The Orange Seller's Wife !!
Well it’s not everyday that you get smitten by an orange seller's wife. That explained my surprise when Aamir told me about his first crush (of the year 1998 A.D.).This guy is hopeless, or else how do you explain falling for an orange seller's wife of all the people, I mean whatever happened to your neighbor’s wife and unless they are out of town you don’t really need to look further. I know I am being harsh on Aamir.Sometimes even I have sneaked a peek at the maid that comes to my neighbor's place but that has never been a voluntary act. Tell me, can you help it if you are ogling at your neighbor’s wife and the maid comes on the scene. Collateral bliss if you ask me.
"Are you even listening", Aamir almost threw the words at me. I knew I had to give in then to listening to his useless pursuit but the thought of free oranges kind of hooked me."Begin", I said in a tone that was more excited than concerned.
"It all started the day I walked in to what would be my school for the next two years”, he began in a tone reminiscent of those boring translated Discovery wild life docus.However I tried to focus and let him ramble, I wanted the wife thing to come soon. I kept wondering if I was giving myself away by the eagerness in me. I was no good at simulations. I knew it the day the maid refused to clean my room anymore. It was a minor embarrassment of sorts for the entire family. They could have fired the maid but it was far better to swallow the bitter pill than to look for a new maid and on top of it there was never a surety, with me around, that it wouldn't happen again. It was sheer insult for me and I was really sad for quite a few days before the neighbor’s wife returned from her mother's place and her daughter started her yoga sessions again. Life was back to its lechery, ogle-y self.
"Hey, I missed whatever you said in the past two minutes or so”, I said apologetically. He didn’t seem too annoyed and did a parrot soon enough. I will shift over to his first person account because otherwise I would keep rolling back now and again to my own exploits. So here it goes: Aamir’s account of his exploits::
Entering the very school's co-ed compound was a bliss. Where else do you get to see girls all around you and I mean get to stare at them without being stared at? Studying in an all boys' school for 14 years sure had taken its toll. I felt like a kid in a sweet shop except that I realized that they still were not free. I was moving about dazed and somehow managed to reach the class after encountering "endless curves".Everything was so symmetrical.I immediately hated the edgy school I had left behind The moment I entered it, everyone turned around to look at me. Well I know I am smart but this was too much. “Avoid having your foot in the mouth fella, it would split you into two”, came this "wisecrack" from a guy who looked like King Kong just had an image makeover for the better. Then I realized that my plastered left leg was hogging more attention than me all the while. Anticlimax, right when it was not needed.
I moved on to a seat which stood at the last and was obscured from everyone's view and as I sat down, I realized, "hey I need to move on quickly and obviously not literally”. Sitting as a back bencher in an unknown world of strange people made me real edgy. I knew I had left all my reputations behind me and now I needed to recreate and even reinvent, what with the female angle being introduced. So, I took a stock of the situation and penned down my arsenals. The list wasn't big but it was something.
1:I was smart(Doubtful...only I knew that)
2:I had a high merit(It isn't out of this world) after a few enquiries I knew it was NOTHING
3:I could be the new thing here, after all people always want a change.(But they want a change for the better)
4: My English was good (prerequisites are not weapons)
5:I had a sense of humor(Ok agreed, but will the girls get it, I don’t know)
6: All the above mentioned strengths have to be seen in the "darkness" of almost the other half of humanity i.e. the girls.
That’s the trouble being a pessimist, your strengths sound like your neighbor’s .I read the list again and again trying to add something to it .I thought of adding the fact that I was an absolute ace at Ludo but my modesty got the better of me and I stopped at the existing list. Points 4 and 5 seemed to be the ideal props then for my calculated assault on that unknown citadel and I proceeded to give my hopes a push.
Since I was so intent on this whole thing ,probably the universe conspired to take me further.Well, not exactly the Universe but a really "smart" chemistry teacher who in her debut catwalk before me looked like one of those who are smugly satisfied with their life and insist on telling others how to live theirs fully.Still, she was a welcome change from the previous paan spewing teacher of mine who would read a newspaper wrapped Kama Sutra in class (I still feel he could have atleast shown the cover to us).
"Hey,another country,you might as well hoist your flag there in your corner",said an animated Mrs. Singh,obviously delighted by her comment and the laughs it raised in the class.Its kind of bad when ,everytime people turn around to look at you ,they are laughing at you."I did try to hoist it mam early morning but fell down and broke my leg",I said, raising my plastered left leg to her.The class again reverberated in laughter,I hoped this time at her.I could see her unease on getting her hard earned invincible reputation biting dust infront of the whole class by a new student, of all the people.She icily ordered me to sit on the first and middle desk of the middle row in the class (height of ec-centre-icity) and went away saying she wouldn't be taking the class that day.
