My Crushes

Whenever I see the antics of the young hero in a song from 'Sairat' "Yeda Lagala" [ I am possessed ] on any music channel [ it's being run on one or the other Marathi channel throughout the day ] I go back in times more than 50 years ago. I too was a gawkish teenager educated in all-boys school entering the coed Junior college with too much baggage. After going through medical education I am now aware that what puberty is all about but when it really was catching up with me I was flummoxed as any other teenager in that age. Whatever was done, was done out of sheer innocence and was nothing but the surge of hormones, about which I came to know much much later. Categorically I must put it down here that in those years of innocence, 'Sex' was last on the mind! At least in my case ! Yes, of course, there was a lot of curiosity but the actual act was never ever on the mind. [ Here I am talking about normal middle class lads, not psychopaths]

Hardly 16, an encounter with the opposite sex even for a chat was like a huge conquest. There was this dusky girl with dove eyes from my class  I fell in love with, for the first time. Whether it was love or not, that too I did not know at that time. But it was some unusual special feeling.  Her first 'Darshan' in the day, created a vacuum in the pit of tummy, full with ample butterflies making the heart to run faster. Was it anxiety, was it is feeling of missing or longing for something unknown, I don't know, it's so unexplainable, words really fail me!  Now! Though very short for my height, the word 'Petite' would describe her aptly, she was the cynosure of all the eyes no doubt, but in my eyes, she had special place. 

To have a passing glance, almost clandestine, at her bench as soon I used to enter the class to ascertain whether she has come or not, was a daily ritual. And it was mutual! If she wore something new I used to convey only with the nod while when I tried to be debonair she made it amply clear by the delicate gestures of the fingers. That innocent undefined attraction was so engulfing that once I followed her in my home pyjamas up to her home on the bicycle ! Thank god I was not caught. Once I had to bunk the college for something, next day she met me behind the college building and asked,' Why did you not attend the classes the other day ?' And like a vacuous gas-filled egoist [ but innocent ] male of the species I had said, ' Why bother ?'. I must have been the fool of the century! Being from two totally different socioeconomic backgrounds and me being fully aware of my shortcomings whatever that was between us, was destined not to make any progress in any direction and over the years after parting ways, which was natural, our paths never crossed again in life though we were educated in the same field but from different colleges. Even now when I remember those days. that feather-soft feeling of calf love caresses the heart fondly!

She used to stay in the next building. My second crush. And right from the beginning, it was a doomed affair and I very well knew it, but ' Yeh Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin' [ This stupid heart does not listen to the reason]. She was beauty personified. The complexion was so flawless that as if made from the classic transparent Italian marble, light wheatish tan like colour, oblong heart-shaped face with wide brown eyes, well heighted almost coming to my shoulders, gait full with cheerful bounce, that made her ponytail toss in the air every time she took a step! Still, a student studying for my last year M.B.B.S. she was distraction for the studies. She too was studying and used to attend the classes riding on a mobike.l As soon as I used to hear the whoom of her bike I used to abandon all my studies and rush to have the glimpse of her. Not her alone but my mother too became aware of the things. ' Stupid' she, my mother used to say, 'Study first !' And she, the beauty,  used to be annoyed at the most! Because she was already married to a guy, the brother of her friend! She used to complain to her husband about my innocuous flirtations and he used to advise her, ' Don't bother !' It ended automatically when they changed the residence! Many years later when I attended a wedding in Pune,  I was made to sit next to 'The Husband' for luncheon! I could not dare to ask him 'How's at home ?' even as the courtesy talk!

No, the list is not unending. But there is this third one and the last one, the crush before I fell in love with my would-be wife that I married.

I was doing an internship at a district civil hospital and this girl was an NCC cadet in a college opposite the hospital. Few encounters and I asked her out. As it was small mofussil town she did not come, probably did not dare! I was like wasted. Not angry but to ask the reason for making me stand I reached her home. And I was perplexed. I was having numbers and had forgotten to carry the specs and I just could not recognise to whom I was talking to! She had an identical twin sister! Another fiasco of crush that did not run its full course. 

I left for Mumbai then, for my higher studies where I met my present wife, I mean the only wife, but that's another story. Later some time !.