“Virat, will you hurry up?” I shouted from the foot of the stairs of the 2nd block, our hostel.
“Coming,” came back the answer.
Virat finally arrived, a good 15 minutes late.
“Let’s go,” I told him. “Game starts in 30 minutes.”
“It’s alright dude,” Virat replied. “It’s not like we are playing for the Indian national team.”
“Yeah?” I said a bit haughtily. “Explain that to the referees when we are late for the game.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll understand. After all you are the star of the show,” Virat remarked cheesily.
“Shut up,” I told him. We walked outside the gates of the hostel where the love of my life was parked. My beautiful 200 cc Pulsar. My one girlfriend who never complained. She had been my silent supporter through every one of my break up’s since 2nd year. I loved the babe. What would I do without it?
I started the bike. Vrooom…..vrrrooom….vrrrrooooooom. I loved that sound. It was like music to my ears. “Get on,” I told Virat, gearing up the bike for the ride to End Point.
Is Sheetal coming?” I asked Virat as I turned the bike around Kamath Circle and took exit no.3 of our campus. “Obviously she is,” Virat answered. “Footall means sweating hunks in shorts. How could my girlfriend ever resist such a temptation?”
“You do know that your girlfriend is one of those babes of our college walking the ramp in a mini skirt during the fashion show, don’t you?” I said teasing Virat again.
“Yeah, so what?” Virat asked innocently.
“That there are guys who are ogling her there too as well,” I replied.
“Oh whatever. They can ogle at her all they want. I can’t help it if my girlfriend is hot,” he said. “Besides,” he added, “at the end of the day, I am the one who gets to make out with her.”
You had to admire Virat’s sense of humor. The guy could turn anything into a joke and yet remained one of the most sincerely committed guys in the college. He probably had already planned the name of his kids with Sheetal. That was the kind of guy Virat was. Funny, cracking jokes and yet completely committed and sincere in his relationship.
“So how is your quest for love going?” Virat asked as I rode past KMC Greens, which was just outside the KMC campus, the residential medical college of Manipal and a huge rival of our MIT. Engineering versus Medical was an old rivalry and if you had a top engineering and a top medical of the country in the same town and under the same university, then you had all the ingredients of a classis Bollywood like college rivalry. We loved their girls and their boys hated us because their girls loved us too. I mean come on-we can’t help it if medical boys turn out to be nerds and their girls turn out to be so pretty.
“What quest?” I asked even though I knew where this conversation was headed.
“Yeah, I remember her,” I told Virat. “What I don’t understand is why you are so obsessed with her. Not developing a secret crush of your own now, are you?”
I said in jest. ‘Time to turn the tables,’ I thought as I again turned the bike right and started the last part of the journey to end point.
“You can try all you want Rahul, but you know very well none of your old tricks are going to work here,” Virat replied as I geared up the bike on full throttle for I saw a complete straight road lie ahead. Which meant I could zoom my bike up to full speed.
“Hold on tight,” I told Virat as I started speeding my bike to full speed.
“Yeah, I know,” Virat replied. He knew how I loved to drive my bike at full speed. And whenever he saw a straight road, he was aware that his life was in danger. For life in the fast lane was what biking was all about.
I zoomed the bike up to full speed. The wind hit us like a huge wave at the centre of the sea. This was the most beautiful feeling on earth I had ever experienced. The rush of blood, the feeling of ecstasy and the escalation of life beyond anything else-if only I could keep on driving like this all day.
“There’s a turn coming up,” Virat shouted into the wind.
“I know mate. It’s not the first time I am driving down this road you know,” I replied as I slowed the bike just in time for the last turn. From here on it was a 2 minute ride to End-point. I geared up the bike again to full throttle for the last stretch. Speeding up, I kicked the bike into gear and we were off. “Woooooooooooooooo,” Virat screamed. The wind hit us again. It seemed like we were flying. The ecstasy was back. It was like living life at its greatest ebb
To the right was our destination for the day, the end point football ground. I parked the bike near the ground and waited for Virat to get off before getting off myself.
