“Memories”, you are simply amazing

Raghav, the protagonist from the other blog post “She Moved In, But I had moved Out” is now working at a Multi-National Firm somewhere in the foreign land and is quite comfortable with his new relocation. Most of his time gets totally consumed with the office work, as he barely finds some personal time to take off from the hectic & dynamic schedule.

Some turbulent days did pass by him and some gentle ones too, which was well taken care off by him, as he was matured enough to believe the truth that no single day is the same and no single situation is gone stay the same. 

And it was one such gentle day at the office when suddenly a long lost memory of his flashed right in front of his eyes, barely lasting a second or two, just like how a lighting would hit the earth and vanish off swiftly. 

An unsettled confusion turned up within him instantly. How can a long lost event suddenly flash up before him was his question to himself when he had not thought of it anytime now? Thinking of what caused the sudden trigger of the memory flash, Raghav found out that it was from the Radio that was playing out of his mobile phone.

He had this habit of listening to songs while working, as it helped him stay focused, be always connected with Chennai and refine the unnecessary noise surrounding him. And it was this time that over the radio the Radio Jockey had mentioned the name of a small town, which ignited the memory out of his brain.

It was just a town located twenty three kilometres east of Erode, a city in Tamil Nadu, wherein once Raghav had established a close connection with it. Mixed emotions started flowing within him as soon as the name of the town echoed inside his brain. He was no longer able to concentrate on the work that he was doing and the thought of revisiting the place urged within him. 

Thanks to the technological development the world has seen now, one's actual presence is not exactly required at any place. You can be virtually connected anywhere from the Arctic to the Antarctica. Well when tools like Google Maps & YouTube depicts most of the places on the earth so accurately and gives a complete virtual tour of even some of the most inaccessible place on the planet, all that you need to do is to sit and relax while the World Wide Web does it magic.

Coming back to the present situation, it was nearly fifteen years now and not even once did he actually think of revisiting that particular place, in person or virtually. So, what was the connection with the town that Raghav had? 

Well in the early 2000's a set of educational institutions blossomed across the state of Tamil Nadu boasting itself of specializing in giving exemplary training for the higher secondary students to excel in their board exams. Their marketing strategy has a serious impact in the houses of many middle class family, not just within the state but with the neighboring states as well. There were many kids who became victim to it and Raghav was one of them. 

(To know more about the life of students in such institution, please visit the actual blog post - https://krish-thefriendly.blogspot.com/2014/03/she-moved-in-but-i-had-moved-out-part-1.html )

However, today when Raghav was viewing his school after fifteen years, none of those painful moments even showed up because all the good memories had actually overshadowed the bad ones. So, when he was looking at each of those buildings from his school, only those fond memories of it were being played at the back of his eyes and he could actually feel himself reliving those moments again.

The hostel wherein he and his roommates used to spend long nights sharing spooky tales, the assembly area where he and Mithun used to take the last row during the yoga session just to evade the direct view of the warden, the playground wherein they used to show off their sporting skills, as it was right close to the girls hostel, the higher secondary academic block where he and his cousin brother used to secretly meet every day and their secret spot on sharing paper chits containing coded information, the main academic block wherein there were individual stairs for boys and girls, the study hall where every morning he used to pretend studying when actually sleeping with the book wide open and Mithun staying guard to alert him in case of the warden coming by at close range and meeting his first crush, the girl who was totally mad on him despite knowing the school rules, all brought in a big smile on his face.

Staying still for a moment at his work desk, he was still not out of the time travel that he just had, wishing how good it would be to actually revive them. Feeling cheerful about travelling down his memory lane, he was amazed knowing how the brain works and the need to encode more and more good memories into it, so as to have a happy retired life.

A life when you sit relaxed with your partner in the balcony of your high-rise apartment overlooking the beautiful mountains of the western ghats and sharing the wonderful moments with her.

She moved in, but I had moved out – Part 8 (The Movie Night)

Over the next few days Mithun had almost come close to revealing the incident to Kishore, however my timely interruption saved the day. It was not that Mithun wanted to deliberately share it with Kishore, but it was his natural behavior and he can’t be blamed for it, in any way. Moreover he can never conceal even a tiny piece of information with his close friends, and now since I had put him in such a tight spot, he really found it difficult to handle the situation.

While this was happening on one side of my life, in parallel on the other side, the secret cute smiles & glances between Sri and I started rising rapidly, as we couldn’t resist looking at each other even for a short interval of five minutes. We never missed a single moment that gave us the chance of looking at one another and we both seemed to relish it deeply. That was the first real infatuation that we both had in our lives and well of course during the early years of your teens, the hormonal reactions within you are totally uncontrollable. So, we just let it go by the flow and didn’t suppress our feelings. And as I had already mentioned in my last post, she had a fair complexion and every single time that our eyes met, she totally blushes out and her cheeks instantly turn pink, making her look like a Barbie doll.

