed in perfect formals like he was about to be interviewed for admissions into a B-School.
We spent sometime in the temple. Shantanu felt very uneasy, I could see it from his stressed face and his perspiration. I wanted to ask him, but I waited for him to say what’s wrong.
After all the rituals, we finally sat in the temple premise, which again is a sacred custom to sit for sometime before you leave the temple. Shantanu handed over a small piece of paper to me.
Eternal English Ever fails
To express her exquisite eyes.
Benzaiten’s human embodiment
Beaut of knowledgable teaching
Legendary Kings kill themselves
Losing to her love for her people.
Angels of heaven bow before this
Arch angel for her heavenly helm.
Broken hearts of humans fill the earth
Because of her, my lovely elegant Elvia.
I thought may be Anu will wake me up from my dream the next minute. Everything around came crashing towards me. I badly needed a CPR. I looked up from the paper.
He looked straight into my eyes and said, “Elvi; I love you”
Showing posts with label I love Elvia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I love Elvia. Show all posts
The Real Me (LVII)
Reviewed by Ridhi.
I write things that Elvia couldn’t cover namely boys’ hostel and viewing classes in the perspective of a 7 pointer. Hostel was heaven that’s what most of us will tell you at least after 2 years of staying there.
The frightful mess food, old paint withering walls, disturbances from 5.1s and other sound systems, buggers like Prabhu of our class, yet hostel life was so enjoyable. You could see all varieties of people at hostel, right from the drunkards, the chain smokers, the other sort of chain smokers who smoked out books, psychos, introverts, blabber maniacs, rumor rangers a lot of them.
And of course people who rarely fell into any category like me, or that’s what Elvia used to say I was and call me Mr.Unique. Only after she pointed out, I realized that, people who detest vodka, who feel it hard to breathe, when there is a smell of nicotine, being so deep into elections are a rare phenomenon. Not just that, the other thing was I was not from an influential family or the friend of the son of a big shot, yet I am a key person in college elections.
I hung out with a lot of people, but most relations were perfectly professional acquaintances. It would be either people who were involved in college elections or those who were part of college symposium or NSS peers or juniors. It might be because, I don’t trust people so deeply nor I rarely get emotionally attached with anyone, or because I am a control freak.
Half the college considered me and Elvia as an ideal pair, though we are black and white. We are just opposites in almost everything, right from me being a guy and she being a girl. Ya, that’s a joke, though it is an undisputed truth.
For this reason Elvia, though being a girl of the kind who would get at least a proposal a week, rarely got one. Everyone considered we were in love with each other. Mind you if I say, none would try and mess up with my girl. It became a de facto standard, that, the top guys in college elections are tuff guys.
I first saw her in our counseling. She was sitting a few rows ahead of me, when waiting for our admission letters. I wondered whether she would be in my department or if she chose ECE.
For the next ten days after counseling most of us would have dreamed of college. Even I did, but with Elvia in it. I wondered what her name might be, what department she belonged to, would I ever get a chance to speak to her.
Hence forth my college started with dreams about this girl. I knew it was stupid, love at first sight is perfectly insensible, yet I was obsessed, all my brain stopped working. I went crazy.
When I discovered that she belonged to CSE department, I don’t think I can ever explain how it felt like. You would have read that, I quit from NCC, as I wanted to spend time with Elvia by joining her NSS unit.
Many a once I saw Krishna and other smart or studious guys speak with Elvia for an entire break session, for almost 20minutes. Till date I wonder how they managed to speak so long. May be they spoke about C programming and how advanced java was when compared to C. Unfortunately I was not geeky enough in all that to strike a conversation with Elvia confidently.
I have heard friends say ‘why the hell lovely girls are often studious’, how unfortunate! Elvia turned out to be one such girl. I tried to be a 9 pointer but I never was able to be even an 8 pointer. I never love doing something I am not interested in.
At school my teachers had created an illusion that, college will be a dream world, like Utopia. They said that, I would have a nice time at college, more than all that I believed things would be more practical than theoretical. All in vain, none of them were true. I felt like doing a +2 every 5months.
I somehow managed +2 after a year of hard core schooling with, spending time at special classes and tuitions, and reaching home after 9PM. I couldn’t do that anymore. I wished, I do things that I felt were useful and the ones that made sense to me. I was bored of running behind marks or grades.
I got in touch with Elvia, thanks to NSS. Soon I learned that Elvia had more than just lovely looks. She was not just an angel by looks, but by heart and her very soul was divine. She was always honest, and she was straight forward, above all that, she did what she felt was right without pretending to be someone for the sake of others.
Days went by. I grew madder about her. I wanted to prove her, that, though I was not worthy enough to be a 9pointer I do have other skills. I got in all sort of extra-curricular or organizational activities in college and certainly I did well in all that, but I was not sure whether they impressed a good opinion in Elvia.
I wanted to open my heart and show her that she is embedded in every drop of my blood and every cell of my muscles, but I never was able to. She considered me a very good friend. In fact the best of friends, equal to Anu and Divya. I never could afford to mess it up.
I wanted to stay with her as long as I could. I didn’t want to distance her by opening up my love to her. Further, I feared, she would never love a 7 pointer and a political person. I tried my best to hide and suppress the overflowing emotions by letting her know how I felt about her.
At times it felt like I would live forever with this untold love staying by her side as a good friend. In fact that definitely was a better option, than she hating me forever for mistaking her friendship as love.
When it came to Anu, I stood by her word ‘brother’. I cared for her like I do for my own sister. On that day, I wanted to break Kiran into pieces, but how would people ever call me a good leader, if I let my personal emotions blast off all the hard earned results they had achieved.
