Crazy.Stupid.She.

             Ah! Its Sunday, again. Time to spend some more lousy hours on the bed. The past week has been particularly tiresome. But the purpose of me writing this wasn’t gashing about my hectic study life (as I like to say it), but more so to put some words to the thoughts arising in my after-the-hangover head (and no, it wasn’t beer). Anyway, what is next to follow is something I never thought I would be someday writing down.

                                      

                                   It was a perfectly normal day, as normal as it could be for a college going kid (high school would be more apt).I reached college at about 9:00 am, and I just decided to skip class for the day. I dashed straight into my friends sitting in the hallway, checking out random girls, I suppose. They were busy chatting…………facebook, girls, study…………..

“Hey, netbaba, please help me on this”, my friend said to me.

‘Damn, how could you possibly screw your facebook account again’, removing my bag.

As I tried to recover his account, “Hey buddy, could you do me a favor”, my friend Budhi quipped (although more an acquaintance than a friend).

‘What?’

‘Could you get a photo of that girl, behind the tree? Take my phone,’ taking his Nokia 5800 out of his pocket.

‘Hell no, you better be on your own. Any way how come you buy this .It must have cost a fortune.’

‘Nothing, man. I saved it from my tuition money.’

‘Save or steal?’

‘Screw you man, I am going to get that myself.’

No sooner had he uttered those words, he got up and went up to the girl.

             I followed him along with some of my friends to witness the drama that was about to unfold. He dashed straight to the girl and stood by her. The girl was taken aback at this. It seemed that Budhi froze then and there. We could clearly see he was virtually shaking. After about half a minute, which seemed like eternity, he managed a few words out of his mouth.

Could……………I have…….have…..your photo, no I mean your number, no, no, I mean …………your name….please.

‘Excuse me?’ the girl in the wine red salwar retorted back. ‘Do I know you?’

‘You definitely could baby, if you would say cheese for me’. ‘You and I…………….. He couldn’t complete the sentence. The girl slammed his phone by the rock-solid concrete; the phone bounced a couple of meters and landed on the dry-chilies laid in the sun.

Standing a few feet back, we just couldn’t believe our eyes. That was probably the dumbest thing that we ever saw. We were trying hard to keep away our laughter.

‘There goes 20,000 rupees down the river,’ said one of my friends.

I corrected him.’16,000’.

‘That’s a shit load of money, dude’, another friend jumped in.

I thought his cell phone was blown to smithereens. Oh wait; let’s return to our Budhi’s case. Seeing his hard-earned ( I mean, skimming  2 years worth of tuition money) phone trashed like nothing, he quickly forgot that he had any crush over the girl, and ran to save whatever was left of his mobile.

Luckily (luck, nah that was like lady luck smiling on him) not a scratch grazed his phone. He ran to us smiling and shouting, ‘its okay, its okay’…………

The girl too realized the intensity of that, and soon gathered her stuff and disappeared, literally.

‘Dude’, I calmed him down. ‘You just made a fool out of yourself, and what about the girl?’

‘What about her? Screw her.’

‘You are just unbelievable.’

 He really is. By then, the fuss settled down, the seniors came to practice for their cricket match, and everybody parted away. From that day onwards he would be hardly seen in college and he got a new nick name too, ’16,000’. But still to this day I don’t know what the name of that girl was. Or do I.

That’s not the end of the story; the evening had more for us in store.

                       What happened in the morning, well……..was hard not to forget. That became the talk of the town, and Budhi, the laughing stock. Eventually our badass group of friends got enough of that and we; literally had to drag ourselves out of the campus (and Budhi, he got himself wasted in a bar)

I on the other hand, came home, put some food in my mouth and rushed to my Physics tuition (this period is a tough time guys, especially for science students. Duh!)

They say morning shows the day; I say evening shows the devil. We reached tuition at around 4:00 and waited another thirty minutes. The teacher came, fresh out of his sleep, put his glasses on, turned on the fan and said, ‘so, where did we left last week?’

‘Lenz’s law, sir’, Duple, a friend answered.

‘Hmm! Take out your note copies, we will be doing some problems’ (problems, yeah, like we were having any shortage of that)

Just then another of my friend, Dipank arrived. He was a classic example of how someone could screw the screw up.

‘May I come in sir?’

‘No’.

He smiled and stared at us, not knowing what to do.

‘Come on in, are you planning to stay there the entire time,’ the teacher said. He got up and went to get his cup of coffee.

‘Son of a bitch,’ those words almost escaped Dipank’s mouth

‘So, did you break anything else rather than your, err…………….,’ Duple remarked in a mocking tone.

