Ek Choti si Love Story

I know the first thing that pops up in ur mind when u hear those words is a young guy peeping through a keyhole at Manisha Koirala (these words have been tainted forever i guess). I was quiet taken aback myself when the movies posters hit the town and havent as of today watched the movie and No thats not because i am averse to watching manisha do the bare dare. I am one of the purist who believes in the sanctity of that first love or as people would put it as, a crush on a older women mostly who turns out to be the teacher in ur school. The whole situation is a touchy issue for me and i just could not stand to see it being violated by a shitty movie.

All of us have passed a phase where we have had crushes on our teachers [ya even the ladies ( the only problem is that for them it happens a little later than that for us guys, mostly after 10th standard or in college where as guys mostly enter into this situaton quite early and ya continue it, throughout untill their education continues)]

Let me begin from the begining of my own choti si love story. It was the summer of 99 i was in the 7th standard and we hadnt been allotted a class teacher for a month or so, then one fine day our substitute teacher entered with a new fresh face Stunning !!! i would say... (hot and sexy got added to my vocabulary a good couple of years later... [i am lying here i did use hot ocassionally for indicating temprature of a substance]). She had an amazing walk, sly and subtle at the same time...and smile (my god that smile !!!) [remember the sushmita sen's entry in Main Hoon Na(n No i didnt have imaginary characters playin violin around me)] I didnt have any particular liking for any of my teachers, understandably i wasnt one of the better academic student too, "she was just another addition to the long list" i thought ...boy!! have i ever been this wrong...

That day there were talks (wispers actually) about her whole day in class and i listened quietly(rumours did rounds of how she looked in a pair of jeans with someone claiming that they had seen her like that)... Geography was her subject, another reason to hate her all the more (who needsd to learn how rocks where made ...who cares man !!! i dont !). And as it turned out to be true she was a true taskmistress she gave us loads of homework, lectures on morality and what not ... she even introduced a new punishment technique also, kneeling down in class (he he man that was funny...kneel down and u r out of the line of sight of teachers, opens a whole new set of possiblities ). Before half yearly she had one of her revision sessions where she asked some igneous rock crap and i replied who cares ... Next thing i remember i was in a long line with fellow geniuses who did not give a shit about why lava overflows out of earth to form the molten rock. We were seriously reprimanded in front of the class where the dumb swots smirked at us geniuses ...

The half yearly examinations came and went and it was time for results, results where handed over to parents in elaborate PTA meetings ( Association for making a child's life miserable providing for a common platform for all his criticisers to meet and plot against the poor little kid). I was waiting for dad to come back so i could have a serious dose of scolding, knowing that she must have bitched a lot about me to dad. When dad returned after collecting my report card, he had a look on his face i had never seen in 7 long years of my career of making his life miserable, i blurted out "Dad do not believe a word she has said" ... He replied back "I Dont ...She said that u have a brilliant mind and that u just need some time with the books, dont know where they recruit teachers from nowadays"... Ehmm ...

I left home early next morning, i used to cycle to my school and was a very time efficient guy even at that age, knew all the cut roads and short cuts and made good use of them. But that day morning seemed a lot more cheerfull, birds more chirpier, flowers more colurful. Decided to linger around, took the longer route to school such that i had to cross Madam's house on my way, saw her carrying a heavy bag to school, on some other day i would have increased the speed of my cycle so as not to give her even the slightest chance to ask for help with the bag, that day however i slowed down, got down from cycle and offered to carry the bag , ended up walking her to school (i dont remember the conversation we had on the way to school only the walk!!!...).

That route became my regular for the next year or so where i wished to catch a glance of her, every time i passed that road my head used to turn automatically to her balcony to catch a glimpse of her beauty. The transformation was quite a radical one for my peers, a guy who had no respect for rules raising his hand for being the class monitor ( i think that was the give away where they came to realize that i had a crush on Madam). After a month or so she said in entire class pointing at me that "Look at that boy, he is so disciplinied and cute!!!" [anyone who has seen my junior school pics would know that i made up the cute part] (the rest of the sentence i never heard after all sound cannot travel in a vaccum [nothing was between me and her not even air....]). Tried giving her a pen (that costed me my 2 months pocket money) on Teachers Day [ my version of valentine day in those days] but she refused because of some damn rule against accepting gifts from children.... but she gave me that ultimate smile i had ever seen and brushed my hairs and said Thank You so much in the sweetest of her voice ( there was a moment i felt she would bend down in slow motion and kiss me on my cheeks, but when it didnt happen i did understand that it was inappropriate in school !!! Dammit till date i regret not giving her the pen outside school...)

Talking about change , i started studying for a change [till 6th standard i had this small group of 5 ppl including me, who had this fierce competition among them to outsmart each other in marks NO we were not competing for 1-5 ranks in class rather we looked for 31-35 ranks]. So when the final examinations results came and me and mom came home with my report card atleast one of us was on top of the world and it clearly wasnt me!!! She called up my Dad and told him, (guess she couldnt wait till he returned back home), [there was this colleague of my dad (whose son was in my class and was a constant 5th ranker) who always used to compare us both ... i hope dad didnt tell him to ^&*% !#*] afterall i think it was nothing of a big deal i was just ranked 20 and my brother used to be one of the constant top five in his class, and he never got a treat for his results... maybe mom forgot to mention the actual rank in all the excitement ... Anyways i came to realize the advantages of studying all thanks to Madam :) ....( she is what a real teacher should be like one who inspires the child from within to study instead of making him swot and mug) ...

Madam had a friend staying near my house so one fine day in evening when i was returning from my regular evening cricket matches i saw her near my house, she saw me and we talked , i invited her to my house for cofee and she said that she would definitely come along on her way back from her friends house... I rushed home had a quick bath ( i never had baths in evening no matter how bad i smell... ) went straight to my study table to clean it up ( i never cleaned my study table ever in my life neither allowed anyone to [my mom made it a point to do so once in 2 weeks when she had lost something in that royal mess usually when i was away and unsuspecting in school]) opened a geography book and sat in front of it. My mother was watching all this silently and from a distance, when she had made sure that i had cleaned up everything (clever mom), she came to me with a thermometer told me to open my mouth and thrusted it inside, asked me if i was feeling allright or not. I had to convince that nothing was wrong with me and i was perfectly sane!!! (believe me it took quiet some efforts on my part!!). I waited at my table whole evening with my geography book opened up expecting mom to call me "Their is a fine lady at the door asking for u!! son" ....

I faced the situation quiet boldly i must say... very mature of me i must say ...not one act of violence on my part ... not one shatterred window of her house ... [I was shatterred!! what use was their to shatter anything more] ... I did the most mature thing anyone could do - found a rebound girl[the first girl i could lay my eye on the next day, used to sit next to me in class ), proposed her on the next valentine day(14th feb wala)...got rejected but pursued it after all i knew that this was a feasible one unlike my Choti Story. I grew out of my crush slowly and came to accept the fact that Madam was 10 yrs elder to me ... believe me all broken hearts out there that time is the greatest healer ever...

After a year she left school , she was getting married and she shifted to pune ... She moved on with her life , I moved on with mine ...

PS: The rebound girl also never accepted my proposal

PS: I rose like a phoenix from the ashes with a sense of humour and fully Awsome!!! never to see a simliar situation ever again.