Our first meeting…
Now you can't really call it a meeting, it is more like an encounter. But really how different is a meeting from an encounter. And no! It is not the kind of encounter you see in the movies, with the criminal running and the police… I will leave it at that, cause viewers'; in this case readers' discretion was not advised. So getting back to the point of our first encounter. It had begun as a regular day, with me cursing under my breath as I ran behind the bus that was obviously early cause I am never late. Okay, okay maybe I was a little late, but still the bus driver clearly saw me running towards the bus yet he purposely shut the door before I could reach it. I swear the bus driver has some personal enmity with me. Or maybe he has a life-long enmity with my dad. Yes! He and my dad were childhood friends, and as they grew they both fell in love with the same girl, but she chose my dad. Hence leaving a deep wound in the driver's heart and now he seeks his revenge in making me suffer. It seems so plausible, except why do I feel like I am missing something integral about my theory. Oh right … my parents had an arranged marriage, and I forgot this is not a certain someone's K-plot so it can't have this twisted story line. Right… so where were we? Oh right, I had just missed the bus. Okay, so even though I had missed my bus I had not missed my will to make to my class in time. Determined to make it in time, for once, I slung my bag over my shoulder, put my extra books that didn't fit in my bag under my shoulder and held the painting sample, that was still had wet paint on it in my hands, hoping it would dry before I had to hand it in, and I ran. I ran as fast as I could, which obviously isn't very fast, since I had a zillion things to carry in hand.
I was almost there. I could see my teacher walking towards the class, a new rush overcoming me, I had to beat her, and I had to get to class before she did. So I walked, faster, faster. In my mind this was all happening in slow motion of course, with the teacher at one end and me at the other, the students between us disappearing, and the only things remaining the door of the class that we both were gunning towards. And then it happened. I bumped into him. Yup, you guessed right, it was Shiv Kapoor I had bumped into. Now, this was no little bump where you say sorry and move on. This was the kind of bump, where my, still wet, painting is stuck to his white, perfectly ironed shirt, and as I smile nervously and rip it off, it is too late, cause now it is shirt that carries my work of art. He looked down upon me, his eyes full of anger. I had to think fast, and save myself or else he was going to devour me in about two seconds. So I let everything fall and clasped my hand over my mouth, trying to attempt an expression of shock. Now don't get me wrong, that I was not shocked that I had bumped into Shiv Kapoor, I was. But the kind of expression I was trying to build up now was the kind that said, just like him I too was a victim of some idiot getting late and walking too fast to class, with disregard for anyone else in their path. I quickly turned around and started yelling at some random student, telling them it was so inconsiderate of them to push me like that, all the while I kept the corner of my eye on Shiv trying to decode his expression and if it was changing from anger to pity.
Slowly I turned back around, trying to make the cutest, most innocent puppy eyes at him. But it didn't work, he looked just as furious as before. So I let out a nervous laugh, and in an attempt to make things better, with my hands started to dust his shirt. This obviously made things worse. How? Well let's see, first of all you can't "dust" paint off a shirt, you can only "dust" dust of shirts. And second of all, I didn't realize that my hands themselves had paint all over them, and smearing them all over his shirt, just made his shirt more colourful. So even though I had realized that wiping my hand on his shirt was not helping matters, yet, for some unknown and I am sure, utterly stupid reason, I continued to do it. I felt so relieved when Shiv took his hands and held my wrists with them to make me stop. I looked up at him and gave a wide grin that was still full of guilt. But then in a most shocking and arrogant manner he jerked my hands back and shaking his head walked away. I was dumbstruck. Watching him walk away I felt like picking up the remaining of my destroyed painting and throwing it at him along with my books and anything else I could get my hands on at that moment. He should have watched where he was going; I mean how hard is it to miss a girl who has her hands full of books and painting samples? Maybe if he didn't always have his head up high, he could maybe see us "lowly" regular people walking around. I huffed and puffed in anger as I stood in the corridor of my college, watching Shiv walk away.
When I finally calmed down and started to pick up my books, I realized that the people walking by me were giggling as they went past. I could use a good laugh. So I started to follow people's gazes, trying to figure out what they were laughing about. It was something around me. Excitedly I looked around, when my gaze fell on my reflection in the glass of a window. Oh gosh! They were laughing at me! When I had clasped my hands on my face I hadn't realized that I had left imprints of my paint covered fingers, making it look like I had a multicoloured moustache and beard. I wanted to cry, throw down my books and stomp my feet on the ground. Our first encounter and I had looked like a complete fool! This day could not get any worse or so I thought. Edited by Saregama_fan - 16 years ago
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