Author: Shaily Agrawal

I was supposed to have grown up a long time back. But somehow my brain had frozen at 12 in the same way as my height. I was still unable to understand the cryptic language used by wannabe lovers.

It was a hot and humid day and I was getting my scooter from the parking lot at the Law College. A couple of guys approached me smiling benignly like they were serving me a Happy Meal at McDonald’s.

One of them introduced himself, “Hi. I’m…” (I don’t remember the name.)

“Hi. How can I help you?” I was absolutely sure that my sideway-parked scooter was blocking the path to his Bullet and he was waiting for me to move it and lecture me on the merits of good parking manners.

“I want to become friends with you.”

I waited for the joke to be over. Who was he anyway? I’d never seen him before. He was a Greek god with pink glowing skin, chiselled features and towering height, probably a basketball player. I was slightly jealous–being a Marwari dull-brown and 5’2″, I felt like a muddy blotch on the landscape in front of him. He probably worked for a reality show where they made practical jokes on people. I waited for someone with a camera to jump out from behind the scooters and shout, “Gotcha!”

I couldn’t fathom a reason why anybody would want to approach anybody like that to be a friend. All my friends were made generically by sitting in the same class, throwing chalks at the same teacher…

Who made friends by approaching someone in the parking lot?

“Thanks, but I already have too many friends and I can’t find enough time for them.” I started my scooter and left.

On the way home, I racked my brain for some information on this guy. Nothing.

The next day, I was again in the parking lot and saw him looking expectantly at me. I didn’t understand that look. It isn’t a look I give to anyone I want to be friends with. Honestly, this whole seeking-a-person-to-be-a-friend baffled me. I didn’t like being baffled. It wasn’t my natural mode. I was usually a know-all of Hermione level, what with my love for books. I asked my travelling companion if he was a senior. She told me he was our classmate in the boy’s section. Our classes sat together often on days when there were less students.

Seriously? He could have simply spoken with us during classes. I shrugged and started the scooter. “Boys can be so stupid,” I decided.

Next day, I found a paper slip with phone number stuck on my scooter’s handle. I decided to keep it in case I have to report the weirdo to police in future. As I turned my scooter out of the parking, he was looking at me extremely happy that I had accepted his number.

I’m afraid, he might have spent the next few days waiting for the phone call, wondering why it never came.

I wish people did not speak in code. Sigh!

When I was in the third year of Bachelor’s degree, a friend who was a cousin of my neighbours called on the home phone on Valentine’s day and asked me to meet him. We had been living in the house for a couple of years. Several cousins of these neighbours were the same age as me. They lived in another city and would often visit and inform me as soon as they reached, demanding my instant presence. I always obliged.

Since it was an old practice, his demand of my instant presence made perfect sense to me, except it was Valentine’s day, so I declined. He insisted, “I’m here only for a couple of days.” I declined again. It was difficult to talk without raising suspicion anyway. Then, he asked his cousin, my neighbour who is a girl, to call again and insist. With a weary heart, I declined yet again, giving excuse of urgent college work, promising to come the next afternoon.

Let me set the context here.

Valentine’s day (14th Feb) is celebrated in India as the day of lovers. But when I was young, most lovers celebrated it on 15th Feb since 14th Feb was unofficially the Daughter Grounding Day for 90% teenage girls from Indian middle-class. The grounding is almost invisible, heavily veiled by well-meaning parents intending to keep their daughters safe from the wolves roaming on the streets on Valentine’s day with bouquets in one hand and chocolates in the other, ready to jump their ‘innocent’ red-riding hood.

If it isn’t exams, most parents persuade their daughters to take the day off schools and colleges. Some leave direct orders, “The fridge needs cleaning and the nuts need to be cracked. Once done, make some potato chips. If there is still time make potato paapad, rice paapad…yadaa yadaa yadda.” Others cajole girls, offering supervised trips to market, over-the-top lunches, picnics in the fine spring weather or a day off to due to such a cold/hot weather. If nothing else, pre-decided emergencies come in: a visit to doctor, dentist, a really old and forgotten relative….

