Not Around The Corner

First Look

Flashback:

“I get the best feeling in the world when you say hi to me, or even smile, because I know even if just for a second, I crossed your mind.” ~Anonymous

It was a rainy day when I had first seen him. I was thirteen. I was walking back home with Anushka. We were standing in front of Anushka’s house, chatting. My car was to pick me up in a couple of minutes. He was from my school and was in his school uniform. His friend and he were laughing loudly about something that had happened. Suddenly a truck passed him by and drove through the puddle splashing the entire friend circle. It was so sudden. He was covered with muck and he was completely taken aback. Anushka and I started giggling. The guys looked around to see who all had seen what happened and they saw us. He saw me and gave me a smile and I graciously returned it.

The teen-me was going gaga over the rain dude. I couldn’t stop fixating on him. Anushka saw us smiling at each other and started teasing me from thereon.

“He smiled back at me,” I told Anushka with disbelief. She started laughing and said,” Why wouldn’t he?”

She said,” Are you even listening to me anymore?”I wasn’t paying attention to her.

I felt a pinch near my wrist. “Aarghh, why would you do that?” I asked Anushka. “You were not listening to me,” she replied. “Okay fine, listening,” I said with a scowl.

The next day at school I found my eyes searching for him. He was nowhere to be seen. I drudged my feet to the water cooler with disappointment. As I finished filling my bottle, I realised that somebody was standing behind me waiting for me to finish. I finished quickly and turned around to see him. He was here. Standing behind me all this while. He saw me and gave me the same awesome smile. My knees went wobbly right about then. I smiled back at him and forgot to move. Anushka came skipping there and looking at the both of us she suddenly stopped.

“There you are my “smiley” friend,” she said very obviously. I went a deep colour of red and gave her a glare. I heard him chuckling behind me. I walked away embarrassed.

“Why did you do that?” I asked Anushka angrily.

“What? Made it obvious?” she asked innocently.

I gave her a knowing look.

“Okay you both were just looking at each other and smiling and I thought that was the most appropriate way to interrupt you guys,” she said sneakily. I shook my head at her and started walking to my next class. I had better things to think about and shyly smile about those things.

He turned out to be my brother, Nikhil’s classmate. He was two years older than me. His name was Akash Mehra. He apparently was the nerd of their class. My brother particularly had no affinity for him. Nikhil was the school’s star basketball player and academics came second to him. He had no sympathy for the nerds. The year passed by and I barely saw him after that day near the cooler.

My last two years of school were guy-free. I had stopped thinking about Akash but my mind wasn’t even trying to look for greener pastures. Nikhil had left town the year he passed out of school. He was going to the US for further education.

I took up Arts when I got into junior college. I was going to pursue law like everybody in my family had. And unlike Nikhil, I didn’t want to go out of India. Law wasn’t going to be easy but at this juncture in life I really didn’t know what I wanted to be or what I was good at.  Anushka too took up arts. She knew what she wanted to do though. She always wanted to major in Literature.

The first day of college, I was searching for the main office. I had to submit some of my documents there. Anushka had been absconding for the whole of last week and I didn’t know what was going on with her. I submitted the documents and checked the time. I still had an hour till my first lecture. Anushka had messaged me and informed me that she was running late. I roamed around the college checking out the campus. I checked my watch again and saw that only 10 minutes had passed by. The time was going at snail-pace. There was a café near the college. I decided to get a dose of caffeine to get me kick started for the first day of college. Keep myself fresh for the rest of the day. I ordered my coffee and went and sat on one of the corner tables. There were magazines kept there. I picked one up and started reading them till my order was ready.

They called my name out and I went to collect it. As I turned around I saw Akash. I staggered. He was talking with couple of girls and guys. He hadn’t seen me yet. I wondered if he still remembered me. I walked back to my table and started reading that magazine again. My mind had officially wandered away. I couldn’t concentrate on the magazine anymore. In the rush to come back to my table, I had forgotten to get the sugar sachets. I got up to get them when Akash and a friend of his, a girl if I should mention (why should that make me jealous, I wonder), came there to take some sugar for themselves. I swiftly took my sugar sachet and left. I had a feeling he was looking at me now. I stole a look in his table’s direction and caught him looking at me. He quickly looked away.

So he did remember me. At least vaguely. I smiled satisfactorily in my head. I finished the coffee and left the café with a last glance at his table.

He was taller now. Close to 5’ 10’’ or 5’ 11’’. He looked much smarter. And that was going to be problem. Forgetting him now would be near impossible. I reached the college to see my cousin Gaurav in a serious conversation with Anushka. Gaurav’s parents were going to shift along with my parents to Singapore where my father was starting another one of his firms. Gaurav was going to come and stay over at my house in a couple of months.

“I really have to tell Rhea but I don’t know how she will react,” I heard Anushka telling Gaurav. What was going on?

I took a deep breath and asked curiously, “Why are you both together?"

"Was passing when I saw her at the gate so stopped for a chat," Gaurav said.

"Oh," I nodded. Anushka gave him a look and he left immediately. Why was she being so weird? This was getting interesting with every minute.

“Let’s get to the lecture,” she said. She was clearly panicking.

The way up to the class was highly peculiar. Anushka was so out of sorts. I had never seen her like that. I really wanted to talk with her. We reached the lecture and the professor was already there so we couldn’t talk. The lectures went on for the next three hours and by the end of it I had forgotten about Anushka acting strange.

I was thinking about my meeting with Akash in the café. I thought I had let go of him. Why oh why did I have to see him again?

We were left early today since it was the first day. I wanted to tell Anushka about Akash but she was really pre-occupied. Informing me that she would call me back later in the evening, she went off in a hurry.  This girl was behaving very oddly.