When I was 11, in 6th standard, something interesting happened. I sat in the first row on the left side in the middle of the class. Right side was girl’s row. It was not the beginning of the year. Somewhere may be half way into the year, as we were staring our English class, a girl walked in. She was beautiful. As she sat on the second row, the teacher introduced her to the class and moved on with teaching. Well, I do not know about others, but I somehow like the girl. Well like I said, she was beautiful. However, she somehow showed another side of her. She was very pleasant! Her beauty was not up her nose. It was in her smile, it was in her innocence and in her simplicity. As the day progressed, she talked with many of her girl friends. Somewhere during the recess, she talked to one of the boys. Well he was a reasonably handsome or at that age a cute boy! Then she turned around and asked my name. I announced my full name with first, middle, and last name. I could have said just my first name (that is what she called me from that point on), which would have been enough. But, I felt like that would not have been enough. She did not give much importance and went out to play (it was recess) and know more about her competitions. Strange as it may sound, from that point we talked almost every day. When I go back, I made it a point to visit her and we chat like we never parted. Mind you, she still is a chatter box. But, she was then and is now nice to me; an old friend indeed. The comfort between us was very unusual. We used to discuss weird topics. I guess she was curious as a girl and I was as a boy. Obviously, we just raised the questions, because neither of was old enough to have the answers. But, it was fun to be able to share your curiosity about boy-girl things without the fear of exploitation. She was extremely extrovert and I liked that in her. You see, when you are growing up, it is always a great thing to be able to converse with someone from opposite gender without any strings attached. Then, you do not see the world from your perspective only. She was one of my best friends, who happened to be a girl, and did not mind to meet me in the open (then) and chat away. Her father was a cool fellow. Her mother was very welcoming. I was so happy that, I never had to plan my trip to her house. Often I used to just walk in and we started a conversation about nothing (because I cannot remember much about what the heck we talked on). I guess, human nature is to share thoughts and feelings. We also want to feel each other out emotionally. Could we trust each other? Was it worth taking the risk to talk to someone from the opposite gender? It is a natural process. It is also enjoyable when it happens without any strings attached. That is why I have a lot of respect for her. She is as beautiful today as she was then. She has put a few extra pounds (not much), but as an old friend I never notice it. Recently, I started to enjoy her company even more as she felt more like that beautiful, overt, genuine girl-friend from the sixth standard. I hope she knows that I will never turn my back on her. Friend like her were rare as I was growing up. They are rare evn now. I am so glad that our path crossed.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 01:07:11 +0000