24. Love obituary - Saher

The first time I saw her was under the big banyan tree in front of the computer electronics departments besides the cafeteria. She was standing leaning against a car, wearing a light pink suit and looked like an epitome of Punjabi beauty. We were going to the cafeteria for some cold coffee and snacks. On seeing her I intentionally slowed my pace to have a longer look at her. Her eyes were desperately wandering around looking for someone, maybe be company of her friends as if she was feeling shy of standing alone, kind of uneasy. This was the reason that I was attracted towards her in the first place. We went on to the cafeteria but some part of me was left behind under the tree thinking about the pink beauty. Once our order was served,
“It’s hot in here, let’s go out” I said deliberately, there was no suspicion about my intention so we all walked out towards the banyan trees; I led them towards the parked bikes. While the other three got busy eating and chatting about the upcoming exams, I sneaked glances of this beautiful girl. It was late afternoon and she was still there when most had left for the day and the campus was slowly getting deserted.

So this was the most important thing that happened to me that spring. The only other important thing that happened was the Columbia disaster and since one of the martyrs was an alumnus of our college, loads of functions were happening around the campus to remember the great heroine Kalpana Chawla who graduated as an aeronautical engineer from our college I eighties. They named the girls hostel after her, as if it was something great they were doing. Some days later they even brought a helicopter to the campus in her memory and set it up in front of the admin building. That is when I saw Saher again. She was in her second semester of Information Technology studies and kept quiet most of the time. She observed the helicopter very sincerely and then looked up at the sky, maybe at Kalpana Chawla to draw inspiration or maybe if there were some aliens up in space and that one day she would make information technology to find them, ha ha. I didn’t know. I just found her cute, wanted to be with her. Inspired by my over enthusiastic friends and my love guide Tazzy, who said reading my hand that ‘love is in the air’, I dared to call her one night. O my god, I can’t believe I was able to do it. I was trembling and my heart beating twice as fast. I talked to her beginning with an introduction and moving on to ask about her interests and stuff. It was a good first chat. There were a few more like that and then one day she didn’t respond, then some days later she changed her number and that was a loud enough sign that I give-up the quest and I did.

Some months later she fell for this guy junior to her and taller than me. With this and in company of her new friends she changed dramatically, I’ve never seen such a transformation in so little time, from a quiet shy girl, she now frequented movies parties, outings and stuff. There was no coming back for her, but she looked happy and I was happy for her. I continued to feel thrilled at one sight of her in the campus.