You’re probably thinking the title sounds filmy and I don’t blame you. The title is filmy. And so is the story.
It started when my colleague was whining about her relationship.
“What do I do? Do I give him another chance?”
“That’s completely your decision to make.” I told her slowly.
She sighed in frustration. “How do you know it’s over?”
I smiled. “I’m not exactly the right person to answer that, now, am I?”
“I just…..”she trailed off.
“How about I tell you a story to answer that question?”
“Okay. What’s the story about?”
“My first love”
She squealed in delight. “You’ve never told me that before.”
I smirked. “Well, I am going to, now….”
He lived across the road from us: 2nd floor, the window to the right. It’s funny how even the most mundane, the most basic of things can seem so fascinating when done by the person you like. I never thought I would be one of those people, you know? Who would be curious to talk to someone just by their sight? But there was just something about him. Maybe this was love at first sight?
No, I wouldn’t call it that. Not then, at least. I was still in school. But whatever it was, I just couldn’t stop thinking about him.
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I still remember the day I first saw him. It’s clear as if it were yesterday in my head. I was returning from school.
“I hope mummy made something good today” I wondered. My stomach grumbled as if it has a life of its own.
A bunch of boys were playing cricket in our locality. I walk past them and did not give them half a turn until the ball tumbled across me.
“Hey” I turned around.
It was one of the guys. He wore a red cap. “Do you mind passing the ball?”
I picked up the ball and threw it to them. “Thanks”, said the guy with the cap.
But it wasn’t him that caught my attention. Behind him was this guy that was holding the bat and resting it on his shoulder. He ran through his wind tousled hair with his other hand, a lop sided grin on his face.
“Is he smiling at me?” I questioned myself. My cheeks were starting to feel hot so I rushed towards home.
I heard them talking as I opened the gate.
“Yeah, I’ll be heading home too”.
I turned to look.
He went towards the house right opposite to ours.
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Cricket.
That’s how our story started.
It was cricket he was playing the first time I saw him. And it was cricket that I began to watch and learn about crazy so that we had something to talk about.
It was cricket that he played when I returned home from school, and we exchanged that short, barely noticeable, but still there smile for each other.
I began to watch cricket matches; ask my friends about cricket, looked up all the players; slowly but surely, I began to know about it.
And then, came the day, when all that knowledge would be put to use.
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“Hey”, my sister called as I slumped up the stairs after school.
“Yeah?”
“The guys, our neighbors that play cricket here upfront” she began “they asked for your number a while ago.”
“Oh” it was all I could manage to say. My heart beat faster.
She squinted her eyes at me. “They said they know you from school”
“Yeah” I lied. “They must have seen me around here.”
“He looks quite older than you” she crossed her arms.
“Yeah, well, he isn’t really” I maintained my cool. “Did you give him my number?”
“Yeah. I was about to ask mom, but then I thought she’d take away the phone that you just got recently so….”
I ran up the stairs before she could finish “thanks!”
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The phone didn’t ring that same day. I waited hand and foot near the phone. I was counting the hours.
And then one day the phone rang asking for a “Mr Tamrakar.”
“Wrong number” I said.
“Sorry” squeaked the other person.
But I just had this hunch it was him.
He called back again 5 minutes later. It was the most awkward introduction. And then a pregnant pause for what seemed like an eternity.
I cleared my throat “So, you like cricket?”
You could almost hear his smile on the other end.
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We talked every day. I’d rush home from school. Most days, he’d be out playing, some days he would not. I’d watch him play from my balcony some days. He’d flash me a smile and on some days, he’d give me a little ambiguous wave.
You’d think one wouldn’t be able to understand the other if you couldn’t hear them. Strangely, we seemed to.
He would say with signs that class got cancelled. I understood.
He would say with signs he was hungry. I understood.
He would say with signs he had assignments to do. I understood.
He would say that he had somewhere to go with his friends. I understood.
Maybe it was infatuation; maybe it was love. But it was a maybe. Definitely, maybe.
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It was that classic cliché Bollywood song “Mere saamne wali khidki”; funny how a song written decades later was turning out to be the reality of my life. I could see him do the most basic of things: open the curtains in the morning, yawn, stretch, brush his teeth while rounding the room, sipping on a cup of tea.
That was how we said good morning.
But the nights are what I remember the most.
Almost every night, when everyone had gone to their bedrooms after dinner, we’d meet up from the cozy space of my balcony and his window. It became our routine. We would spend hours looking at each other.
There was not enough light to know for sure if he was smiling or really looking at me all. I mean it was 1 am. But I could feel him. Have you ever felt the warmth of someone’s smile on you? Especially when you know that that smile is just for you; tucked away from the world and no one else can see it? It’s the best feeling in the world.
