My First Love

Remember how it felt when the love bug bit you for the very first time when you were in school- when you had that constant breathless feeling, when the butterflies in your stomach used to turn violently against you whenever you saw the object of your affection, when you used to become the happiest and luckiest person on earth the moment you got a smile from your love? This feeling of childhood love is very difficult to replicate later in life when we become cynical, practical and objective. So, if you didn't fall in love as a kid, you surely missed out on something very precious !

I remember my first love- I guess I always will. It happened when I was in Class VIII, and the boy was in Class IX. Every morning, during prayer time, he used to stand in the queue next to mine, and smile at me when he was supposed to be praying. He was a pretty boy with a pretty smile and I used to smile back at him. One day, after a couple of weeks of this to and fro smiling, he walked upto me in the school playground and introduced himself. He had a pretty name too! I started to introduce myself but he stopped me saying that he already knew me. The bell cut us short and we walked back to our respective classes together. The next day, I was looking forward to seeing him at the morning prayers, and was slightly disappointed when he didn't come to school. In fact, he didn't come to school for 2-3 more days. By this time, I had, of course, told my friends that I like this boy. So, each day 5-6 of us would scan the prayer hall to locate the boy. When he didn't come to school the whole week, we were in a state of panic. And, for the first time in my life, I experienced that sinking feeling of desperation that is usually associated with love- of course, I didn't know it at that time. My very resourceful friends started their own private investigation. One of them discovered that he lives near our school. In fact, his house is on the way to my home. After school, as we walked slowly by his house, I was even more depressed to see a huge lock on the gate. The next day was a Sunday and for the first time in my life, I wanted to go to school on a Sunday. Another first - I had a sleepless night. I kept asking stupid questions to my table lamp-"Did he leave school?" "Will he come again?""Maybe he left the town because he didn't like me?" Don't worry- I didn't expect my table lamp to answer.

On Monday, as I waited in the prayer room, I was too dejected to look around for him. And, then suddenly, I heard his voice saying Hello to me. There was sunshine in my life again. He told me that his sister who lived in a nearby town was unwell and his family had gone to visit her. I was courteous enough to ask him how his sister was doing. He said she was fine and then we both fell into this uncomfortable silence. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, he said the three most beautiful words in this world, "I missed school." (????) I replied,"Me too." There, at that moment, I experienced my very first foot-in-the-mouth moment. (Oh, before I forget let me tell you that falling in love for the first time leads to a lot of other first-time experiences.) Luckily, the Headmistress came to my rescue as she called for silence. During lunch break, he caught up with me in the corridor, "I missed school because not coming to school meant not seeing you." All I could think of was, "Okay". The day was not yet over and I had my second foot-in-the-mouth moment!! When I narrated this to my friends, they thought I behaved most unromantically. They went on damage control mode and started giving me advice on how to reply to his statement. Oh, by the way, my friends were convinced that he had proposed to me with that statement. After spending one whole Social Studies class whispering to one another, we decided that I should now approach him and initiate conversation. So, that day, after school we waited at the school gate so that I can walk with him. After sometime, he came to the gate surrounded by 5-6 boys. There we were - surrounded by friends and both groups stealing glances at each other. He continued to talk to his friends and I decided to go home since my mother would have killed me if I got late. As I was walking away, from the corner of my eye, I saw him saying quick byes to his friends and sprinting to catch up with me. We walked in silence for sometime. Then he asked very matter-of-factly, "You do know that I like you.....yes?" I said,"Yes, I guessed." He continued,"I am a good boy with no bad habits. I like to play cricket and watch TV. I play the guitar. I am fairly ok in studies. I want to be a lawyer when I grow up. Abid and Bibhu are my best friends. So, do you like me?" That was a lot of information to take in at one go. All I could manage was a whispered,"I have to go. I am already late." He said,"Then say YES. That's short. It won't take much time." I laughed. Of course, I didn't remind him that No was equally short. He gave me a ear-to-ear grin when I said YES. That's the moment I have always associated with him whenever I think of him.

I spent the next few months on cloud nine. Pity, there wasn't a cloud 100 or a cloud zillion! I would have been there too! We would talk at prayer time, between classes, during lunch break and at the school gate after school. Every time I saw him, I would be filled with unbridled happiness. I could not stop smiling in school and at home. I would spend most of the boring classes day-dreaming about him. It was during this time that I watched "Maine Pyar Kiya" seven times. Everything around me seemed beautiful. The world was indeed a perfect place to live in. But as the school year came to an end, we started growing sad since we would not be seeing each other for one entire month of the winter vacation. During those days, we didn't have telephones and emails, and we were too scared of our respective parents to write letters. So, we parted for the vacation with promises to think of each other every waking hour - and we actually kept that seemingly impossible promise.

Once school reopened, there was the excitement of Valentine's Day - my first V Day. My friends and I had a tough time coming up with a "safe" gift. You see, the gift should be such that his family should not be able to guess that it came from a girl. Moreover, Namrup being a small town, everyone knew everyone else. So, I could not buy anything that looked remotely romantic. So, "love you" cards, teddy bears or anything with the word "love" written anywhere near it were a strict no-no. Also, there was the problem of budget - I had only Rs. 20. After weeks of planning, I finally decided to give him an Amul chocolate. Remember, the punchline of the Amul chocolate ads "a gift for someone you love"? Very intelligent, huh? So, on V day, I gave him the carefully wrapped Amul chocolate. He opened the wrapper, started laughing and said,"Open your gift." I opened the gift that he had given me and it was an Amul chocolate too! As it turned out, our friends were not innovative at all. The whole school was giving Amul chocolates as V day gift, and yes, everyone had the very same logic! We had a great laugh as we ate the two Amul chocolates together. Chocolate never tasted sweeter.

That school year was very important for him as he was in Class 10, and board exams were a huge deal in our school. As teachers started piling homework on him, we started spending less and less time together. He was under a lot of pressure from his family to do well in the Class 10 exams. His father was retiring that year and they were moving to Guwahati. To get admission in a good college in Guwahati, he needed to get high scores in his exam. As the school year progressed through September, I saw less and less of him. And, then the last day of the school year came. There was a farewell party for his batch as they were leaving school. We talked for a long time. I wished him good luck for his exams. After his exams, he and his family were leaving the town. After he left town, we wrote to each other a couple of times. But writing at friends' addresses was always risky. In his last letter, he told me that he did very well in his Class 10 exams and that he was planning to join one of the good colleges in Guwahati. Slowly, as I got busy with my Class 10 exam preparations and he got busy with his college life, we drifted apart and finally, lost touch.

Years later, when I heard of his death from hepatitis, I remembered the last conversation we had. It was on that day of the farewell party of his batch. I had asked him,"Will we meet again? I don't know what the future is going to be like." He had said,"The future? I don't even know what tomorrow is going to be like! I am just happy to be with you now." Then, as I sat in my hostel room in REC Nagpur, more than 6 years after I had that conversation with him, a sudden sadness engulfed me and I found myself sobbing.