May be! I Love You

by Kuldeep Sarvaiya

  "Oh goooooood…! All can't be wrong. I smell something fishy here. Please tell me her name; I won't tell it, anybody."

  "No, I am not going to tell you. How can I trust you?"

  "I promise you that I won't tell anyone ever in life. When I promise something, I keep it."

  "Okay, but here is a little disclaimer for you. All these names are tied to my name by others, not my personal view. Do not judge me after I tell you all the names."

  "Names? How many are there?"

  "Yes, names. My name is linked to four girls from our class on different occasions. Now since you have an interest in knowing names, you have to guess them."

  "No please. Why are you doing this? Just tell me the name, please."

  "You want to know them or not?"

  "Yes, I want to know. Provide some hint, I will guess. Say Yes or No, when I write a name."

  "Okay, so the first name has 4 letters in it, the second name has 5, third has 6, and fourth have seven letters in them."

  "Umm, first one is Sonu, second is Minal. I can't guess the third and fourth ones. Please tell me the names."

  "The first one is correct; the second is not correct. How can you imagine people might be linking my name to Minal? Have you seen her size?"

  "I guessed her name because I have seen you talking to her."

  "She sits right next to me in a practical lab, so I have to talk to her for practical related aspects. That reason is not good enough to link my name with her. It's Kiran, the second name. The third one is Sonali, and I am not going to reveal the fourth one."

  "Are you kidding me? Are you out of your mind? What kind of logic is there in linking your name to Sonali? I know her very well, and I don't think she is your type. This is awkward linking."

  "Excuse me! I put disclaimer just before telling you names that do not judge me. I am not the one linking my names to girls, my friends are. So back off. I am not interested in any of these names."

  "Then hell to those people who link your name to her. Sometimes people are not the way they look, so you should know that. Anyways, which is the fourth name?"

  "As I said, I am not going to say it with my mouth. Just one hint, you are going to regret the whole conversation after hearing the last name."

  "Okay, so it must be me. Yeah, there are seven letters in my name. Is it me?"

  "Yes, it is. The fourth name is yours. I told you not to start this conversation in the first place."

  "But how is this possible? I have never talked to you in class or anything. People are out of their minds." (Seriously? All you want to comment on is this? You tore me apart in pieces when I told you the name of Sonali, and when it's on you, just this much? Something is fishy right here.)

  "I told you not to talk on this topic, but you never listen to me."

  "Yeah, it's okay. Anyways get ready for the event and capture some photographs of nice girls in the event. Show me afterward." (See, I told you something is fishy here.)

  "I am a good boy. I do not do such activities. Do you want me in the hospital bed? What if anyone sees me while doing this?"

  "You don't have any art. You have to do it quietly and then show those photographs to me. I will help you in finalizing your girlfriend for you. There are so many nice and cute girls in Engineering." (Engineering boys, why do you always cry claiming, you guys don't find good girls in engineering? The girl here says you have nice and cute girls in your branch.)

  "Hey, there is no point in indirectly asking about photographs of handsome boys. I got it. I will get photographs for you. You need not to sugar coat your sentences."

  "I was not asking for the photographs. Just go to the event and leave me alone. I can't tolerate you anymore."

  "Oh, that escalated quickly. Anyways, goodbye. Will provide you update of the event live if it's boring or else tomorrow."

  "Yeah, okay. Bye"

  I left for the event with Jaydeep on the bike. Since he was a volunteer, we reached there before 2 hours or so. Jaydeep started helping out other volunteers, and I went to college to check who else is free. Finally, after an hour, people came, and I got busy with them. It was full moon night, and I was enjoying the beauty of college for the very first time. People started posing for photographs at a different location, and I started capturing them in-camera. At around 8 in the night, the "Garba event" started, and I was busy watching others doing the Garba since I didn't know the steps. I left playing Garba for like 4-5 years, and meanwhile, people invented too many complicated steps. The Ahmedabad's public is also excellent in creating the steps for Garba. I watch them for a while, enter in a circle, and within 5 minutes, they change the step. The people who do not wear anything except jeans were in a traditional dress for the very first time. Being a Gujarati guy, I always find girls more attractive in traditional dress. I was shocked and surprised at the same time because I was not able to identify my classmates. I never knew they could look this beautiful in their whole life. (I know it was a miracle of heavy makeup, but even makeup was so damn perfect.) It started making sense that people get married in the winter season. Guy finds a girl during Navratri, chase the girl, and make her fall in love using cheesy lines (Yeah, love, at first sight, is a total myth. You have to work too hard to get a girl in Gujarat. Don't you believe me? The festival is of 9 nights because our ancestors knew that love, at first sight, is a myth.), they know each other for a few months, and if everything goes well, they get married in winter.

