The class broke into a murmur as she walked into ‘Class 5A’ along-side with Miss Diana, our English teacher, and stood on the classroom doorway, in her brilliantly dazzling new school uniform, with a red water bottle in her hand, curiously gazing at us.

I noticed her eyes. Big, black, deep eyes, as they met mine for the millionth of a second. Trust me, I skipped a beat. I could not tell you if I fell in love with her that moment I saw her, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember this first moment when I looked at her looking at me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish.

Back then I used to be that introverted, reserved, nerdy guy, the one with those black rimmed specs, who cared about nothing, except PC games and textbooks and treated everything else as a mere distraction, but this was different.

Those eyes pierced right through my soul and my true-self and transcended me to dimensions unknown to me before. They worm holed me to a whole new world, a world without bones and flesh, a world where there was light, and more light, lightning up your soul. Solving a piece of puzzle of life for you, taking you to whole new level of consciousness, where the physical barriers of human life are broken and everyone is one with everyone. I was one with her, for now a part of my soul belonged to her and I knew that, I couldn’t take it back, no matter how hard I try.

She was my ‘Juliet’.

However soon a not-so-unearthly voice brought me back to my senses.

“She is a new admission, and will sit in this class from today”, conveyed Miss Diana, in her typical Malayalam accent to the maths teacher Miss Seema, who still held the chalk in her hand close to the blackboard in order to quickly return back to the ‘operation on numbers’ that she was performing. She nodded.

“Give her a place to sit”, said Miss Seema and everyone literally seemed cursing their bench partners as to why don’t they just disappear, but I was in luck that day.

Prity, sat alone in front on my bench, with her side being vacant. After quickly scanning the class, she inched towards this vacant place.

2 meters…

1.5 meters..

1 meter.

0.5 meter

and there she sat RIGHT BEFORE ME.

The class disappointed as they were, had ‘Sorry, better luck next time.’ flashing in their heads and I was the winner of the day.

“kya naam hai tumhara?“, asked Prity.

“Sammriddhi“, she replied, and the guys within the audible range of her voice had themselves enlightened with that 10 letter combination which for me, was etched in my hard drive then and there.

Right in front of me she sat, with me still unable to get my eyes detached, observed her yellow hair band, holding up her lush pony tail, contrasting like a glowing sun in the foreground of black night of smooth strands her hair.

However soon, my chain of thought, was broken by Santosh, “Mast hai yaar” he said. His comment more or less summed up what every guy in that room was thinking. I turned back into my position, absorbing his piece of commentary, and now tried to concentrate on the sum our teacher was solving, but my overcharged brain had other plans to vent out the building ecstasy. I was known in the class for my one-liners. I tried to play cool. But after a few failed attempts, irritated, and not-so-impressed, she turned to me, “Shanti se nahi raha jaata?, taang adana jaruri hai?“. The students in my vicinity broke into laughter , but for me it was my first interaction with her.

Honestly, I don’t have clear vivid recollection of incidents for the rest of the day, but I can say this to you for sure that she was the center of my universe for that day, and for the days to come.

She changed me in more ways than one. I became more conscious about myself. I started to dress better. I styled my hair better. I studied harder than before in order to compete with other guys pursuing her and as a result also got a rank in the class quite unexpectedly.

Without doubt she was one of the most prettiest girl in the school, and almost every guy worth his salt, made every possible attempt to pursue her. The competition in the class itself was tough, guys with better looks than me, more outgoing, better academic performers, Heck! Did i even stand a chance? I don’t know. Truth be told, however I did not put any conscious effort trying to compete, for me all that mattered was seeing her in school everyday. Feeling her in my proximity, her voice, her laughter, her persona. Back then I was a happy man. Life was good.

But, as ‘Nothing lasts Forever’, so did it. She left the school next academic year, for reasons best known to her. It was quite an heartbreak, the school suddenly lost it’s charm for me. Had it not been for the newness of the reshuffling of students from other classes in class 6, it would have become all too boring for me.

I used to think about her a lot, those eyes especially, and my classmates knew this, and whenever the name “Sammriddhi” (Prosperity) :grinning: used to come up in chapters of Hindi, muffled giggles used to erupt and suddenly lot of pairs of eyes used to turn towards me. I didn’t see her or hear anything about her except the school she used to study in and the rumors of her having a boyfriend.

One fine day, after about 3 years she came to participate in a sports competition organised in our school, and then it all came back to me, but I didn’t have nerves to face her directly. So, I along with my other buddies, deployed a few girls of my class who knew her, with a camera to snap some pics of her. I still remember the “Yeah!” we gave in unison when those girls indicated a Thumbs up! Indicating the accomplishment of the mission. She still was deeply ingrained in my hard drive.

But slowly and gradually with the passage of time, life got us all busy, and I thought less and less about her. Sometimes, I used to see her at some random places, but now these sighting were nothing more than a vague reminder of my past days and somewhere between remembering her, and trying to forget her, I grew up.

---