So, amidst all these happy moments, there were times when somewhere deep down our heart a little fear would pop-up, especially while thinking of the school rules. However, the fun side of the hostel life overshadowed our fears and we continued with our so called puppy romance. And then there was this night, one among the innumerable memories that I preserve from that time, which remains fresh in my mind even now.

As there was no television at the hostel, the school authority used to screen film once in a month. So, as we were in the middle of the academic year, it was one such movie night that we were all so eagerly waiting for. Right since we got back from school, Kishore, Mithun and I were in full-on discussion about the movie and we were so excited about it. It was a newly released Tamil movie called “M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi” starring Jeyam Ravi in the lead role and a debutant actress from Kerala called Asin. The first study hour was indeed busy that evening, as every single student seemed to be heavily discussing only about the movie, which the hostel wardens mistook it as students engaged in serious group study. Well, yeah that’s how stupid they were in real.

Dinner was served early that night and we were all chit chatting merely at our rooms, by the time when the technical team was setting up the projector and the screen. Minutes later, the announcement was made for the students to come and assemble at the hall. The wardens had actually expected students to turn up in an orderly fashion. However, to their surprise every single student barged out of their rooms in such a hurry that they even knocked down couple of staffs who were standing at the entrance of the hall.

But no one cared about it and every one were in a rush to grab the first few rows of the hall. It was a complete chaos and the crowd was being totally uncontrollable. Nobody seemed to pay heed to the warden’s instruction and it was well enough for the staffs be enraged at us. And in that rage they just went and shut down the projector. In an instance the entire hall fell silent and we could clearly sense the anger on all their faces.

It was for sure that we would be subjected to heavy punishment that night and our guesses turned out to be true in the next few minutes. All the students were sent back to the hostel and were made to kneel down at the assembling point. By now we had spent quite a lot of days at the hostel and we knew there were more aggressive punishments, in line for us. The faculties arrived at the assembling point and had started clearly identifying those miscreants who had behaved wrongly with them. They started filtering them out from the entire lot, and luckily Kishore, Mithun and I were not one among them or to say it on a brighter note, unfortunately we were held up at our rooms and we were among the few to reach the hall last. And therefore the staffs had very well seen us entering calmly.  

But I would say that was not us totally and our starts were shining bright that day to save our asses from the terrible punishments. Every single time the thought of punishments made our blood run cold. So, on one side as the miscreants were being filtered out, on the other side the studious one were also getting filtered out and they were sent to the cinema hall.

Again we were held up in between. Because unfortunately, we did not fit into either of the category and we were actually wondering how come being studious related to not being mischievous? But if that is how the understanding of the educational system is, then we raising voice against it is like an ant trying to pitch its voice against an elephant. So, with the only other option left with us, we started making innocent faces and tried all sort of ways to get noticed by any of our class faculty, as we were so desperate to watch the movie.

And this time our trick actually worked out, as Mr. Basha, our Mathematics teacher noticed us and called us forward. He gave a suspicious look at all three of us, but we still maintained the same innocence on our face and then he asked us to move out to the cinema hall, as he was one among the few staffs earlier to notice us entering the cinema hall late. So, our false act plus our unplanned late entry earlier paved us the way for us this time. We actually couldn’t believe our luck, as our stupid trick worked out with one of the most dreaded staffs of the school. Hiding our joy within ourselves, we maintained the same composure until we reached the hall and then burst out laughing heavily.

Finally getting settled there feeling accomplished we were exchanging excited looks as the film started screening.

She moved in, but I had moved out – Part 7

So, just a small recap from the previous part, I was getting excited upon the news of moving to a new academic block, our regular academic session began in which Mithun & I shared most of our classes, and finally Mithun had woke me up from my nap just to share his excitement of finding Meenakshi in the same class and where I got petrified of a totally different sight.

A girl of peaches-and-cream skin tone with perfectly threaded eyebrows and waist length brunette half straight & half wavy hair had walked in right behind Meenakshi. Her eyes were calm and they were an instant attraction. She carried a perfect hour-glass figure with the right attire & accessories matching her complexion and structure, ending it with a neat box heel sandal. A shinning gold wrist watch slides down her smooth waxed arm every single time she moved the few strands of hair away from her face and a neat shade of “Starla” nail color gave a finishing touch to her beauty.

At the very moment, out of nowhere, the following lines started playing in my head, on a continuous loop.

