Her-Motherland Dairy II

When I first heard she was coming to my city, I didn’t care much. Why would I care? She was no one for me. I was busy playing hand brick game as Nimesh and Saroj were talking about her. I had to win Subash. He was showing off, I had to win. I was fully focused on winning and nothing else. “she has a brother too, dad, mom, whole family are shifting here. Really sweet and lovely girl. She lights the room with her smile. Where ever she goes she spreads happiness for sure”, Nimesh was saying. And I got shot. Ten points less to break subash’s record. He snatched the game and started playing. My rage was rising and my ego was boiling as hot lava. “I don’t have any idea why they are moving here”, Saroj was saying, “maybe her dad is being transferred by his office. But its good to have them here”. They were talking about her new house. It was Ashim’s house, maybe Ashim’s dad sold it out. I had gone there before, I acknowledged that by heart. “she will be in your class”, Nimesh said to me. I was in 4^th grade at that time. Nimesh was senior than us, about 4 years senior. He was a genius. Everyone said so. He scored good marks in studies. He with Subash was so much innovative. They used to make nuts gun, bamboo bicycle and many other items. This used to fascinate me. That’s why I used to be with them. I was a small, lean and thin boy. Very quite, people didn’t used to realize I was there. There are lots of instances of that. When I heard Nimesh saying that to me infront of everyone, I blushed. I was really a shy boy, I must say, I used to blush anywhere if in any topic I was the one being talked about. Subash was shot. He was devil smiling. He had set a new record, he was sure unbeatable. But I was not among the quitter. It was late already so we left that day. I practiced whole night.

Next day, after school when I went to Nimesh’s house with Subash, there was a different environment. There were quite a many people than usual, bags and suitcases, and new faces. There was a little girl, quite taller but skinny, yes of course very beautiful. She was sitting next to a little boy, probably her brother, and chattering. She was talking and talking. She was conversing with around 10 people present there at the same time, answering everyone’s question. She and her brother made fun of their previous school’s name around 20 times in that 10 minutes. I realized this was the girl they were talking about yesterday. The smile of light girl. She really had that beautiful smile but the room was lighted by electric bulb! Suddenly I was thrilled and I blushed when Nimesh introduced me to her. She looked towards me and smiled, I didn’t move or speak. After a pause she continued her babbling again. She was supposed to come to my class. I thought of the class  and I knew she is going to have a really good friendship with Vawana. They had a common trait, chattering trait. Vawana was renowned for chattering. She even had got a nickname, I am not going to disclose and get killed. And as I thought among 22 girls in the class she became friend, bench partner, besty with Vawana.

They were right. She really was a smiley, always happy, spreading happiness type girl. I remember those days, being kids, happy good days, we had our own fun things to do, absolutely unexplainable. We used to sing in the class, whole class, at one rhythm, poems of Nepali and English literature books, we all were so innocent and so much united. I with Sanad and don’t remember who, used to sit in the first bench. Behind that she used to sit with Vawana and Sushmita. I was always a first bencher. Initially because I was a small kid and later I liked it sitting in the first bench. Sanad was my best friend. We used to fight 24*7. Let me quote an interesting instance of our fight. One we had a fight with Sanad during Health lecture. The teacher was already uncomfortable as he was teaching female reproductive organs and above that we irritated him. He became fierce and threw us out of the classroom. He asked us to go straight to the Principal’s office. That was the most scary thing in the world to do. So we hid in the toilet that whole lecture. Vawana used to get very irritated by our fight. She used to hit us both. We couldn’t fight back, we didn’t want to die that young. But she was our rescuer. At the beginning though. Later she too joined Vawana in exploiting us. Sushmita was a quite child. Shy, just blushed and smiled on everything. Our houses were near. Vawana, Sushmita, Niraj, Subash and her house was with in neighborhood. There was a large open area where we all kids used to gather and play. We had various fun games. She was always on my side. Maybe because I always won! I used to run real fast, outnumbering everyone. She didn’t allow anyone other than her in my team. Though I talked very less with her in school or home or anywhere, we had grew being the best of friends metaphorically. I felt that. No! I didn’t have any crush on her. I had crush on every other girl than her. But I loved her as my kin. She was really gorgeous and her smile was the most beautiful in the world. Whenever she used to smile I remembered the day when I first heard about her and remember my imagination trying to picture her smiling. I used to write songs for her to sing in the class. She used to correct the lyrics and I used to embarrassed in my every mistakes, but I loved it when she corrected them.

Every new year we had a tradition of gifting new year cards with special message to our friends. Niraj and I used to go to the card shop early in the morning and buy cards. We used to first gift each other. Then we used to send it to other friends. These cards had poems, almost same poem in every card. But that year I had one special card with a special message:

“Tarjeta Hermosa a la chica mas bella del mundo

Quiero tu sonrisa nunca se desvanece

Podra este Nuevo ano trae toda la felicidad purati

Gracias por ser mi amigo”

I never gave her that card, please don’t ask why because I also don’t have any answer for that. Slowly time was slipping off our ground, we were growing along with the ages. The age of expressed love and relationships started. She was connected to different guys. I never really felt sinner. Things changed with time, we weren’t the same but my card was. It was just lying in the drawer, enveloped and addressed waiting for its dispatch. Then one day I heard she and her family were shifting elsewhere. She was going away. I felt heavy in my chest for no reason. I convinced myself, there’s no justification for feeling this way. It was a sin. I had to be rational and indifference to that situation. But it went opposite. Emotions got over me. I left everything aside and rushed to her with my little envelope. But it was late. She was gone forever.