EAST OF KALYANI NAGAR, PUNE

JUNE 2009

' I do not know, yarr. It has been three days already, and I have not made any friends,' I told my childhood friends, Zarah Mirza. She was the first of the two best friends that I have mentioned earlier. She was preparing to get into a top Medical college in our country and had taken one year off for preparing NEET examination to make it happen. She left his dreams of joining the medical College after meeting his then boyfriend, now

husband----- Arman Khan----and ended up owning one of the most profitable start-ups with her husband in Pune, which is a different story altogether.

When her dad advised her to take one year off from her formal studies and prepare for the entrance exam, she decided to give it a try. It was too good an offer to decline. I wondered why my dad did not give me such offer. Taking a break and studying for a few hours a day was so much better than trying to make new friends at a new college who would help me pass my exams and put in proxy attendance on my behalf.

'Why can't I join the same MBA college as my other friends from school! I had dared to put up a brave fight before giving in to my parents' pressure. My dad had looked at me throught his glasses.

' Because I do not want you to. No good will come from doing an MBA from a university in Pune. No one will give you a job. There are so many students who waste money in such colleges. Do you know what are the yearly fees of the third-- rate college you want to attend? I cannot afford it, and why should I? Money does not grow on trees. I will see what college you send yours kids to. Children nowadays do not value money

. . .' they dreaded lecture began, ending my dreams of studying with my old friends for a few more years before adult life stung all of us .

I have studied all my life in the same school, with almost the same set of people with whom I'm comfortable. Making new friends in new college is a huge task for me. Zarah suggested me to be friendly with my batchmates and tried to spend time with them. But my shy nature always hesitated me, I always made myself buried in my books. It was to be my tenth day with a different set of people in my class at college. Thankfully, that day my nani ( maternal grandmother) needed a hand with some cleaning at her house and I got a chance to skip college. I was glad that she asked me to help her with whatever it was and hoped that someone else got the chance to be the butt of all their jokes in my absence at college.

My nani lives in East of Kalyani nagar, a posh colony in South Pune. After my nana's death,

Nani started sharing her house and loneliness with paying guests (PGs). She used to keep only one PG in her Home at a time, usually those who were in the city to study or work. Having seven grand children's in the family , Nani knew how much trouble a college--going guy can bring and wanted to stay away from it. Her last PG was a girl who had left a few months ago to get married, and a replacement was to arrive in a few hours' time. A week ago, when Nani had told us that the new PG was a Second-year student as well, both Zarah and I were delighted beyond words.

' I hope he is handsome,' Zarah chirped in while placing a sheet of newspaper in the wardrobe to line the shelves. Every time a new PG came, Nani told us to clean the closets and replace the newspaper linings in them.

'Same here,' I absent--mindedly told him, folding a colourful Sunday issue to line the topmost shelf. while the rest of the wardrobe was her to tidy up.

'Why do you care? She asked me wide--eyed. I wondered what she meant and looked at her for an explanation. 'Come on! You also know that you will not even look at him properly, let alone talk to him or do anything beyond that. You are too shy,' she was pulling my leg again. I wanted to give an appropriate response, but quick, witty replies are not my speciality. I avoided eye contact with Zarah and admired my handiwork instead. My part of the cleaning was done, and the top shelves of the wardrobe looked neat.

While Zarah was still busy with her part of the cleaning, I decided to laze on the bed in the cool room until Nani called us downstairs when the new PG arrived. Judging from the past, they came with hardly anything more than a duffel bag and a suitcase.

Ten minutes later, exactly when Zarah closed the door of the wooden wardrobe, we heard Nani's shrill voice from the ground floor, ' Come here. He is here.' My nani was gifted with two separate sets of voices; one was the harsh voice which we usually heard

around us, and the second was a soft, melodious voice which could put a cuckoo to Shame. She used her cuckoo voice to communicate with people of high authority or our NRI relatives and their kids, and also with her PGs but only for the first few days of their stay in her house. As we descended the stairs, we heard her talk to the new boy in her soothing voice, keep your bag aside, and follow me inside as I need to talk to you about some formalities. Zarah and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes at the extra sweetness in Nani's tone.

When we came down stairs, nani was nowhere to be seen. On the black leather sofa, I saw a muscular figure boy sitting in a relaxed pose. He was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a white shirt. I looked him again. He was sitting and looking at the screen of his phone in his right hand. There was a delicate gold ring on his index finger with a silver sapphire in it.

As I walked closer to him, he felt my presence and looked up at me. This was the first time I saw his face which became embossed on my heart forever. She had the sweetest face I had ever seen. His skin was clear and shinning, his beard well suited his face. Tiny sweat beads rested on his forehead; he had large almond- shaped eyes, deep and soulful. They looked through me, or that was how it felt. He got up from the sofa and stood to face me. His face has a warm familiarity to it;

His expressions were soft and delicate. I felt a sudden wave of nervousness rise through me, originating from my gut.

Despite remembering every minute detail of our first meeting, I hoped that he'd forget the moment when he first saw me-----nothing but a silly girl with bushy hairs behaving like a dumb. Sadly, he recalled it and bought it up in a conversation months later. I had no other option at that moment but to be honest and tell him why I behaved the way I did. It was because I felt as if I were under his spell. I distinctly remember that my eyes didn't even blink while we looked at each other. But I soon came out of that state as Nani mercilessly dragged me out of the golden haze. 'Piyush!' she called him.

Piyush . . . His name echoed in my head. I loved the sound of it. His name had a magical quality in it. Piyush hurriedly took his eyes of me and turned them towards Nani. I tried to do the same, but my eyes wanted to stare at him more and refused to turn away. Look elsewhere, you stupid, or he will think that you have some problem with your eyes or worse, with your brain! I told myself, but my eyes just did not cooperate. I stood there, dumbfounded, staring at Piyush while Nani Began chatting with his new PG.

For the next few minutes, I heard them talk to each other, but their conversation did not register in my head. I was busy carefully noting the particulars of Piyush face; the way his lips moved as he spoke, the frown which appeared on his forehead quite frequently. He smiled at Nani, and I looked in wonder at his beautiful lips and perfect teeth, which, mind you, were the whitest I had ever seen. Little did I know then that his was a face that was going to keep awake for many years to come.