Their Story: Episode 5

Well, yeah, ogling is just like masturbating; there is nothing wrong in it, and yet there is this social stigma attached with it, which makes it a taboo. Of course, you have eyes and hence, every right to ogle at the lady passing by, but then you put at stake the only thing based on which you are labeled as a decent guy by the “pados waali chaachiji”. Prashant was branded the most decent guy amongst his friends, by their mothers, and he was too concerned to let this image be soiled. His photo chromic glasses were an effective shield against all those ogling allegations, while he got his share of the pie. Now to bring to your notice, this is not just a boy-talk, and I have a reliable source’s (remember, my medical friend, who happens to be a girl) opinion on this matter as well, which definitely finds no fault in this activity. Guys don’t complain (as they find no fault in it), though, and it’s the ‘lecher’ (the male one) who bears the brunt of the irksome and fussy ladies. I will have to ask Karuna about her opinion on this matter. Mind you, the butterflies (read moths) in Prashant’s stomach are too dull to let him talk to her.

The class magazine congregation was largely a group of buffer guests that Amandeep had arranged for Prashant’s party. All tried to be too busy with their apprenticeship, making Prashant appear the boss and the only one with some gray matter in that bunch. Karuna was strikingly sharp in her ability to be fooled by such antics and never had a whiff of the actual situation. Admitted she was a decent painter, but the magazine needed someone who could sketch well, and Amandeep’s volatile temper had to pass a test tougher than the one (his thoughts) he had been preparing for those two years. You don’t want to take mauling at the hands of some furious “Romeo”, and so you don’t want to hurt his “Juliet to be”, under his watchful scrutiny. Sometimes the core group tried not to focus on her scribbles, but they had only one able Hindi editor in themselves and they did not want to lose him. The result was a compromise with every third sketch being Karuna’s. Amarjeet, the one with the dirtiest of glass slabs as his eyes, or as Karuna called it, an old, broken paperweight, was quick to see the outcome, and had cleverly proposed a reduced number of sketches for the whole magazine. Prashant had no qualms about any of their ploys, as long as he got to see Karuna.

That day, referred to as the present day in the previous episode, was apparently, a nice one for Karuna. She had no Biology lecture and A.J had caught some kind of flu. It transformed into some kind of a vacation, the urban dictionary might as well call it a flucation, both in the school and the tuitions. She was excited about going out with her family to the newly arranged amusement park in the city, and strictly for children, for some bit of “shopping” and wanted an early leave from the magazine work. Amandeep was fractured and “Glass Slab” had far too many things to look after. The stand-in chief, Prashant was more than ready to oblige her with a break, and so she was allowed to leave early that day. “Glass Slab”, uncanny as he is, was quick to smell the mutiny cooking up in the ranks of his sepoys, and wrapped up everything early.

Was she that special for him, they wondered, when she does not even know his surname? Was she worth all the attention he showered on her? Or was it that usual gimmick to make her aware of his feelings for her? I would definitely go for the third one, and I bet I am making the right choice, having spent 16 years with him. They thought it was a genuine liking on his part; he thought she was all he could have desired in the woman of his dreams.

When Karuna was coming towards him, he felt restrained from kissing her cheeks. Oh, what cheeks! He was trying not to lay his gaze on her and was trying to act “man-ly”. In fact, he was counting her steps, as she was approaching. You need something to focus your attention on, when you try not be noticed by her, all the while “ogling” at a girl, given you are a decent person. Prashant was rank decent; he had never passed any lecherous comment on any girl passing by, something he prided in the company of his friends. He had an impeccable record with the girls who knew him, and recently had garnered some popular support with his filled-with-courtship poetry. Karuna was his latest admirer, and no doubt, this phase of his writing career was the best one. Only a few know that he never actually wrote anything after that. The class magazine was a testimony to his skills, since a majority of articles in found their source in him, and only few thought it was his stand-in position that bore such fruits for him. Sour grapes, is my view.

At the count of thirty, and his head lost somewhere in the middle of those colours, he heard her voice. Whenever you ask him about that moment, a special one for him since he said something to her for the first time, he steps into his ugly, foul smelling Shakespearean shoes, and mind you it is not love that does it to him, but the zillion Hindi romantic movies he saw after that Karuna thing, which lends this hoarseness and pleonasm into his language. Ehh...ugly thing to do, for a decent guy like Prashant, and that too, for some girl like Karuna...I wouldn’t agree in seven lives. Whatever, she chirped in with a goodbye. Yeah, one would have reciprocated with the same; Karuna now-a-days prefers “wishes” instead of “goodbyes”. But the “man” that he is, Prashant stares at her, allows every syllable in her voice to settle nicely to the bottom of his “tympanum” (courtesy my medical friend), and then just when she turns back, amused at the blank black paint (read Prashant’s face), bumbles something about pleasure and duty, that same vapid dose of his Shakespearean quinine. Oh, Karuna, girl, you will be a woman soon! How could you not know, that he was nuts for you! Yeah, they said he is not your kind, but...

Down the aisle she walks, with the best of roses in her hand, and there waits her knight in shining armour (the only thing that shines in his otherwise, dry face is his teeth), and then follows that steaming kiss...yes, you are right my friends, this was the dream he was busy with, while she walked through the array of desks. And just when she had exited the room, a caps lock voice called out her name. Prashant was finally a man now!

“Karuna...”