Sheetal was there to greet us. “Ah, there are my two favorite boys in the world,” she said as she came and gave me a hug before going to Virat and giving him a kiss on the cheek and a hug. I smiled. “And our common favorite girl in the world,” I said laughing.
“Well, I was the common favorite, until now,” she remarked.
“And how is that?” I asked folding my hands.
“Oh, a little bird told me that you finally made friends with Anjlai Shah,” Sheetal said smiling.
“Oh jesus!” I said. “We just had a conversation. I wouldn’t exactly call her my friend yet.”
“Ahhh-Virat sweetheart, did you too notice the use of the word yet by your room mate here?” Sheetal said mockingly.
“Oh yes, darling, I noticed it too,” Virat said joining in the fun.
How I hated these two. Sheetal continued the exaggeration. “Ah sweetheart, then you too understand that Rahul sees a potential friendship blossoming here?”
“I do darling,” Virat remarked as cheekily as possible. “Potential friendship, potential love….” Virat trailed off.
“Ok-that’s it the two of you,” I cried out. “Enough with the Anjali jokes. I don’t have time for this and Virat, if you haven’t noticed; we have a football game to play.”
“Hmmmm….how I love football,” Sheetal commented
5 minutes later the game started. The crowd of around 50 odd people that had gathered cheered on. Some of my friends were there. Sheetal of course was cheering as loudly as she could. In fact, her cheering was so loud that Virat almost got embarrassed.
And then it happened. I saw her standing in the crowd, a silent but radiating figure as if over shadowing everything else around her just by her mere presence. She was dressed in a simple red top and blue track but even in those simplest of outfits, her beauty was exemplary. For a moment time just stood still. I didn’t move from my where I was standing or look around afraid that if I took my eyes off her then I would never see such beauty ever again. I felt as if the entire ground was empty, devoid of everyone else but me and her and the beautiful surroundings that hovered over us and made this moment even more perfect than it ever could have been. I slowly walked up to her and two steps away from her I stopped. For a few silent moments I didn’t move, just gazing at her beautiful face and wondering how God could have ever made someone so perfect. I slowly lifted my hand and felt her beauty in them. Her skin so smooth as if every touch of mine infested me with her love. As I slowly moved my hand over her cheeks, she closed her eyes, feeling the touch of my hands as if I had touched her heart.
“Rahhhhuuuullllllllllll,” I heard a voice somewhere in the back ground. “Rahhhhhhhhuuuuuuulllll,” came that irritating voice again. I wanted to slap the person calling me. How could anyone disturb a moment as beautiful as this? Then I felt a slap at the back of me head. I returned to reality. “Wake up lover boy,” I turned to see Virat say. “Huh?” I responded and immediately started looking around for the girl who had just taken me to my dream of the perfect world. She was still standing there, that epitome of beauty and I felt like loosing myself to that dream all over again. “You noticed huh?” I heard Virat say somewhere far off. So far off that his words didn’t matter. She looked at me and smiled. Then she slowly raised her hand and gave me a small wave. I ran back for the game and as I went past her I waved back and gave her a small wink. Then I returned to the game. A little further away from Anjali, I saw Sheetal standing. She had seen me wave at Anjali so she looked around for the person I had waved at. She spotted Anjali in the crowd and then looking at me she gave me a thumbs up and a wink. I smiled back.
“Alright Rahul, should we get back to the game?” Rishabh asked me.
“Yeah, alright. Sorry for the loss of concentration,” I told him.
“Don’t worry mate,” he answered. “I kind of noticed your ‘loss of concentration’,” he said emphasizing particularly on the last three words. Not wanting to give too much away I didn’t say anything and saw the game develop as Virat passed the ball to Ravi.
There were 15 minutes left on the clock. And there she was present, watching me play. I couldn’t falter, not anymore. I had to win this game, win it for her. So I ran like never before, played like never before, and fought for every ball like my life depended on it. The fire was back-there was no way we could lose this game now.
