Satish was an avid lover of college
picnics and excursions. He had therefore spent the last night tossing
and turning on his bed, crumpling the bed sheet to one corner and
sleeping mostly in direct contact with the cushion. He was expecting insomnia
from the previous night and the night before that, since losing sleep over
college picnic was nothing new for him. Hued flashes of an exciting jaunt,
singing, dancing, all the fooling around and of course hopes of taking romantic
intimacies to the next level, crowded his head. Like long shots of black
coffee, these thoughts had made him lay awake gazing at his ceiling. This was
the last college picnic he would ever be a part of. How on earth
could he sleep ?
The dawn came too slowly for Satish.
He quickly got ready and started for the college. He reached there even before
the gates had been opened. He had to shout "Bahadur" at
the top of his voice, who responded not before he had called him at least six
times. The neighbourhood dogs came wagging their tails and clustered near him,
expecting charity of a bread loaf or a few bites of biscuits. Bahadur came and
opened the gates giving a wonder struck glance at him. "What ?
..Don't you know about the picnic ?" Satish shot back at him
ignoring the fact that he was two hours early. He got rid of his backpack full
of all kind of stuffs handpicked by him for this excursion and sat
down on the steps under the lone Bakul tree in their campus. He went over several
things in his mind. But most importantly he thought over and over again about
how he would convey to Lata, his long repressed feelings for her. He dreaded
that this could be a do or die chance for accomplishing that task. The final
semester was soon to follow and he feared that he would not get another shot at
expressing himself. He hoped that amidst all the fun and frolic he would be
able to carve out an appropriate moment for telling her how strongly he was
drawn to her and that how all these days he had guarded his sentiments from
finding their way to his tongue.
Halfway through his thoughts, Satish
saw the first of his co - excursionists enter through the college gate, all
tucked in flashy jeans and jackets. Soon others followed and in no time the
campus was bustling with cries of "Hip Hip Hurray" . The
bus hired for the trip also arrived and all the essentials were hurriedly stacked
inside it. Names were called and the boys and girls
were marshaled onto their respective seats. The bus driver put the
keys into the ignition slot and the engine belched to life with a thunderous noise.
Satish and his friends broke into an ecstatic howling that could have easily
caused the deaf to plug their ears. The girls seated in the civilized front rows along with the
professors looked at each other and nodded in disapproval of such immature
display of excitement by their male peers. The bus rolled through the sparse
Sunday traffic and each time it crossed any gathering of fellow humans, the boys
were caught by an inexplicable reflex and hooted in chorus. They euphorically conveyed their pride on being a part of a college trip, as if it were some rare achievement not accorded to anyone else ever, except the chosen few in that vehicle. The professors seemed to
have given up on the hopes of any gentleman like behaviour from their
overjoyed students. They kept looking at their city's streets and places, out
of the bus windows like tourists, as if they held no memory of those places.
Satish and his friends danced, screamed, howled and mocked Bollywood songs
straining their croaky vocal chords. The bus sounded like one headed straight
for the psychiatric ward of the city hospital.
Sanity and normalcy fortunately
returned to the bus after about an hour. The tenor of Hulla had receded and
everyone seemed confined to their seats apparently engulfed
in thoughtful conversations with their partners. Satish
was exasperated, struggling with ideas to approach Lata. But she sat
cordoned within the inviolable circle of her friends and it seemed
impossible for Satish to interact with her without causing raised eyebrows.
Satish was too shy for this. "I'll definitely steal her at
Ramchandi", he thought to himself as he watched Julie, Sneha and
others giggling around Lata. He walked up to the driver's seat and
enquired "How far are we ?". " "It
would take us about forty five minutes" came the driver's
reply. Satish started back for his set. As he turned, he saw Lata, and their
eyes met unexpectedly. She was the first to turn away. Failing to notice any
sign of interest for him in her eyes, he was discouragingly reminded of numerous similar
encounters with her in the last four years. He strolled back to the last
rows and sunk into his berth. He felt a pang of hopelessness wound his
heart. Perhaps he and Lata were never meant to be together, he thought. He
entertained second thoughts about his elaborate plans regarding her. He plugged
his ears with the headphones connected to his mobile phone and with his eyes
shut, drowned himself in one of his favourite sad songs of the yester-years.