If going out is imperative, the girl gets a guard of honour to and from the venue, and if possible, inside the venue as well. The guard of honour is often an unenthusiastic brother who would rather be out hunting his own girl rather than be stuck with his sister. If a trip to market is in order, an overenthusiastic mother would accompany the girl, get her to finish her business quickly so that they can go dress shopping and get back home together. If nothing else, the father would take the day off work, suddenly anxious to spend more time with his precious cutie-pie.

Boys are, of course, uninformed of this grounding day and spend the day unsuccessfully waiting outside girls college until the flowers wilt and chocolates are eaten.

Some of my classmates were deluded enough to throw Valentine’s day party with red colour as a dress code. They usually celebrated with only boys for company. I remember about a bunch of girls who were able to hoodwink their parents on Valentine’s day by leaving home in school uniform to meet their lovers in a restaurant. Someone noticed their school uniform, which proved they were underage (In India, schooling ends at around 17-18.), and reported them to Police. The Police caught them and, worse, handed over to their parents. The boys were booked for ‘enticing minor girls’ and, even worse, returned to their parents.

Once, one of my practical exams did fall on 14th Feb. I used to walk to school then. After my own exam ended, I stayed back to help a friend in her Home Science practical. After an hour, I walked out of school and found my father waiting for me since he ‘had some chores in the same direction’. Hence, I always kept clear of Valentine’s day invites. Since I never had a boyfriend until then, I didn’t feel the need to give my parents extra exercise.

Honestly, it was difficult even to answer the home phone (mobile phones were a rarity then) on that day without prying ears. One of my friends had birthday on 14th Feb. I never attended his birthday party. Whenever I mentioned calling him to wish him, my parents would agree but they looked rather incredulous, as if no child would ever think of being born on such a day, and I had a suspicion, or may be I was being paranoid, that I was being eavesdropped.

In the wake of these past experiences, when this neighbours’ cousin asked me to come over on Valentine’s day, I declined with the excuse of college work. I didn’t want to embarrass this really nice and genuine friend by bringing my father along who would invariably tag along on the pretext of going on a walk or visiting his family.

The next afternoon, when I went to meet him, he was rather upset at the supposed insult and I had my work cut out for me trying to make him talk to me, since I didn’t want to divulge the real reason. Why not tell him? Because there are some secrets that are better kept hidden from boys until they become fathers of young daughters themselves. And who knows, if nobody tells them, they might never figure it out and their daughters might be able to celebrate Valentine’s day on the actual day for once.

Well, one can hope…

In the second year of Bachelor’s degree, my best friend decided that she needed to join a coaching for English Grammar, one of her elective subjects. Since the coaching started half-an-hour after our classes ended, it meant she would have to leave right away and we would lose the one hour that we always spent talking about life in general and life in colour (we were both painting students and totally invested in the subject too). I would have joined the coaching myself but my father wouldn’t pay this time since he now knew that I could probably teach the teacher.

So, I started walking with my bestie to the coaching, which was in the next lane. And then, I would sit with her until her class started which was often 15-20 minutes late. Once her class started, I would walk back to the college, pick up my newly acquired scooteret and drive home.

Loads of students from other colleges also attended the coaching. There was a bunch of boys who spoke with us. When we had to find a test subject for Psychology practical exams, they even offered their younger sisters as sacrificial goats. My bestie was as thick as I, never getting the hint. I always assumed the attention was because of her (She got the spotlight wherever she went, or, may be, I was biased because I loved her.) and never took the hint too.

