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A LOVE STORY - Episode 3

Discussion in 'Saturdays with Varalotti' started by varalotti, Jul 28, 2008.

  1. varalotti

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    A LOVE STORY
    A Serial By Varalotti Rengasamy
    Episode 3

    The students saw the girl standing outside the classroom. They gasped. She was not fair, but her big black eyes, her sharp nose, her long, well trimmed eye-brows and her red lips made her exceptionally beautiful.

    She was dressed in a light yellow skirt, a blouse of the same colour and a bright red half saree. Mischief was dancing non-stop on her eyes and her lips declared an eternal readiness to smile at the slightest provocation.

    Even the morose middle-aged lecturer of Banking Theory was ogling at her longer than decency would allow.

    The girl broke the silence.

    “Professor, I am Vidya Balasubramanian. I am from Hyderabad. I joined the college only today. Here are the papers. May I come in, please?”

    The students broke into an applause because they had never heard such impeccable English even from their English Professors.

    “Yes.” That was all the Professor could manage. Vidya waved to the class and occupied the empty seat in the first row
     
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  2. varalotti

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    Part 2!

    Arun had been forced by his father to do his Bachelors in Commerce in that co-ed college in a mofussil town in South Tamilnadu. Arun’s father was working in that place.

    They were thirty days into their First Semester when Vidya joined them. She had been studying in Hyderabad where her father worked as the General Manager of the South Central Railway.

    He was sent on deputation to Philippines for a few years. Afraid to leave his only daughter alone in her college hostel in Hyderabad he sent her to his parents living in that mofussil town.

    Modern culture had not entered that town at that period.

    Girls were treated as inanimate objects whose sole purpose of existence was to be teased by the boys. And boys came to college with the avowed objective of teasing the girls.

    Attending classes was something they would do only when they had nothing better to do, when for example, all the girls were in the class and there was no one to tease.

    Had there been a Degree course majoring on eve-teasing all the boys would have passed out with distinction both in theory and in practicals.

    Arun hated the course but loved the college. He was part of the main gang of boys who were leaders in teasing the girls. Every evening the gang would sit on a dilapidated wall that was near the main gate.
     
  3. varalotti

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    Part 3!

    Hi, Arun, do you know this pumpkin ate 24 idlies for her breakfast.”

    “How did you count Rajesh? She was eating so fast. I think you counted every other idli.”

    The boys laughed. They were teasing a fat girl from their class who was walking out of the college along with Vidya and other friends.

    Another girl was explaining Vidya about the “boys problem.” She gave very useful hints to keep the damage to the minimum.

    “Don’t talk. Don’t show any reaction in your face. Walk fast. It’ll be over in a few minutes.”

    But she could never guess the stuff Vidya was made of. Vidya asked the other girls to wait there for a while and started to walk towards the boys.

    The boys now had a very funny expression on their faces. Something similar to what you would see on the face of a ten year old boy when the dog he had been chasing for a while, stood on its tracks and stared back at him, ready to attack.

    “Hay, you there, can you move aside a bit? I want to sit.”

    The girl who spoke Queen’s English only a few hours ago broke into local slang. And her slang was as impeccable as her English. When the boy moved Vidya jumped on to the wall and sat there.

    The boys were so shocked by her action that in one simultaneous motion they jumped down from the wall. Now Vidya was sitting alone on the wall and the boys were standing down on the ground.

    The boys now looked like the disciples waiting in all humility to receive lessons from their Master. And lessons, they did receive.

    “Hi guys, Come on. Sit here. I want to talk to you.”

    The boys looked at Sundar and Arun who were the uncrowned leaders of the eve-teasing group. When the duo nodded they all resumed their original positions of course keeping a very safe distance from Vidya. Their leaders were still standing.
    “Hai, you two, do you need a special invitation? Come on. Sit here. Here by my side.”
    The only places that were vacant were the ones near Vidya. Arun and Sundar occupied those seats. When Arun saw her at such close quarters, with drops of sweat shining in her neck he was in a state of trance. The followers envied their leaders.

    “Guys, you want to tease us girls, because we keep moving away from you. I know that this teasing is just at the surface. Heart of hearts, you respect us. You want to impress us.

    “See this guy’s shoes. That man’s trousers. Why do you take the trouble of wearing them in a hot place like this? Only to show yourselves in better light to us, girls. Am I right?”

    The boys’ uncomfortable silence meant only one thing.

    “And why do you risk your lives travelling on the footboard in the bus? And do similar foolish acts in the name of heroism?

    “Why should you walk as if you were doing a cat walk – or should I say a dog walk – for a Mr.Madras show? ”

    The boys smiled sheepishly.

