Timeless treasure

10

Another eleven months just flew by. This feeling which I thought would just go away kept on getting stronger and letting my courage go weaker. With every passing day, I like him more than how much I liked him the previous day. Every night, I sleep with the hope of seeing you the next day. 

February 2018

We were introduced to this communication skills programme as a part of our campus recruitment training. My worst fears being realized, I've to speak up to a group of people on varied topics. I see most of the people in my class excited while I began to sweat. It might be surprising to see 19-year-old worrying about public speaking. But when I was a child, I always had a lot to say. I do have them now too, I guess. But, as a single parent, my mother was the sole breadwinner of our family after my dad passed away. She worked two jobs and part-time on weekends too. My brother has done residential schooling since his second grade, so, we met only once a year. There was no mode of communication I could get through him, eventually, I used to forget all the things I wanted to say by the end of the year.

Firstly, we were teamed into groups of five. To make us comfortable with each other, our mentor has decided to conduct a round where we guess words. Yeah, just guess words based on the clue sentence so we could discuss and say it out loud. In simple words - crossword. "It's actually better than having to speak for minutes in front of a group," I thought. Team numbers were written in slips and put in a glass bowl. I held the slip with team number 7 written on it. Fifty-three people picking the slips later, he quietly walked to the dais and picked one. I was eager and anxious at the same time. The mentor looked at his slip and pointed towards our team. He walked towards our team, smiled at his friends in our team, and quietly sat behind me. At that moment, I couldn't even believe that I was going to be on his team for the day. My heart pounded a bit faster than it actually does, my hands began to sweat. I couldn't even think properly for the first few questions and then I'm alert for the next one. It went on as "A word for rushing stream which also means a file sent in a decentralized network- 7 letters". Our teammates looked at each other and they went on like JET, GUSH, UPLOAD and they went on for a few seconds. Both of us haven't uttered a word, it just clicked in my head and we both looked at each other for a second, gave a little nod; while the mentor starts the countdown THREE... TWO AND.. we screamed "TORRENT". "And that's a right answer TEAM-7 leads by 3 points," he said. We smiled our brightest smiles. After almost an hour and a half, we lost it by 2 points but had more fun than I've ever had in school. We broke into laughter and went on about how exciting the game was. Later, we were asked to speak a few words on effective ways to manage data mining and somehow we did give our best. Altogether, the day ended well.

To and fro on a rocking chair, I laid my head back listening to Prateek Kuhad's 100 words, "Do you have a hundred words? Coz' I have only three." A few aimless minutes passed by, I turned my gaze towards the clock that hung high on the wall. It showed 11:11 and I couldn't stop thinking about him. There's something about this minute when you think of someone in your life, someone whom you imagine spending your whole life with. Not that you don't think about them otherwise, it's just that you cannot think of anyone other than this particular someone at this helpless minute. It reminds me of all the nights I screamed my heart louder but kept my mouth mum and of all the days I smiled dying inside of carrying all the love enough for two, all by myself. Something just keeps pulling back from speaking to you, the fear of losing you all at once or never being loved the same as much as I do. Might be either one of them.

I walked towards the last shelf in my cupboard, there sat the sky blue diary with aesthetic clouds all over, I bought it last week when I'd gone shopping with Ishani. Flipping pages, I could do nothing but feel you most on the empty pages of it. I never wanted to write anything for anyone in these 19 years of my existence. I opened the first page and without a second thought, I penned the cacophony inside my head.

To the boy who sits on the last bench,
              As I'm struggling real hard to find what I really like about you, I made up a list multiple times, crumpled and threw it, put up a new one with a single line "Interesting. Always".
              I've always found you either scribbling something with intent or staring pointlessly out of the window. Seeking answers of life maybe. You carry a wonder in your eyes which makes me wonder if that's what I fell for. I love the way your eyes laugh and the way your dimples smile. 
              On the other day, when I heard you laugh for the first time, it filled up the whole room and I found myself smiling. Out of the 900 square feet classroom, it's always the 6x6 corner seat I look out for.

From the girl who admires you from afar.