One day, after ‘dropping’ my bestie in her class, I started walking out of the coaching and, as a part of my daily routine, inside the pastry shop downstairs. Now that my bestie wasn’t with me and I wasn’t busy discussing colour patterns and test subjects, my senses were working as they should and I noticed footsteps behind me. Suddenly, I was hyper aware of the fact that I was alone with this person behind me. Everybody whose classes ended earlier must have left for home and the people waiting must have gone to the class that my bestie attended. I was on my own. Honestly, it was just a flight of stairs, some 20-odd steps but my life seemed to have slowed down dramatically, like a hummingbird experiencing the world while facing a predator.

In first few seconds, I took stock of my physical faculties: I was 5’2″, a pixie as compared to the trollish footsteps behind me. Having never played any type of sport except a few months of badminton in early teens, I didn’t have any strength. In theory, I did know one Judo move meant to incapacitate someone but I hadn’t tried it on anyone yet. What it meant was that I would have to depend on my wits.

In a quick move, I slung my bag diagonally across the shoulder to keep it out of the way in case I had to run.

In the same move, I pulled out my scooteret keys to use as weapon…

My fingers nails were long enough to pop out the eyes…

I really hoped he would bail if I enter the shop. Or the shopkeeper would call the police first…

As I entered the shop, the footsteps followed dashing my hope. I raised my voice to get the shopkeeper’s attention, “One Black-forest pastry.” Then I steeled myself and turned to look at the man standing right behind me for a face-off.

But he spoke first, “Make it two. I’ll pay.”

One of the tallest and thickset guys from the coaching was smiling down at me, standing so close that I had to tilt my head up all the way to look at him. He stood at the only door and I felt like a cornered animal. My heart was hammering against my ribs and I wondered if an elbow in ribs was allowed at this stage since he hadn’t really attacked me yet. First he stalked me and scared me half to death and now, he cornered me and wants to pay for my pastry? What does this guy think–I can’t pay ₹10?

Being intimidated was not my usual mode. I grew up with a brother who was quiet tall and occasionally practiced Judo moves on me and even he couldn’t intimidate me. Anger won over fear and with the sharpest voice I could muster, I replied, “I can pay for myself.”

I quickly paid and walked briskly to my scooteret in the college parking at a pace that could have won a marathon. My only thought was to get out of there. I kept looking behind me wondering if he had followed me and whether the police men who guarded my college from roadside-Romeos would hear me shouting.

Note that it was broad daylight, and I was in a residential area and not alone in woods at night. But fear had wiped out all rational thought. I started my ride and raced home, leaving Michael Schumacher behind.

I was almost home when I remembered something–when he had offered to pay, his smile was expectant, which had slid down several notches at my hostility. He was probably just trying to talk. But then, why did he choose to corner me when I was alone. I was at the coaching with my bestie for around 30 minutes when he could have spoken. The doubt still planted in my mind, I never went to the coaching again.

After 20 years, now older and wiser (I hope), I realise that in India of my youth where we had grown up watching cheesy romantic movies by Shahrukh Khan but not really entered the openly dating scenario, he had been probably made an attempt to avoid a too-public confrontation, which was the norm of the era. I was just born in the wrong era.

After all these years I spent wondering why nobody ever proposed me for the first 20 years, I finally realised there were probably too many people trying to get the message across. My receptors were just too weak to pick up the signal!

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.

Author’s note: This is a republished memoir to build momentum for my coming pieces, all of which discuss my bizarre love-life, or rather lack thereof.

I was in grade 10–fifteen-years old and a book nerd. I was denser than my brother’s ten-pound dumbbells when it came to the matters of heart. It was easier to do ten wrist crunches in a second than to make me understand the cryptic language of would-be lovers. I knew more about Maneaters of Kamaun, thanks to late Jim Corbett, than teenage boys and what went inside their ever-busy brains.

Having studied at co-education schools, I had quite a few male friends. But when it came to heart-to-heart, they steered clear of me. Though, it could have something to do with my ‘incident’ with the class bully where I knocked some sense in his brain, literally. Or, it could also be the light ‘mustache’ I had grown over the adolescent years. Whatever the reason, the boys in my previous schools avoided any chances of a one-on-one with me.