Well, I guessed I had gained some kind of a ground in that class. Suddenly, everyone was looking at me, the limping fellow, who not only dared to take on Mrs. Singh but also did a one up on her. For me, coming from a school that encouraged healthy repartees between students and teachers in class, this was trifles. I felt some elation rising within me. I knew weapon number 5 would work after all. I moved to my new seat and saw this average looking girl that would be sitting on my right.” Not bad for a start”, I said to myself as I sat down next to her but all the time,
intently hoping that the seat to my left houses some Marilyn Monroe at least.
I asked Rimy(that was her name), in a very casual way, as to who would be sitting to my left. "Farah”, she replied,” she went for her Biology class and I guess she has been delayed”. I almost managed to catch the "is she sexy?" question by the skin of my teeth. I hope she didn't notice it coming out.” You were good with your answer to Mrs. Singh but be careful, no one stays happy here and answers Mrs. Singh like that at the same time", she said with a smile. It was the first smile that I ever got from a girl. I could feel the heat in my ears. "Shit, they must have gone red again”, I thought. Well, Rimy wasn't exactly average if you leave out her morose expression and a deadpan look plus hair that looked like burnt Maggy, she was quite good looking. Who says a smile cannot change opinions?
Pretty satisfied with the developments of the day till then I went out of the class to take a walk/view and kept my fingers crossed for how Farah would be. I suddenly had to balk and gape. There is something about seeing an awesome girl that makes you even forget having her for dinner, I mean taking her out for dinner. There she was, in all her splendor, her open hair all over the place. She was looking at a file she held in her hand even as she walked avoiding all the stares she was getting from me and fellow perverts. She must have walked this corridor an awful lot of times, I thought, the way she could maneuver past me without even looking at me (ok, at least my huge left leg). I did take a long drag to soak that heavenly persona in me. She seemed familiar. She looked a lot like Tabu. Now a lot of people don’t know Tabu because she works in only meaningful films which have no takers in India. I wanted to see how she would look when she would laugh at my jokes, how she would look when we would go hand-in-hand for a stroll with a lot of our kids playing around. For that moment, I wished she were Farah.
Ok I know it sounds filmy but I cannot help it. The moment I returned to the class after completing the stroll which was uneventful after that heavenly sighting, I saw her sitting on the seat to my left. I believed in the law of averages and now I was sure that after 12 years of abstemious existence, perhaps my time had come.
I went to her gaping and stood in front of her. Now, how the hell would a girl like that expect such a hunk to sit right next to her? I think this is why she asked "where is that ghost you just saw?" with her eyes splitting like the tyre of my cycle once did when it was bit to death by an attention seeking dog. "What is the matter with you?” she asked again. I got jolted out of my reverie and said "I want to get in”. I knew I had majorly goofed up. I should keep the truths to myself. Someone once said "you only speak truth when you are in love and hence fall out of it”. I shuddered at the noble thought.
"Hey, it’s his seat, between us”, said Rimy with a wink to Farah. I am glad she said it for me because I was totally tongue tied. What else do you say after you have said the truth? Farah stood up and made way for me. I dragged myself clumsily to my seat in the middle. As I breathed properly after a long time I smelt something strange. I inhaled again and inferred it was the amalgamation of two "intoxicating" perfumes residing on my neighboring heavenly bodies. I don't know what it is with girls and perfume. The whole school was reeking with an assortment of perfumes/deos. I wasn't sure and for once I missed the tranquilitycalmness and the natural atmosphere of my school.
“Screw her”, was Vakil’s only reaction when I told him about the crush, the cigarette smoke coming out of his mouth with a thrust as if to accentuate his feelings.I wasn’t surprised by his reaction.Only a week since we met and I knew that he had the same reaction for everything.He loved screwing up everything.His term papers,relationship with teachers and friends(he lost them as rapidly as he gained them),his image in school and at home and his new ricketty Hero Shakti( it looks like a mobike and moves with a lot of noise and smoke..for the uninitiated).I found Vakil interesting.Atleast there was someone who was willing to crib with me.Unlike a lot of other things, cribbing can be self destructive when indulged in alone.What drew me to him initially was his odd name.Actually Vakil was not his actual name but he preferred being called that.I once asked for the reason and got a reply I should have known.”Screw you !”.
