Two Sips Of Wine!

...Where it all started

NASHIK, MAHARASHTRA

'kya aap apka number de sakte ho? muze notes chahiy toa mai call karungi' , said Ananya at a test center of a competitive exam.

I was so thankful to mom-dad that day for buying me a Nokia 2600. It also happened to be the day when I ever shared my number with a girl. My 'all-boys school' and bookish profile had promised to keep me away from the female species of society until 10th std. However after seeing Ananya's cute smile and brown eyes at the test center- 'yaha mai pighal gaya' . In a rather shaky voice and with least confidence, I gave Ananya my number only to never call her for another month. Though I had already known Ananya from distance in my 10th coaching class, it was the first time I had a direct talk with her.

One day I had a surprise guest at the doors in my IIT class. The girl of my dream whom I thought will never see her again decided to take the same coaching class coincidentally. The Schrodinger's equations, periodic tables, calculus, and Newton's laws felt all exciting from that day. Reaching the class an hour before to reserve the seat beside Ananya became part of my daily routine. The small talks of sine and cos waves turned into long conversations of college rumors, likes and dislikes, favorite colors to favorite dishes. All of a sudden 'aap' turned into 'tu' and we were no more strangers to each other.

The class breaks and college hours became our daily dose of hangouts. It was a friendship day in our college that day and my friends crowded around the Adda where we both used to talk for hours. They had come to take me for friendship day celebration to our school post our completion of schooling.

'Aree tuze jana nahi hai? ja tu apne dosto ke sath!', said Ananya

'Naah, mai thak gaya hu ab itne dur nahi jana', the demon in me had woken up and I decided to lie so that I can stay with Ananya and talk for infinite number of hours. I made peace with myself by thinking- 'Well I am sure my teachers would understand if they too had fallen in love!'

...The development

Ananya was traveling to her hometown when she told me on phone- 'Mai abhi sirf, hum jo baatein karte the vahi soch rahi hu puree journey mai, tu bada accha hai, baki ladko ki tarah nahi hai'! You must have already concluded that Ananya was the braver of the two. When a girl says these words for the first time in your life, you are certain to fall in love with her and my heart did not disappoint me. We were not able to talk for a week during her visit to hometown. When we met again after her return to Nashik, our eyes told how much we missed each other just after a week's period. I started making efforts to learn her mother tongue and god South Indian languages have never been easy. She too tried to re-skill herself with Marathi language which was my home language.

The strength of love and the melodious violin music in the background inspired me to write poems for her. Ananya being 'Ananya' who already used to write articles and poems for Times, started replying to me with the rhyming verses. We could finally express our feelings for each other through these mighty tools of pen and paper. We often used to share these poems in the lectures and labs through a secret closet of books. After a period of time, meeting each other like a detective and communicating through our own sign language became our latest developments to avoid any publicity in the college.

'A revolution had happened in a true sense in me. A rather introvert person had changed into a talkative, extrovert guy all thanks to the one girl who had entered into my life'.

...Getting caught

The long hours of talks on phones, games of miss calls and hanging ups had never been that easy. Ananya managed it by speaking when there was no one at home or by creating her own vacuum bubble in the bedroom upstairs of her duplex flat. I did it through infras like terrace, parking, complex and malls. We had learnt to understand the awkward silence on phone when any of our parents were there beside us. The message packs, free calling schemes and coin boxes helped us remain in touch for 24 hours in a rather revenue constrained age of life.

One day I was studying in my room with my mobile and chats right next to me. I had lied at home that I need to leave early for my coaching class because of flattened tire of my cycle. The plan was all ready and it was conveyed to Ananya. But again Ananya being 'Ananya' kept texting me to leave early. One of those babies was read by my dad and that was my first bust of romantic life.

Indian parents are least bothered by the privacy of an 18-year-old boy. Any teenager is still a baby boy for his mom which allowed my mom too to clean my entire cupboard without any restricted access to my secrets. This allowed mom to see my books where I was learning a South Indian language and some poems given by Ananya. Though I decided to act cool about it, I knew I was busted for the second time in my life.

I often used to visit Ananya when there was no one at her house. One day I was sitting on her couch eating hot samosas made by her for me and chocolates which tasted much more sweeter than usual. That's when she received a call that her mom is there at doorsteps. The unplanned return of her mom had left us in turmoil. We had to make an excuse for studying together though I am sure it's difficult to hope that our experienced parents could really buy those excuses.

...The hard part

As days past our schedules became very busy. Ananya had already left my IIT coaching class and joined another class to prepare only for CET state entrance exam. This had led to a reduction in our meetings. The studies pressure did not allow us to speak for long hours like before. Fewer conversations and talks were only contributing to ever-increasing jealousy, obsessions, and misunderstandings.

'Mai tere ghar aa raha hu aj',

'Nahi mat aa, mai bahar ja rahi hu', said Ananya.

'tuze to ab nayi dost mil gayi rehgi, tuze kya jarurat hai meri' , said Ananya.

'Yar ye bat nahi hai, tu aisa kyu keh rahi hai'

'tuze sirf muze he time nai dena rehta, baki sabko de sakti hai'

'ha muze nai dena tuze time', said Ananya.

The immaturity in us had started showing up and the pressure of IIT and entrance exams was only making it worse. Slowly the fights grew like no other time and it was visible that the end is near. One day she said the words no one will like to hear, 'Yar ab mat karte ja call, nai ho raha'! Though this was never written in my script, Ananya had some different version of the same script. The two years had taught me a new lesson, a lesson of my fist down in the 'ups and downs' chapter of life.

...Two sips of wine

The chapter of IIT and Ananya had already closed for me after that. I did not manage to get into any of the IITs and was studying in one of the engineering colleges in Pune. After almost six months post 12th exam, I got a call from an unknown number. It did not take even a second for me to recognize it was Ananya. We spoke for seven minutes just to see how each of us were doing. When Ananya realized that I am fine and moved on, that was that. It was the last time I ever heard or talked with her.

Nashik has been renowned for the export quality grapes and the wine that is prepared from these grapes. A leading manufacturer of wines in the world-Nashik has stored millions of branded old wines in millions of jars. However, the city failed to store these two sips of wine in a jar in this story. These spilled sips of wine in the form of memories will always go down as the first mistake of my life and if given a chance I will certainly design a much bigger jar with diamonds to carefully store these two sips of wine in the future!!!