Chapter: 0 Meet Cute. This one is not a love story!

This one is a break from the ongoing series. Here I won't be talking about the girl but the person (who of course is a girl). Read on, you will see! The ongoing series about the girl no. 3 will resume shortly after this.

There is a certain prejudice attached to meeting people online. I am not here to address the taboo but to tell a tale that'd let you know how awesome it is to know someone nice whether online or offline.

Here's a little preface before I take you to the "meet cute"

Preface
I keep dropping this girl a line almost every day as you know I have this thing for wise eyes... and boy does she have a wise pair of eyes or what! It's not the kajal, not the eyeliner, I know wise eyes when I see them and she had got them! Ok... so I drop her lines and she replies. Mostly about the movies she likes, the books she reads. I do my homework on her, rent the movies, read the book reviews (reading the whole book is too much to ask for, frankly); listen to her favourite songs and we start talking. Now, things take the familiar course of direction. We become friends! It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I had to withdraw my fishing rod because I liked the fish to remain in the pond. Now that might be the worst metaphor to explain what happened but, yes, my attraction transformed into admiration and we became good friends.

Now, let's come to our first face to face meeting-

Meet Cute

I land in Bhopal. We plan a meet up and then things go awry. What can I say? It has happened to me before. But I am hopelessly in love with the city. So, I set out on foot to explore Bhopal and keep sharing my every little excitement with her through text messages. It turned out that each one of the umpteen messages I sent to her, delivered at least six times to her due to some network problem. I thought she'd have probably started hating me by then, but the very next day, she took time out to meet me. Brave girl I must say!

So, finally the text lands in my cell "I am leaving home, let's meet up at Chinar park". "Oh! Chinar park? That's like a few minutes walk from my place" I thought. Turns out that few minutes meant ten long minutes precisely; ten minutes which are almost long enough to lull a girl into believing that she has been stood up! Anyway, I walked, maybe a little slow because I didn't want to arrive all sweaty, smelly and panting on our first meet. It was a humid afternoon. I walked thinking of a cool opening line. "Wassup" sounds retarded, "Hi" is too stupid, "Hello" is lame. I finally finalized on "Jai Maharashtra". So, finally I reach the gates of the venue and I see a girl, with her back turned, sitting on her scooty. Mumbling "jai maharashtra" to myself, I proceed toward her. We all have our own faces, personalities and a peculiar air around us. To talk to someone for the first time, one has to break the ice first. Blame it on the heat of that sunny afternoon but, there was no ice! My "jai maharashtra" was now a tool that I didn't even need now. I used it anyway.

I walk up to her, she turns around and there she was! She extends a hand, and starts the conversation with the mention of a man who passed a comment on her a while ago. As expected from her, she is sporty about it. I struggle to see the wise eyes. They are there somewhere under the hair. I hand her the toon book I had made for her and she asks whether I use pencil first or directly draw on paper. I am forced to praise myself. Of course, directly with pens, I am awesome like that! As we walk across the park, make small talks, I am easily put to ease. She is someone before whom you can easily lower your guard because you know you are way out of harm's way. I hand her another gift that I had brought for her, but I really don't like hearing "thank you" so, I say you don't need to thank me because I made this one to impress the girl sitting beside me in the train. This was the time I realized I am turning into a compulsive liar. Anyway, the purpose was served, no thank-yous, you-are-so-sweets came my way!

The scorch in the sun drove us out of the park, we decide to go somewhere else and so we take off. She hands me the keys of her scooty. Before we take off, she turned into osama-bin-laden with that famous scarf/dupatta which turns prettiest of pretty lasses into terrorist-like things. But, I guess, it is the ultimate shield against invasion of female privacy and the strongest blocker of unsolicited male attention.

We reached Bitton market, I suggested CCD, as we were on our way, I did the deadliest mistake in the book. I looked at another girl, a pretty lass and said "God bless you" to my friend for bringing me there. Had it been a date, I deserved to be ditched right there but, as was reinforced, it was something a lot more natural than a date, everything was cool. I guess that's why you fall in love but always rise in friendship! We chose the same place from where I had seen the girl coming out, picked a place and sat with one of the most difficult-to-eat but delicious-to-taste delicacies. A mud pie. I am bad with food. I struggle while eating, the thought of someone looking at me when I have my mouth full wakes me up at nights! (Ok, that was a bit of exaggeration) But, here I was okay with pie crumbs ricocheting out of my plate because the other side of the table didn't show any lack of recklessness either! We both attacked the pie recklessly and found out the simple joy of it!

Wisdom makes life easy and as my mind predicted long ago, being with her was easy. On the road, an autorickshaw zoomed past us, spraying water from a pothole on us. I am used to loud shrieks and insane reactions on such instances; I prepared my heart for the mourning of the spoilage of the dress but, all I got was a momentary "eww" and back to normal! She is the last hope for mankind I thought to myself. My heart smiled.

Next on the list was a place up the hill from where the horizons of a large water reservoir were visible. Sounds serene, eh? Not quite in the scorching heat!! Anyway, Jack and Jill went up the hill. It was a small stroll, and a turn back. It was time for me to be dropped back from where I was picked up. All through our journey back, the thought that we might not meet for a very long time never crossed my mind... some people are so good that, your brain almost automatically switches to denial mode. I somehow thought I was gonna meet her again tomorrow and started hopping back to my place.

"Bye" she said with that hand extended again; that hand made me realize that the day was over! The sun was about to set but the sunshine didn't fade that day!

:-)

Hope to meet you again soon!