She came, she saw, she conquered

I am an idealist. I always want an ideal life. It does not mean that I want to become the richest person. I like to have a perfect family where every member is happy with each other. I want my friends to be loyal with me, they should belief in me and themselves .  When I have girlfriend, I wish my date must be extraordinary. I wish to go out to city centre on Valentine's Day with her. Just imagine talking to her on the pavement enjoying the band playing there, having dinner at Pizza Hut where all eyes on us as we are the best couple, the manager of the restaurant taking care for us with smile as if we are his regular customer, dream to all the singles, envy to all couples staring at us. In the night going for party to night clubs having special pass for couples only. The same bouncer, who stared at me with disapproval when I am single, is welcoming us to the party as we are the star of the night.

Why am I telling you all these dreams? Sometimes you have the same feelings. No, I am not going to continue with my imagination and let you think about my impractical dream. Let me tell you about my date with Piya. You are all inquisitive minds will be thinking how Ankit can, a shy guy who cannot even stare into eyes of a girl even dare to date a girl? On the first place you will be thinking how I could find out this girl?

It was late October last year. We, gang of five buddies were returning from Yamuna Bank in  Delhi Metro after a regular weekend stroll in City Walk Mall. It was late evening, all were tired up. At Rajendranagar, a girl sat on my right side. In these situations your telepathy became strong. You could hear your friend's telling you loud enough "Hey Dude, It's your Lucky day, you have hottie near you." I tried to see her face, hardly saw it. Locks of hair covered her face. I had never trusted my friends' eyes. I could see that she was carrying a black handbag and my favorite book "The Fountainhead". As train moved on she started reading the book, and my friends became drowsy and slept. It was the moment I wanted to trust eyes of my friends and somehow to contact her. I took out my mobile carefully and flashed my own number several times. All in vain; she was engrossed in the book. I was getting impatient, even cursed the book. We reached our destination. I was disappointed. At my room I saw a miss call. I was excited. What made her to call me? Probably she saw me giving a peacock feather to a poor child while coming down the train. It was not important then.

Being a shy guy I had never courage to call her back. SMS after SMS proceeded by chat sessions. Online chatting is boon for a guy like me. I could show that I was smart and intelligent. I tried winning her confidence. I was quite naïve in this whole chatting. Sometimes I expressed my emotions too much. This was my turnoff. That's why I took three months to ask her for a date. She agreed but insisted that it will be short one and she did not felt comfortable in the city. I felt dishearten wanted to go all the places in City Walk as I had thought in my dream. But the flip side was I had a date. She had earlier told me she liked to visit a village fare. I told her about an ongoing village annual fare near our campus. Date and time was fixed.

It was long wait in winter evening. I had put my best dress and had reached the bus stop an hour before the scheduled time. She was dressed in pink salwar suit. It was for the first time that I saw her. She had the face I had imagined. Lock of hair was playing on her cheek; her ears having those pretty earrings adored her. Her dimple and look of the eyes mesmerized me.

"Hi Ankit, seems that you are waiting from long time."

She told me before I could have asked her anything.

What could had I told her? I was engrossed in seeing her lips moving? I gave her a smile in return. I never had courage to talk to any girl. How could I continue our conversation? As we were moving towards the fare venue with sudden rush of blood in vein I asked her.

"Last time you told me that you were about to finish reading the Fountainhead. Have you finished reading it?"

"Yes."

"You took long time to read it."

"I am slow reader." she replied meekly.

"I finished reading it in a week. It is a great novel, my favorite. I liked Howard Roark character. I want to be as ideal as him." I was proud as if reading novel was very easy job for me and I had completed reading a lot of books.

She giggled. We entered the fare. It was small village fare where few stall of pheriwallahs flocked by villagers, few stalls of local entertainment items like shooting, some selling local handicrafts, bangles and had a merry go round. It was a total chaos. Shopkeepers were shouting, mother was beating her crying child, a loudspeaker announcing about the dance program in the evening. I could not look around, I did not want her to feel that I was ignoring her. It will be the last thing. She pointed me to Golgappawallah. Golgappas were spicy. She hardly ate three. I was trying to be cool, ate twelve. It was enough for me. Tears started to roll from my eyes. I bought two cans of soft drink. She insisted that she did not drink soft drink.

As we approached near to the stall where you have to shoot balloons to win a prize, I stopped. In my childhood, my father had a gun which was used to target birds. I had learnt how to target. The shopkeeper told me I had five trials to shoot and target was the innermost layer of the balloon. Prize was an adorable Doll. It was again the time for me to impress her. I failed in the first three trials. At this moment I realized that the doll was my Olympic Gold medal and I had only two chances to grab it. Pressure was mounting on me. I missed the inner layer by a whisker. Olympic medal was eluding me. This was my last chance. Focus! Oh! No; I missed it again. I felt sympathetic to fellow Indian athletes who never won Olympic medal. She told me we should move out she was not feeling comfortable.

As we moved out the fare I started the conversation again. Basically I was the one who was talking and talking. She was regularly nudging in approval. She was showing keen interest in my rubbish talk. I tried to flatter her with all my achievements. We had moved outskirts in the village. We decided to return. This time we were both quite; feeling the cold of the harsh winter evening. She would seldom tell about her family and the things she wanted to do.

As we approached the fare ground again, she told it was time she should return. I wanted to spare more moment, I loved every second I was with her. I insisted for a ride on merry go around. She approved. As we approached back to the merry go round I glimpsed the doll again and felt the guilt of losing it. I had fear from height but I was excited to be with her. Old memories flashed. I had feared from height when I had climbed a hill in Mahabaleshwar and another time on the edge of Lion's point at Khandala. As the wheel started to move I felt nibble.

"Piya!, I fear from height." I told her.

She touched my hand, pressed softly to soothe me.

"You are an idiot." She started to tell me.

"If you feared from height you should have told me. you are behaving foolishly of late. "
"I know why you eagerly wanted to win that doll? "

"Someone has rightly told you come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly. "

"If you try to find out perfect match for yourself in world you have to wait forever. People often fell in love with other. They see in other what they do not have. Opposite poles of the magnet attract each other. "

"I do not want my partner to be a perfect one. I even do not want him to be intelligent and smart. What I want is that he must understand my feelings. Be my pillar of support whenever required. Never leave me lonely when I need the most. "

"Yes, I like you." I could feel the sea of silence beneath me. My feet and hands were feeling the cold.

"I like you not because you are intelligent or smart. I like you as you are the one who believes in me. I have been in relationship with other boys in the past. It is not that they were not smart. They were always showing their strengths and never talked their heart out."

"Sometimes I do not like your emotional talk. But when I think about them later, I feel that you reach out at my heart. You compel me to tell about myself. "

Her eyes were straight into mine. They were telling  "I do not want you to be an ideal one. I love you as you are. " I could feel the warmth of her hand and her breath.

How could I change myself? The whole life I tried to be ideal one- ideal son, ideal brother, ideal friend, ideal student and even ideal boyfriend. This girl in few moments has shattered all my narow minded thinking. It was as if I was living in glass house and someone had thrown stone on it. I was living in a fool's paradise.

At this moment we were at the top of the circle and there was a power cut. The moonlight crescended her beautiful face. The cool breathe coming out was mystifying the whole atmosphere.We were completely lost deep inside each others eyes. All the hands of the clock had momenterally stopped. These feelings were the most beautiful things which could be only felt by the heart.

I did not realize when the power came back and we had come down. I was totally enervate and all my memory cells were dried up.

When my senses returned her bus had already moved far away from me. I did not realize until then that I loved her too.