© Atul Kaushal
-Chapter Five-
Second Crush
& First Love
(Akshant Narrates)
After I had shifted to this bigger school for +1
& +2, I used to recount that stay at Kendriya Vidyalaya was the best one – the
awesomest one – in my own words. And I thought that I had made friends-for-life
with the friendly Surya, the funny Rohit, the brainy Mohan and the gorgeous Nakshatra.
When I passed class 10 with 88.4% marks, I was supposed to say good-bye to the
good old Kendriya Vidyalaya to go to a big school again for XI and beyond. I chose
a big school, Sacred Heart Convent School to continue with classes XI and XII, as
the school was offering 50% rebate in tuition fees to those students who had
succeeded in scoring more than 85% in Xth CBSE final exams.
Like many others, I also dreamed
of cracking JEE when I was in XIth. And so I started going to ABC classes, where
Mr. Ramesh Bombay taught mathematics with great proficiency. As my mathematics
skills were so poor at that time such that no teacher, no amount of money spent
could do any good for me. So when the problems’ various solutions started flying
over my mind disintegrated into various figures and letters from the board, I started
doing the most obvious and convenient activity for an escapist which became a vogue
addiction – bunking – on a regular basis. This was my biggest mistake. What I
should have done was the opposite.
But I did use to visit the
coaching centre daily after the class timings to see the face of the girl named
Bharti Singla who just smiled at me every
time our gazes met. I mistook that mockery of hers as a green signal and I started
gazing at her instead of the white-board in front of me when I attended classes.
My bunks continued side by side with dedicated regularity. I proposed this pretty
girl in class XI and my proposal was rejected right away by the girl. She didn’t
even care enough to reply to my proposal and refuse to my seemingly non-serious
proposal. She did the right thing; adolescence is not the age for getting into any
such commitments but I refused to accept it. I had showed my parents the dream of
their only son getting through into IIT entrance examination, but I remained lost
in my fantasies about my idea of love as a choice and a necessary option after forgetting
Aniketa.
After getting poor results
in +1, I joined the tutorial classes of my school teachers. The bunking saga continued
here as well. Though I had an above average IQ of 138 my studies were doomed to
be fared badly because I never practiced a thing taught. All of these, my bad habit
of bunking & an escapist nature accompanied by a lazy life made me perform poorly
in studies. I made a mistake by not telling my parents about the problems I faced
the same day I realized it. I was just silently being a non-playing part of the
play my life was playing. But the play of solitude in the campus was too much for
me and took to computer games, internet surfing and video games at games
parlours as an escape through which I wrongly sought to divert my mind from the
mess created at home among parents and escape my part of Karma at studies.
Though I behaved perfectly normal, I was extremely scared from the inside about
my future and about where my life was going to. I was an escapist since that
young age and intentionally fell for a previous classmate and female friend of
mine named Bhanupriya Chopra, whom I came to talking terms hoping to forge a
relationship with my first crush Aniketa through Bhanu. But I fell for Bhanu
herself instead. It was probably one of the most wild love stories that you’ve
ever heard about, with the girl being almost a year older than the boy and this
particular love story was almost like a typical teenaged love story.
When my friends like
Ravindra would ask me, “Wassup buddy, what’s special and how good your IIT
dream is brewing?” I would be replying, “Better talk about guitars or
our buddies dude, I am in no mood to talk about studies?”
So this way I was turning
a blind eye to my studies. Results were definitely bound to cold shoulder me.
The intelligent student in me had disappeared and not even his shadow persisted
in my nature anymore.
It was on my birthday in December
2007 that I received a message on my mobile number greeting me a happy birthday
apart from ‘I love you’ but the person never revealed their identity as the
number didn’t receive any phone calls from my mobile. I tried using my sources for
getting to know whom that number belonged to but nobody among my friends was of
any awareness about the number. In the meanwhile, the Aniketa episode was coming
to an end as well and I got busy with my half-hearted efforts at studies. I used
to compose poems & songs for some people or about some national issues which
I myself or as I thought the nation faced. I would often get my heads together with
Madhav Singh Gumra. I used to practice music with him as he was my closest friend from Sacred Heart
Convent School and shared my thoughts and hobbies. We put all our thoughts in a
song that could express their and the general teenager’s feelings about a world
where any thoughts that came as off the league or different from everybody else
are discouraged.
