MY FIRST STORY- CHAPTER 2

“Your hormones were just playing a prank on you!!!”
I kept telling myself for the next few days. Whenever I bumped into Kavitha my eyes suddenly got interested in the barren walls and mango trees usually in the exact opposite direction and my heart kept betraying me, working extra hard to pump every last drop of blood to my face. The “HULK” turned out to be in my own department and turned out to be more of a “HAGRID” in person. Just after the long nap we enjoyed on our first day during the speech, he sought me out in class and introduced himself,
“Hey man!! Am Gaurav Sharma, mere dosth mujae Gaurav bulathaen! Aur thum?”
And after the usual few minutes of embarrassing silence due to lack of topic we got on quite well. I took in his appearance clearly only then, he was much more gigantic when up close, about 6’2” tall and had a fair complexion. But he had a face of a boy, clean and smooth as the moon with no hint of manhood!! And soon we were to be found sharing the same bench. Though he was from Delhi he knew reasonable Tamil. It was because, I later came to know, he had done his schooling for the last few years in Chennai.
It wasn’t till a month later that Gaurav asked me to join his friends for lunch at the canteen. And the simple fact that I was to have lunch with the girl who had disturbed my hormonal balance so easily, made my insides squirm, as if I had gulped down a few snakes!! I toyed with the idea of denying the offer, but something within me made me never to utter a word against it.

As the clock clicked towards the twelfth hour I felt myself unusually nervous. I kept checking my watch every few minutes and Gaurav was cool sitting next to me smirking at my childish nervousness. When the clock struck twelve, as usual, we were treated to another quarter hour of the droning subject, our professor enjoying every groan and sigh from the students. And we made our way to the canteen fifteen minutes after the other department students had.
When we entered the canteen Gaurav excused himself to get his plate of north Indian dishes with the ghee rich parathas and tandoori chicken. Brought up amidst staunch Brahmins, and used to people who cringe their noses even at the mention of non- vegetarian foods, I have developed a natural aversion towards it. Though I secretly enjoy the smell of heavy spices and hot gravy that always accompanied these dishes! I went and punished myself with the dishes which were supposed to be called the vegetarian food with half baked potatoes and watery solution named rasam!

“ Hi! enna nyabagam irukka?! Hope you do remember?”
Kavitha’s jovial sarcastic voice startled me from behind. I dropped the cup of sambar I was collecting and cursing myself for letting me be startled that way, I turned around giving my radiant I-made-myself-embarrassed-yet-again smile, and gave a stupid repartee. Gosh! Why can’t I be cool around this girl I cursed myself yet again for the millionth time!! And we made our way to the table.

I saw Gaurav sitting there talking to a lean girl in rapid Hindi. They were talking seriously, munching on their chicken, and stopped suddenly as soon as they saw me and Kavitha walking towards them. They could go on talking for days with me sitting next to them and I still won’t get even an inkling of what they were talking, for my knowledge in Hindi was as bad as that of the English knowledge of our college professors!!




When I took my seat opposite to Gaurav and started on my lunch after a formal intro with the Hindi girl who was introduced as Aruna Jaitley (shortly Aruna). She had the figure of a girl who could make any guy’s head spin. I was astounded why she would choose engineering when she could have easily tried her hand at modeling!! She was tall, had an angular face with protruding cheekbones and dimples when she smiled, which was quite cute. I surprised myself by having an embarrassment free conversation by consciously keeping it away from the girl sitting next to me.

My god!! I thought, I am too old for this butterflies-in-stomach kind of crushes!!

After a few minutes I heard Aruna say,

“Are yar! I never thought I would meet a down to earth Brahmin other than Kavi!! You don’t mind sitting next to non-veg eaters huh?!?”
Being a bad receiver of compliments for as long as I can remember, never being able to decide on an apt reply for it, I just smiled away the compliment that I had received often. I actually am enjoying the smell I told within myself.

Everything was quite fine until I heard a voice behind me say in a perfect American accent

“Who s this crap in ma seat? Been replaced already huh?!?!”