If I Had A Love Story - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

March had thrived. The charmy thing about March is that there were flurry of symposiums coming up in your way. Three days of merriment with no classes. As soon as the dates of the symposiums were released, we had the dates marked on our calendars to remember paying a visit to your friends from other departments (The deal was to offer food in your symposium in return for your friend's symposium food). There were some who maintained a complete schedule about the symposiums happening in the college along with the information about the food that would be arranged. Those people's friendship was the most sought after during this month. You could suddenly find photographers everywhere coming out of nowhere taking pictures all around the college with the hope of winning photography contests and dreaming about becoming a PC Sreeram someday.

These symposium days were the best days for taking awesome pictures together with your friends. Students eagerly wait for the traditional wear day. A ruckus starts a night before the traditional wear day. Boys start ransacking their wardrobe to pick the best shirt to wear. It was also common to see gangs of people wearing same shirts to show their 'n' years of togetherness. The colour of shirt is what mattered the most. It had become a ritual that boys spend the night thinking hard on predicting the colour that his crush or his girlfriend ought to be wearing the next day with the intention of impressing her with same coloured dresses (Some changed shirts after finding out what colour she was wearing the next day). The next morning, the rooms of the people who knew how to wear a veshti becomes a crowded park. The personalised ID card printed exclusively for the symposium with lunch and dinner tokens inside the ID pouch, borrowed coolers, a watch and multitude of perfume sprays, powders complemented the traditional attire. Having witnessed the getting ready scenario in the boy’s hostel, I had lost my nerves to imagine what would be happening inside the girls hostel.

I got up as my roommates waked me up (It was very ironical, it usually happens the other way around). They had already bathed and were ironing their shirts and it was just 7:30 AM. Ajith owned the only iron box in our wing and thus was awarded the distinction of being the sole proprietor of the iron box (We even thought of setting up ironing business in case engineering didn't work out). Rolling my eyes, I got up to brush and bathe. I had never actually cared about the colour of the dress or how I looked in it as long as I felt comfortable in it. I had none to impress and often turned deaf ears to my roommate's shirt suggestions. I selected a white shirt carefully ensuring that it hasn't been soiled yet. I got ready in few minutes. I applied a thin stroke of vibhooti in my forehead and marched on to the Tag Auditorium like a politician on his campaign.

Taking a prudently mapped route that had lesser possibilities of human interactions, I had successfully reached the Tag Auditorium. The party had already begun then. Selfies and multitude of poses were in the air. I too joined the party and started taking pictures with my friends not paying any heed to the staffs yelling at the lack of people inside the auditorium.

As I casually looked around, my eyes spotted Diya. She too had seen me and was now walking towards me. I gaped at her as if I had seen a star fall from the sky. She was wrapped in a delicate reddish orange saree and her cheeks glowed as the sunlight kissed her. Her hair was perfectly made and her shoulders bore the tender weight of her graceful hair. We were now inches apart standing face to face. Seconds clicked. None spoke. She was probably waiting for me to say how she had been looking. But I was caught in a spell that had paralysed me. Her enchantment was so strong that I just stood there awestruck unable to utter even a word. It felt like I had been undone by a 140 kmph inswinging yorker from Starc. Diya seemed displeased by my silence and turned around walking away. It was when the spell broke and I came out of the trance. I ran behind her calling out her name. She stopped.

"You look so beautiful" I said to her without looking at her, afraid that I would stagger again. She turned back and smiled pleased with my compliment. "Come let's take some pictures", she dragged me inside the Tag Auditorium near the stage right in front of the flowers. She took a series of photos with different poses every time. I found it very hard to catch up with her poses and tried to smile every time she had clicked a picture. I had learnt that day that I had plenty of homework to do about this posing thing. Think about bad pictures with a beautiful girl like her, I didn't want it, nobody did.