Yet, in true Bollywood style, the goal never happened. However hard we tried, we just couldn’t score the winning goal. We were all over our opponents, almost all of the game being played in their half yet somehow they still managed to hang on. We knew we couldn’t let the game go to penalties. We bombarded their defense with every little move and on three occasions we missed the goal by a whisker. But then, when you want something with all your heart, the entire nature conspires for you to achieve it. Pauldo Coelho’s magical words. And I wanted that winning goal more than anything else right now.
So with two minutes left on the clock, Saurav gave me a through ball. I went past one defender, and then a few feet away another one came to tackle me. I turned on my feet with the ball, sliced the ball between his feet and then going past him in one rush, took the ball at my feet again. Now there were two defenders in front of me. Realizing it might be a tad too difficult to get past them on my own, I saw Rishabh was free at the left. As soon as the two defenders came near me, I passed the ball to Rishabh. Rishabh danced with the ball for a while and went past the same defender I had beaten a few moments ago
I ran ahead expectantly waiting his pass if he saw an opportunity. I was ahead of the two defenders who were marking me. I screamed for the ball. Rishabh looked towards me, saw that I was free and immediately passed the ball back. If I got the ball in time, then I would have only the goalkeeper to beat. No mistakes this time. The two defenders were coming back but I got the ball just before they caught up with me. As the ball was coming to me, the goalkeeper came out hoping to grab the ball before it got to my feet. I beat the goalkeeper to the ball and as the goalkeeper dived in front of me to get the ball, I slided the ball past him and then with one sweet little touch and an empty goal in front of me, I just pushed the ball into the net with my feet.As the ball rolled on, for a few moments time became absolutely still as everyone on the ground held heir breath. The ball kept on rolling and finally settle at the back of the net.
I immediately turned as my team mates, in complete ecstasy, rushed to hug me. I ran towards them, wild in this moment of glory and jumped on to Rishabh who had passed me the ball with which had led to the winning goal. Soon the rest of my teammates joined in the celebration and we all hugged in delight. Then slowly we disbanded as we waited for the game to restart. We knew we had done the job. For as soon as the game would restart the referee would blow the whistle was the time was up. And so it happened. We celebrated again, happy that we had made it to the next round. Then as everyone went back to collect their back-packs, I went up to her.
“Hey,” I said my usual opening statement.
“Fantastic goal,” she exclaimed.
“Thanks,” I replied. ‘All thanks to you,’ was what I wanted to say. Nevertheless, I kept it back.
“So what are you doing here?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just came for a jog, then saw there was a bit of a crowd here. Came up to check out the action and saw you playing. So I thought I’ll stay a while.”
“So you stayed to see me playing?” I asked just to see her reaction.
“Well, when you tend to see someone playing whom you know, then you kind of stay back to find out how well he plays,” she replied as if stating an obvious point.
“And how do I play?” I asked.
She didn’t answer for a while and acted as if she was giving this quite a bit of thought. “Alright,” she replied and we both laughed.
“Friend of yours?” Anjali asked me as Virat and Sheetal left.
“Yup, unfortunately,” I replied.
“Or one of your future conquests?”
I laughed. “No, don’t worry, definitely not one of my future conquests.”
“Why is that?” she asked as if confused. “She is quite beautiful, if you haven’t noticed.”
I laughed again. “So are you,” I replied and then added deliberately, “if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, “and pretend that you didn’t imply that you were going to hit on me.”
“Pretend all you want,” I replied smiling. Two could play this game.
“Coming,” came back the answer.
Virat finally arrived, a good 15 minutes late.
“Let’s go,” I told him. “Game starts in 30 minutes.”
“It’s alright dude,” Virat replied. “It’s not like we are playing for the Indian national team.”
“Yeah?” I said a bit haughtily. “Explain that to the referees when we are late for the game.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll understand. After all you are the star of the show,” Virat remarked cheesily.