  I kept on trying to get adjusted in the flow and steps of my classmates, but it was harder than rocket science. Binal, one of my batchmates, noticed me struggling to get adjusted to steps, so she came out of the circle and showed me steps in slow motion. I tried to repeat like an obedient student, but there was no coordination between my legs and hands. She took me to round and tried helping me, but I was too dumb for this sorcery. The good thing about Garba is that the pace and speed increase as time pass. At the end of the first round of Garba, the speed was at its peak, and everybody lost shit. No coordination, no steps, just running and waving hands randomly. You won't find Gujju public this aggressive any time of the whole year. Finally, round one ended, and I almost had breathlessness. After a break of about 15 minutes second round began, and I knew a few steps so blended in the crowd. At around 11, the second round ended, and security guards started sending everyone towards parking. I came back home and slept like anything. The next morning was full of pain, and I wasn't able to lift my hand or even move. This is what happens when you make a resolution and work hard in the gym. I took analgesics, and after about an hour or so, I regained my usual posture. I opened facebook and found that Anamika left a message to me. She was online, so I told her whole night incident, and the Sunday passed.

  After the celebration, there is always a dead silence of routine, and the same happened to me. I got busy with the typical college activities and started searching for the topic to be presented at the conference. I managed to find one from a random search, made a hypothesis based on a single article, and documented it. I send the final abstract and detailed description to Anamika, and she came up with thousands of questions. The deadline for the submission was near, so I submitted the required documents without any hope of selection. Anamika wanted to get selected and was excited as hell about the conference, while on the other hand, I was participating because a cute girl asked me to be her partner. I had no strings attached to a conference or the process associated with it. She submitted her abstract on the very last day and spent 3 days to decide the title. I had to change the title like 20-30 times so that she approves her title.

  It was a day before Diwali vacation, and almost 90% of the class was empty. Those who came were busy wishing faculties. I was sitting alone in the classroom sleeping, Anamika came, went to her place, and brought one box full of handmade chocolates. I didn't care to look to her, but then she poked me with a box. I looked at the open box and wanted to grab all those delicious chocolates. I controlled my emotions and just took 1 out o
f the box and placed it inside my mouth. I don't remember whether I thanked her or not because I was too busy enjoying my chocolate. She left, and I continued my sleeping session. Later that day, I had a big debate with Kiran, and she supported me in some of my points. After reaching home, I messaged her and thanked her for chocolates.

  "Chocolates were nice. Thank you for sharing them with me. Apart from that, a big thank you for supporting me during the debate."

  "It's okay. I wanted to ask you a few things, like how can you be so calm while arguing with someone? I was stunned, I mean you were answering so nicely, and with cool and on the other hand Kiran was getting angrier. Can you please teach me?"

  "Oh, it's not that big a deal at all. The only thing that grinds my gears is stupidity. The thing is, you are more vulnerable when you are angry. Let me give you an example when the Iron rod is cold, you need hydraulic pressure to bend it, but when it's red hot, it bends easily. You can't make an excellent decision when you are easy. The only thing that follows anger is regret. So whenever I get into some argument, I find weak points of my opponent and nail it hard enough to get him/her angry, and I am the winner of that argument session. It requires a lot of experience and cannot be obtained by reading some books, or you can't purchase them from anywhere. If you wish, you can have such sessions with me anytime."

  "Thank you for the session offer, but I will try to keep calm from next time onwards. I will try to pretend, at least."

  "The idea is nice but won't work in front of experts. They can easily figure it out whether you are pretending or you are cool in real life. This is why I offered you sessions."

  "I don't have time for sessions. Leave it, man, I want to engage you somewhere with some girl."

  "Are you kidding me? You are older than me, so you are my priority. Let me suggest some names and choose one from them. How about Kunal?"

  "Don't even dare to suggest his name. No chance with him."

  "Okay! How about Jignesh? He is kind of cute, sweet, and stupid." (Finally, I did my job assigned by Jignesh. It felt like I solved a big math problem.)

  "If you don't stop this right now, I will stop talking to you."

  "This is great. You expose my whole scam, and no one bats an eye. I suggested two names, and you started overreacting. This is insane."

  "But why are you suggesting me names who stare me in class?"

  "I didn't know that. How about Rajiv?"

  "Aditya, I want to kill you right now. I won't link your name with other girls ever again. I promise. Now stop this."

  "Okay fine. I haven't asked you to stop teasing me, you can, but be ready for the counteraction."

  "Winning and losing are your concepts. You can't always win by winning; sometimes you win by losing. You won't get it right now, but will realize after ten years or so."

  "Madam, these are cheesy romantic dialogue from some movie or novel. Technically in real life, winning is winning, and losing is losing. I know where to lose and when to lose."

  "I agree these are cheesy lines, but that feeling can be for family or friends. You don't have to connect this with love story always."

  "The conversation is getting serious now. Let's end this for today here."

  ◆◆◆

  I never knew that it was difficult to register a company in India. It was getting stretched like chewing gum. The more documents I provide; they ask for even more. The event for which we were preparing since last 2-3 months was two days away and I got a call from government servant (I don't know why they are called so, because instead of providing service, they are much more involved in getting some cash from us. But anyways, none of our business). So I informed Anamika that I wouldn't be available until the event day. I didn't even have a poster printed yet, so I wrapped my work as soon as I can and mailed her to get it printed.

  Within 1 hour, I got a message from her saying, "Are you kidding me? Who makes a black and white poster for presentation? What is wrong with the image? It looks like some 3-year-old child made it in MS Paint. Your whole poster looks like a mess in here, and I don't know what to do."

