Chapter - 2

It was 1996. And I was in the eighth standard. Girls weren't pulling down socks to flaunt

their legs yet. Guys were still to discover the wonders of hair gels. And girls were still not

their top priority. We were all busy sprinkling ink on each other's shirts and sharing lunches. The happy pre-puberty days.

And that's exactly when I met her. I saw the face, which imprinted itself on my brain for

many years to come. Well, to be true, I didn't meet her, not exactly. I just saw her across the

room full of rowdy and shouting eighth-standard students.

'Nisha?' the teacher had called out.

'Yes, ma'am,'she had responded in her chirpy voice.

How did she look?

She was like the first breeze of autumn, like the sparkling sun after a long cold night; she

was a midsummer night's dream. She barely came up to my shoulders, her eyes were darker than the blackest night, her soft pink lips seemed to be made out of candy, her cute steps across the floor, as she walked around, would make my day. I still remember her perfectly well in our school uniform with a pink muffler around her neck. And the reddish winter glow on her cheeks. Ah!

How did I look?

I was fat, dark and ridiculously ugly. Like. Totally. Ugly. It was as if God had something

against me. If he had to make me so ugly, he should have played with my mind too and made me have a crush on someone as ugly as I was, someone with freckles and unruly hair, maybe a lazy eye! Why her? Why Nisha? Why the cutest, beautiful girl in the class?

Anyway, seven years later, in the winter of 2003, I had just turned eighteen. It was my last year in school and somehow, I had managed to grow even fatter and uglier, and she had only grown prettier. She was no longer the girl I had first seen seven years back. She had grown positively womanly, if you know what I mean. She was cute then, but she was irresistibly.beautiful now. Her lips had grown pinker, her eyes were wider and they sparkled even more now, her hair was now long and worn in a style far beyond her age. All these years the gap between her social standing and popularity and mine had just kept widening. Although I had grown taller and she was still short and hopped around like a pocket-sized bunny, it didn't make her any less un-gettable.

It was the last year and I was in the S.A. dilemma.

What is a Screwed Anyway dilemma?

It's something that almost every guy has faced in his lifetime. It's almost as common as the Asshole Boyfriend phenomenon.

What is the Asshole Boyfriend phenomenon?

It's when every girl you like eventually ends up going out with the guy you hate. Simple,

right?

Now back to the Screwed Anyway dilemma.

The girl is out of your league—but she is single—you ask her out—she refuses—you are

screwed!

The girl is out of your league—and she is single—someone else asks her out—you are

screwed!