Hi…This is the 20th part of my blog series The Diary Of A Teenager. If you havent read the previous parts …go ahead…they are all here.
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________________ Vices Of Blossomng Youth ___________________
In our life when we encounter something that we never expected to happen, we often try to rewind and replay the moment in loop to preview it from a third man perspective. The words in the small slip of paper were straight forward and simple, yet, I still wanted to re-read it. My sense had slowly started to betray me. It felt as if the world was playing an embarrassing joke with me.
“Your answer….is 50-50.” The words kept recoiling through my mind. The only word that helped me to stabilize the adrenalin rush was ‘50-50’. I kept telling myself, ‘she hasn’t said yes yet. Though, she hasn’t declined the possibility as well.’
I wanted to share my moment of joy with my best friend, my buddy Navjyot. But somehow, every time I picked up the receiver, I simply couldn’t dial his number. Something in me told me that I had done something wrong; my heart called me a betrayer.
In the bright period of teenage, the first crush is often the most serious one. One for which you may try to do whatever that’s in your reach, and also what’s not; just to please your crush. Aditi seemed to hail from affluent family. She had all the traits of an upper middleclass business family girl. I had a pre-loaded list of these ‘traits’- long height, good looks, fluent accented English and the most important one, crave for English movies.
Certainly, now thinking about the list I pretty well know it was not only stupid, but highly kiddish!
As you migrate over to a school much elevated than your previous one, over the time, you tend to develop an inferiority complex. May be that’s why, even before I could assess and ascertain her feelings for me, I had started to make a list of things on which we I thought we were not compatible; or in other words, I was inferior to her.
Computer was one such thing. Though, internet had invaded India in the early 1996, even after 4 years, I still had no idea about how to send an email. But Aditi, she was fully trained. She even had an email id! Since, calling her was a strict no-no for all her male friends, the only mode of communication left was internet and personal meetings. But as vacations were hovering over my possible first love chances, I had to be computer (internet) literate in those fifteen days only.
But even if I would have succeeded in my attempt to be net savvy, I had to first lay my hands on her email address. It was a tricky business to ask it directly from her, so I gave her my slam book, hoping that she wouldn’t utilize the space for email address to showcase her humor sense. Thankfully she didn’t. So my next immediate mission was to attain my primary objective, to be tech savvy.
Science speaks the universal language. Sperms never ask for directions and that is why only one in millions sent on the mission to fertilize, actually succeed. Perhaps that is why even men/ boys try their best not to ask for directions or help, even amidst deep shit. And since, I too was no different it took me three hours and eight attempts to learn how to email. But then, I didn’t learn only that. At first I kept forgetting my email id and password. Then, I kept confusing between whether to place www before the address or not. And what this cc and bcc meant. If it wasn’t for the good Samaritan- internet café owner, I wouldn’t have taken me at least a couple of more attempts.
Though it took me some time learning the art of surfing, once I was through with the initial glitches, I adapted quickly to the new found mode of entertainment. Internet is known for two things; one is infotainment and other is pornography.
Ask any grown up what he/she learns first in a new language. The answer every time is swearwords. And ask any teenager what the first ten sites they surfed in the initial days of web browsing, there are always a couple of porn sites.
There is a very strange psychological problem attached with these types of pornographic pleasures. The first time you are into it, you are filled with anxiety, fear, disgust and disbelief. It makes you so uncomfortable in the environment that you start feeling that everyone around you seems to be looking at you with suspicious eyes.
I still remember the first time I surfed a very well known BABA site. At first it took me a brief moment to assure myself that it was normal ‘to have a look’. After all, I was paying 25 bucks for an hour. But then, a silly feeling, like I was doing something wrong, crept back in. My hands started to tremble, I started sweating. I peeped over my screen, the owner of the café was outside, and two children opposite my system were busy in some sort of game. Finally, I managed to type www.****baba .com, and pressed enter.
As the page header loaded with some very graphic images, forcing me to gasp my breath in an “uggh…what-the-hell-is-she-doing?” feeling, the tension in my mind kept on growing. The internet connection was pretty slow, or may be I was feeling so disgustingly excited that I felt the connection was slow. Anyways, voices started echoing through my mind- what a shame Harshit…what a shame- but my youthful desire and the silly alibi of resource utilization (fully utilize the leftover time from my three hours surfing card) overpowered me.
Suddenly the voice in head was replaced with some very strange painful moans of a woman. That is when I came back to my senses, thankfully, only I could hear the voice as it emanated from the headphones I had put on a while back. Finally the page was fully loaded and I was shocked to see a message that blinked hard on my screen….
To be continued….
