Kanpur-Gandhinagar-Bangalore-Calcutta

Flashback (Class-II in school):

Senior:Abhishek say ‘Kite’.
Me:Tite.

Laughter all around. Reason- I used to stammer. Even students from class 12th used to come to see my special talent. I could’ve easily won the Talent Hunt of my school as a standup comedian without even cracking a single joke.

That made me go into a shell. I stopped talking to anyone. Even in interval I used to sit in a corner and study. Well if you don’t speak at all then nobody would come to know if you can pronounce K or T correctly. I became an introvert and was scared of talking to anyone new. Slowly my seniors and classmates stopped picking me and the folklore died. Only thing that remained was my silence.

College:
I had never tried to rectify my wrong habit. I never needed to -as I hardly spoke. Now when you need to impress a girl of your life, you need to speak and speak smartly. I was in dilemma. To speak or not to speak.
So I figured out a middle path. I would try to avoid words starting with alphabets K,C,T and few others.

Hey hi! So how are you doing?
Doing good.
(Seeing a book in my hand) So, which subject you’re reading?
It’s a Physics thing related to movement of bodies.
You mean Kinetics?
Oh yeah. I thought you would not have heard that name.
You think I’m dumb?
No no. Absolutely no. Well when are you going home?
Maybe next week. Where is your hometown?
Well I’ll give you hints. You guess. It’s largest town of UP, has an IIT.
I don’t know.
(Come on!) Kanpur(saying very slowly).
What? Didn’t hear you.
Hey how is your assignment going?
Going great. But some idiots are not doing their part and I’m sort of getting tensed.
Ahh. Don’t worry (fearing my team mates of the Humanities electives project would be thinking the same). Anyways, what are you doing tomorrow? We can have dinner.
Yeah. I’ve not been out for a long time. We can. What’s the place called?
It’s a food chain of Italian dishes. It has many branches all over India.
Still, it might have some name.
Pijja Hut.
That was the moment when I realized I was doomed. In the excitement of having dinner with her, I had forgotten to censor my words. I had increased my chances of seeing her again from 0 to minus infinity.
What? No it’s not the way it’s pronounced. It’s pronounced with a z like hard S.
Ok. I know I’m not great in pronouncing words. I know that.
Yeah, even I have noticed that.
You knew? You knew from all this long.
Yeah. But it’s such a small thing. Why are you getting so frustrated? Just try once again and you can pronounce it correctly.
Yeah. You want to make fun of me. Right?
Come on. Ok. If you can pronounce once correctly, till we reach the girls hostel, we’ll have dinner tomorrow. Else the plan stands cancelled.
Now I was in a shock. My nightmares were coming true. I just walked with my head down and almost in stage of crying.
Come on!
I realized this was my only shot. This was the only chance for me to conquer my fears of lifetime. And also that was my only chance to go out with her.

Pijja
Pijza
Piiiiija


No. Try to focus on middle part. It’s z and not j.

Pizza
Pizza
Pizza
Hey very good. Let’s meet tomorrow evening then.
I couldn’t believe it. I had done it. It might not be a very big achievement but for me it was like climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.
And that was the moment I realized- She is my dream girl. She never looked down upon me. I was strong when she was around. I was not ashamed to make mistakes infront of her. I was not ashamed to be myself. I could go down to bullies of my class and could Pizza-fy them.

That’s the moment when I realized- May be this is what true love looks like.


PS- My bad! It's called as Lisping and not stammering. Thanks to Anshul for pointing that out.

Continued from-
The Perfect Opening Line






It was the "Garba and Dandiya night" in college. Yeye.
People were busy making masterplans, plan-A, plan-B...plan-Z of hitting on girls. Teams were being formed, alliances were being made.

"Tu Raju ko dekhna. Wo Shalini ke saath jyada dance na kare. Tu use occupy rakhna aur main Shalini ke saath dandiya kheloonga."

"Wo bhai-bhen gang mein dance karte karte hum entry maar lenge. Jaise hi circle banega, apne usmein jayenge aur tu pooch lena usse- Can I stick with you to play sticks? Nah. Bad pick up line. Soch le yaar koi impressive line. Par aaj hi mauka hai."

Now if you want to imagine how well I dance - Imagine a Tyrannosaurus Rex doing Kathak.