Sitting under the shade of the old tin roof of our abondaned canteen, I felt a bit heroic playing truant in my Computer Lab, something Vakil did with exemplary consistency.Smoking a flavor of Wills, he would listen to anyone till so far as his cigarette got sponsored.So, here I was with the third cigarette I bought for him from my “punctured-tyre-crisis” money and I wasn’t willing to let him off with just a simple ‘screw her’.
....more to come
"Are you even listening", Aamir almost threw the words at me. I knew I had to give in then to listening to his useless pursuit but the thought of free oranges kind of hooked me."Begin", I said in a tone that was more excited than concerned.
"It all started the day I walked in to what would be my school for the next two years”, he began in a tone reminiscent of those boring translated Discovery wild life docus.However I tried to focus and let him ramble, I wanted the wife thing to come soon. I kept wondering if I was giving myself away by the eagerness in me. I was no good at simulations. I knew it the day the maid refused to clean my room anymore. It was a minor embarrassment of sorts for the entire family. They could have fired the maid but it was far better to swallow the bitter pill than to look for a new maid and on top of it there was never a surety, with me around, that it wouldn't happen again. It was sheer insult for me and I was really sad for quite a few days before the neighbor’s wife returned from her mother's place and her daughter started her yoga sessions again. Life was back to its lechery, ogle-y self.
"Hey, I missed whatever you said in the past two minutes or so”, I said apologetically. He didn’t seem too annoyed and did a parrot soon enough. I will shift over to his first person account because otherwise I would keep rolling back now and again to my own exploits. So here it goes: Aamir’s account of his exploits::
Entering the very school's co-ed compound was a bliss. Where else do you get to see girls all around you and I mean get to stare at them without being stared at? Studying in an all boys' school for 14 years sure had taken its toll. I felt like a kid in a sweet shop except that I realized that they still were not free. I was moving about dazed and somehow managed to reach the class after encountering "endless curves".Everything was so symmetrical.I immediately hated the edgy school I had left behind The moment I entered it, everyone turned around to look at me. Well I know I am smart but this was too much. “Avoid having your foot in the mouth fella, it would split you into two”, came this "wisecrack" from a guy who looked like King Kong just had an image makeover for the better. Then I realized that my plastered left leg was hogging more attention than me all the while. Anticlimax, right when it was not needed.
I moved on to a seat which stood at the last and was obscured from everyone's view and as I sat down, I realized, "hey I need to move on quickly and obviously not literally”. Sitting as a back bencher in an unknown world of strange people made me real edgy. I knew I had left all my reputations behind me and now I needed to recreate and even reinvent, what with the female angle being introduced. So, I took a stock of the situation and penned down my arsenals. The list wasn't big but it was something.
1:I was smart(Doubtful...only I knew that)
2:I had a high merit(It isn't out of this world) after a few enquiries I knew it was NOTHING
3:I could be the new thing here, after all people always want a change.(But they want a change for the better)
4: My English was good (prerequisites are not weapons)
5:I had a sense of humor(Ok agreed, but will the girls get it, I don’t know)
6: All the above mentioned strengths have to be seen in the "darkness" of almost the other half of humanity i.e. the girls.
That’s the trouble being a pessimist, your strengths sound like your neighbor’s .I read the list again and again trying to add something to it .I thought of adding the fact that I was an absolute ace at Ludo but my modesty got the better of me and I stopped at the existing list. Points 4 and 5 seemed to be the ideal props then for my calculated assault on that unknown citadel and I proceeded to give my hopes a push.
Since I was so intent on this whole thing ,probably the universe conspired to take me further.Well, not exactly the Universe but a really "smart" chemistry teacher who in her debut catwalk before me looked like one of those who are smugly satisfied with their life and insist on telling others how to live theirs fully.Still, she was a welcome change from the previous paan spewing teacher of mine who would read a newspaper wrapped Kama Sutra in class (I still feel he could have atleast shown the cover to us).
"Hey,another country,you might as well hoist your flag there in your corner",said an animated Mrs. Singh,obviously delighted by her comment and the laughs it raised in the class.Its kind of bad when ,everytime people turn around to look at you ,they are laughing at you."I did try to hoist it mam early morning but fell down and broke my leg",I said, raising my plastered left leg to her.The class again reverberated in laughter,I hoped this time at her.I could see her unease on getting her hard earned invincible reputation biting dust infront of the whole class by a new student, of all the people.She icily ordered me to sit on the first and middle desk of the middle row in the class (height of ec-centre-icity) and went away saying she wouldn't be taking the class that day.
