Matters of Heart: Act 2

I was pursuing Bachelor’s as a day scholar then. But with unplucked eye-brows and a face that never saw make-up, you would probably mistake me for a high-school student.

I was what most people called a book-worm. With my nose deep in books and mind on the last mystery novel I read, I hardly ever noticed boys and never felt the need to groom myself. So, while all my classmates moved on to low-back latest-fashion salwar-suits with designer holes in sleeves, I stuck to dresses that were functional rather than fashionable. Never having dealt with men outside family and close-friendship circle, I was also ignorant in the vague terminology used by wannabe lovers and had no idea why, in Dil Se, Shahrukh Khan had to die alongside Manisha who never said ‘I love you’.

I was studying in a girl’s college, so naturally, more boys thronged outside our college at lunch hours than inside a boy’s college itself. But I never stopped to marvel at the paradox or the fact that police had to picket-fence the area around the college eventually. I would simply walk outside with my best friend talking about the latest colour scheme I had tried on my painting, ignoring everything and everyone in the vicinity.

When my best friend joined an English Speaking coaching during the first year’s summer break, I decided to join as well, else we would have to spend the summer apart since I lived on the edge of the Earth. (What else would you call a place that came with an attached forest?) If you are wondering, English Speaking institutes grow like mushrooms in India, since as a society, we take more pride in a borrowed language than our mother tongues. (We have 18 national languages:, out of which 17 are local but the 18th language, English, takes the top spot.)

The day I joined the English Speaking course, I could see clearly that I wasn’t taking home much except good manners of waiting for others to speak as well. But I was happy because I could meet my bestie everyday.

By the end of the summer break, the coach offered me a job as a coach at the coaching. I was overjoyed but after a couple of weeks, I left the job since it was cutting down in my study time. And I was seeing my bestie everyday at college anyway.

One day, I got a call from my ex-coach. He mentioned that I was an exceptional student and I had really helped the class move forward. And then, he said that there was a student who would appreciate my help; that if I could just talk to him over the phone for a few minutes everyday as a friend…

I declined to ‘help’ this ‘friend’, quoting that I didn’t even have enough time to talk to my existing friends. He insisted, but I was firm.

Once I hung up, my mother enquired about the curious call. Apparently, she had been listening in, like all dutiful mothers do. I shrugged my shoulders and quoted the call verbatim. Then she reported to my father, like all dutiful mothers do. My father then made an enquiry with me about what it was all about. He forbade me from talking to that coach again. He explained to me that the coach was just a medium. He was probably calling from some guy’s behalf as an attempt to get me to talk to him. I was confused, “If he needed to talk, he had two and half months when I was at the coaching.”

My father never explained to me the whys and whats of the story. He just smiled and agreed with me.

It took me 20 years to figure out what it was about.

I wonder what would have happened if he had simply talked to me at the coaching. He probably did try. I wouldn’t know–I spoke to a lot of people there. After all, the class was all about speaking. If he was still attempting to speak to me in person, either he was clueless that I was hopeless, or may be he was one of the super-positive people waiting for pigs to fly.

I also wonder what if he had called directly rather than through the coach. May be, he did call and my mum picked up since I wasn’t the one to hang around the phone. Mum was the Great Himalayan Mountain range that kept intruders out. If he had not hung up on hearing her voice, she might have asked his business for speaking to me (as all dutiful mothers do). Then, she might have asked if he was employed yet and how much he earned (as all dutiful mothers do). And when he didn’t bail out and yet failed to answer the questions to her satisfaction, she might have told him that I was buried too deep in books to fish me out and he would have to call again. No man ever born would choose to deal twice with the mother of an unmarried daughter. That was when he might have chosen the coach-route.

Either way, it wouldn’t have worked. I don’t work well with people who don’t speak clearly: ‘…talk as a friend?’

Seriously?

Life would be so simple if wannabe-lovers used a vocabulary that wasn’t so vague.