“Chubby Cheeks, dimpled chin,

Rosy lips, teeth within,

Curly hair, very fair,

Eyes so blue, lovely too”

Do the lines sound familiar to you? Well, of course every one might have sung this famous nursery rhyme in their childhood.

I felt like the composer of rhyme composed it by looking at her, as it rightly exemplified her. She moved in gracefully with a broad smile that totally illuminated her face. And all these while my eyes were totally glued on her, ignoring what Mithun was saying to me or any other guy in the class, as this was the girl whom I wanted to meet right since my first encounter.

She was Ms. Elegant!

Thanks to my mind that it instantly put aside every other junk stacked in my brain and started prioritizing with the new job of just observing her. My eyes were in parallel acting swiftly to capture every single frame of her and getting it uploaded right away on to my hard disk.

Say, for another ten minutes or more, she was still involved in some sort of casual conversation with Harini, one of our other classmates from Coimbatore but I was doing just one task and it was to keep looking at her. And then suddenly it happened! She turned around and looked at me for the first time and it brought instant goosebumps within me. Her face was naturally radiant and the dimples were an instant eye catcher. Looking at me she gave a small smile.

“Khalaas!” I truly can’t express that feeling through words

(Honestly, even now, smile adorns my face while reminiscing that moment)

Getting back to my sense, my mind that was processing rapidly all these while did not expect this sudden bump to hit it that it got jammed totally. Not knowing how to react to the situation, I felt a gentle smile would do the justification. So, I acknowledged her with a warm smile and to my disbelief she welcomed it, turned around and blushed. Her peachy cheeks were turning bright red and she seemed to relish the moment.

What more will a guy ask for, other than this!

In your teens, normally if a girl looks at you and smiles; unquestionably you get butterflies in your stomach and I have heard a lot about it from my friends. But, for the first time when I experienced it, it was like a sudden rush of adrenaline flowing through me and as if all the other hormones that were on sleep mode were suddenly activated. It was one of those rare happy moments of my life when I had experienced such adrenaline rush; well of course the last time was when my brothers were born.

Amidst this cute moment, I failed to notice that the staff was already there in the class and she had been talking to Harini. Shortly then moving to the center of the class she gave a small self-intro and asked us to do the same. The guys in the front rows started introducing themselves finally ending it with Mithun and I. Now the staff turned her attention towards the girl’s side and so did we. Mithun was equally excited to know more about Meenakshi as how I was to know about Ms. Elegant.

Meenakshi started and finished off her part in an instant and she sat down quickly, to which Mithun was totally disappointed. Next in turn to speak was my girl. As she stood up, her thick free-flowing hair glided gently on her back like the waves that hit the shores. She introduced herself as Sri Vidya, from Bangalore. Her voice was so soft, she was very attentive and clear in speaking about her, just to make sure that I get hold onto every word that she spoke (which I learnt it later).

Finishing her part she sat, flipped her hair sideways, turned towards me and gave a small nod, asking if I had taken down the details. Well of course, every guy tends to put in his full attention on the girl he likes and I am nowhere different from them. In fact I had noted down inch-by-inch of her from head to toe. But being a good boy (as how the society tagged me) I acknowledged her with a small smile and for the next few minutes our eyes were glued on to each other. This new feeling was something first of its kind for both of us and we both seemed love it. So, we just ignored the rest of student’s intro and were busy with our own task.

But, when you have a friend like Mithun, your special moments aren’t supposed to last longer. Mithun shook me vigorously, as it seems he had been lately noticing the short romance that I was having with Sri (that’s how I always refer to her) and also purposely since he was annoyed with Meenakshi not speaking much.

“Hey Dude, get back to your sense and focus on the class. May be you can continue with your romance, later”, said Mithun, turning my face away from her, still pissed off!

I turned around and stared at him for ruining the lovely moment and started focusing on the class, though not whole heartedly. My mind was constantly hovering and over the next forty minutes, Sri & I would have exchanged looks at least 10 – 15 times.

The class came to an end and as per the school rules girls moved out of the class followed by the guys. On the way to the next class Mithun started pestering me with questions. “Well, you always stick with us but had never mentioned about her. So, how did this happen?” asked Mithun, cornering me inside the class.

“See there was nothing to hide from you guys. What you saw today happened for the first time”, I said, but Mithun was not ready to accept it.

And I was very sure that Mithun would definitely reveal the incident to Kishore and he will not take it easy and light. So, I had to warn Mithun to shut his mouth and keep this incident to himself and we made our way towards the boy’s staircase.

So, to what extent did this first sight between Sri Vidya & Raghav take them into?

Wish to know more? Then please stay tuned until the next part rolls out!