    “Only to win our attention. To win our hearts too, if possible. Right?”

    This time the boys’ nod was perceptible. Even Sundar and Arun nodded.

    “We girls are no different. See how do we dress ourselves? See how we strain ourselves to speak stylish English in your presence while we use pucca local slang when we are alone.

    “Why should this beautiful girl wear a gorgeous Mysore silk saree in this sweltering weather? Or look at the hair style of that girl. She should have spent at least two hours this morning to get that right. Why did she do that? Only to impress you guys, only to attract you.”

    Vidya’s local slang was even better than that of the locals.

    The girls were aghast.

    Now Vidya used a more refined language.

    “This mutual attraction is the first step. I guess you people have been in the first step for aeons. Time to move forward guys, and gals, you too. Towards friendship. We can learn a lot from each other.

    “I am not for falling in love at this stage. But let’s not run away from each other. Or tease each other.

    “Friends?”

    Two miracles happened when Vidya extended her hand for friendship. Eve-teasing which had been there in that campus since time immemorial vanished without a trace.

    And second, almost every boy in the college fell in love with that beautiful girl from Hyderabad. Arun could not afford to be a solitary exception.

    Vidya had entered Arun’s college, his life and his heart with a bang.
     
  4. varalotti

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    Part 4!

    Doctor, it’s a treat to watch Vidya listening when someone is talking to her. She would listen as if she had nothing else to do in this world. I have never seen anyone pouring so much love in just listening to others.

    “And her words.. they’d be like soft feathers constantly in touch with the depths of your heart.

    “She will go out of the way to help you if you are in trouble. Internally she was a hundred times more beautiful than what she looked outside. I did not fall just for her good looks, Doctor. I fell for her heart.”

    ‘Why the hell did Arun not profess her love for Vidya? Did he not have the courage to say the three simplest words in the language, ‘I love you.’? Kamla was surprised.

    Probably Arun had read her mind. He let out a long sigh.

    “The chances of my winning her love were as remote as a Forward Caste student with just 70% marks in Plus Two getting a medical college seat on merit.”

    “What makes you say so?”

    “I was very lean. Not good looking. I was not confident of myself. I had pimples in my face. I was a misfit in B.Com. Bad at studies. I was a non-entity, Doctor.

    “There were boys far more handsome than me. Take for instance Sundar, who too was madly in love with Vidya.

    “Once when Vidya and I were walking to our classroom, we saw Sundar coming in his car. Vidya was enjoying the sight.

    “She told me, “Sundar has an excellent dress sense, Arun. And look at the way he drives his car. It’s such a big car but he’s handling that as if it were a toy.”

    “I was green with envy but managed to let out an ugly smile. Sundar was my best friend in college. But right then he was my rival. Well, not exactly so, for what did I have to be called as Sundar’s rival?

    I was a bank clerk’s son - a square peg in a round hole, a misfit in the educational and social system. Sundar’s father was an industrialist.

    The reins of a mighty business empire were waiting for his able hands. Vidya also hailed from a pretty rich family. What was I doing there between them?

    Even then I had some hopes. Though I had played very badly till then both in my life and in my love, the referee had not yet formally announced my defeat.

    As losers always do I hoped upon hope that something would crop up at the last moment making Vidya forsake Sundar and fall in love with me. Idiotic, irrational and illogical. My intellect hollered but my heart would not listen.

    Then I saw them one day in Sundar’s car together. That scene is acid-etched in my heart, Doctor. I am sure to carry that scene to my grave and even beyond. Vidya was laughing.

    Sundar’s beautiful face was shining in love. Even now if I think of that scene I’d become paralysed for hours. Now my heart knew and shrunk into itself for ever. Surprisingly my head tried to restore some hope.

    Sundar could have seen Vidya on the way and could have given her a lift to the college.

    And given Vidya’s nature even if the college peon offered to give her a lift on his dilapidated 1956 model Hercules bicycle she would have happily accepted the offer. But somehow I reckoned to myself that my love died on that day.
     
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    Part 5!

    Boys who were not as rich and as handsome as Sundar had something else to show off. Bhaskar, for example, was a smart boy and a good teacher.

    “Vidya once complained to me that she found the problems in Statistics too difficult to understand. I never gave a damn to the lessons.

    “I just thought that if it is difficult for Vidya, it should be even more difficult for me. I failed in Statistics in that semester. But to my surprise Vidya got 80 percent.

    One day when Vidya and I were walking out of the college I asked her about her performance in statistics. She was singing Bhaskar’s praises.

