A thousand memories rolled down like a motion picture in his eyes when he heard her name after all those years.

“Just an acquaintance”, he whispered with a hard smile as his eyes were strong enough to hold the tears.
He always found challenging to express his feelings for her. How life could have changed if he would have dared once, had spoken those feelings ballooned inside the heart, he was wondering. He knew, somewhere she too had a soft corner for him.
Someone has rightly said, When in love, express it, keeping it to yourself doesn’t help either.
All those memories started playing like a flash motion. He was time travelling in the memory chains.
How can he forget the very first, all of a sudden, small chit chat with her. He still remembers that evening in the library, that she had turned from boring monotonous into a beautiful memory that he still cherishes.
“Hey! I am Ritika”, she said in a joyous tone and moved her hand in an amicable gesture. I am not sure if we know each other, but we are in the same section.
Well it was sort of most unexpected event one could have ever imagined. His eyes grew wide in surprise and he felt like someone has poured bucket filled ice inside his stomach.
Did she catch him looking at her from the corner of book? It was true that he visited library in evening hours just to see her, to see her smile. Her smile that always seemed to hypnotise him. There was such an enchantment she had in her sapphire blue eyes. He could feel his tongue magically glued with some invisible string.
“Hey! I am Ritika”, she chirped again. This time she was smiling. He guessed she had figured out he was not expecting her, at least not at this point of time, when there were people around, sitting in couples, reading, teaching and whispering so called romantic talks.

Somewhere on another thread in his mind was executing few poetic lines…
He kept looking at her and time flew by,
He wondered why he couldn’t take his eyes off her face,
Like the moon and its moonlight,
He kept looking at her with awe,
But never imagined he would get to see her so closely.

“Oh Hi!”, he replied briskly.
“I am Siddhartha”, he was very quick and nervous. “You can call me Sid”, he further added.
“If you don’t mind, can you please help me with few questions? Exams are near and there is so much to read and I haven’t got many friends”, she was somehow able to bind all these words in a deep single breathe. He didn’t need to be very observant to say she had prepared this in prior. She indeed knew well how to break the ice.
“Yeah! Sure”, he still couldn’t believe all this was happening in reality.
She pulled a chair and sit beside him opening the book. His senses were lulled by her ravishing perfume as she pushed herself closer to point to the problems she was finding difficulty into.
“What will he do when he is not able to solve the problem? No, it won’t be good to loose impression in the first encounter itself. She had confidence in him and what will happen if he breaks it. Won’t she think he is just a show off?”, his head was spinning with many questions. Fear seemed to wrap him under her arms.
“But he hardly faced problem in maths before. After all it was his favorite subject and he could spent hours solving equations and all as if it were his girlfriend”, another voice was overpowering the cold fear.
The problems turned out to be a cake walk. There were few instances when he felt she already knew the solution. “Is she testing his intelligence?”, He spoke to himself.
He didn’t have to think much. It was already 6 in the evening and she needed to rush for the hostel. She broke his reverie by snapping her fingers.
“It was nice to meet you Siddy. Hope to see you soon”, she said in sugar coated voice and hurried herself outside the library room before he could say anything. “And thanks”, a distant voice broke the grave silence.
That evening was different. He could feel it. And he realized it when his roomie asked, “Why are you smiling on your own?”
“Just remembered an old joke on pudding”, he replied trying to hide what had just happened.

Few moments no matter how long, give you the best smile, the best happiness.   He spent whole night awake listening to “Only you” in loop.
Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love
Can you hear me
Came back only yesterday
I’m moving further away
Want you near me

All I need is you to stay
All I need you for another day
And all I ever knew
Only you

To be continued…
Signing off for now. Hope you enjoyed reading this. Part is here – Stranger. Friend. Lover. Acquaintance. – Part 2

Copyright © 2016, Aashish Barnwal,  All rights reserved.