First Love...Forever...

Anand was staring at his Laptop screen impatiently intermittently checking his watch. He tapped his watch as if it was not working properly and was wondering why time was moving so slowly that night. In fact he was wondering why it’s not 10:30 pm yet. In the midst of this frustration he slowly slipped into the past and started relishing his sweet memories.

He nostalgically travelled down the memory lane on how they met and how the relationship grew and flourished. In fact, they have never met. They are Orkut friends. He very well remembered the day, around seven months back, when he scrapped Sandhya. He scrapped her thinking it was his college friend’s profile. Sandhya promptly replied that she was a just a namesake and she didn’t know this Anand. It must have ended there, but Anand noted some common interests they shared like A. R. Rahman, Mohammed Rafi, etc and tried to be friends with her. She also agreed and accepted his Friend’s request.

Slowly their friendship grew stronger, they chatted more often, the topics of discussion widened from Rahman and music to anything under the sun, wrote testimonials for each other in Orkut. Once they developed a mutual trust, they exchanged phone numbers. Text messages were exchanged aplenty; also they started talking over phone and messenger whenever time permitted. He was enjoying these days especially the transition from friendship to love, a love that bloomed just through conversations, even without knowing how she looked. He was mad about his love, a very unique one according to him. He used to be proud of himself for his love.

He was pulled back to the present when the clock struck at 11. In their conversation that afternoon she had told him to be online by 10:30 pm and that she would be available by then. But now, the time was past 11 and she was still offline. He was getting restless and a bit worried and just then she came online and pinged him, “Sorry Dear…Im late…Im callin u…” was the message. Then they started their routine conversation, explaining each and every events of the day ranging from food to clothes, lectures to breaks, work to play, pulling each other’s legs, etc, etc.

Time kept flying and, it should have been just a couple of minutes past 12:00, he heard some blasts from her side. When he asked what it was, she replied

“Seems like it’s some guy’s Birthday…so they are bursting crackers in Boys Hostel…”
“Well…gimme a minute…lemme see whats happening…and I’ll be back…” she continued.

And she left her system without waiting for his reply.

She was back in a couple of minutes with a message “Hey…Im back…”

They had not even resumed their conversation and there was some noise in her room. He could not hear it clearly, but he heard some words like “Happy…Happy…Hmm...Enjoy…Hmm…Enjoy…Birthday…” and some loud laughter. Nonetheless he was able to understand that they were making fun of Sandhya.

“Hey…Whats happening…seems they are pulling your legs…whats the matter…?”
“Err…Nothing…Just like that…they are always like that…”

She was trying to play it down and sounded like she was blushing. She had always been straightforward and her blushing now made Anand more curious and he started asking more questions. Moreover he imagined that they were making fun of Sandhya and him as a pair. He wanted to hear that from her, so he insisted her to tell what her friends were telling. She tried her best to keep mum, but when he insisted her so much, she obliged

“Ok…ok…ok…I will tell…”

He became jubilant, and did a small rehearsal as to what she would be telling and what is to be said in reply.

“Well…they were teasing me with you…they think we are in love…”
“Ohh…is it…”
“Ya…nowadays we spend a lotta time on phone and messenger na…that’s why…”
“Well…whats wrong in it…they spoke our mind …that’s all na…”

This way, he wanted to do the proposal in a simple manner. Yes, even though they were very close to each other, they had never proposed or confessed their love. So Anand thought this was the ideal opportunity for them to break the ice.

She broke his rehearsal in between and continued,

“Well…I wanted to tell this for a long time…but…then…like…I was feeling a bit…”

He was getting overjoyed by this and confirmed that she was on the verge of proposing him. And he was getting ready to say, “Same here Sandy…”

She continued, “I told it’s a guys Birthday in Boys Hostel…right…”

All of a sudden Anand felt like “What the hell…who is he…” His puzzled state became even worse when she continued

“…Well...he is Gautam…hmm…well…he is my boy friend…”

Anand just heard that dreaded word ‘boy friend’ from her mouth and he felt like the world under his chair opened up and he slipped through a crevice. He just wondered if he could just wake up to find that all of this was just a nightmare. In fact he was not exactly wrong, as it was indeed a nightmare for him, but a real one.

“He treated me today itself…tomorrow he will be with his friends, and we wanted to spend time alone…so we went out today itself…and you know that’s why I was late tonight…”

She kept on talking, not even expecting a reply from Anand. But Anand was hardly listening to what she was talking; he was in a world of his own. He wanted to cry aloud; he was finding it very hard to control his emotions.

“Was my love just a mirage? Didn’t she really love me?? Was I foolish enough to confuse between friendship and love??? Or is she kidding me????”

A ton of such questions choked him.

“Hello…Hello…are you there da…” her loud enquiry made him partly conscious.
“Ya…ya…Im here…” A totally lost Anand answered, “And ya…Since when…” he continued.
“What since when…” and after a pause she continued “Ohh…that…It’s been more than 2 years now…I told just now right…What happened…?”
“No…err…ya…u told na…ya… ya…I asked just like that…” he tried to evade her question.

He found himself to be a loser imagining a non-existent love. The anguish of his love fading away even before it bloomed made him feel even worse. He consoled himself saying “She was someone else’s even before you knew her...” He even went a step forward thinking “Maybe if she had known me before she met him…”

In the midst of all these emotional turmoil his fingers were mechanically playing on his laptop keyboard.

He ‘un-joined’ the 5900 member strong ‘First Love’ community and requested to join the 29000 member strong ‘I cannot Forget my First Love’ community. His request was immediately accepted!! The community welcomed him with the words “…no matter how much pain it has caused, no matter how many tears have fallen, first love will never leave my soul...”

The First Step...

Here I am. After repeated demands from my friends to write in English (not because Im a good writer in English, but because they cannot read my Tamil blog...:P), Im taking the first step in that direction.

Ever since the idea of writing sprung up in me, I was always reluctant to write in this language, the reason being my excellent command in the language (lol...jus kidding... :P). So I chose my mother tongue Tamil as the medium of my writing. But now, almost 6 months after posting my first Tamil blog, I understand that to reach out to the wider spectra of audience, English is the right language.

Thanks to my friends and this thought, Ive decided to put up my random thoughts in this blog. I request your support and encouragement (like u gave before I started writing in English...Pls dont ask me to stop writing in English after u read my posts...:P), send in your comments and correct my mistakes and help me improve my language.

Thanks All,

Vignesh