Well, I guessed I had gained some kind of a ground in that class. Suddenly, everyone was looking at me, the limping fellow, who not only dared to take on Mrs. Singh but also did a one up on her. For me, coming from a school that encouraged healthy repartees between students and teachers in class, this was trifles. I felt some elation rising within me. I knew weapon number 5 would work after all. I moved to my new seat and saw this average looking girl that would be sitting on my right.” Not bad for a start”, I said to myself as I sat down next to her but all the time,
intently hoping that the seat to my left houses some Marilyn Monroe at least.
I asked Rimy(that was her name), in a very casual way, as to who would be sitting to my left. "Farah”, she replied,” she went for her Biology class and I guess she has been delayed”. I almost managed to catch the "is she sexy?" question by the skin of my teeth. I hope she didn't notice it coming out.” You were good with your answer to Mrs. Singh but be careful, no one stays happy here and answers Mrs. Singh like that at the same time", she said with a smile. It was the first smile that I ever got from a girl. I could feel the heat in my ears. "Shit, they must have gone red again”, I thought. Well, Rimy wasn't exactly average if you leave out her morose expression and a deadpan look plus hair that looked like burnt Maggy, she was quite good looking. Who says a smile cannot change opinions?
Pretty satisfied with the developments of the day till then I went out of the class to take a walk/view and kept my fingers crossed for how Farah would be. I suddenly had to balk and gape. There is something about seeing an awesome girl that makes you even forget having her for dinner, I mean taking her out for dinner. There she was, in all her splendor, her open hair all over the place. She was looking at a file she held in her hand even as she walked avoiding all the stares she was getting from me and fellow perverts. She must have walked this corridor an awful lot of times, I thought, the way she could maneuver past me without even looking at me (ok, at least my huge left leg). I did take a long drag to soak that heavenly persona in me. She seemed familiar. She looked a lot like Tabu. Now a lot of people don’t know Tabu because she works in only meaningful films which have no takers in India. I wanted to see how she would look when she would laugh at my jokes, how she would look when we would go hand-in-hand for a stroll with a lot of our kids playing around. For that moment, I wished she were Farah.
Ok I know it sounds filmy but I cannot help it. The moment I returned to the class after completing the stroll which was uneventful after that heavenly sighting, I saw her sitting on the seat to my left. I believed in the law of averages and now I was sure that after 12 years of abstemious existence, perhaps my time had come.
I went to her gaping and stood in front of her. Now, how the hell would a girl like that expect such a hunk to sit right next to her? I think this is why she asked "where is that ghost you just saw?" with her eyes splitting like the tyre of my cycle once did when it was bit to death by an attention seeking dog. "What is the matter with you?” she asked again. I got jolted out of my reverie and said "I want to get in”. I knew I had majorly goofed up. I should keep the truths to myself. Someone once said "you only speak truth when you are in love and hence fall out of it”. I shuddered at the noble thought.
"Hey, it’s his seat, between us”, said Rimy with a wink to Farah. I am glad she said it for me because I was totally tongue tied. What else do you say after you have said the truth? Farah stood up and made way for me. I dragged myself clumsily to my seat in the middle. As I breathed properly after a long time I smelt something strange. I inhaled again and inferred it was the amalgamation of two "intoxicating" perfumes residing on my neighboring heavenly bodies. I don't know what it is with girls and perfume. The whole school was reeking with an assortment of perfumes/deos. I wasn't sure and for once I missed the tranquilitycalmness and the natural atmosphere of my school.
“Screw her”, was Vakil’s only reaction when I told him about the crush, the cigarette smoke coming out of his mouth with a thrust as if to accentuate his feelings.I wasn’t surprised by his reaction.Only a week since we met and I knew that he had the same reaction for everything.He loved screwing up everything.His term papers,relationship with teachers and friends(he lost them as rapidly as he gained them),his image in school and at home and his new ricketty Hero Shakti( it looks like a mobike and moves with a lot of noise and smoke..for the uninitiated).I found Vakil interesting.Atleast there was someone who was willing to crib with me.Unlike a lot of other things, cribbing can be self destructive when indulged in alone.What drew me to him initially was his odd name.Actually Vakil was not his actual name but he preferred being called that.I once asked for the reason and got a reply I should have known.”Screw you !”.
Sitting under the shade of the old tin roof of our abondaned canteen, I felt a bit heroic playing truant in my Computer Lab, something Vakil did with exemplary consistency.Smoking a flavor of Wills, he would listen to anyone till so far as his cigarette got sponsored.So, here I was with the third cigarette I bought for him from my “punctured-tyre-crisis” money and I wasn’t willing to let him off with just a simple ‘screw her’.
....more to come
