the girl from the bus-stop

Day started with the normal routine. The alarm rang at 5.40 as usual, I got out of bed at 6.05,removed the curtains from the front window. The sun was out today. Birds chirping. Some clouds in the air. I went up to my bathroom, a bit taken aback by last night incident, brushed my teeth, searched for my underwear, went upstairs to fetch my towel, opened the terrace window to let the air in. I took my shower, changed in to college uniform, had my breakfast, removed the phone from charging, tossed my sketchbook in the bag and flinging it went downstairs. Unlocked gates and waited till it was 7.04 and started walking towards my bus-stop.

The day looked ordinary. I was following every task up my routine. There wasn’t anything distinctive about that day. By 7.07 I was there at the bus stop. The staircase of the building where I used to wait for my college bus as usual decorated with dog shit in all glory. I was standing, deprived a place to sit and relax, all grateful to these good ass-holic mongrels whose crap-cakes now stares at me in utter malevolence and tormenting manner like an old man, taunting me of my laziness and denying me a seat next to him in the community garden. So I stood, browsing through my Facebook updates, checking any e-mails, notifications, news feeds, voice mails  Whatsapp messages as per my schedule.

I noticed Nitin, my junior from Computer Science department was late today. He would reach the stop by 7.14 around but I couldn’t see any sign of him by now.

7.15 exact as usual Aakriti showed up. I had somehow decided while on my way today to pass over more of a usual and close lipped smile to her and so I was keeping a keen eyes down the road she walked everyday. I could see her walking towards me from a distance. He looked elegant as usual. Aakriti ,first year Electronic Communication student at an engineering college(P.S. college name omitted due to various concerns). Hails from a small town of Ratlam. Convent educated most probably. And all this information, willingly and gleefully  passed over to me by Dhairya, my friend from her college who despite having a girlfriend fancied her.

She was a pretty girl. Beautiful enough to catch your thoughts if ever you happened to cross her way. She had a radiant and fair skin just like Aakanksha Ma’am used to have during my first year at college. She wore a neatly done and perfectly combed long pony-tail. Walked gracefully and both the straps of her college bag tightened at similar lengths surprisingly. She used to catch her bus from the opposite side of road where I was standing. And just like everyday as she crossed the road I just couldn’t stop myself from staring in her direction.

She took her place opposite to me on the other side of road. Our eyes met. She smiled. I smiled back. Enough to make my day perfect.

But then as all the goods things come with their own limitations so did she. While browsing through her profile I realised that this girl had a real bad taste in music, average taste in movies and the worse taste in daily-soaps in morally degraded great Indian television industry which was incessantly churning out shows which were equivalent to those torture techniques they use in mental asylums. Sometimes I feel that such television serials should be used a valid standard to compare utter stupidity and the lunacy. I am sure they  would have outdone itself every time if put to test. All these ripples had triggered a Tsunami of thoughts I my brain and I was trying to justify myself on the legitimate grounds that this can’t be real and existing. This moment. The idea of me approaching her, talking to her, asking her out. I knew she wasn't the kind of girl I want to end up with and still all this time I did nothing but build a fictional truth around myself about this girl, giving myself false hopes about her likes and dislikes judging merely by her appearance and then finding myself exhausted in frustration and more agony from this damned and morsel reality, no matter how ridiculous it may sound and appear.

And so did began another thought process. There was this particular term I came across while going through my Facebook feeds few days back, that it would have never fit so aptly and precisely at my situation, the one I was experiencing this minute. “Sexual Atheist “. I had to say, all these days I was looking myself more as an middle aged man, exhausted of his hormones, shagging off my youth and flushing down my fantasies and energy from last night porn down the toilet. Someone who now readily believed he isn’t going to get laid anytime sooner.

I was 22 by now and since my break-up from Himisha, 3 years back I never ended in another relationship. I thought I could carry with this life till I get out in the real world, get a real job and some real hot-stuff to hit upon. But the only relationship I ended up with was my laptop, my 6-strings and me. I looked at this threesome as a perfect equation but you can’t just keep fucking your guitar for long. Along this time it gave up one day, as the strings came loose in my hands and a brutally fucked up amplifier port. And now I was thinking for how long my laptop would keep up with this affliction and cruelty I had inflicted over it.

 Living with Preksha came with her own set of distress and aggravation. Kind of which I find painful and annoying to even think about. I was more than just glad when I ended a month long relationship with her.

3 years of pure drought. I said to myself of what the hell I was doing with my life. When the people around me are getting into relationships, some of them even serious and some even considering absurd ideas of getting married I was here, staring at my  laptop’s screen, writing junk, scribbling in my notebook, painting the toilet walls at college with piss, devising new and more evil plots for my pranks, spraying the management’s private transports and eating indiscriminately all the junk from Mc.Donalds  and Subway oblivious of the fact of how much fat I had accumulated on my tummy.

Talking about Aakriti I sometimes felt like sharing about this girl with Nitin. I wouldn’t be letting him know about my feelings about her, but make him into believing that this girl from the other side of the road often checks her out, holding random sweeps from corner of her eyes over him and while hitting this note I’d be pouring my entire knowledge about this damsel to him. I somehow decided to withdraw this idea anyways.

And today again as she walked past me I had decided to put aside my sanity at bay for a moment and talk to her when a voice collided with my ear canal with such generosity and respect but or the first time I felt it interrupting in my personal space. Never before a simple “Good Morning” by Nitin, standing behind me, smiling  had caused such a anguish and disturbance. I turned around, and said to myself, “Nice timing, dude. There goes my another chance.”

    By now I knew this was just a usual thing. Today it was her and then maybe some other day it would be another bus-stop and some one else. Life is strange.