That Girl

Sometimes, it just so happens that things are not in your hands. All you can do is, wait, watch, think and realize. May be in the larger scheme of things, as people love to call it when they can’t change their lives, it is for the greater good.  But sometimes, feelings are so true, those which couldn’t be suppressed, those, occurring only and exclusively when one’s ability to acquire is not challenged. Occasionally, it happens, that someone falls in love, and then falls out of it, and then again, with someone else. It goes on, and on, as it depends upon the fact that one can approach someone or not. Therefore it is possible that people may find someone, living opposite to their houses or in office or anywhere else, adorable when compared to make up laden, fancy dress ridden film stars.

And most of the times until some sort of cosmic interference steps in, and that is, usually, a decision colliding with another decision. A boy may stand up on his feet, collect courage, and talk to a girl. And that’s just the beginning, a lot of things follow, until the boy proposes and strangles the love story, there and then. Because always, all love stories end, where the guy says “I love you”, despite wondering how corny that sounds. And no, those love stories beginning with the boy and the girl attracted to each other, those which don’t end with the corny statement, but much later in fact, are not love stories, they are tragedies. If by chance, such a story ends happily then it isn’t a story, it is a properly planned marketing strategy executed successfully for financial benefits, to sell a book or a film.

So the matter of fact lies in the truth, that whatever is believed to be a love story is either a hoax, or a tragedy. But it isn’t a love story. And, exceptions are always there, everywhere. Had movies been a reflection of life, or dreams, that they are capable of, they’d have shown a story where boys and girls live in dreams more than reality. They work, they dream, they sleep dream, they talk they dream. Greatest moments of life dwell within fast foods corners, over pizzas, breads, fried chickens, mochas, burgers. At times, over those pizzas, when single girls make fun of single boys who in turn flirt with other single girls, if they come to know about it and considering Indian situation if there are at all, within a group, where the flirt in question is there on the table, but the girl in question isn’t and at all times, there is another boy on the table dreaming of someone else, that others don’t know of, and don’t care of. When the discussion is too spicy to end, the dreamer’s dream girl pops out of the dream and enters the fast food corner, with her own herd, the red-blue tackily colored, bizarrely designed eatery that is capable of generating not-to-be-taken-seriously mood, with glass walls, out of which dusky evenings, above the highways are slowly swallowed by nights, star filled, lamp lit.

The red-blue walls, with insanely circular, red-blue in color, office like but conveniently large, table, for eating is occupied by 7-8 hoodlums, comprising of both boys and girls, who have no other thing to discuss, or think, or dream. From a distance one would think there are 10 people, but actually on that table, there were 7. Throwing gags at each other. Boys with girls, slightly less familiar, become formal, alarmingly. They try to be funny, serious, diligent, enigmatic, magnificent etc. all at the same time. But there are few, who most of the times, think too much to bother, or dream too much to bother. And that is another skill of theirs to attract, attention, obviously. Most of the human lives are spent fighting for it, so no point in blaming that hard coded beauty of the human nature. That is the poetry of it, the art of it, of the nature.

Successively, that discussion is wished, that it doesn’t end. And one amongst them gets bored and starts dreaming. In Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist, ripped off, hilariously in an extraneously asinine Hindi film, it was said that “When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. As that discussion continues to get mundane, and that evening deepens, into the glossy mysterious night, reality, steps aside, for the dreamy, partially accurate, partially abstract haze. That, from that door, transparent and outlined by red fabric thick pillars, where a grey colored car whose metal shines reflecting the lamp above it is parked, from behind it, a man leaning to the car could see inside, but he seemed lost in his own confounded diligence. His carefree smoke evidenced. The highway behind the highway was traffic free. Occasionally a motorcycle or a car or a lorry would cross one’s line of sight.

Orange was the color of the lamp post, not the one above the car, but the one established on the divider slicing the highway into two, across its length. Illuminating the portion of the highway, because its location wasn’t exactly opposite to the eatery, so from inside, it looked like a painting, beginning with a red colored pillar on the left, a transparent door, another pillar, a glass wall, outside the glass wall stood the car, and the man leaning to it, and smoking, very slowly, towards the right end of the wall, outside the part of the highway which was partially illuminated and partially dark, and the lamppost. That was maximum an eye could see, without turning the neck. The eye of the dreamer, which intended to see a girl, unknown, who stayed nearby, and the dreamer would see her, in that place, many times, and started dreaming that she would enter, and today, he would stand on his feet and say hi.

There is a sequence, the way he dreamt. She would come with 2-3 other girls, she would stop outside have a chat, analyze if there is a place inside, to sit. And she would resume discussion and she would move on, go straight. She wouldn’t come in. The whole pack would go straight.

She would come alone, analyze if there is a place to sit, she would think for some time, she would come in, and order what she would like to have, wait, get it packed, and take it away.

She would come, chatting with her friends, and without even thinking about coming inside, she would go straight.

She would come, with a big group of people, she would see that there is no place inside for such a large group of people and she would go back.

She would come inside; it doesn’t matter if she comes with a large number of people, and she would order something, have a blast and go back.

She would come inside, she would sit, and dreamer would wait for the right opportunity, gather courage to say Hi, and he would go to her, and say hi.

She would come inside, and he would see her come, eat and go and without doing anything.

She would come, with 2 other girls, without even thinking about coming inside, she opens the door, chatting with her friends, places her order and occupies a table right opposite to him. She notices, the boy is seeing, nervously, she looks away, she observes again, she sees the boy is still there, not one inch turned, she gets nervous, even further, and looks around, only to check back again, and the boy is looking away and his friends are taking pot shots at each other.

