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Sunday 1 December 2013

December Diaries - Chapter 3

Skirt swaying just below her hips gathered everyone’s attention. The lustering legs which followed down the little skirt made fall every boy standing in the morning assembly, head over heels. Her well ironed shirt resisted more visibility of her smooth skin and left it imaginable by the boys. Morning assembly was in transit, when the new admission entered the gates of Saint Marry School, Dehradoon.

It was her first day in this new world. Hence, she was allowed to skip the assembly that day. She didn’t bother much about those eyes zooming at her private parts publically and went straightly inside the church of their school to make certain deals with her God for the period of next two years she was to be spending there.

Later, she walked to the nearby huge palace like structure she was going to call her high school. The building seemed isolated because everyone was out to attend the assembly. Complete silence around made her more nervous, but she tried to look confident while walking secluded in corridor. Her deep eyes looked around for the classroom - 11th A. The pair of eyes inspected and fixed to her destination and she headed towards it, swaying her little skirt. The classroom was locked. She tried to push open it, but it was locked from inside. She put her ear against wooden wall of the door and found someone ghostly whispering inside.

‘Hey… Hey… Hey… what are you doing?’ A guy came in running from the corridor.

‘Umm…waiting for my train,’ she bit her lips and threw an early morning PJ.

He bowed his eyebrows. He looked in no mood to buy her PJ.

‘New in the school?’ He asked putting a hand on door and shouting inside ‘Everything is fine outside. Please continue guys.’

She tried to reply but her reply left reticent against his shout. ‘Come let me show you our school.’ He said, and she adjusted her rucksack over her shoulder and started walking.

‘What’s your name?’ He asked.

‘Joanna,’

‘Hii Joanna, I am Aryan and we are in the same class.’

‘And why the classroom locked from inside?’ She asked curiously. She felt comfortable while talking to him. He seemed good to her. Unlike others, he wasn’t scanning her like a sex object.

‘You will find every classroom locked here from inside during the assembly.’ He completed. She understood what he wanted to say.
Her lips expanded and her pearls were visible. ‘Then, I must say sorry to that couple for spoiling their romantic moments.’

He smiled.

‘Then, why aren’t you at your classroom. Don’t you want to study inside locked rooms?’ She winked.

‘I have no teacher, nor am I interested in all this. I am here to do something fruitful with my life.’ He smiled, and he bent down to kiss the water tap. They were now near the exit which leads them to the cricket ground.

He drank water and wiped his lips. ‘Want to see the cricket ground of our school?’

‘And for the same reason I am here.’ Joanna was lost in her thoughts.

‘You took admission in our school just to see our cricket ground?’ He chuckled. They stepped out of the other end of building, straightly into the cricket ground. It was beautiful. A long plain cricket ground managed to settle in valleys of Dehradun.

‘Not for the ground, monkey, but to do something in life. I want to be independent.’

‘I see. Do you have nagging parents back at your home? Like those who are always pushing their children in deep shit of competition?’

‘No. I am not showing off but my dad has enough money to make us live for zillion years. But, I want to earn by myself. After my mom passed, I used to be treated like a princess in my house at Mumbai.
Soon, it started suffocating me. Apparently, I decided to come here, leaving my dad. My house reminds me of my mother. I didn’t want that. I mean, I want to miss my mother but at my house, I used to sleep with wet eyes. I want to remember her in my happy moments.’ She became emotional. Tears welled up her eyes.

‘Hey… Hey… Don’t cry. Else I will have to do the monkey dance and trust me I forgot my tail at my home today.’ Aryan threw his early morning PJ. However, she smiled.

That was the first day of their friendship and time travelled like a squirrel on tree. Month sheets of calendars were torn. They became closest of friends and used to spend all the time together. Rumors were spread like a wild fire in the entire school that they were dating each other, but only they knew their targets and it wasn’t surely a school-time relationship.

Love hits you when you least expect it. Aryan soon realized that it was more than friendship, but couldn’t express it. Clear reason was, that he didn’t want to express. Somewhere, he knew that this love thing will take them away from their targets. He bottled his feelings, but his feelings multiplied with the passing time and bottle of his heart seemed too small to refuge his love. The cork of his heart popped out and feelings came out. And one fine day, the moment arrived.

‘Joe, listen.’ Aryan pulled Joanna from her elbow, taking her away from the group of girls she was giggling with, in the school lobby.

‘Kya hai bey?’

‘You are meeting me tonight.’ He shot.

‘Why? Are we gonna watch some live ‘behind the door’ show?’ she winked.

‘Shut up. See me at the school church tonight at 12.’

‘What? At 12 in the night?’ She bawled, mouth opened.

‘Yes. I ain’t listening to any excuse. I’ll be waiting, bye.’ He completed and walked away leaving her confused.

The rest of the day she had spent thinking what the reason behind calling her to the church was, it wasn’t her birthday for sure. She had imagined the weirdest of possibilities but none seemed to be accurate. She desperately waited for the clock to tick twelve at midnight, to let go of her stomach churning out of suspense. The lights of the hostel rooms went off by thirty past ten and she laid wide awake waiting for the time to arrive. As the time arrived, she slipped out of her cozy blanket and stepped into her soft slippers, looking at her roommate just to make sure she was snoring deep in sleep.

She escaped out of her room silently and ran down the stairs towards the exit of her hostel. As expected, the guard at their lousy reception was snoring hard. It was quite easy for her to flee through. She ran towards the church which was couple of meters away from the hostel building. She could see the huge eclipse clock over the church, it had stroke fifty past eleven


!


‘Hi,’ she said and her voice broke into the silence of the church.

Aryan stood below the idol of Jesus with a blissful smile on his face. The only source of light were the tiny bulbs at the corners of walls, it was inadequate yet so complete. She silently walked towards him in nervousness as a strange tranquility covered her senses.

‘Why did you call me here?’ she broke the awkward silence.

‘To confess something.’ He said, nervously.

‘But father ain’t here. You should have rather came in the morning,’

‘No. My confession can only be done either to God, or to his beautiful angel.’

‘Aryan? Be straight.’ She demanded out of clue.

‘I am in love with you, Joe.’ He shot gathering all his courage.

‘What? Don’t be crazy,’

‘It’s beautiful being crazy. Being crazily in love, with you. Will you be
mine for the rest of my life?’

‘We’re just seventeen! How can I commit to you for so many next decades? What if you leave me too?’

‘Yes, one day, I will leave you. But not before next fifty years, I promise!’

‘You’re crazy, Aryan!’

‘But all I want is just to be yours.’ He continued, ‘You know why I
called you at midnight?’

‘No,’ she nodded.

‘It is the only time when the past, the present, and the future meet. At that moment, you are just out of your past day, breathing into present and then, moving out for future – All with just a moment to differ. And I want you to be my midnight, for all my life.’

His words had touched the strings of her heart which she never wanted to play. The purity of his soul pulled her soul to merge into him and she ran into him to hug him tight, as tight as she could and whispered into his ears, “I will be your midnight till you see the last morning of your life,” while the huge clock over the church banged loud, signifying the midnight – this time, for their life.





&
Drishti Dasgupta
(Blogger at Maple Leaf)

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