Satish woke up to
the magnificent view of the Ramchandi beach. Sarthak came and
shook him out of his nap. Satish looked at him continuously for a few seconds
wondering what had happened. He regained composure in a few seconds. But he
also recalled the sequence of events that had eroded the excitement from his
heart. He thanked Sarthak and threw his hand towards him lazily gesturing
for a pull. After stretching his hands and legs and rubbing the residual sleep
off his eyes, he walked out of the bus and went straight for the beach. He
marveled at the splendour of nature and soaked it in. After a week long of
brainstorming over the venue, it had been decided that there was not a better
place to create lasting memories than Ramchandi beach. Its unique location at
the merging point of the Kusabhadra river and the Bay of Bengal made it one of
the most exotic tourist locations.
He saw the distant ferry being guided
in the serene waters by an anxious ferryman. The water was calm and it infused
much required tranquility inside him. He could not take his eyes off the
scenery. The more he kept watching it, the more he slipped under its spell. He
felt a small puddle of joy grow within his heart. He saw his friends making
merry at some distance but could not bring himself to go there. He was not even
startled at his sudden detachment from a passion so long nurtured by him. All
those sleepless nights and fantasies of adolescent delight had now lost their
purpose before such magnificent display of nature's loveliness.
While he was relishing nature, he
heard a faint voice calling his name. He turned around and saw a girl. She wore
an affable smile and her beauty had a vocal elegance about it. She was about
his height and his best guess was that she belonged to his age group. She
wore a purple skirt and a matching jacket which seemed to love her
body. As she began walking towards him, he noticed her bare feet. They
were petite and appeared to melt into the sands with each step she took. She
kept putting in order the unruly strands of her hair, servile to the persistent
breeze. She stressed her eye lids in an effort to minimize the sun on them and
said "Hi".
Satish returned her greeting with "Hello".
Before he could begin to ask the most obvious question of that moment, she
answered it in advance, as if she had read each word in his head. "I know
your name from your friends" she exclaimed. A flurry of questions
began circling in Satish's mind. Which friend ? How? Where?. She
went ahead and added "I am in your class" . It began
drizzling. Satish tried to swallow his shock and uttered "How come
I have never seen you before ?" The girl smiled and said "Well..that's
a question you should ask yourself. Its not like I have conspired to hide
myself from anyone." Satish quickly accepted his defeat and apologized.
She introduced herself as Meera and befriended him in a matter of minutes. They
moved on to talks about life in college, their respective future plans and
ultimately ended up admiring nature's beauty which seemed to be at its zenith, at
the place where they stood. Satish was immensely fascinated by her. She had begun to penetrate the walls of his heart and threatened its
exclusivity hitherto accorded to Lata.
Satish found himself engrossed in her
charm, pulled out of the pits of dejection. They started walking near the waves
enjoying kisses of water on their feet. They walked for about a mile till they lost
sense of time and space. To Satish's utter embarrassment, Meera raised the subject
of his feelings for Lata. "Ok.!! So she knows this too
!!" Satish mumbled to himself. Meera encouraged him to be honest
and asked him not to hold back anything from her. Satish bared his soul before
her. But he could not claim to have been completely honest as in that
moment he felt no attraction for Lata. Silence took over their conversation for
a few seconds. Meera broke the hush by declaring in no uncertain terms that she was
in love with him. She immediately assured Satish that she did not expect
her feelings to be returned by him. She also assured Satish of the fact that she had reconciled to the unchangeable reality where Satish wanted Lata and not her as his beloved. Satish felt frustrated over the revelation that all
these years, Meera had concealed from him her feelings while he wasted his heart over Lata. He
wished if only Meera had been vocal about her love for him earlier then he
would have surely chosen to stay with her. She seemed to so perfectly
complement him. Meera further explained to him that since she was sure that he
would never return her love, she waited till the final days of college to
express herself. In that way she would not have to face him everyday after he had turned her down.
Satish felt melancholy finding its
way between them. He felt guilty for having let Meera lament over something
that was not true. He took a couple of quick steps and stood infront of her. He
told her about the futility of his hopes regarding Lata. He also confessed that
he was completely touched by Meera and that to his astonishment, being with her
had suddenly made him oblivious to the lure of Lata. Silence returned again and
stayed a little longer this time. Doubtful whether he had gone
overboard, Satish pleaded her to say something. She did not speak. Seconds
turned into minutes but Meera did not shift her stare from the sea. But to his
relief, Satish noticed a glittering smile revisit Meera's face and adorn it
once again. Satish hugged her. He slowly tightened his arms around her, conscious not to spoil the delicate coziness of that moment. Meera responded inside his fold and everything
became surreal. Satish discovered purpose to his life again. He could not wait
to walk back to the bus with Meera. Meera suddenly ran playfully and teased him to chase her. Satish set off in her chase, pacing to catch up with her. Something buzzed
inside the right pocket of his trousers reminding him of the cell phone which he was carrying. He fumbled inside his pocket as he ran and pulled it out. But he
had to stop to glance at the name of the caller. It read "Lata
Calling".