‘Shut up,’ Dipank said, still fuming.

That was a difficult time for him, a stolen bi-cycle, breakup, his first (you probably know how that feels)

He took a seat and started scribbling something in the copy.

‘So, how’s your girl,’ Raktim, another friend jumped in.

‘Stop pulling my leg, guys,’ Dipank said, totally frustrated.

Duple started to try the new lens that Dipank had recently got.

‘So, how much did it cost’.

‘500.’

‘Good enough to impress girls’.

‘Jerk, I wear it because I have a medical condition’, Dipank protested.

‘Blind, or blind in love.’ Everybody started laughing at that.

‘Silence,’ the professor came in.

               One of the girls who was texting something in her phone (I presume) under the bench, got startled to see the teacher make a sudden entrance. Her hand reached the other side of the bench, where Dipank’s specs lay, and hit it so hard that the spec went flying by, only to hit the running table fan.

There was total silence.

‘That’s dead’; Sir picked the spec (of which only the frame was left behind, the glass lay scattered on the ground)

‘Heee, heee,’ the girl, surprisingly began laughing hysterically on this, as if it were any funny matter (although, it was somewhat funny)

Not a word of sorry or apology, she went back to her earlier state of laughing and jotting some lines down on her copy. The teacher decided to spare us a few more minutes.

Had it been any other boy, Dipank would have definitely smashed his jaw, but this was totally awkward. 

They never talked (well, nobody talked to her). She was a total mystery; she came late everyday and left early. Nobody had a clue where she lived, or which way she went.

This reminded me of the morning, although the former being on purpose. I still haven’t told them what unfolded in college earlier in the day, as all of them were absent, and this was no good time.

All this moment Dipank was silent, his face devoid of any expression. We jotted down whatever the teacher said for another hour (not understanding any shit). By the time we left it was 6:00, and was getting dark already.

As soon as we came out, Dipank started kicking his bike furiously, as if making up for the controlled anger building upon him.

‘You should have done this inside’, Raktim smirked.

Dipank came close to punching him, but stopped. I thought someone would get a dark eye there.

He left his cycle and asked me my keys

‘What for’, I said

‘What else do you think for? To ride obviously.’

Generally I would have protested, but seeing his condition, I found it rather safe to hand him my keys. But I was keeping my finger crossed. That was a new bike (or cycle, as we say here in India) I got last month.

Naturally i was left with nothing, but his cycle. I straightened its handle, still cautious if this was a good idea. I mean his ‘Hero I-bike’ had an odd shape and last time I rode anything like that was a burra-cycle (as we in Assam say it)

Anyway, I got in it and thought told me, ‘what the hell?’

 But I have to tell you guys, it felt princely riding it. It felt like two of any average bikes put together (it was that tall)

No sooner had I got into it, the bike started shaking. I tried to balance it and bring it to the left side of the road. But instead it started going the other side.

There were three girls from our college coming from the other side of the road. I could have stopped the bike then and there, but I thought that would be cowardly and a shame if I can’t even handle a stupid cycle. I kept going forward slowly increasing the speed.

The girls thought that I was playing a prank, trying to scare them off. But little they had the idea that I was seconds away from hitting one of them. As I reached even closer, the girls got a bit alarmed, but they still didn’t budge. I was trying hard to hold the bike back, keeping up my smile at the same time.

 But……….fate had something else.

I rammed straight into one of them, tore something off (which I thought was her dupatta, but luckily it was only her hand-made cloth bag) But I wasn’t lucky enough as I landed straight into the garbage heap kept by the road.

‘I’m………so……..so………sorry,’ was all I could get say

She stood there still, her lips shaking trying to utter some real filthy curses. But she didn’t. Instead she picked up her bag and went off. Her friends gave me a dirty look.

‘Lucky bastard,’ Duple barged in.

Dipank, on the other hand was laughing as hard as he could. He was probably happy to see me getting bitch slapped by mother nature.

Yeah, laugh as much as you can. I am not the one to get a thrashing from his dad. Saying this I brushed myself off the dirt and picked by his unholy bike.

‘Give me my bike back, you dumbass’.

‘Here, take it and try not to ram into any other………girl.’

‘Jerk.’

Duple clicked a photo of me in his mobile, and I have got to tell you, I looked real funny.

Even I started laughing.

We got into our cycles and rode off home, with constant laughs and bickering from Dipank, the sun setting on the other side.

               Man that was one hell of a day, memories of which won’t easily fade away.

By now, some you might be wondering if it is a real story or not.

Well I can tell you this.

       

                       If it is a story then it is not real; and if it is real it’s not a story!

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