    “Bhaskar taught me, Arun. He’s a genius. He has his own method of tackling the problems, which is far better than what the Professor taught us.

    “I followed Bhaskar’s method in the exams. See the results? If you are interested, come home sometime. I will teach you his method.”

    Bhaskar’s method? I hated statistics, Bhaskar, my life and the whole world. I learnt that Bhaskar too was in love with her and was waiting for the right moment to tell her.

    Almost everyone else except me had something to show off. I was just like my father.

    A bank clerk like a thousand others, with nothing to differentiate us from the rest of the faceless crowd.

    If I had written my CV at that time, it would have been a perfect blank. Oh, I forgot, it would contain the historical fact that I had failed in a couple of exams in that semester– an achievement which nobody in my class could match.

    But I did go to her house, not keen on learning Bhaskar’s method, but just to spend some time with her. For the last time.
     
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    Part 6!

    When a shivering Arun rang the door bell on a rainy Saturday afternoon, Vidya was there to open the door.

    “Hi Arun. Nice to see you. Please come in.”

    By that time her grandmother had come to see who the visitor was.

    “Hi Grans, this is Arun Kumar my classmate. Arun, this is my grandmother. She has account with your father’s bank.”

    Even at that age Arun’s heart had acquired the ability to enter into conversation on its own and the ability to ensure that its voice was not heard by others.

    Aruns heart: My father’s bank! My foot! As if he owned the bank! He is just one of the 950,000 employees! The smallest, faceless, undifferentiated cog in the gigantic machinery of public sector banking in India.’

    They adjourned to Vidya’s room. As soon as they were left alone, she gently reprimanded Arun.

    “You have failed in two subjects, Arun. But for you, our class could have boasted of a cent percent result. That’s okay. You can always clear them off before the end of the second Semester.

    “But I’m afraid you have lost focus, Arun. Not just in the B.Com.course, but in life itself. You are not interested in anything. You don’t study well. You are not interested in sports.

    “You don’t even look at girls. I don’t see you in the culturals. What’s happening, man? Is there anything that I can do for you?”

    Arun’s heart: Yes Vidya, there’s something you can do. You only can do. Just accept my love. I’d be whatever you want me to be. If you just say that you love me I will place my entire life at your beautiful feet.

    “If you accept my love, I’d become more handsome than Sundar. Score more marks than Bhaskar. Sing, dance, play, paint, write poetry – do anything you command me to do.

    But Arun’s mouth said nothing. And whatever the heart said left a deep impact on his face.

    Seeing the sad expression in Arun’s face Vidya was moved and held his hands.

    Arun was sure that it was not an expression of love as far as Vidya was concerned. When the college janitor came to her with a problem she held his hands and comforted him.

    That was her way of reassurance. Whatever it was Arun could not control his tears.

    Vidya came near and asked Arun almost in a whisper.

    “Have you fallen for someone? Are you in love, Arun?”

    Arun’s heart : (shouted at the top of its voice) “Yes. I have fallen for you. I have fallen in love with you.”

    Arun’s heart then lowered its voice and spoke with majesty and grace.

    Arun’s heart : “I love you, Vidya. I know for sure that you have fallen for Sundar. He is a nice guy, my best friend. I wish you both all the best.

    “But Vidya, that does not in any way change my feelings towards you. My love for you is not affected by the fact that you have not accepted it or reciprocated it.”

    Arun could not bear to hear his own heart talking. Rather he could not bear the pain of suppressing his heart’s voice. And that pain came out as tears.

    Vidya was embarrassed to see Arun crying.

    “I’m sorry, Arun. Let’s have the statistics lessons some other day. But before that we need to talk about some important things. About your life. About your love.

    “I think it is good for you to leave now. I don’t want my grans seeing you crying and all. I’m sorry, Arun. Let me know if I can do anything for you.

    Arun wiped his tears and went away.
     
  7. varalotti

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    Part 7!

    Let’s stop here, Arun. Let’s continue in the next meeting.”

    Kamla could not bear Arun torturing himself any longer. His eyes had become bloodshot.

    He should have been reliving that story many times. And every time it should have hurt him like hell. No wonder he was depressed. But what was the path ahead for him, Kamla wondered.

    “I’m sorry Arun. I interrupted your narration. I can’t have more than this. I need to mull over what you have said for a week. I will have to keep remembering that I am your therapist too.”

    Arun was still looking at her kind face.

    “I can relate to your problem very well, because I was in the same boat at your age. There was a major difference, however. My guardian angel. My Kumar.”

    Arun looked up.

    “Want to hear my story? I am sure it will lighten up your heart.”

    “Please, Doctor. Go ahead.”
     
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    Part 8!

