I had to visit the Temple of Balaji. Well my prayers got answered, and I need to show Him gratitude for showering his mercy upon me. He has been always with me; when I look back in the past I just know He was always there with me, carrying me when I needed his help. Well, to be frank I was very happy that my prayers got answered and I got what I wanted.
I had to climb seven auspicious hills in order to reach the Temple of Balaji because of my votive. And . . . I had to climb for three times. I was overwhelmed with the happiness for the wish I was granted by God. I was on top of Rainbow, flying and reaching the outermost atmosphere of the earth. I could not come down to earth. It was so incredible, and unexpected. I almost lost hope, and was in despair, worse is that I gave up. I prepared myself to face the negative outcome of it. I even imagined the worse, I put myself to unlimited bad situations that would hurt me in ‘n’ number of times for my life time.
Sometimes I thought my life is ended. Well when you are young you always think that this is the end, that’s it, for every bad situation you encounter. I thought, it’s finished - done, it’s done. But, God had a very different plans for me. He is great, whatever He does, does it for a reason. In the phase of the sadness, all I had to do is wait, wait for Him to take control. But blind faith sometimes do not shower a much of influence on you. It just does not hold the steam to push you from not to act for another option. You tend to take the faith light. And see ya, I too took the faith light. Well, it was like a hell, that I had to live for the couple of months. I survived it.
I survived the living hell, and then came up with flying colors and smiles. The way lotus blossoms in the dirt. Well, it was very adventures journey which I was set on to with my friend. We for the first time travelling without a male escort. The Journey to Tirupathi begins here . . .
We are the gang of three; I am the saint in the gang it does not mean that I did not do any fun stuff. Oh! You would not believe I once went to my friends home from the back yard jumping the wall to save my friend. I would say two others are monkeys. I enjoyed a lot with those monkeys in my schooling and collage days. They are my childhood friends. We three are so much close, and attached to each other. Nothing mattered to us. We are from totally three different back ground families as well as economical status. Nonetheless, we were, are and shall be friends forever.
Friends never say good bye . . .
None of the monkeys were with me that time, it’s the first journey that I ventured without them. And it was indeed very interesting. I remember the words that are whispered into my ears, so that’s all lady! Here comes my destination, I have to go to my home. So are you sure you are going safely? Or you want me to escort? I could give you company you see or ummmm . . . I replied, “well, thank you for your help. I appreciate that, I hope you will achieve what you are striving for. You will get that job, and it’ll be a permanent one. You will make your mom proud. You should be very proud of yourself. You made your parents very proud. I am so glad that I met a person like you. You are gentleman. And never ever be hard on yourself. Well, ya, we can go from here on. Thanks , good bye!” As I said this to him, he showed his consent with his face and then started to move towards the station’s gate. I would never forget the last glimpse of the stranger who was leaving the station. I watched him until he disappeared in the thin air. I had very strong impulse to stop the train and just go to him, and get his number. But . . . I did not do it.
Four hours earlier to this . . .
Sunitha and me are fighting with each other. She is pissed for not bringing the books she gave it to me a long back ago. And I was thinking what’s the big deal in that. I was not taking anything she was telling me, rather I would say yelling. She would calm down but I had to wait, I was just looking into the never ending moor. It was all sand, here and there some bushes. I thought we are in Rayalaseema. We are in Tadipatri crossed Kurnool. I looked at her for a second, she was still yelling. It did not concerned me, I started to look at moor again.
It prickled her, she grabbed me and shouted at me, “Parvu, I am scolding you, you understand me. I am totally mad at you for not bringing me the books which I gave you long back ago. I will not tolerate it.” I replied back, “Sun, my darling friend, just chill now. Calm yourself. Take a breath . . . ” She did not allow me to complete my sentence. She yelled, “Don’t shh me! I hate that, don’t ask me to calm down, you don’t know how angry I am now at this moment ”. I replied, “Yes baby, I do know. But why are you angry I do not understand that”.
“Why?” an outcry came out.
“Yes, yes I know I did not bring those books, so what? What’s the big deal? What could happen?” I replied with all my calmness. Her grip on my shoulder tightened and her teeth were grinding. She is almost ready to burst, volcano is ready to throw the hot lava out of its womb and burn the entire area around it into ashes. She protested, “What’s the big deal? Ha . . .” Her face was red hot. I said, “Yes what’s the big deal? What could happen in the worst of the case? You cannot read it, that’s all. And you would be rather sharing your feelings with me, instead of digging yourself into that stupid book. Tell me do you hate to share your feelings with me?”