“Shut up,” I told him. We walked outside the gates of the hostel where the love of my life was parked. My beautiful 200 cc Pulsar. My one girlfriend who never complained. She had been my silent supporter through every one of my break up’s since 2nd year. I loved the babe. What would I do without it?
I started the bike. Vrooom…..vrrrooom….vrrrrooooooom. I loved that sound. It was like music to my ears. “Get on,” I told Virat, gearing up the bike for the ride to End Point.
Is Sheetal coming?” I asked Virat as I turned the bike around Kamath Circle and took exit no.3 of our campus. “Obviously she is,” Virat answered. “Footall means sweating hunks in shorts. How could my girlfriend ever resist such a temptation?”
“You do know that your girlfriend is one of those babes of our college walking the ramp in a mini skirt during the fashion show, don’t you?” I said teasing Virat again.
“Yeah, so what?” Virat asked innocently.
“That there are guys who are ogling her there too as well,” I replied.
“Oh whatever. They can ogle at her all they want. I can’t help it if my girlfriend is hot,” he said. “Besides,” he added, “at the end of the day, I am the one who gets to make out with her.”
You had to admire Virat’s sense of humor. The guy could turn anything into a joke and yet remained one of the most sincerely committed guys in the college. He probably had already planned the name of his kids with Sheetal. That was the kind of guy Virat was. Funny, cracking jokes and yet completely committed and sincere in his relationship.
“So how is your quest for love going?” Virat asked as I rode past KMC Greens, which was just outside the KMC campus, the residential medical college of Manipal and a huge rival of our MIT. Engineering versus Medical was an old rivalry and if you had a top engineering and a top medical of the country in the same town and under the same university, then you had all the ingredients of a classis Bollywood like college rivalry. We loved their girls and their boys hated us because their girls loved us too. I mean come on-we can’t help it if medical boys turn out to be nerds and their girls turn out to be so pretty.
“What quest?” I asked even though I knew where this conversation was headed.
“Yeah, I remember her,” I told Virat. “What I don’t understand is why you are so obsessed with her. Not developing a secret crush of your own now, are you?”
I said in jest. ‘Time to turn the tables,’ I thought as I again turned the bike right and started the last part of the journey to end point.
“You can try all you want Rahul, but you know very well none of your old tricks are going to work here,” Virat replied as I geared up the bike on full throttle for I saw a complete straight road lie ahead. Which meant I could zoom my bike up to full speed.
“Hold on tight,” I told Virat as I started speeding my bike to full speed.
“Yeah, I know,” Virat replied. He knew how I loved to drive my bike at full speed. And whenever he saw a straight road, he was aware that his life was in danger. For life in the fast lane was what biking was all about.
I zoomed the bike up to full speed. The wind hit us like a huge wave at the centre of the sea. This was the most beautiful feeling on earth I had ever experienced. The rush of blood, the feeling of ecstasy and the escalation of life beyond anything else-if only I could keep on driving like this all day.
“There’s a turn coming up,” Virat shouted into the wind.
“I know mate. It’s not the first time I am driving down this road you know,” I replied as I slowed the bike just in time for the last turn. From here on it was a 2 minute ride to End-point. I geared up the bike again to full throttle for the last stretch. Speeding up, I kicked the bike into gear and we were off. “Woooooooooooooooo,” Virat screamed. The wind hit us again. It seemed like we were flying. The ecstasy was back. It was like living life at its greatest ebb
To the right was our destination for the day, the end point football ground. I parked the bike near the ground and waited for Virat to get off before getting off myself.
Sheetal was there to greet us. “Ah, there are my two favorite boys in the world,” she said as she came and gave me a hug before going to Virat and giving him a kiss on the cheek and a hug. I smiled. “And our common favorite girl in the world,” I said laughing.
“Well, I was the common favorite, until now,” she remarked.
“And how is that?” I asked folding my hands.
“Oh, a little bird told me that you finally made friends with Anjlai Shah,” Sheetal said smiling.
“Oh jesus!” I said. “We just had a conversation. I wouldn’t exactly call her my friend yet.”