    When I was in medical college I was the very embodiment of the concept of average. Average in looks, average in studies, average in IQ, average in everything.

    “The only aspect where I stood well above the average was my depression and my low self-esteem. My dress sense was awful. My inferiority complex was my only constant companion. I did not have any friends, let alone boy friends.

    “Kumar was three years my Senior. He was the college hero. Girls swarmed to him. He was a gold medalist. He was in the University tennis team. He could sing, he could dance and do a million other things. He was all over the college.

    “I was his diametric opposite. Boys would not even care to look at me. And then the miracle happened. I can never forget the day. 20<sup>th</sup> July.

    That day is more important to me than my birthday, than any other day in the year. For on that day I was born a new woman. And in me love was born. Very few people in the world would have experienced that kind of love.

    As I was walking towards my hostel on that red-letter day Kumar came running to me.

    “You are Kamla. Second year, right?”

    I nodded.

    “I am Kumar. I’m in the Final year.”

    It was like Amitabh Bachan coming all the way to you to tell, “I’m Amitabh Bachan from Bollywood.”

    “Do you mind having coffee with me?”

    I was in a mindless state. Even if he had invited me to hell, I would have happily gone with him. Because anyday hell with his company would be far better than the lonely hell I was in.

    Our college canteen was crowded. There were a few girls in my class who saw me with Kumar and were burning in jealousy.

    They came running to him. Kumar told them firmly that we were there to discuss something personal. I could never forget the look of disbelief in their eyes.

    The coffee came. He was doing all the talking. I was just looking at him. My coffee was getting cold.

    ‘Kamla, I’m going to tell you a nice story.’

    I was all ears.

     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2008
  9. varalotti

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    Part 9!

    It’s a Tibetan folk tale. In those days, if a man wanted to marry a girl he had to give dowry to the girl’s father. It was an agricultural society and so the dowry was mostly in the form of cows.

    An average looking girl would get a dowry of a single cow. Beautiful girls would get two or three. Dashing beauties would get a dowry of four cows. The most beautiful girl in the village might get five.

    A farmer in that village had four daughters. The first three were strikingly beautiful and the last one was plain. The first three had dowry offers of up to three cows each and were married off with pomp and glory.

    But no one even came forward to marry the last girl let alone give dowry for her. Her father was sad. One day a young man from the neighbouring village saw the fourth girl in the village market. He then came to her house to ask her hand in marriage.

    Her father was ready to marry her off even if he were to offer a dowry of just one cow or even a calf. The girl was standing behind the door watching the conversation with trepidation.

    The young man told her father, “I am offering seven cows for your youngest daughter. Sir, she is worth much more than that. But I have only seven cows with me right now.”

    The father fainted. The girl could not believe her ears. It appeared as if she would never stop crying.

    Nobody could believe that the simple looking girl would get seven cows, something no one in the surrounding villages had ever got in the recent past. Their marriage was celebrated with much fanfare.

    The girl went to live with that young man. She came to be known as “The Girl who got seven cows.”

    Whenever she walked in the street, people would look at her with respect. Soon the girl started respecting herself. Her husband treated her like a queen.

    When a daughter was born to her, the woman had really become very beautiful.

    When she was alone with her husband one day she told him ”It was your seven cows that made me beautiful.”

    To which her husband replied, “No darling, my cows just brought out what had been hiding inside you all along.”
     
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    Part 10!


    I was awe-struck by the way Kumar narrated the story.

    At the end of it he held my hands and said, “Kamla, I’m now offering you the mythological seven cows. Will you accept my love?”

    “I was born on that day, Arun. My beauty, my studies, my profession, why, even my womanhood, I owe to that great man who saw the beauty in me which even my mother could not see at that time.”

    Arun clapped his hands like a child.

    “Wonderful. Simply wonderful. Hats off to Dr. Kumar.”

    Arun stood up from his seat and saluted Dr. Kumar’s picture which was mounted on a picture stand over the TV.

    ‘Like I got my Kumar, one day, you’ll get some woman who is able to see the real beauty that’s lying deep inside your heart.’ It was not just Kamla’s wish, not even her wishful thinking, but her most sincere prayer.

    She saw the time. It was almost six.

    “Can we have coffee Arun?”

    “Sure.”

    Kamla went inside to prepare coffee for them.

    They had coffee in absolute silence.

    “I have taken too much of your time, Doctor. I will be waiting for your next call.”

    “No sweat, Arun. May be we can meet at weekly intervals unless you need me earlier. Let’s continue from where we left today. I don’t want you to miss out any detail.”

    “Ok, Doctor. Bye.”

    “Bye.”
     

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