The stillness of the night. The howling of the dogs not far from here. The soft lights of his bedroom forming this silhouette of him. It was perfect. It was our little secret.
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Eventually, one day he confessed that he is in love with me and wanted us to be together. He asked if I reciprocated the feelings.
I didn’t give him an answer. I couldn’t. I’d never felt like this about anyone before. I’d never sacrificed my sleep for anyone; never smiled at the thought of anyone; never waited eagerly just to catch a glimpse of someone.
But, I also didn’t know if this was love.
I was too scared. It felt too real. What would happen if my family found out? What would happen if everyone found out? Then, the secret conversations we had every night would not be a secret anymore.
I was not sure I was ready for that.
I was not sure if I was really in love, either.
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And then one night, when I looked out, I could see that the window of his room was dark. He was not there. This had never happened during the entire year that we knew each other: never.
“Where is he?”
“Why aren’t the lights on?”
“Could something have happened?”
So many questions crowded my head.
I must have dialed his number hundreds of times. I could not reach him.
I was frantic.
Before I realized, tears began to form in my eyes. I just wanted to see him. I just wanted to talk to him. I just wanted to hear his voice.
I began to pray that everything is alright with him.
And then, the phone rang.
It was him. “Hey, I’m over at my uncle’s. He is insisting I stay here the night. I’m sorry; the network is really bad here.”
I took in a sniffle. I had never been so relieved in my life.
That was the day I realized that I was in love with him, too.
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I never told him, though. It must have been obvious from the way we were with each other, the conversations we had. If he knew, he never claimed about it. We were just happy with the way things were.
And then, one day while I was reading a book in my room, my mother barged in. She looked alarmed.
I looked up from the book.
She had her arms on her hips. “You know what Mrs.Shrestha, our neighbor just told me??
“What?” I waited.
“That she saw you”, mummy fumed “spending an awful long time on your balcony googly eying that boy!”
I put my book down. “What!” this time it was more of a statement than a question.
“She also said that she saw you two holding hands in the football park a little ahead of here!”
My cheeks were starting to feel hot.
“Who is this guy?” she burst. “Do you know how embarrassing that was? To hear what my daughter was doing from someone else! My own daughter!”
I hung my head.
“Is it true?” her voice shook with anger.
I couldn’t say anything.
“I thought so! You are never to see him again. Do I make myself clear?”
I nodded slowly. What I was scared about had become true.
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I maintained a little distance from him after that. We were arguing more often, now. He was frustrated. I was frustrated. We both had a lot of things on our minds.
And then, amidst one of these fights, he went back to his hometown to “to get some fresh air”. That was what his text said.
I didn’t even reply. Maybe it was better that we not see each other for a few days.
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The next week, I was in my balcony casually sipping on a cup of chamomile tea. It helps me calm my nerves.
I looked over to his window and almost dropped my cup of tea.
There was someone else, someone I did not recognize. Another guy.
I felt a lump on my throat. Maybe it was some friend of his. I knew his brother. But it wasn’t just that. The layout of the room looked different. The stuff looked different. The curtains were different.
His brother had changed rooms during his absence. Things would never be the same again, for us.
I cried myself to sleep that night.
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And things never were the same after that. We talked sometimes, saw each other sometimes but eventually, it just wasn’t there anymore.
I finished high school. I got to college. I could see he was moving on with his life too. And then, one day, he moved away.”
“And now”, her curious eyes fluttered at me. “Don’t you think about him, now?
“It isn’t that I didn’t think about him every now and then. I did; still do sometimes. I can’t help but wonder “what if?” What if I had mustered up some strength to talk to my family about him? What if I had told my family that if they thought I was too young then, I would wait for him. I know he would’ve done the same for me. What if we had gotten together? Would we still be together? But I have to accept that this is just something that I will never know”
“Does it bother you?” she threw another question at me.
“A lot of things bother me. We weren’t really together so there never was an end, to be precise. We only had a middle, if that makes any sense. And that was what bothered me even more. Because there never really was a closure. I never let him know that I loved him too, although he knew it.
Perhaps, someday we might just meet again. I think I’d recognize him from his laughter itself before we even see each other. He had this contagious laughter, I don’t even know how to describe it. I’ve never heard such kind of laughter. I’d recognize it anywhere.We might share this look, again, like the first time we saw each other. Would I fall all over again, for him? Would I break down? Or would I smile like meeting an old friend? He is this great guy who has always wanted the best for me and that is what makes not thinking about him so hard.”
“So” I took a deep breath “to answer your question: you don’t really know when it’s over. You feel it. You feel it when you’re more in love with the memories than with the person himself. And to me, he is more than memories. He is a dream that sometimes doesn’t even feel real.”
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