“Ahhh-Virat sweetheart, did you too notice the use of the word yet by your room mate here?” Sheetal said mockingly.
“Oh yes, darling, I noticed it too,” Virat said joining in the fun.
How I hated these two. Sheetal continued the exaggeration. “Ah sweetheart, then you too understand that Rahul sees a potential friendship blossoming here?”
“I do darling,” Virat remarked as cheekily as possible. “Potential friendship, potential love….” Virat trailed off.
“Ok-that’s it the two of you,” I cried out. “Enough with the Anjali jokes. I don’t have time for this and Virat, if you haven’t noticed; we have a football game to play.”
“Hmmmm….how I love football,” Sheetal commented
5 minutes later the game started. The crowd of around 50 odd people that had gathered cheered on. Some of my friends were there. Sheetal of course was cheering as loudly as she could. In fact, her cheering was so loud that Virat almost got embarrassed.
And then it happened. I saw her standing in the crowd, a silent but radiating figure as if over shadowing everything else around her just by her mere presence. She was dressed in a simple red top and blue track but even in those simplest of outfits, her beauty was exemplary. For a moment time just stood still. I didn’t move from my where I was standing or look around afraid that if I took my eyes off her then I would never see such beauty ever again. I felt as if the entire ground was empty, devoid of everyone else but me and her and the beautiful surroundings that hovered over us and made this moment even more perfect than it ever could have been. I slowly walked up to her and two steps away from her I stopped. For a few silent moments I didn’t move, just gazing at her beautiful face and wondering how God could have ever made someone so perfect. I slowly lifted my hand and felt her beauty in them. Her skin so smooth as if every touch of mine infested me with her love. As I slowly moved my hand over her cheeks, she closed her eyes, feeling the touch of my hands as if I had touched her heart.
I roved my hand over her face and slowly moved the hand to her hair. I slowly removed the strand of hair on her forehead so that nothing could hide her beauty. Then I moved a few inches closer to her and she with her eyes closed whispered my name, “Rahul,” such that only I and the wind could hear it. No one had ever called my name with so much love. When she whispered my name with the softness of a sparrow chirping, every syllable sounded as if her love was reflecting in them. I moved a few more inches closer and kissed her forehead. She opened her eyes, slowly as if waking up from a dream. We looked at each other, two people absolutely in love and knowing that our love was the only thing that sustained us in this world. “Anjali,” I whispered in her ears. “I love you.” She looked at me as if she had known this all along. As if this was the most expected thing in the world. Taking my hand in hers, she came within touching distance of me and whispered, “I know. And I want to share that blanket of love with you.”
I smiled and she shyly smiled back at me. For this was the epitome of life. This is what I had always lived and hoped for. This is what life had meant to be, in this perfect moment, in this moment devoid of any hatred, angst of jealousy, where only love existed and nothing else. For in life, there wouldn’t come a more perfect moment than this
“Rahhhhuuuullllllllllll,” I heard a voice somewhere in the back ground. “Rahhhhhhhhuuuuuuulllll,” came that irritating voice again. I wanted to slap the person calling me. How could anyone disturb a moment as beautiful as this? Then I felt a slap at the back of me head. I returned to reality. “Wake up lover boy,” I turned to see Virat say. “Huh?” I responded and immediately started looking around for the girl who had just taken me to my dream of the perfect world. She was still standing there, that epitome of beauty and I felt like loosing myself to that dream all over again. “You noticed huh?” I heard Virat say somewhere far off. So far off that his words didn’t matter. She looked at me and smiled. Then she slowly raised her hand and gave me a small wave. I ran back for the game and as I went past her I waved back and gave her a small wink. Then I returned to the game. A little further away from Anjali, I saw Sheetal standing. She had seen me wave at Anjali so she looked around for the person I had waved at. She spotted Anjali in the crowd and then looking at me she gave me a thumbs up and a wink. I smiled back.
“Alright Rahul, should we get back to the game?” Rishabh asked me.
“Yeah, alright. Sorry for the loss of concentration,” I told him.