When I moved to Aligarh, the boys in the new school, however, were quite ill-informed. They knew of my love for old songs and painting. Also, I looked less like a lioness now that I had cleaned the facial hair. It was a welcome change to have friends who weren’t scared of me.

After my first month in the school, I was moved to section D, which was a teacher’s nightmare in the best of days. There was a gang who never took classes and were always found roaming the corridors. The most ‘influencial’ boy of the class, let’s call him A, was their ring leader. The teachers were afraid to report them. Others caused enough noise to raise the dead. Nobody listened to the teachers. Our class teacher was also the school vice-president and never available to know what was happening.

Somehow, I never got to see that roucous part of our class. Initially, I was too busy with catching up on the work done before I joined the school, since I joined mid-session. Later, I began noticing that during the hours when the teachers were missing (mostly Geography by our class teacher), my class sang–All of a sudden, A had developed a love for singing. He was good at it too. Often, he would sit on the bench behind mine and begin singing. Meanwhile, nobody dared to speak or may be they were too enthralled. He attended classes everyday now, which was a first. Thanks to his newly well-behaved presence and active participation in studies, our class was too well-behaved for the teachers to believe. They probably considered it the silence before the storm or a stroke of luck that would eventually run out.

Soon, the bench behind me became the hub for all wannabe singers. We often played Antakshari whenever there was time (a game of replying to each other in songs). In the hindsight, I have a sneeky suspicion that some of them were trying to impress me–the latest addition to class and the only girl who still wore skirts rather than traditional salwar suit. I can’t be sure, of course. Nobody ever proposed me.

Except one day after school, when I was dragging my bicycle towards the clear road that had enough space to ride it, A caught up with me.

Okay, before I get into the detail, let me clarify one thing–In small-town India, dating is not a thing. Arranged marriages are preferred and going out with boys is looked down upon. At least, that was the case at that time. So, you didn’t ask a girl out just like that.

You talk about the weather…and family…and things she liked to do in her free time…and about her friends (to gaudge if there was a potential competitor)…and how there’s nothing much to do in small towns… If the girl hesitated, and you still had brains left, you scooted. If she answered all your questions in a pleasant tone, you asked about her plans on the day when you wished to take her out and wait for her reaction with abated breath. If her day is free, you talked about your plans and if she’d like to join.

A followed all the required protocols. While we were stuck in the traffic jam caused by the several hundred bicycles and thousands of young adults pouring out of their daily prison, he talked about the weather, my family, my non-existent social life and my interests and the lack of things to do in a small town. (a pretty dull conversation, if you ask me). Then, politely, I asked about his interests.

A grabbed the opportunity with both hands and plunged, “I love watching movie. Infact there is this latest movie (he named a Salman Khan’s latest movie) that I’m planning to watch but I’m not sure.”

I was human enough to get curious, “Why not?”

“I don’t have company.”

That was my cue to say, “Really! I’d love to watch it too.” But as mentioned in the first para, I was dense enough to not understand the cryptic conversation and missed the cue. Instead, I got more curious. How could the other guys not watch a Salman Khan movie. He was the God of Indian adolescent tribes. His posters were up on every male wall I knew, “Why wouldn’t you have company?

I guess, A wasn’t ready for that. I had been pleasant enough so far and hadn’t winced even once during the entire conversation. So, in an ideal world, I was supposed to ask him the time and show up for the show. Instead, I am asking a probing question. So he got derailed, “Ahhh…because the timings clash with namaz…” (He was a Muslim and so were his friends.)

Again that was my cue to say, “Oh! No problem, I’ll join instead.” But I missed the cue again and chimed in, “Really? Then, I think you should go for namaz instead as well. A movie isn’t worth it.”

A nodded his head, forced a smile on his face and bowed out of the competition, dragging his bicycle in the opposite direction, struggling hard in the traffic jam. He looked rather disheartened, if you ask me. But I could be wrong, afterall, I was too dense to understand the matters of heart.