Her peach chiffon sari ballooned up as it caught the wind.
She reached the parking lot of the school where a few classmates stood, accompanied by very caring mothers who were adjusting safety pins on the saris of their little girls.
She towered over the crowd, a shade over five and a half feet but still tall enough to dwarf the crowd. I felt a familiar longing of reaching out to touch her; of kissing her until one of us collapsed on the ground, breathless. Every eye that existed in the parking lot turned towards her, some stopping momentarily and some continuing to admire the beauty of this young woman.
She walked in my direction and I felt myself burn with desire. I looked into the side view mirror of the nearest car in the parking lot – to get a sense of reassurance that the blushing of my skin didn’t give away what I was feeling inside. I was still a light shade of pink, but my heart was the deep red of burning embers. “All set?” she asked me in the same nonchalant way that she would always address me.
“Yes, sort of,” I replied.
“You’re becoming Mr YPS today,” she stated, knowing that I probably stood no chance.
“If I get past the first round, I’d call it an achievement,” I replied.
“You’ll make it; you’re the best,” she said.
“Let’s go,” I said, and we walked the fair distance across the lawns to where the event was being staged, leaving behind a large gathering of girls, women and safety pins.
The music started – the cacophony of Roxette singing “It must have been love…,” a bitter reminder that the end was near of a love that had never seen a beginning. I was painfully aware that I might hardly see Radhika again, except for the few times that we would meet at the examination hall.
One part of me wanted to express myself – to tell her that I wanted to be with her and to date her. I sometimes even imagined myself being married to her. I guess that’s how first love is. Yet, the other, saner part of me said that this was the last day of school. We would go our different ways after the exams were over, in search of our education and a means to a livelihood. In the process, we’d meet people who possibly, would be more interesting. Maybe, they would be interesting enough to fall in love with. The pain lingered on, of not being able to garner the courage to express what I felt for her. I felt the agony of never being able to dance with her to the tunes of old English songs. I felt anguished that even if I met her later in life, I wouldn’t be seventeen.
The evening ended when Radhika was crowned Ms YPS. She walked away in the glory of being crowned, far away from my life. I wipe the one tear that has broken my command and made it to the corner of my eye, mourning the loss of my first love. The love that had never been expressed.
Through the tears, I look out of the window to see that the train has stopped at Chandigarh. I have returned to the city where my first love had happened. So much has changed during this time. Today, I am not the young Sikh boy who had come here on vacation with his mother. Today, I am a gigolo.
Radhika
My social life after my marriage with Vimal was non- existent. He wasn’t the sorts who would go out and meet a lot of people. When you don’t meet a lot of people, there is a very likely situation that friends are hard to come by.
The very few friends that I have are either out of touch or very far away. Despite the fact that Lucknow was a nightmare that I wish would end, Delhi is beginning to become a horror, sans company. It isn’t by accident that I find Shipra. It is the result of a careful search on Facebook that lasts many hours as I navigate through profiles of many similar named people until I find her profile. She now calls herself Shipra Ramachandran Sidhu. I think it’s funny that she has married a meat-eating Jat Sikh. She was a Tamil Brahmin who would frown on us meat eaters. Shipra looks ravishing in her profile
She reached the parking lot of the school where a few classmates stood, accompanied by very caring mothers who were adjusting safety pins on the saris of their little girls.
She towered over the crowd, a shade over five and a half feet but still tall enough to dwarf the crowd. I felt a familiar longing of reaching out to touch her; of kissing her until one of us collapsed on the ground, breathless. Every eye that existed in the parking lot turned towards her, some stopping momentarily and some continuing to admire the beauty of this young woman.
She walked in my direction and I felt myself burn with desire. I looked into the side view mirror of the nearest car in the parking lot – to get a sense of reassurance that the blushing of my skin didn’t give away what I was feeling inside. I was still a light shade of pink, but my heart was the deep red of burning embers. “All set?” she asked me in the same nonchalant way that she would always address me.
“Yes, sort of,” I replied.
“You’re becoming Mr YPS today,” she stated, knowing that I probably stood no chance.
“If I get past the first round, I’d call it an achievement,” I replied.
“You’ll make it; you’re the best,” she said.
“Let’s go,” I said, and we walked the fair distance across the lawns to where the event was being staged, leaving behind a large gathering of girls, women and safety pins.
The music started – the cacophony of Roxette singing “It must have been love…,” a bitter reminder that the end was near of a love that had never seen a beginning. I was painfully aware that I might hardly see Radhika again, except for the few times that we would meet at the examination hall.
One part of me wanted to express myself – to tell her that I wanted to be with her and to date her. I sometimes even imagined myself being married to her. I guess that’s how first love is. Yet, the other, saner part of me said that this was the last day of school. We would go our different ways after the exams were over, in search of our education and a means to a livelihood. In the process, we’d meet people who possibly, would be more interesting. Maybe, they would be interesting enough to fall in love with. The pain lingered on, of not being able to garner the courage to express what I felt for her. I felt the agony of never being able to dance with her to the tunes of old English songs. I felt anguished that even if I met her later in life, I wouldn’t be seventeen.
The evening ended when Radhika was crowned Ms YPS. She walked away in the glory of being crowned, far away from my life. I wipe the one tear that has broken my command and made it to the corner of my eye, mourning the loss of my first love. The love that had never been expressed.
Through the tears, I look out of the window to see that the train has stopped at Chandigarh. I have returned to the city where my first love had happened. So much has changed during this time. Today, I am not the young Sikh boy who had come here on vacation with his mother. Today, I am a gigolo.
Radhika
My social life after my marriage with Vimal was non- existent. He wasn’t the sorts who would go out and meet a lot of people. When you don’t meet a lot of people, there is a very likely situation that friends are hard to come by.
The very few friends that I have are either out of touch or very far away. Despite the fact that Lucknow was a nightmare that I wish would end, Delhi is beginning to become a horror, sans company. It isn’t by accident that I find Shipra. It is the result of a careful search on Facebook that lasts many hours as I navigate through profiles of many similar named people until I find her profile. She now calls herself Shipra Ramachandran Sidhu. I think it’s funny that she has married a meat-eating Jat Sikh. She was a Tamil Brahmin who would frown on us meat eaters. Shipra looks ravishing in her profile
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