“Don’t worry mate,” he answered. “I kind of noticed your ‘loss of concentration’,” he said emphasizing particularly on the last three words. Not wanting to give too much away I didn’t say anything and saw the game develop as Virat passed the ball to Ravi.
There were 15 minutes left on the clock. And there she was present, watching me play. I couldn’t falter, not anymore. I had to win this game, win it for her. So I ran like never before, played like never before, and fought for every ball like my life depended on it. The fire was back-there was no way we could lose this game now.
Yet, in true Bollywood style, the goal never happened. However hard we tried, we just couldn’t score the winning goal. We were all over our opponents, almost all of the game being played in their half yet somehow they still managed to hang on. We knew we couldn’t let the game go to penalties. We bombarded their defense with every little move and on three occasions we missed the goal by a whisker. But then, when you want something with all your heart, the entire nature conspires for you to achieve it. Pauldo Coelho’s magical words. And I wanted that winning goal more than anything else right now.
So with two minutes left on the clock, Saurav gave me a through ball. I went past one defender, and then a few feet away another one came to tackle me. I turned on my feet with the ball, sliced the ball between his feet and then going past him in one rush, took the ball at my feet again. Now there were two defenders in front of me. Realizing it might be a tad too difficult to get past them on my own, I saw Rishabh was free at the left. As soon as the two defenders came near me, I passed the ball to Rishabh. Rishabh danced with the ball for a while and went past the same defender I had beaten a few moments ago
I ran ahead expectantly waiting his pass if he saw an opportunity. I was ahead of the two defenders who were marking me. I screamed for the ball. Rishabh looked towards me, saw that I was free and immediately passed the ball back. If I got the ball in time, then I would have only the goalkeeper to beat. No mistakes this time. The two defenders were coming back but I got the ball just before they caught up with me. As the ball was coming to me, the goalkeeper came out hoping to grab the ball before it got to my feet. I beat the goalkeeper to the ball and as the goalkeeper dived in front of me to get the ball, I slided the ball past him and then with one sweet little touch and an empty goal in front of me, I just pushed the ball into the net with my feet.As the ball rolled on, for a few moments time became absolutely still as everyone on the ground held heir breath. The ball kept on rolling and finally settle at the back of the net.
I immediately turned as my team mates, in complete ecstasy, rushed to hug me. I ran towards them, wild in this moment of glory and jumped on to Rishabh who had passed me the ball with which had led to the winning goal. Soon the rest of my teammates joined in the celebration and we all hugged in delight. Then slowly we disbanded as we waited for the game to restart. We knew we had done the job. For as soon as the game would restart the referee would blow the whistle was the time was up. And so it happened. We celebrated again, happy that we had made it to the next round. Then as everyone went back to collect their back-packs, I went up to her.
“Hey,” I said my usual opening statement.
“Fantastic goal,” she exclaimed.
“Thanks,” I replied. ‘All thanks to you,’ was what I wanted to say. Nevertheless, I kept it back.
“So what are you doing here?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just came for a jog, then saw there was a bit of a crowd here. Came up to check out the action and saw you playing. So I thought I’ll stay a while.”
“So you stayed to see me playing?” I asked just to see her reaction.
“Well, when you tend to see someone playing whom you know, then you kind of stay back to find out how well he plays,” she replied as if stating an obvious point.
“And how do I play?” I asked.
She didn’t answer for a while and acted as if she was giving this quite a bit of thought. “Alright,” she replied and we both laughed.
“Friend of yours?” Anjali asked me as Virat and Sheetal left.
“Yup, unfortunately,” I replied.
“Or one of your future conquests?”
I laughed. “No, don’t worry, definitely not one of my future conquests.”
“Why is that?” she asked as if confused. “She is quite beautiful, if you haven’t noticed.”
I laughed again. “So are you,” I replied and then added deliberately, “if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, “and pretend that you didn’t imply that you were going to hit on me.”
“Pretend all you want,” I replied smiling. Two could play this game.
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