PART III: The (not so Grand) Finale...

Continued from the previous post

Nirmalamatha Central School, Thrissur

Finding an old friend has always been very elating but not in this case. She was my high school classmate, a very close acquaintance. Her name, Manchu. I’ve known her since I was in my 7th grade. That was when I joined that school. We have not talked to each other since our 10th grade, for reasons I’ll explain later on. Finding her scrap in my Orkut profile was most unexpected. It was the usual ‘how are you, how’s life’ inquiry that anyone would first ask. And I replied in the almost formal way, answer to the point! Soon, it turned out that we were chatting almost on every weekend. I could not believe what I was into. The girl, with whom I hated talking, is my newest buddy! May be it was because I was lost and alone, and passing through, as I mentioned, my dull days. She turned out to be my good companion. In fact, she was the only one with whom I had good contact with among my old school mates. And I’m still figuring out how I got into this good contact! Cuz I once despised of her beyond limits and now, I found no reason to hate her.

In a few days we both had each others cell phone numbers and our communication became part of our daily routine. I still hated going to college but her company gave me a reason to be happy. Both of us had Airtel cellular connection and as everybody knows it was a time when Airtel gave its customers the best tariff plans. With cheap call charges and even cheaper SMS rates, calls lasted for hours in a stretch and messages were filling our inboxes!!! Moreover, she and I being hostellers favored our liberty. It was almost a secret affair between the two of us. No one at my hostel knew about our alliance in the beginning but soon my roommate, Jacob, seemed to sniff something odd. He was skeptical about my 24-7 mobile usage and incessant messaging. At times, he would ask me to whom I’m messaging so intently and I would say it was my college classmates. But one fine day, I made a mistake that drastically changed the way things were going on. I left my cell on the bed and went to take shower. Curious as he is(and my other friends who were in my room!), he took up my cell and to my misfortune, there was a new message in the inbox, and a pretty intimate one too! When I returned after my bath, there was a group of guys in my room. Finally the cat was out of the bag! It however did not stop me from communicating with her. I utilized every opportunity that I got to ring her up or message her.

In no time, our affair took an emotional twist, an even more intimate one. We talked about everything. We got to know each other better, our problems, aspirations and desires. I found myself at a point where I could not pass a day without talking to her.

I remember how we used to back in school days. I never wanted to talk to her. Even seeing her face would make me upset the whole day. I first met her in my 7th grade. I had not much talked to her that year, cuz I was new to the school. But towards the end of 8th grade, we were best friends. We would sit next to each other, share our lunch, we did everything together. But it did not last for much long. My attitude towards her changed. She would make blank calls (ring up and keep mum when somebody attends the call, and stay silent until the receiver hangs up the phone) repeatedly to my home phone. Its so irritating (to someone who had really experienced it!). She’d start her play as soon as she reaches home after school. I guess that’s when her parents go for the evening mass. One evening, she called the usual way and I attended the call. To my misfortune, my elder brother was on the extension line and he kind of overheard our conversation. He got the name of the girl, and well, that evening I had a question hour in the family room. Even my grandma joined in the conference and… aargh…you know how it feels to be advised by an elderly (or in this case, an olderly!!). Tired of her play, I approached her a couple of times and asked her to stop fooling around, but she’d never stop. I was looked upon by my family through eyes of suspicion in everything I did, especially if it had anything at all to do with the opposite sex. Apparently I had no choice but be rude to her and I did what anybody else would do for that matter- break the relation, be silent. The pretty good friendship that we had was no more. The next year, the students were shuffled and we both ended up in two different classes. I was relieved by it, literally.

Two years passed by without any involvement of either of us in the other’s affairs. After our 10th grade, unfortunately, or fortunately (for her), both of us took up the engineering stream and once again, we ended up in the same class (its true, history repeats itself, you like it or not!). This is the time when new gals and guys hit the town. The state’s best Entrance Coaching Centre (PC Thomas’ Institute, Thrissur. I think it still is the best!!) being at close proximity to our school attracted students from different cities of Kerala. First day in the 11th grade was one hell of a day! Man, I must mention- city girls are different!! Newbies arrived and my eyes fell on a girl from Cochin. Her name, lets say Ms. S. She was cute, dazzling and attractive- a city girl indeed! I got to know more about her and soon we were good friends. This apparently did not impress Manchu. She made friends with S and would try to intercept every conversation we had (maybe, in a way to get back to me- you know, reconcile). Soon both of them were seen together almost all the time and I had no chance to talk with S in person. My friendship with S did not end there but Manchu’s presence made me uncomfortable. I did not talk to her or S very much after that, in fact I did not feel like.

Days and months passed by and unexpectedly I found Manchu online, as I said on Orkut. We talked about our past and she apologized for what she’d done back in school days. But now, I could not consider it all anything more than fun. I look back and feel “why did I even make a big deal out of it?”. She was still trying to get back to me. But the only difference this time was that, there was no ‘resistance’ – from my part. Was I falling in love? Well, frankly I didn’t know. But all I knew was that I no longer hated her. My day would be made if she just rang me up. It was like everything was flipping around and running in the wrong direction, but I loved the change. We continued our companionship for a couple of months and in the August of that year-2007; we decided to limit our correspondence- for the good of both of us (yeah… you guessed that right too..!).

But as always, its not easy to break up a relation in just a jiffy. It takes time. And it did. Both of us rang up each other a couple of times after that. The relation soon came to an end in a few months.

And today afternoon, after months of communication with her, I got a message from her cell number and I thought there could be no other finer day to end this post…This is what she wrote:

"Anup, I think I need to stop all correspondence with you as we can never remain friends. And that’s why I started avoiding you recently… Just wanted to let you know…"