CHAPTER I: THE FIRST MEETING

CHAPTER I: THE FIRST MEETING

School days are the best period of your life. You start exploring life, meet new people, gain knowledge, experience new things; along with memories that you can cherish for a lifetime. Even I had such an experience. I was in my tenth standard then. It was the fag end of my school education. I had passed my ninth standard with ‘not-so-good’ marks but decent marks. Now it was a big and a tough year ahead. It was the time to pull up your socks and study hard. Even I did the same thing. But the only difference was that other students studied hard and I ‘hardly’ studied. In these years of my school education, I had observed that there are three kinds of students: Some make wonders happen; some see wonders happen and others just wonder what happened. Needless to say that I was of the third type.

S.S.C meant life was now restricted to school, classes and books. No more freedom, no more social life; but the excitement and eagerness of a new academic year and enthusiasm filled in the heart made it bearable.

I belonged to the decade that experienced the evolution of the private coaching class culture. How could I be different? So even I became a part of a renowned coaching institute and with that the whole ‘so-called’ summer vacations were spent in the classes and its classrooms. Suddenly on one particular day, the class batches were reshuffled. I felt sad that all my friends were put in the other batch; but there came a sudden twist in my life. As they say ‘Life is full of twists and turns; always expect the unexpected.’ The same happened with me. May be destiny had something in store for me.

I was standing outside my class before the lecture started when I saw this girl. We both were completely new to each other. I somehow wanted to start a conversation with her and so I went forward and asked, “Excuse me! Are you from this class?” she smiled with a positive nod. The smile was really addictive. She was cute, she was sweet and very friendly by heart.

Lecture started. For a student like me, lectures were never interesting. I always used to wonder, if we always have to look forward to our future and forget our past then why do we study history? Doesn’t that contradict each other? Mathematics was trying, in all the ways possible, to make my life hell and I was fighting a very hard battle with Science. Despite all this I somehow used to manage to stay awake in class.

Lecture ended. Everyone moved out. As I left I saw the girl leaving with her friends. I again wanted to strike a conversation but I didn’t know how. She started walking and my eyes followed her. Suddenly she turned back, and started walking towards me. I was afraid and embarrassed. Within seconds various thoughts started pouring in my mind, “Did she get to know that I was following her?” “Why is she coming towards me?”

As she stood in front of me, my heart started beating as fast as it could.

“Hi!” she said.

“He..hh..helh..hello..!!!” 

I stammered but I recovered quickly and asked her, “Hey say what happened?”

“Do you have the notes of history given by Rao Ma’am?”

“Notes of World War II ?”

“Yes”

“Yea I do have those notes.”

“Could I just borrow it from you for a day? It would be of a great help. Please!”

“Yes sure. Why not? I would love to help you. I mean I like helping people.” Saying this I handed over the notes to her and we left.

I didn’t even know her name and neither did she. But though that was our first meeting still I felt as if I knew her from ages. First impression is always the last impression and her impression was awesome. I started walking home with a happy smile.