Author: Shaily Agrawal

P was the most popular girl in the class. Boys were often falling over themselves to impress her while she basked in the light of their attention. Face shining, open laughter, plucked eyebrows at 15, I was awestruck by how she carried herself confidently among our classmates. When she sat on the desk to talk to me between classes, she looked like the queen of hearts, while I was a Knave, complete with a light dusting of a mustache.

Not that minded it. (I mean, I didn’t mind her being the queen. I did mind the mustache and removed it later that year.)

Inspite of being popular, she was pretty nice and happy to help. Her grades weren’t impressive, but she managed to scrape through High School somehow. In fact, she got her Bachelor of Arts degree too later.

She was one of my closest friends at that time and my mother often worried that her influence might derail me.

I wouldn’t say so. I had quite a few other things derailing me those days. Maths had never been my best friend. But ever since Algebra was introduced, I was struggling. Once I joined this school mid-semester, Trigonometry joined the ranks, and I gave up completely. History I could trudge through but, with an ever-absent teacher, Civics, Geography and Economics were quickly turning into mystery. Biology I understood but Physics and Chemistry were beyond comprehension. So, I solely concentrated on languages that did not give me hives. It meant that while I would pass English, Hindi and Sanskrit with merit and an A in Drawing, I would probably fail in all the other subjects, ending any future ambitions that I might have.

But, as I said, it wasn’t P’s fault. She had similar worries herself about studies, but she wasn’t a worrywart like me.

In fact, nothing seemed to worry her at all…except once, when she told me that one of our male classmates now had a caller ID on their home phone. I wondered why it should worry her. Later, she told me that his mother has explicitly told her not to try calling him again. I wondered why his mother would say that.

But as I said, generally, nothing really seemed to worry her.

Honestly, I liked her for what she was. While she wasn’t particularly attentive in studies, she was a well of information on some topics that seemed to miss my attention.

P had introduced me to blank calls. A couple of years into our friendship, she made a blank call to my brother (on whom she had a mighty crush) right in front of me. I was completely in awe now. Honestly, I would never blank-call my brother–he had learnt Marshall Arts and could break a brick with a single flick of hand. I had held that brick he broke, so I knew not to annoy him while living in the same house. So, I warned P, considering she visited my house pretty often. But she assured me that she has been making those blank calls for an year now, and my brother had always been polite.

As I said, nothing seemed to faze her.

From her, I found out about an infamous park where willing boys and girls went to make-out, as she rebuked one of our other friends for going there with her boyfriend and kissing him on first date. “What else would you expect if you go meeting someone in such a place? First, you should have gone for a lunch at—” Apparently, the park was also notorious for Police raids because of obscenity in public areas. Though I never visited it due to want of company, it was a good-to-know information as places to avoid in future.

A well of information, as I said earlier.

P also had a better aerial connectivity than me and seemed to know when boys were interested in her. She once told me how some boys seemed to follow her everywhere she went. I wondered if she was delusional until I saw it with my own eyes.

This particular incident stands out to me. One day, the two of us had gone to watch a movie. The plan was that two more female classmates would join us there directly and we would all leave together for home in evening. But they ditched us, and we arrived alone. It wasn’t much of a worry because it was a day show. Also, in small-town India, the cinema hall (and everything else) was within city limits on rather crowded streets.

We left the hall around six in the evening. It was still light outside. We took a rickshaw home. Soon, she told me, “Don’t look back but a bike is following us.”

Being the worrywart, I wanted to look back but I couldn’t now since I have been expressly forbidden. It could be someone I know but I was scared that it wasn’t. Suddenly, I saw a PCO (A public phone booth that survived solely by feeding on the fears of anxious females and new lovers; declared extinct due to the invasive species of mobile phones).

“Let’s call my brother.”

Checking her hair in her hand-held mirror, “Naah! Don’t worry. They are harmless.”

“How do you know?”

“The guy who is driving has been following me around quite frequently. Always on his bike. Never does anything!”

I didn’t understand. If a stranger had been following me on bike quite frequently, I would have called the Police. P was merely amused.

“But what if he means to hurt you?”

“You don’t know their kind. He is just trying to get my attention.”

Now I was curious, “But if he is behind you, how will he get your attention unless he calls your name, which he isn’t doing? Does he even know your name anyway? Shouldn’t he probably try coming in front and talking?”

P rolled her eyes. As if answering my question, the bike revved and shot from our left and overtook us like a bullet in the narrow street. And then, suddenly, it became very slow, almost idling. The riders let our rickshaw overtake them at a snail’s pace.

“See, attention-seeking behaviour…”

I was unused to such stupidity, never having encountered such a species before (or maybe I just missed it due to aerial issues). I wondered if they knew normal speech like us lesser humans. “Are you sure they won’t crash in our rickshaw at some point? This is quite a narrow road. If their bike so much as touches our rickshaw on that speed, it will overturn.”

“You are hilarious, you know!”

The bike revved again and overtook us. Some people on the road in the direct hitting range jumped to the sides to take cover. It happened two more times and I wondered why no one was calling the Police.

We almost reached the corner where we would take the turn. It looked pretty wide from where we were, but I had been on the road on bicycle before and knew what lay ahead. The engine revved again. “They aren’t planning to overtake us here?”

“Of course, that’s their grand finale before they make their exit.”

“Are they foreigners? Don’t they know what’s around the corner?”

“Are you worried about them now?”

I took a second to decide, “Yes. But I will not carry them to hospital. I have homework.”

We had almost reached the corner now.

The engine revved again, and it was too late to stop them anyway. The bike overtook us at the highest speed it could muster. It took a wider cut to avoid our rickshaw, which was now turning the corner too.

I could see the bike drivers’ eyes go wide as it entered the huge nullah (a large open drain) with a resounding splash!

For a second, I was worried they had died. But then, two black, lumpy, smelly ghosts were rising out of the nullah, staggering with the weight of muck and impact on their bones, helping each other stand.

I could hear peals of laughter and realised they were coming from the both of us. Both P and I laughed all the way home.

Henceforth, this particular pair never followed P again and this event marked the end of this tale of unrequited love, cut short severely due to the local Municiple Committee’s failure of cover the nullah. Since the drain remained open for several coming years, I wonder how many other boys without the skill of human speech lost potential opportunities at love.

I also wonder whether these boys forever resorted to the language of engine revving or if they ever learnt human speech, like, “Hi, my name is XYZ. Would you like to come on a date with me?”

But what would I, who never had a boyfriend, know about the matters of heart?

🤣🤣🤣