I too had a love story: First Blood

High school and college is the spring time of human life. It is the time when young green minds are fertile with imaginations. Flowers are waiting to bloom in every young heart. Martian and Venetian Kids who stayed within their own tribes begin to appreciate the good qualities of the members of the other planet. Lot of film makers have cashed in by setting their stories in this time. Still college love stories with fresh young stars continue to be a sure shot recipe for success. The new class of Indian writers are also following suit and entering the fray. Can bloggers be far behind? After the spectacular success of my bride hunts series, this seems to be the obvious next step for me, right?

But then unfortunately during my high school, the intricacies of the concepts of physics took precedence over those of feminine features. I was keener to master the workings of the laws of external nature rather than letting the laws of internal nature assert their mastery over me. This resulted in me securing admission to one of India’s premier educational institutions. But Venus remained a dark and distant planet. However it is never too late. College still remained.

By the time I entered college, the fascination with laws of the earth had also relinquished their hold on me. But the moment earth let go, the heavens latched on to me with a vice like grip. While I was contemplating the purpose of life, many of my batch mates would have probably got the opportunity to appreciate the ironies of life. For the prettiest girl in my batch was my lab mate for the entire four years and I was too lost in my philosophical musings to even take cognizance of the fact. The girl in question herself was so frustrated with my singular lack of attention that she asked me if she should speak to the professor and get lab partners changed. While it is a well known fact that women do resent too much unwarranted attention from men, I discovered that complete lack of it also is not too well appreciated. I guess it does hurt a woman’s ego if a man behaved as if she were just another piece of uninteresting lab equipment.

People imagine Cupid to be a cute little cherubic kid with wings and angelic face. But his physical form belies the tenacity of a blood hound in hot pursuit of its prey. When I joined a leading IT company after my education, I had no inkling of the fact that I had become Cupid’s quarry. So I was not at all prepared for what hit me during the business presentation session that was part of the initial 4 months training. One of the instructions given by the instructor was to try to maintain eye contact with the entire audience. As I was making my presentation, my eyes scanned across the room from one eye to the next religiously following the instructions. And then suddenly they stopped at one pair of eyes. A pair of dark eyes towards which every word uttered by me were being drawn like iron filings towards a magnet. I felt a kind of light pleasant feeling as my eyes lingered on for a while and moved on. But though I was experiencing something like this for the first time, probably others have had these moments more often. And it usually just passes off after a couple of days or at most a week the first time I guess. But Cupid having tasted blood was not going to let go of me so lightly.

As luck would have it, she was assigned to the same group as me for the ‘C’ group work. As I already knew ‘C’, I was nominated the leader and I did a pretty good job. She clearly showed admiration for my technical skills and leadership abilities. This was getting to my head and I began to increasingly get the light pleasant feeling when I was around her. By now I had begun to recognize something was wrong. The light feeling was becoming addictive and she had begun to monopolize my thoughts. In some ways I found this crazy as I had never believed in the concept of love and even if there was some such feeling, I had considered myself above this kind of feelings.

Say you have been asked to cross a canal. It seems like a simple task. By the time you prepare yourself, the canal is widened, water is filled in the canal, crocodiles are released in the water and an elephant is tied to your back and then you are asked to cross it. That’s how this situation seemed to be heading. While I was struggling to sort out my feelings for her, competition had sprung up. There was this smooth operator who seemed to have a way with all women. I had begun to increasingly see her in his company. Then there was this fellow from her own college, who seemed pretty close to her. Nothing makes you want a thing badly like the fear of losing it. With the emergence of competition, all analysis and rational thoughts were thrown to wind. It was now full blown war and I had to rise to the challenge. I had to do all I could to impress her. One immediate change was I found myself suddenly paying more attention to my attire and grooming. I also discovered a hidden talent – the ability to crack poor jokes.

At times I felt all this was foolish and I was behaving like a jack ass. My close friends also had begun to notice the change. But I could not help it. For the next course group work, she landed up in a different group and Mr. Casanova was with her. I used to find it irritating everyday seeing them go together for lunch. Things were no longer pleasant. I found myself in a nasty mood most of the time. I had begun to lose interest in work. I wanted to just get rid of the feeling and be normal. But the feeling would never go. I was fully at the mercy of my mood swings. My friends suggested tobacco and alcohol could help. They did seem to have some effect. But the nasty feelings kept returning when the effects of alcohol and tobacco wore out.

Things just went crazier and crazier day by day. I had confided in my closest friends. They had initially tried to dissuade me pointing out that the girl was no match for me and pointing out all the flaws in her. She clearly had no strong interests or talents. She was just a simple girl who liked to watch movies and listen to songs, hang out with friends and shop. She generally chose to preserve her words. Generally of course it would be assumed that anything that is preserved would be valuable. But the few words that she did say, hardly displayed any evidence of possible value.  She was clearly no beauty queen either. Then they asked me what my intentions were towards her. But I had neither answer for any questions nor use for any logic. Logic goes only so far. Sometimes life reaches a point where everything breaks down to mere basics – the duality of pain and pleasure. One gentleman called Pavlov had done some interesting experiments with dogs to see how simple simulation of pain and pleasure can condition behavioral patterns. At that point I was no better than Pavlov’s dog. I relished every moment I spent with her. Time competition spent with her hurt. So life was reduced to two simple rules. Rule 1: Increase time I spent with her. Rule 2: Reduce the time competition spent with her as long as it did not contradict with Rule 1. Everything else was subordinate and anything I did beyond basic survival should only lead to enforce the two basic rules of life. I wonder if this state to which a man can be reduced is a result of original sin for I had done nothing to deserve this as far as I knew.

This post has hit 1300 words now. And from experience I know no one reads more than 1500 words at a time. And still there is lot of ground to cover – how my friends helped me enforce my rules of life, further complications that arose and the final resolution of the conflict. I guess it is no suspense that the situation was resolved as otherwise there would have been any Great Indian Bride Hunt. But all that deserves one more post.

Next Part :  I too had a Love Story: Moving On