  "Chill out. Everything is alright. Take deep breaths and convert it to .jpeg file and forward it for printing."

  "Are you mad? Have you ever presented a poster before? It's International Conference, and your poster looks like crap. The evaluator won't even look at your poster."

  "It's okay. Don't worry. I know it's my first presentation, but I think my poster looks fine. However, I allow you to make changes to it to give it a better look."

  "I haven't prepared my poster yet. I made you my partner to reduce my load and not to increase it."

  "Do it if you get time else my poster looks fine to me. Make sure you finish my registration in the morning since I will be coming a little late. Do not replace anything from my kit."

  "I will do the registration if they allow me. Else you have to do it when you reach here. Don't be too late."

  "Don't worry; I will be there on time. I will talk to Jignesh and Jaydeep, and they will help you out in the registration process. Don't forget to bring my printed poster."

  "I won't bring it. Let me finish my poster now."

  "Okay, finish it. Make sure you add maximum colors to it and some multimedia animated files. Try to make it 3D so that the reviewer got impressed easily. Anyways, see you on the conference day. I have bigger fish to fry in these two days."

  "Whatever. Fine. Bye."

  When the girl says whatever, she is not happy with your statement (I was not aware of this fact at that time). I reached home, and I got a call from him. He asked me if I can arrange his transportation to visit me (I know it sounds stupid, but that's exactly what he demanded). I was like, "Are you kidding me? If I had a car to serve you, I might have already tipped you off for not visiting me." (Don't judge me, this is precisely how the system works now a day.) I told him that I don't own any car. He said that he would manage on his own. Within 2-3 hours, he showed up at my place in his car and "inspected" location for 5 minutes. He sat in my chair and looked at me and then at my father. We didn't say anything, so he cleared his purpose that we have to pay him 1500 Rs. as a part of transportation cost. I was like, are you coming from mars or what? How come it costs 1500 Rs. to travel 20 km by car? But to get a sign on documents, we had to pay that much.

  The next morning, I returned to Ahmedabad and went directly to the college. As per my expectations, I reached late and missed the registration process, but due to my strong future planning abilities, my registration was done already (Yes, I like to appraise myself sometimes). I was looking for Anamika everywhere, and one of my batchmates told me that she is waiting for me in the parking lot. I started walking towards parking and found her halfway there. She was holding posters in her hand, bag on her back, sky blue color dress, and her locks were here and there on her face due to heavy wind. The big smile on her face blew away all my worries and bad experiences in life (If you think, I am in love already, you are wrong. We are just friends.) There was no point in going to the auditorium for the inauguration program as most of them are boring, we went to the reading room of the library as it has AC inside. She was a co-author in my poster and didn't know anything about it. I explained every aspect of it, and by the time I finished explaining, I was surrounded by ten other people (This is no self-appraisal. It is a true story.) We thought of pasting our poster on its specified location for display, and during that process, one of our professors spotted us. He sent us to the boring auditorium where "Expert lecture" was going on.

  Like every other college guy, I preferred the very last row of the auditorium, and within 10 minutes, I was in a deep sleep. At the end of the first lecture, the room started applauding the speaker, and it disturbed me. Before I again went to sleep in the second lecture, Anamika showed me her mobile, where she captured me sleeping. It was for the very first time in my life that some girl caught me in her mobile in any position, just for fun. The slow music started ringing in my ears; the dark auditorium starte
d looking colorful, unicorns, and rainbows started appearing. I couldn't figure out if this is love or some hallucinogenic drugs (I just added this line to increase readers, none of this happens in real life. If this ever happens to you, stop taking drugs.) I told her to delete that photo as I looked horrible in that, but she pulled away from her mobile and hid it inside the bag. She pulled out the program schedule of the event and on its non-printed side, started making dots at equal distance with a pen. She made around 40 dots at the same distance, and it looks like square under square if you join dots with a line. I figured out that she wants to play the game I used to play in my childhood. Oh my god! She is as childish as I am. We started playing the game, and I won 6 games in a row (Again, not bragging. Ask her yourself, if you ever find her around you.) I was laughing and teasing her every time I win, and she was sport enough to let me do that. I was totally into her by the end of the first half.

  It was lunchtime, and she went for lunch with her friends and left me alone. I was totally out of her within a fraction of the moment. The post-lunch session was about poster presentation, and thus we arranged ourselves at our respective places. Anamika stayed with me as her poster presentation was the next day morning. Girls surrounded me like very few numbers of male candidates were presenting a poster. The only thing girls like to do in free time is taking photographs of themselves. Since I was free, they handed me a camera and each one posed in front of their posters. In the end, they taught me to pose and clicked me. One of the girls told Anamika to stand beside me to get a joint photograph, but I didn't know that, and thus, I gave her my place and went out of the frame. She got angry and refused to get clicked in front of my poster and went away. I realized my mistake the next day morning when the third person explained to me the whole scenario (No wonder why I was single to date, right?). After the photo session, I asked Anamika if she wanted to play the box game again or not. She agreed, and we started playing it again. The girls began bizarrely, looking at us like something was going on between Anamika and me.