Usually, it so happens, that there is another truth, hidden somewhere. But when there exists a group of people there is someone who senses, what’s wrong. So inside a fast food corner, the boy, slowly, carefully, trying to find an opportunity, to catch a glimpse. The problem, lies in capability to acquire, the matter of fact that someone is close enough, and also, the fact, that the other person is good looking, at-least in the eyes of the beholder, also points out to an internal urge of having a good looking girl friend who can be a status symbol. Perhaps that is also the reason, people usually tend to move on when situations change, finding a better looking girl, for example.

But that, was not the point, right now. Right now, the loneliness of a youngster was playing a role. Especially, while dwelling in dreams, analyzing reality, most of the time he’d suppressed feelings. For that one moment of time, when dream took a shape, and undying will to observe in silence, that urge to talk to someone, and see without any hitch, for the rest of the life, in that moment lived feelings, that usurped, thoughtfulness, logic.

In that pack, of people that evening, one of his friends, observed shift in behavior, turned around to see, to be stunned to know, what stopped the boy from behaving normally. The boy was interrupted  as looked up to see his friend with his eyebrow raised, rather gleefully. Then started the problem. Reading expressions, of the two people in the pack, another one got curios, and she was a girl, she turned around to check what’s wrong, and that was it.

The dreamer guy was too shy to speak, and here he is, amidst people, who had no other topic to discuss other than each other’s counterparts, and the dreamer was immediately, the center of attention. Not that he’d mind, but then it was a nervous situation. Of all the confusion, one of them asked a question, apparently, not knowing anything.

“What’s up, why is everyone so silent?”

“That girl”, dreamer pointed, using drastically magnificent gestures, that people could cherish and laugh for another 5 minutes, without a hiccup.

“So what’s wrong? Go on and say hi!” few friends in a pack are dudes, they are too carefree, just to enjoy the scene. There is a category of these people. Those who say ‘go on and fight I’m there’. And many get fooled by that statement, primarily because he’s there would not make a lot of difference. Because he is not the one going to curb his fear and make a move, which usually is a disaster of epic proportions.

“I won’t”, dreamer had another dream going on with him, as he observed the girl was alone on her table rest of her friends were standing in front of the counter, trying to decide what they’d decide.

“This is the moment, either you go, and say Hi, or you sit here and glance till she leaves and you continue with your dreams forever.” Another one said.

“You know her name?” a girl from the pack asked,

“No”, another one replied, “he’s been doing this for quite some time now but he is too cold to make a move”.

The problem is, he had a similar experience already. He tried, to talk to a girl, rather unknown. Still he knew her name and phone number. He dialed, she picked up, he said “Hi, Actually, I’m, Actually, I’m, actually I’m Rohan, Actually, no I’m not Rohan, actually that’s not my real name, actually I wanted to talk to you, actually can we be friends? No actually, I mean”, “Do you have another word than the word ‘actually’ in your vocabulary?” With one single statement, she told him he is very bad with the talking part. That day, he swore, this would be his first and last time, when he’d flirt. Regardless, whatever he might feel, he’d keep his head down, and never be ashamed. Better coward than ashamed, he thought.

“What are you thinking? Go” One of them pulled him back to the reality.

“Go, she’s alone, go” “Go.” “Yes, be a man!” “Look at your face, don’t throw up already” “He’s red!” 

“He’s blushing Idiot” as everyone quietly yelled, blushing was the word that hit him. It infuriated him, disgusted him, he stood up, without a plan, walked into reality, that today he’d do the thing. He’d win the war and say hi, despite the fact he might have never talked to a girl unknown, well, other than one exception, though the last time, the girl wasn’t completely unknown, still.

So, he stood up, walked as a military general with assault rifles and guns on his shoulders, ready to destroy the enemy, the hitch of being someone who couldn’t talk. Like a cowboy from westerns on horses, he lifted his shoulders, put aside his chair, and walked as the girl observed the weirdly elegant masculinity approach.

With each step he took, the boy would change his appearances in his dreams. From a military general, to a cowboy, to a shirtless hero from Hindi Films, to a charming superstar who’d make women awestruck simply by stretching his arms, to an elegant magician who’d please the audiences by removing his hat and taking a bow, to accept success.

As he came close to the table he turned his gaze towards the girl’s eyes, he fixed his gaze as he walked and then he gradually looked down, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, turned left from the girl’s table, walked straight, took a right turn, walked a few steps forward, and went out of the eatery.

And that was it. When he bowed in his dream, he looked down in reality, he was wearing brown colored nubucks, with blue jeans and a black T, he was no magician, but an ordinary boy full of nervousness, and sheer shamefulness. He walked away, pretending he is sending a message. He perhaps would never know the name of the girl, last time, he did because she was in college and there were mutual friends. Now, there was no chance, that girl would remain, that girl would continue to be that girl for the rest of his life.

But it wouldn’t make a lot of difference, will it? At times he felt, that in case he’d really talk to that girl, he dreamt may be he’d succeed in seeing through it, to the end of it, he dreamt that end was plane boring. Talking on phone for hours, going out eating, watching movies, if things get serious enough getting married and back to usual life all over again, the true poetry lied before the endings, and in that nervousness, he realized was true romance. One day may be he’d find someone, that he could gather courage and confidence to talk to, or maybe he’d just spend the rest of his life dreaming, thinking whether whatever he felt, was it true, or just another vague attempt at attention seeking?