The Diary Of A Teenager: Part 21 – Angles In Disguise

This is the 21st part of my blog series -The Diary Of Teenager. If you haven’t read the previous parts then go ahead they are all here….

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_________________Angles In Disguise________________________

Being a novice to such kinds of pleasures, my pulse was already running in the nineties. My voyeuristic pleasure got a heavy jolt when my computer started flashing a message.

“You are requested to close down this adult website” – by Administrator.

I felt small, unmannered. My throat went dry. I coughed a few times and closed the application. The cafe owner was of my dad’s age; it was as if my dad had caught me red-handed. The embarrassment forced me quit the place in hurry. Albeit, it was later that I was informed that the computer was installed with internet nanny!

The best part of commuting through the school bus is the fact that you reach the school even before the classes have been opened for the day. I was alone in the class and this normally would incite a mischievous side of mine. Aditi had a fixed seat; second last seat in the first row. I took a piece of chalk and wrote on her bench: Did you get my mail? And smiled in excitement when she gave me a nod of ‘yes’ after she read it.

People tell me that I had turned a bit shy those days, especially in her company. Not that I made circles with my feet when she was around, but there was a conspicuous smile that trumpeted my feelings about her.  I still don’t know whether that was true or not; may be the theory that love can never be hidden holds true in my case. The only problem was that I just didn’t know then that whether it was mere a crush, infatuation, attraction or love.

Navjyot and I had cut off from the rest of the group. I don’t know may be this didn’t go well with my friends like Sana. The fights between us were more frequent and harsher, seldom ending with her watery eyes. The topics were silly and our statements sillier. But I didn’t care about that. It was as if my world encircled Aditi. I wanted to spend my whole day sitting behind her. I loved looking at her long streaks of black hair. I loathed those days when I had to sit in front of her or in the adjacent row.

In my life friends have always showed me the celestial signals; signs that always helped me find my way. That day, our English teacher delegated me and Aditi to prepare some charts for an upcoming literary event.  It was games period (sports period) and the class was relatively empty. By the end of April, sports’ ground normally seemed like a barren, parched piece of land, habituated only by the sports crazy dudes and love birds.

I didn’t want to move her from her comfort zone so, I shifted to her row. I never had been so shy around girls. But Aditi was different; I couldn’t even sit with her on the same bench! (There are two reasons for this – one was definitely the height issue and the second was the awkward shyness). So I persuaded Navjyot and Kritika to give us company.

The things most close to your eyes are always blurred. In my zest to build up my love life, I never noticed that though Navjyot had said that he feels for Kritika, he never even once talked to her on this issue.  I had been cracking silly jokes with her and all Navjyot as doing was smile and talk occasionally.

It had been nearly forty minutes of my wonderful time. The zodiac dragons (our boy’s gang which encompassed of 12 horribly naughty guys, including me and Navjyot) had a while back entered the class and obviously how could they have not teased me!

They started off with some very cheesy Bollywood numbers like Hum tum ek kamre main band ho … and followed it with a list that made me blush with embarrassment. As I had done the same to many of them when they were caught snuggling with their chicks, the best I could do was to smile and blush. And I would have kept smiling, till they stopped, ‘if’ I wouldn’t have seen Aditi wiping a tear off her cheek.

“That’s it. What’s the problem with you guys? It’s fine if you want to tease someone….but there’s a limit to everything. If you can’t get the girl you desire (I paused because even I hadn’t got my girl, yet)…you are mere jack asses… you can’t just keep on…doing your shitty business even when the situation is getting worse….Manners….Respect a lady!”

I was breathing heavily, my eyes were bloodshot with anger and my hands were trembling. I don’t know whether it was due to sudden outburst of anger or the fear that each of the 10 dragons was at least twice my size.  I turned around to see Aditi, hoping that she might have stopped crying. Navjyot was standing behind me with his hands on my shoulder.

I took the charts from her and moved to a different row with Navjyot, mumbling a shooting a few occasional curses at the dragons. Suddenly the dragons surrounded me and they hushed scores of ‘sorry’ to me. I wasn’t satisfied, because it was never about how I felt. It was always how bad she felt; how hurt she was.

“I don’t have any issues with you guys. I never felt bad… but what about her? She is the one who got hurt by your actions…so apologise to her, and not me. I have no right to forgive you guys. “I fumed.

I had never ever considered the dragons to be very close friends of me. My list never went past the names of a few which obviously included Navjyot. But that day when I made them feel that I was disappointed by them, they did something which, perhaps, I would have never done for them. They went to Aditi and apologised one by one. At first, she responded with a customary “I’m fine”.  But they never stopped and kept on saying sorry again and again, with their frequency of voices getting louder with each sorry, till they saw her smile.

As they saw Aditi’s face brightening with a feeble smile, they turned to me and said in chorus, “See, she forgave us…buddy we made your girl smile!”

And that’s when I really felt that no matter how unimportant ‘friends’ they were for me, they were angels in disguise. Not only did they made her smile, but they also called her ‘my girl’; something that lit up my face as well.