Elections were not just my cause. It was not just my victory, but it was our victory. People had worked hard for months considering the difference between election triumph and defeat as the different between life and death. The victory was as much theirs as much it was mine.
Elvia didn’t understand all that, anger blinded her. I could see she was so very annoyed and angry at my passivity from her big blue eyes, which always had a loving look then stared at me with fury. The last look she gave me after that incident almost killed me, but I was standing there helpless. My boiling blood drained out completely at her misunderstanding. I was looking for an opportunity to prove she was wrong, most importantly to avenge for my beloved sister Anu.
I write things that Elvia couldn’t cover namely boys’ hostel and viewing classes in the perspective of a 7 pointer. Hostel was heaven that’s what most of us will tell you at least after 2 years of staying there.
The frightful mess food, old paint withering walls, disturbances from 5.1s and other sound systems, buggers like Prabhu of our class, yet hostel life was so enjoyable. You could see all varieties of people at hostel, right from the drunkards, the chain smokers, the other sort of chain smokers who smoked out books, psychos, introverts, blabber maniacs, rumor rangers a lot of them.
And of course people who rarely fell into any category like me, or that’s what Elvia used to say I was and call me Mr.Unique. Only after she pointed out, I realized that, people who detest vodka, who feel it hard to breathe, when there is a smell of nicotine, being so deep into elections are a rare phenomenon. Not just that, the other thing was I was not from an influential family or the friend of the son of a big shot, yet I am a key person in college elections.
I hung out with a lot of people, but most relations were perfectly professional acquaintances. It would be either people who were involved in college elections or those who were part of college symposium or NSS peers or juniors. It might be because, I don’t trust people so deeply nor I rarely get emotionally attached with anyone, or because I am a control freak.
Half the college considered me and Elvia as an ideal pair, though we are black and white. We are just opposites in almost everything, right from me being a guy and she being a girl. Ya, that’s a joke, though it is an undisputed truth.
For this reason Elvia, though being a girl of the kind who would get at least a proposal a week, rarely got one. Everyone considered we were in love with each other. Mind you if I say, none would try and mess up with my girl. It became a de facto standard, that, the top guys in college elections are tuff guys.
I first saw her in our counseling. She was sitting a few rows ahead of me, when waiting for our admission letters. I wondered whether she would be in my department or if she chose ECE.
For the next ten days after counseling most of us would have dreamed of college. Even I did, but with Elvia in it. I wondered what her name might be, what department she belonged to, would I ever get a chance to speak to her.
Hence forth my college started with dreams about this girl. I knew it was stupid, love at first sight is perfectly insensible, yet I was obsessed, all my brain stopped working. I went crazy.
When I discovered that she belonged to CSE department, I don’t think I can ever explain how it felt like. You would have read that, I quit from NCC, as I wanted to spend time with Elvia by joining her NSS unit.
Many a once I saw Krishna and other smart or studious guys speak with Elvia for an entire break session, for almost 20minutes. Till date I wonder how they managed to speak so long. May be they spoke about C programming and how advanced java was when compared to C. Unfortunately I was not geeky enough in all that to strike a conversation with Elvia confidently.
I have heard friends say ‘why the hell lovely girls are often studious’, how unfortunate! Elvia turned out to be one such girl. I tried to be a 9 pointer but I never was able to be even an 8 pointer. I never love doing something I am not interested in.
At school my teachers had created an illusion that, college will be a dream world, like Utopia. They said that, I would have a nice time at college, more than all that I believed things would be more practical than theoretical. All in vain, none of them were true. I felt like doing a +2 every 5months.
I somehow managed +2 after a year of hard core schooling with, spending time at special classes and tuitions, and reaching home after 9PM. I couldn’t do that anymore. I wished, I do things that I felt were useful and the ones that made sense to me. I was bored of running behind marks or grades.
I got in touch with Elvia, thanks to NSS. Soon I learned that Elvia had more than just lovely looks. She was not just an angel by looks, but by heart and her very soul was divine. She was always honest, and she was straight forward, above all that, she did what she felt was right without pretending to be someone for the sake of others.
Days went by. I grew madder about her. I wanted to prove her, that, though I was not worthy enough to be a 9pointer I do have other skills. I got in all sort of extra-curricular or organizational activities in college and certainly I did well in all that, but I was not sure whether they impressed a good opinion in Elvia.
I wanted to open my heart and show her that she is embedded in every drop of my blood and every cell of my muscles, but I never was able to. She considered me a very good friend. In fact the best of friends, equal to Anu and Divya. I never could afford to mess it up.
I wanted to stay with her as long as I could. I didn’t want to distance her by opening up my love to her. Further, I feared, she would never love a 7 pointer and a political person. I tried my best to hide and suppress the overflowing emotions by letting her know how I felt about her.
At times it felt like I would live forever with this untold love staying by her side as a good friend. In fact that definitely was a better option, than she hating me forever for mistaking her friendship as love.
When it came to Anu, I stood by her word ‘brother’. I cared for her like I do for my own sister. On that day, I wanted to break Kiran into pieces, but how would people ever call me a good leader, if I let my personal emotions blast off all the hard earned results they had achieved.
Elections were not just my cause. It was not just my victory, but it was our victory. People had worked hard for months considering the difference between election triumph and defeat as the different between life and death. The victory was as much theirs as much it was mine.
Elvia didn’t understand all that, anger blinded her. I could see she was so very annoyed and angry at my passivity from her big blue eyes, which always had a loving look then stared at me with fury. The last look she gave me after that incident almost killed me, but I was standing there helpless. My boiling blood drained out completely at her misunderstanding. I was looking for an opportunity to prove she was wrong, most importantly to avenge for my beloved sister Anu.
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