Disclaimer: This post might appear overtly melodramatic, filmy, and unnecessarily emotional at times. But then, isn't that what the first love is?The year was 1997. I walked into class on the first day of class ten, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, half an hour late. The usual prayer routine had begun, and I was made to stand outside until the principal finished his speech that usually began with a “Good morning dear children and staff”. This was soon followed by moans from different quarters of the student community, who were rather irritated by this daily routine. I was one of them, and this was one of my biggest motivations in arriving late in school.
We were let in with a warning, and the guard looked at me and sighed, knowing that his warnings were not going to be of much use. Revanth (my partner in crime) and I walked in quite daringly, and took seats in class, the first class of the first day of the all important class Ten.
We had a ten minute break which we called the “small break”, which was usually a loo break for the guys, and a make-up break for the girls. Bhavans was in the throes of change, and this year, the girls seemed excessively conscious of the way they looked. The number of girls with make up kits was going up, as was the height of their skirts. To the old warhorse (me), it was only another indication that the raging hormones would not have an easy year in school. I walked out of class, and sat on the railing, taking a bite from a friend’s snack.
Then I saw her walking down the crowded pathway, and I couldn’t look away. I remember being intensely conscious of girls in those days, but I couldn’t help but look at her. Walking with a friend, her silky hair was wavering slightly in the breeze, she had a radiant smile on her lips, and her eyelashes were long and fluttering. She walked past me, and I could smell her perfume as she passed. I think I still can.
She walked into her classroom, which was right at the end of the corridor, and that’s all I remember. People later told me that the bell rang, and the corridor gradually cleared of all life forms. I sat in the corridor, staring at the classroom in which she walked into. “10 E”, it said. After what seems like years, I walked back into class, late again, much to the dismay of my teacher, a lady we fondly (?) called Bulldog. I forget the name her parents bestowed on her so lovingly.
I later found out from friends that her name was Amrita Patwari, and she had just got in from the Middle East someplace. I didn’t care. All I knew in those days was that I needed to be with her, for ever and ever (whatever that meant). However, when practically translated, this meant that I would have to spend hours outside her window looking out for her, and get out of class early and follow her all the way to her bus. I dutifully did all of the above.
One day, an announcement came in class that a certain individual was coming over to teach us the art of Vipassana, in order to liberate us from worldly pleasures and let us attain Nirvana. I couldn’t care less, as long as she was taking part in this workshop. She was, and I dutifully followed. I remember sitting opposite to her, and staring at her peaceful face for hours while she was closing her eyes and meditating. I was also particularly enamored by the heights that her skirts would reach when she would sit cross-legged, meditating. The end result was, of course, that I wasted a large part of class ten, with my teachers thinking “Shravan was attaining spiritual enlightenment.”
At those times, I was a firm believer in fate, and one decision ensured that she was going to be my soulmate for ever and ever. In school, we used to follow the system of dividing the students’ into houses, and there would be inter-house competitions to decide which was the coolest house of them all. I was in Vashishta house, and guess what, so was she! For a long time, I used to thank the almighty for giving me this sign, and started making marriage arrangements.
In the same vein, I also found another sign. I heard people talk that we were in the same class very long ago in the same school, way back in the fourth standard. I dug up old class photos, and found out that these rumors were true. I remember telling my mother, much to her amusement, that all her problems were now solved.
The year went on, and I just kept looking, and wishing she would come up and talk to me. Those were days long before I was the brilliant psychoanalyst that I currently am, and hence I had no idea about how she would react. I was just too afraid of failure, and so my dear friend and partner in crime, Revanth Raj, did the trick. He called her up one day and told her one day how I felt about her. Revanth Raj soon realized that he had alternate career options after trying to make matches between the two of us, and must have migrated to it full-time by now. To the best of my knowledge, she called me right back, at my home number, and I was not at home. My mother took the call, and I have no idea of what transpired in the conversation. I have no idea what happened, what could have happened, and I probably will never know. I remember wishing that I had a device with which I could take calls wherever I was, and the cell phone was invented much later, but I digress.
The year passed, and I was mostly shuffling from her bus to mine, and balancing the pressure of class ten with the raging hormones that just couldn’t think of success in life in a context beyond Amrita Patwari.
As the year moved on, I came to realize that she had another boyfriend in the same school, who was two years older to me. This gentleman was someone with whom I would have a tryst in IIM Lucknow many years later, but he was here, and he was tall, and he was handsome, and I was none of the above. He got her, and I used to watch hungrily as they drove off after class to have a nice time. I remember spending hours trying to understand what she saw in him that she didn’t in me. Today, I wish I had understood that all he had done was ask her out.
At the end of the academic year, I realized it was too late, and my first love was going to remain just that, my first love. So I moved on to different things in life, such as a coaching to get past the big hurdle in every Indian youth’s life, the IIT-JEE. This involved a two year coaching under holocaust-ic conditions at unearthly times, which would prepare you for a career, if not for IIT, for an overnight callcenter.
Towards the end of my twelfth, upon the insistence of a couple of friends, I took a trip to the Dandiya Utsav in the Imperial Gardens, Secunderabad, an annual ritual. Such occasions usually involved making a fool of my friends and I, by showing off our obvious lack of talent in dancing with sticks (pun un-intended). I walked in, and watched as the pretty Gujarati women walked with low neck and no-back shiny dresses accompanied with fat businessmen dressed in ethnic costumes which looked like they were designed for their children.
I saw her again. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I still see her. She was wearing a blue Ghaghra Choli, with silver shiny imprints all over it. She had long hair, had her trademark smile on her face, and had long silver earrings in her ears, partly obscured by her flowing hair. I stood, and watched, and she walked right past me. I felt like she was walking through me. I have never felt like that, and I probably never will. I stood still for almost ten minutes after that, just realizing that this was probably the last time I would ever see her. I was right.
Much later in life, I kept following her career graph.
She won the South Zone round of Gladrags Mega Model, and made it to the finals of the All India round. I downloaded a picture of her from the Hyderabad Times page, and still keep it on me. Later, I heard she got married, and is settled somewhere in the dusty cowbelt of India.
Till date, I keep running Google searches on her name, just hoping that I can get in touch with her in some way or the other. I know that it would make no difference to my life or hers, both of us having gone in different trajectories since passing out. But somewhere, deep down inside, I would just like to meet her, and see her, and tell her how I felt about her, how much she once meant to me, and how much she still means to me, purely as a beautiful memory which can never be erased.
Categories: Personal
