LOVE @ 5

Beep Beep, I heard the alarm from another room. It was still 5 am.

“C’mon, get up baby, it is getting late” my mother said. I was still in my dream land. Oh I wish I could tell her about the dream sequence, which actually happened in reality, where he came near my desk, carefully pulled back a few strands of hair that fell on my face, and then stood frightened, as if I was going to kill him.

Oh that look in his eyes, that innocent looking face, and there he stood, staring at me.

He smiled, and, suddenly everything around me was shaking.

“Are you going to get up today?”

Great!!

That was my mother, who woke me up!

I opened my tiny little eyes, rubbed them, yawned, spread my arms, hugged my mother, and she kissed me back.

Still in the lovey-dovey mode, I happened to look at the clock.

“Oh damn, I am seriously late”. It was 6 and I wanted to run to school to see him again.

Panting, I got up, rushed to brush my teeth, took a shower.

It did not matter how late I was going to be, standing in front of the mirror and admiring herself is a girl’s most important task.

I did the same for a couple of minutes, before my mother dragged me to the school bus whose driver was incessantly honking.

“Alright, I am here, stop giving me such looks” I said to the fat driver.

We soon entered the school premises.

I ran up the floors, falling in between, to reach my classroom.

And there he was, that charming little blue eyed boy, fair like cream, brown curly hair, cute smile, everything to die for.

“And, you did not complete your home work, why is that so?” the teacher yelled at him.

He stood there, frightened, just like he was standing in my dream. But that was not the time to wander into my dream land again.

He was being scolded.

I felt like saving him from the trouble, like the saviour from the super hero movies.

After all, we were kids. He was just five, so was I, the teacher was supposed to be sweet to us. She wasn’t harsh either, but I guess, I could not see him being yelled at.

We were in 2^nd grade then. Everyday in the morning, I used to comb my hair properly, to look neat and tidy, and adorable for him. I used to put on my green hair band, leaving a few strands of my hair on my forehead, so that every time he could come to me to tell me to tie my hair properly, or may be pull back my hair, himself.

He used to sit behind my desk. My girl pals knew that I was crazy for that blue eyed boy. At the age of 5, I did not know what having a crush meant. For me, something used to happen whenever I used to see him, around me, most of the times.

He happened to have this very unique feature of grabbing my attention.

And this he could do, so effortlessly. Actually, I made things simpler for him for that I liked him too.

“You know, you can never catch me, run as fast as you can.” He used to say, in our break time. I used to run after him from corridors, to classes, to playground.

“Fine, don’t come back now” I used to say. Seeing me all tired and jumpy, he used to come near me, and this apparently made things easier.

And then, we would walk back to our classrooms, together, panting, blushing, something that is difficult to describe at that age.

I knew he liked me chasing him, every time he teased me. And this happened daily.

I hated the Sundays and the holidays, for there was no ‘blue eyed boy’ around me.

I used to paint a lot, with my sketch pens, and he used to borrow them, just for the sake of starting a conversation, as if I never understood, silly boy!

“Oops!! My eraser, can u give it to me” he said, dropping his eraser mysteriously, after taking a red sketch pen.

“But, I can’t find it.”

“See there, near your left foot.” He said, as if he dropped it with all the proper directions and locations keeping in mind.

Oh yes, why not, I was waiting for you to drop it, you jerk, I thought.

This excited me, I understood, there he was, at his best again, to talk to me.

“Pick it up yourself, you do it in every 5 minutes.” I said, thinking he would be offended, and would run after me in our break time, yippee!

He wasn’t. He was in fact happy, for no reason. I still could not figure out, what for, even today.

Guys are Unpredictable!!

Anyways, on our annual function, our class teacher planned to make us dance on some random folk number. She selected the students, decided their positions, and he got the lead, and some random girl, was his partner.

C’mon, this is not possible, how can any other girl be paired opposite him, why doesn’t he say anything? I thought.

“Noooooo…I want to be the lead dancer as well, I don’t know anything, and I just want to be paired opposite him” I cried, on the top of my voice, in despair. Oh damn, what I said!

“I want to be the main dancer, not the second lead” I corrected, realising I just uttered something, I wasn’t supposed to.

“But, you dance well, and that the main dancer doesn’t have to do anything, except standing with that boy” she said.

Oh yeah, THAT boy, it’s all to do with him, I thought, but did not say anything.

The dance practice got over, the main event was over, and I loved him even more.

We exchanged glances, smiled, and smiled more. Days passed, months passed, and the things did not change between us.

And I left the school, soon after.

That innocence, that patience, that receiving and transmitting the signals, but unaware of how to interpret them, everything that we had in common is still a cherished memory today.

“I still feel, there was something magical about it.” I said.

“It was love in its purest form.” He said, after we met again, 15 years later, on a social networking site.

All Rights Reserved: Nidhi Jain (13/08/2010)

Any reproduction of the above material in any form without the prior written permission of the author would be treated as a criminal offense and a serious copyright infringement.