We both were of the
opinion that the person who questioned the system was made to submit no matter how
hard they tried to resist the methodology of it. I could only give vent to my and
many of the students’ feelings by singing them in an aggressive song which I had
composed as I felt that I had done wrong to myself by choosing non-medical stream
when I believed that I could’ve done much better in arts stream choosing music for
a later time in my life. Many of our school & FacebookTM friends
and my YouTube followers connected the short hard rock song which had strong distorted
guitar riffs and lyrics very meaningful to their own lives. The song lyrics could
be described as a call of some prisoners suffering in captivity for help. But an
even better description would be presented in the lyrics themselves which are mentioned
below.
Hum hain band yahaan, is jahaan mein!
Hum hain band yahaan, is jahaan mein!!
Laakhon hain gham yahaan, is jahaan mein!
Laakhon hain gham yahaan, is jahaan mein!!
Murda laash sa chala yahaan pe,
{Gada zameen mein hoon!}-2
Kheencho mujhe koi haath pakad ke,
{Dum ghute mera!!}-2
Hum hain band yahaan, is jahaan mein!
Hum hain band yahaan, is jahaan mein!!
Khwaab hain gum yahaan, is jahaan mein!
Khwaab hain gum yahaan, is jahaan mein!!
|
In its first few lines,
the song means, ‘We are trapped in here, in this world!’
I tried to convey it best
how the younger generation felt limited in the education system.
Music was how I used to escape
everyday tension. It was how I and Madhav used to divert our attention from our
duties most of the times in our lives – be it our problems related to education
or be them other problems of our lives as we thought.
Bhanu listened to the song
on the internet and told me on call, “Akki, you can consider me your best friend
and soul-mate. As a non-medical student myself I can exactly understand your heart-felt
frustration. You have something, and you just need your luck to shine. I think you
should study harder, you have it in you to do it.”
“Bhanu, there’s not any point in studying what my parents
would like me to. But Shanti, now that I’ve started it, I’ll complete it – I can’t
let my choice be proven faulty – I had my options open after 10th
standard but I chose non-medical sciences stream.” I spoke the complete truth.
Bhanu said in her sweet voice, “You addressed me as
Shanti. It’s your mother’s name.”
I replied, “Yes Bhanu, I’ll
call you by the same name because it’s actually you who brings genuine peace to
my life.”
“Really, is it so?” asked Bhanu.
“You won’t mind – would you?” I asked with only a tinge
of nervousness.
“No, no, no – not at all! It’s
my pleasure if you think so and actually feel so.” said Bhanu.
Just then I blurted it out
as it came to my mouth – from my heart, “I wish that I get to marry somebody
like you – someone who I can look up to whenever I wish to listen to a calm voice
and get relieved from these worldly worries and someone who can make me smile even
when I’m so tensed up.”
“Do you realize what you just
said – do you really mean it?” asked Bhanu.
I then rolled back my memory
tape till just a few seconds ago and again went through all of whatever I had said
a few seconds ago and I could just manage to say, “Oops! I’m sorry Bhanu, I really
wanted to say that but not like this.”
Bhanu said, “You composed
a song for proposing Aniketa, compose one for me as well.”
“But I have only been able
to sing the same only in front of you already, won’t that do?”
“No you’ll have to write a
new song for me and it’ll be only after it that I’ll formally say yes, so tell me
when you’re done composing the song for me.” Bhanu finished.
“Okay Shanti – I’ll compose
this romantic proposal song for you this time, it’ll be totally unlike the song
I composed for Aniketa, you’ll like it and I can guarantee that if you liked my
first song then you’re definitely going to love it.” I said confidently.