“No.” an instantaneous gripe came out of her. “Wo! Good, then let me know what are you feeling about Kamal. Are you both talking?” Sunitha after one and half an hour came out of her voracious mood to state of peace in an instance. Her eyes started to sparkle, a imperishable smile flashed on her face, and the aura all around her was glowing with all the positive energy. We talked almost for an hour. Kamal made her feel so special. I know that, but she did not. Kamal and Sunitha are my collage mates they are not from Engineering they are from Arts. They have this passion on their subject, specially Kamal is very talented. He even teaches Sunitha for two hours every day. Well, Kamal was not at all interested in Sunitha, he was interested only in his Credit’s and Debit’s. All he knows is finance. He can make lot of balance sheets no matter how complicated the business intra finance structure is and no matter how many variables, both scalar and vector are present.
Accounting was his first love. He is handsome as well, he had a puff that flows in the air every time he tilted his face. He is fair with trimmed moustache and beard. His face had a smidgen of recklessness. Of course he is very reckless when it comes to his own grooming. He never wanted to attract girls, and never had an intention to be center of attraction. He is a simple guy. Every girl in my college used to like him, in fact loved him. There were many girls who even stalked him. Some girls even blackmailed. Another guy in his place enjoyed all this, multiple girls, udippa! But he is not an another guy. He is a gentleman. His mom taught him culture very well. She made a boy with strong sense of character. He simply rejected each and every girl who proposed him gently and excused himself. He never even goes to canteen if there are more than two girls in a group.
All girls at least once got attracted to his physical beauty, besides his mental beauty is more mesmerizing. He was total spell. Every girl wants a husband like him. There are many secret admires of him. But he cared none. All a girl wants is not a beautiful face, but a beautiful heart. Kamal had both, it’s my friends good luck. He also used to sing, and play guitar. And whenever he plays in the canteen . . . Sunitha used to jump ahead and then sit in front of him. Never disrespected his tunes. She enjoyed more than any girl in the collage. And Kamal somehow knows that.
Kamal is a bit of shy guy. He is a rare diamond that mother nature creates once in a century. He is very honest, faithful, obedient, studious and loveable boy in the whole college. His mother tongue is Telugu, nonetheless he is weak in Telugu. Reads as if he is citizen of English country and just now arrived from USA to India. With his all English accent mingling into his Telugu words, God! Sunitha used to love that. But to me, it annoys a lot. And when he used to write in Telugu, it got converted to filthy and disgusting words. Telugu teacher, Uma Sharma, got so frustrated at his papers that she stroked all of his answers and then gave him a very big egg. Mrs. Sharma even exiled him from Telugu community. She claims, “Kamal is a blot on Telugu language.” Hmmm! This is the only weakness he ever had.
Sunitha on another had is a average looking girl, but she is very simple and down to earth person. She is cow when not angry, once she gets angry she is a monster. She could eat you alive in that temper. She is very talkative. And very hard to endure her. It is me who bares her, but any other girl in the college just gave up on her. Some of them are mad, some of them hate her, some of them are jealous of her attitude. She gets away with everything that is what these girls are so mad at. She is fun loving girl. When we go to a theater, she jumps out of the seat and starts to whistle and then dance. If it is Mahesh! That’s all, she would never let anyone watch. First day first show. No matter what I say, she always made me to watch movie with her. I once had to leave my quarterly exam for the movie ‘Athadu’. Latter God knows how I had to persuade my Physics professor to forgive me for that. Mr. Muniraj is not a very forgiving person. He is very much like a Hitler. We all hated him, including me. Sunitha used to curse him. No she does not know him, in fact there is no way that she knows him. She just wanted to make me happy.
Well, Sunitha love story started a long back ago. It was me who understood that she is in love with Kamal. It always happens that, people realize that they are in love with others only when they get to live without the other person. This is not the case all the time, but mostly this is the strong reason for a girl or boy to realize that they are in love. The same happened to Sunitha, first year she was so fine, symptoms of lovearia started showing when she had to go to her native place on vacation. Daily she calls me but then shouts at me too. Used to get frustrated for everything. She was totally intolerable, at some point I concluded she became mad. Since she is my the best friend, I had to bare her. It became impossible for me to stand her even a second. I used to avoid her calls, ignored her mails, totally expunged her for complete two days. I needed a break from this mini devil.
All of a sudden it got to me, that she is neither seeing Kamal nor talking to Kamal since 10 days. Hurraca, kassa missa! All I could say was those three words. My mom got petrified. She started to scold me, normal slokhas . . . I called her back, the first dialogue she said, “Are you alive? I thought you are dead. Why aren’t you picking up my calls or writing to me?” she is literally shouting at her maximum pitch. “Bradra kali! Will not spare me for this 20 mintues.” I thought I kept my phone on the table for almost 20 minutes, then picked it up and started to talk.
“Done?”
