The Girl - V

"Let’s move downstairs", she commanded emphatically, reaching him at the table. The library had a reading room engineered below ground level, almost like an enlarged basement. It was second on his list of favourite hanging out spots in the campus. Her smile increased her beauty exponentially. He obeyed. The specky guy and wretched girl seated on either side looked on as if they'd been robbed.

He was the kind who didn’t spend a day of life without a plan but yet the choice of seating was absolutely arbitrary. It was that usual aura about her and more, something that consumed him like a spell. It wasn’t just an intoxicating scent she was wearing, a hallucinogen of sorts. He made a mental note to fetch himself one of those.

"How could someone get a freaking 20 in this!” she demanded sitting next to him, visibly awed. Then, it dawned upon him. With the pre finals round the corner, being one of only 3 guys in a batch of 78 to manage a perfect figure in one of the most obnoxious tests, sure has its perks.

"I like the subject", he said, opening the copy she'd brought along, ensuring he did not sound condescending.

"I hope 1 and 2 won't be a problem?” he asked, scanning the questions he'd revised again last night, waiting for her to confirm. Apart from the clerk at the far end of the hall and a few students on the 1st floor, there was no one in sight.

She'd clipped her long, smooth hair behind, carefully leaving a few free on the front. It was a subtle change of grooming from the last time. Sooner or later some wisps of those would slide across her face and before her eyes as if they had a life of their own. She would tuck them behind her ears in one fluid twitch of the fingers, alternating between right and left hand. How she could manage to do that over and over again and still look lovely was utterly beyond him. His own hair never obeyed him half an hour after a bath.

"Fine..." she replied.

He went on to scribble the remaining 4 questions, talking more to the copy than her, inquiring in between questions if she'd followed. She looked utterly flawless, even at the least distance of distinct vision- gentle eyes, tender hands and a compelling voice. At times, she lunged forward to whisper something and it was an effort for him to keep his pulse under control. Talking to her looking into her eyes was still an exercise he had to learn to master.

By 12, it was over.

They climbed upstairs, walked past the silent lobby and out into the world. With books back into her bag, she transformed into a radically different creature- herself.

"Thanks for that! Will treat you to an ice-cream if I score more than Aditi."

That's the girl who sits right under the Professor’s nose each lecture, who looks strange without books and with a smile- a 'notes bank' for the entire class during exams.

"Tough deal that", he struggled to make conversation, as often.

It felt miserably peculiar trying to walk way slower than he was used to, to match her pace. He glanced at her feet which seemed as if they'd never touched ground. He felt guilty for not having bathed for the past 72 hours. It seemed in no time that they reached the cycle stands outside the college building. A lecture for a minute and it seems like an hour, an hour with a pretty girl and it seems like minute- relativity’s a bitch!

"Cya tomorrow then", she said pulling out her ride and hopping on.

"Tell Aditi to skip the exam", he teased as she cycled away.

"Yeah, and go for her 'make up'!", she yelled, laughing aloud as the 2 wheels gained momentum.

He watched her ride away and turned. It was hot and the temperamental wind swiped off withered leaves off the empty road before him as the calming comfort of solitude was back. Perhaps he was straying into uncharted territories. It was the age old battle between heart and the mind which seldom wanted the same thing and allowing the former to override the latter was not in his scheme of things.

'Falling in love is like sleeping in a lecture', he recalled, 'you were not supposed to, but you did...'

The Girl - VI