I then started composing a
short song which I thought would help Bhanu get rid of any type of doubts about
her & myself. I gave it a really jolly tune with lyrics depicting all my hopes
from the relation – quality time, strength and longevity.
I had never thought that
life could exist beyond Bhanupriya and felt the love for her very strongly. So
now I composed another song ‘Zindagi bula
rahi hai’ (Life is inviting) for the purpose of ‘formally’ proposing Bhanu.
I met Bhanu after attending the crash course coaching class one day in April,
2008 and proposed her with this song at the local milk parlour. Her apprehensions
about the relationship with me being affected any bit by the previous relationship
she was in were all ironed out after I had proposed her formally with this song.
I personally love those
lyrics and have described them on the next page. You might think of me to be
overconfident, Satyaa, but with this very song I discovered a poet, a musician
and a true lover of humanity inside me. I could tell that if I had been able to
compose one song, I will be able to compose some more songs along with the
passage of time.
The
lyrics to the short song after listening to which at the nearby milk parlour Bhanu just hugged me tight & lovingly kissed my hand.
Zindagi bula rahi hai
Zindagi bula rahi hai, (Life is inviting,)
Humko tumko bula rahi hai… (It’s inviting me & you…)
Zindagi bula rahi hai, (Life is inviting,)
Humko tumko bula rahi hai… (It’s inviting me & you…)
Aao chalein hum sath-sath, (Come let’s walk together,)
Le kar apne haathon mein hath. (Let’s be
hand-in-hand.)
Zindagi bula rahi hai, (Life is inviting,)
Humko tumko bula rahi hai... (It’s inviting me & you…)
Vaada hai tumse, (I promise you,)
Ladenge har gham se, (We will tackle each sorrow,)
Qayamat mein bhi hum, (Even in doom’s event,)
Bichhdein na tumse. (I won’t leave
you.)
<Humming> Mmmhmmhmm mmmhmmhmmhmmhmm </humming>
Koi khushi yun ga rahi hai, (Some happiness sings within,)
Humko tumko lubha rahi hai… (It tempts me and you…)
<Voice fades> Zindagi bula rahi hai... (Life is
inviting...) </voice fades>
|
The song could be classified as an extremely happy love song but also as
a cautious proposal composition. It reflected both the positive attitude and the
innocence at that tender age displayed by me. I had proposed Bhanupriya Chopra on 15th
of June in the year 2008 – the year of my entrance exams and senior secondary
board exams – with this second song which I had again composed by myself.
But Bhanu asked me, “But I have an ex-boyfriend,
don’t you have any problem with that?”
“Look. I’m not a gay and I
can prove it to you,”
I continued the good laugh I just had, “So I obviously don’t get any feelings for a
boy who I have not even met ever. He was just a phase which you met with at a
younger age than now, I am not concerned with your past, and I just want to be
there in your present, your future and all your thoughts…”
I followed the sentence
with a heartfelt genuine smile and then I encased her long but weak appearing
hands in my short but stout hands that do not match my height before I asked, “Are you willing to make
my life beautiful, Bhanu?”
She said yes without
waiting for any more words, “You have given me the most romantic proposal
today. I do not personally know any more guys that can compose such poems in a musical
manner. You need not say anything else. I expected this to be only a formality
but it has blown me off my feet. Yes I love you and I want to give you the best
love of which you could only imagine.”
And then we forgot about
AIEEE exam which was still remaining. Our chats got extended from just one
message each hour to more than 50 mutual text messages each day. SMS packs
failed to last more than a week. Expenditure was already going uphill.
Then I was taught by
Bhanu how to kiss a girl. The first kiss for me was long; so long, very long,
it was approximately 40 minutes undisturbed at my home as both my parents were
working at their respective offices at that time. Both she and me relished the
juiciness of the warm kiss slowly and passionately as we caressed each other’s
backs.