“Yes.” I said, “Listen, I am going to Kamal’s home now, got any message for him?” There was a silence, as anticipated. As if someone took over her body, she became instantly calm and very patient. Her anxiety came down, and I could feel my words were soothing her. As soon as she heard Kamal’s name she became relaxed. This is what she wanted to hear all these days. I continued, “Will go to Kamal’s home, you got any message for him?” “No, I don’t but why are you going, Parvu?” “I am learning Guitar, so . . . he promised to teach me in the vacations.” I lied. “When?” it was so instant. “I asked him during quarterly.” “Oh! I see. Good, learn. Say him hi, that’s it. Call me in the evening once you are done with your classes.” I knew she wanted to hear about Kamal, she is not interested in me, or my Guitar classes, she wanna know how is he. I went to his home that day. His home is very simple. I rang the house bell, he opened the door. He was startled to see me. Of course he was not expecting me. “Parvu, you here? It’s shocking. What a surprise!” He exclaimed. He forgot to invite me in. I forced myself inside. Sat on the chair and said, “Kams! please sit.”
He sat, he was so embarrassed. He is shy guy and the history we had, perhaps he forgot I thought. No one was in the home, “where is anut?” I asked. She went to work. You alone in home? He said, “yes”. He was not comfortable, he is never comfortable with any girl. I could see the discomfort in him. I continued, “You promised to teach me Guitar classes, I came for that.” “Me! When did I say that?” “During quarterly.” I was quick, he was so confused. “You must have forgotten Kams.” “But . . . I am preparing for my foreign languages exam. I got no time. I might have forgotten, sorry but I need to prepare for exams.” “That’s blunt.” “I am not gonna take no for answer, you will teach me. And let’s start.” I started to head towards his Guitar. “Get out.” All he could say was that. Straight to the point. I stared at him for two minutes. I engulfed my anger just for my friend. “I hate this guy, I don’t know what she sees in him. He is a total crap.” I thought. Before I could leave, what choice I was left other than that? Shruthi came inside, “Hi Parvu. How are you? You here at this time? Very good to see you. You are going to eat my upma. I prepared it and my brother says it’s tasty.” I ignored Kams words, and choose to go with Shruthi into kitchen room.
Shruthi is sister of Kams. She is very lovely and bubbly girl. She is a cow. She is very weak in studies. She thinks, studies are not meant for her. She wants to be a good house wife. She cooks so well, it’s like she is born with this boon. Whenever I came to Kams home, she prepares something or another and serves me. I am the greatest fan of her. After having Upma we sat and started talking, and Kams was sitting exactly opposite to us. Staring at me, if he could he would have ate me alive. “Now tell me, Parvu, why are you here?” without any hesitation I said, “Your brother promised to teach me Guitar so I came. I need to take lessons from him.” “Wow!” Before Kams could say anything Shruthi exclaimed. “Brother, please teach her and make her perfect. I want her to be perfect like her, you have to teach her. I don’t like it but I know she will be playing it very well.” “Shruthi, I cannot I got exams.” “You have to and that’s all or else I won’t talk to you.” Shruthi insisted. Kams loves her sister a lot, he will never make her unhappy.
Kams had no choice but to teach me. He was so mad at me, but who cares. I don’t, we started to play. After 20 minutes, Shruthi felt bored, she left us alone. He did not notice that. He was a good teacher, if his students are disciplined he would take lot of pain to give the education they were seeking. He forgot he is mad at me. I was so relieved. I had to befriend him forgetting the differences we had before. We had an history. Bad history, which I never got a chance to clarify. He is still in that misunderstanding. And I don’t care what he thinks of me. Why the hell would that bother me? So did not try to even clarify it. We did not realize that it’s 2 0 clock in the afternoon. Four hours, if it was not Shruthi we would have continued like this for two more hours. Guitar is nice, it takes all of your negative energy and fills you with positivity. Kams said, “You are this good, I never knew that, I thought you are just a spoiled girl. You got this dedication, it impressed me.” He seems to be honest, he in actual is impressed at me. And he is genuinely surprised a lot. Well, what we had is not true, what he thinks of me is also a lie, of course as of now he is seeing actual me, he has to be surprised. I smiled. I don’t wanna remove his wrong thoughts, misunderstandings, on me. Why the hell would I do that?
We had lunch all three together, and latter, we again started to practice. I was practicing Guitar, and he was preparing for his finals, and Shruthi was sleeping in her room. After three and half an hour’s I left Kams home. It was so different for first time he was good to me. I never knew he could be kind towards a girl. His motto was not to trust any girl. Yep, he does not even have a friend who is girl except Shruthi. It seems I am becoming his friend. Good for Sunitha. I will surprise her, but not now.
to be continued . . .