She moved in, but I had moved out – Part 6

She moved in, but I had moved out - Part 5  (The link to previous part)

In the last chapter, looking at Mithun’s thoughtless act, I gave him such a big philosophical lecture, just like some spiritual guru does, still not knowing that in another few days, I myself was about to get trapped in the charms of a girl. A girl, who just swept me off my feat!

Of course, every girl is beautiful in her own ways, but this particular girl, who made me insanely fall for her, was beyond every one. Getting back to our school days, it was slowly moving on and we were getting the hold on to the imprudent rules that were imposed on us. Yes, we evidently hated our school life; however our hostel life was something to relish about. From 4pm until 8am of the next day, Kishore, Mithun & I used to have the best time of our life. We three used to hang out together; be it at the room or the canteen or the study hall or even while doing yoga, which we purposely attended to continue with interrupted our early morning sleep.

To be honest, it was actually a hell of a life for anyone studying there and kids as small as 6 years were put up in the hostel, just with the false expectation of making them a successful person (WTF). Well that was where the parent’s belief rested upon. In fact they believed that the school would pave the way for their child’s future. Hmmm, what a foolish mindset is it. Well nothing more can be said of this, as by default we are stereotypes.

So, amidst this hard f***ing life, as a relief, came the news of us moving to the newly constructed academic block, which housed a part of the boys higher secondary classes, as well. It seemed not everyone welcomed this news as how I did it, since now they miss the chance to secretly catch an eye on the higher secondary girls. But, I was much relieved now, since I get the chance to meet my brother, every single working day.

Right since childhood, I had grown up seeing him and in particular, just by calling him as “Gautham anna” itself brought in some sort of excitement within me. Not all the words that you use every time have a strong sense of connection within you, but there are very few that holds the magic in it. And to me, his name was one of them. So, having him around in a place where everything else was against me was indeed a blessing in disguise and now I was least concerned about anything else happening to me there. In one way as this news elevated my endorphin level to unimaginable point, a part of my mind still hovered around Ms. Elegant (the girl whom I longed to see from a long time).

The actual academic year hadn’t started yet and instead we were having sort of extracurricular sessions, like, some sort of orientation program. Hanging around with the other two and participating in most of the activities, we never realized that we had successfully survived two months in that hell. And every now and then, Mithun tried his luck with Meenakshi but nothing worked out. Also, from my observation I understood that she is more of a studious type and doesn’t give a shit to any unwanted stuff trending around her.

Mithun’s act of getting Meenakshi’s attention was one among them in her list however it was well received by the other girls of the class. They seemed to like it, however going by the school’s rule; they resisted their emotions & relished by hiding it within themselves. But, not even a single time did Meenakshi pay attention to him or rather was busy glued to the text books always. And I didn’t want to reveal this to him, as I never wished pain for Mithun. I definitely knew that it would completely devastate him.

You know what; the best thing about Mithun was his smile. It was so refreshing & addictive that you instantly forget everything. And to a face that brings in happiness to others, how could I, being his close friend, add sorrow by revealing this news. So, every time that he speaks about her, I gave him my full attention and supported him, still making sure he didn’t do anything insane and land us all in a tight spot.

And very soon our class schedule turned up and luckily I was sharing most of my classes with Mithun. Since, Kishore had taken Tamil as his second language and we had taken Hindi, his schedule slightly differed from us.

The first day of the academic calendar began and classes started rolling on with every minute passing by. It was the first hour, post lunch and we had our Hindi class. As per the schedule the class was located somewhere in the ground floor of the academic block. On the way to the class, Mithun & I were heavily arguing that it will be more of a casual interaction session and rather a formal class. As we entered the class, there were a handful of guys seated and a single girl, whom we didn’t care much about.

The class just had four rows of seats and as usual, we took the last row. Feeling bored and not knowing what to do until the staff arrives, I laid on the desk to take a short nap, since my tummy was full, after a so called satisfying meal (totally sarcastic).

It would have been just a matter of seconds before I had closed my eyes that Mithun woke me up. I said, “What is it now man?” still not opening my eyes.

“Raghav…Raghav, wake up and look, its Meenakshi. I didn’t know that she had taken Hindi, as well, as her second language”, exclaimed Mithun happily. 

My mind voice was like “Hey Bhagawaan!!! mujhe is ladke se bachao naa (Oh God! Please save me from him)”. Cursing Mithun with some good words (again sarcastic), I slowly turned my head towards the doorway, when something else instantly caught my attention. Believe me or not, you should have looked at my face then. I was sitting stunned as if some powerful spell had hit me. The sorrow that held me all these while had suddenly vanished out of me and I was looking fresh & energetic, as if some sort of energy booster was released out of my brain.

So, what petrified me & what got rid of my sorrows?

Curious to know more about what happened, then please stay tuned until the next chapter rolls out.