Fidgeting under indecisiveness, whether to
take the call or not he looked up at Meera who was now at least a good fifteen
to twenty yards ahead. She said something and the contours of her face
underwent a stark change. When he glanced back at his phone he had missed
Lata's call. He heard frantic shouts of "Stop Stop" emanating
from his far right. He raised his head and saw two men dressed like fishermen
waving their hands at him and simultaneously running straight in his direction.
Something urged him to turn back and when he did, he saw no one. His picnic
party, his friends taking dips in shorts and even strangers on the beach had
all vanished. His heart skipped a beat. The tanned fishermen found their breath
and blurted "Are you crazy ? Where do you think you are going
?" Satish could not make out any sense in the man's words. The
other one added "Brother, this part of the beach is full of quicksands.
Do not be a fool of an adventurer and risk your life. It isn't worth
it." The word adventure somehow brought back the thought of Meera
and he looked straight where he had last seen her running. He found only
sand and the waves. Alarmed to his guts, he tried to move forward fearing
something might have happened to her, but was pulled back with full force by
the two strangers. "Are you deaf ?" screamed one of them.
Satish nervously explained to them the events that had occurred in
the last half hour of his life. The two men after listening to him, exchanged
familiar glances with each other. Deciding to not let go of Satish, each held one of his hands and walked with him to his camp as Satish kept looking
back intermittently.
On reaching their camp, the two
fishermen did not waste a second in narrating the horrifying legend of Meera
who died some years ago in a quicksand around the same area from where they
rescued Satish. They also told everyone that there have been incidents when for
no reason people have walked to their death, into those quicksands. "Now
we know from your friend, Why!!" they exclaimed in chorus.
An eeriness swept across the gathering. Jayant tucked two hundred
rupee notes into the hands of the fishermen and they took their leave. Nobody spoke. Satish held his secret. He felt his heartbeat return to a familiar note, as if it had just broken free from a spell. Everyone had their lunch. Dusk was punctual, as it normally is in winters. Satish was the first to get
inside the bus. He was in his seat and pleaded with his mates to be left alone. The bus roared
to life and the wheels came into motion. It was dark before anyone could
notice. Inattentive to all the discussion around him, Satish went over the
incidents at the beach. It didn't take him long to arrive at the
most riveting thought of all.
He wondered as to how out of all his friends, well wishers and peers, it had to be Lata who called him at the exact moment when he stood at the threshold of the path of no return. The same Lata whom he easily traded in the chase of a mirage. He did not know what to believe any more. The bus rode over a speed breaker and it jostled him out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw Lata standing and staring at him. Satish downplayed her presence in his mind, even though he was fringing on contrary hopes, by telling himself that she had probably come to collect details of his horrific experience and carry those to her friends for a steamy gossip. She sat down close to him without asking for his permission. The lights inside the bus had been dimmed. Nobody was looking at them. In just the right moment Lata spoke, never taking for a moment, her eyes away from those of Satish
"I've waited the whole day to tell you something...something, which has to be conveyed before opportunities fail me.
He wondered as to how out of all his friends, well wishers and peers, it had to be Lata who called him at the exact moment when he stood at the threshold of the path of no return. The same Lata whom he easily traded in the chase of a mirage. He did not know what to believe any more. The bus rode over a speed breaker and it jostled him out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw Lata standing and staring at him. Satish downplayed her presence in his mind, even though he was fringing on contrary hopes, by telling himself that she had probably come to collect details of his horrific experience and carry those to her friends for a steamy gossip. She sat down close to him without asking for his permission. The lights inside the bus had been dimmed. Nobody was looking at them. In just the right moment Lata spoke, never taking for a moment, her eyes away from those of Satish
"I've waited the whole day to tell you something...something, which has to be conveyed before opportunities fail me.
"Go on. " whispered a clueless Satish.
Pausing for a second to delve deep into Satish's eyes, Lata confessed ' I love you !! '
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