I called Misra.
"I have no other option. She is a Gujarati. How can I convince her parents unless I learn Gujaratiness.Give me some motivation."
"Dude don't you think you're going overboard. Abhi tak to wo tera naam bhi nahin jaanti!"
"Are wahi to! See my plan is really different. What I can do is I'll convince her parents that I'm a good guy. Aur ek baar uske parents maan gaye, to propose kar doonga. Love marriage nahin to arrange marriage ho jayegi"
"Are you drunk? You're talking all crap"
"I thought I'm looking for some motivation from you"
"Ok. Listen. Just try to enter the Gujju gang. Go to her and say you want to learn Dandiya. Ask her help and then get talking. Then ask out for coffee. Simple"
"Thanks dude! That seems to be perfect. Only thing is I don't know how to dance"
"Nobody is seeing you dude. Do some stupid moves. Remember any PT exercise of childhood and try to do that in a fancy way"

Finally the D-day arrived. It was one of the rare occasions in our college when students reached before the official reporting time. The ground was shabbily decorated. You couldn't help but doubt that you might have been teleported to good old Ramayana days with ethnic clothing all around. Some of the girls had definitely gone overboard in make-up. Some of the boys had definitely gone overboard in their attempt to impress girls.

Everyone was scanning the crowd to locate his target group. Music started and we marched in to complete our missions.

That's when I spotted her. Man oh man! I stood still. There are some people in life who can make a hot humid evening in rusty college ground filled by people doing Bhangra in Garba really beautiful.

----------------------------------------------

Two hours had passed. I still was unable to enter Gujju gang's circle. Each time I attempted to enter it, I was prudently shoved away. Meanwhile some people had resorted to desperate measures. From Bhangra, people had started demonstrating their fictional Kung-Fu skills to attract attention. I decided to take the plunge.

"Hi"
"Hi! Do I know you?"
(bad bad. She doesn't even remember me)
"Remember I came like a superman. You can say I am the superhero Dogman of your life"
"Sorry. I don't like to talk to people who are drunk"
(Why doesn't anyone appreciate my sense of humor?) "No No we didn't start drinking yet. Remember that day when the dog was following you and we met for a brief instant. You told me that we'll meet again. So here we meet again."
"Oh! Ya ya."
(Silence for 3 mins).
"Hey can you teach me some special gujju Garba moves?"
"What?"
"No I mean Gujarati Garba moves"
"Ya sure. Well here it goes" And I swear to God she did some superhuman flexing moves that I couldn't even properly see, leave alone copying it.
"Hey that's too tough. Can you teach me the basic one?"
"No no try doing it. It's the easiest of all"

That's when I followed the wise advice of Misra. I completed my special PT-merge-dance-merge-randomness move. Somehow I heard a fictional round of applause. I thought to myself- "Man! I'm awesome". In turn, I realized everybody had been looking at me for quite some time. The applause was real, though not for appreciation of my talent. People were in fits of laughter. To add to my humiliation, they even tried to enact it. But I had executed it so awesomely bad that it was not possible for them to copy it.

I looked to my right and she had disappeared.

Met Misra the next day.
"Man! It was fun yesterday"
"Come on! It was just a stupid dance by stupid bunch of college going kids"
"Oh! Words of wisdom from our disco dancer"

----------------------------------

Yesterday:
"Will we go to Garba in navaratris after we marry?"
"Are you mad! Me and dancing! Don't you remember how good I am! I had screwed up even the basic step"
"Oh that! I didn't know that you are a good guy and I was scared that you'll trouble me. I had intentionally taught you the toughest moves of all - To shoo you away."

"You're too possessive. I hate you"
These were the words that were SMSed to me once the war was over. Now the best part of being in a relationship is that the harder you try to hate the other person for being rude or being non-sensitive to you, the more you fall in love with them.

Now it's a different story that it was you who was acting like a jerk. In the heat of moment, you always feel that others are acting weird and insensitively.
Plus, The best part of having a girlfriend is, she remembers all your mistakes.

"Why did that idiot talked to you? I told you he is an ass. Stay away from him. I really don't trust him."
"Have you ever met him?"
"No"
"Do you know him?"
"No"
"How can you say he is jerk? He is a friend of mine."
"Oh come on! Don't you care about me? Who is more important? Me or Him? If I tell you to not to talk to him, then better not talk to him"
"I talked to you when I didn't know you"
"That was different! That was me. This is him. And I don't feel like you talking to him"
"I don't feel like listening to you"
"See I told you, you really don't care about me. It's always me who does everything and you can't even do a small thing for me"
"Let me give you a warning! Don't get me started"
"Oh! Ab tumhari galti realise hui na, toh you're changing the topic. Ek baar sorry tak nahin bola"
"Let me point out tumhari galti-

Mistake #1- Not getting your cellphone repaired. If you really had to talk to me, that would've been your first priority. I've told you 100 times atleast
Mistake #2- Doubting me. Giving me no freedom
Mistake #3- Yesterday you didn't even care to pick up my call.
Mistake #4- Day before yesterday you didn't have lunch
Mistake #5- One month back, you fought with me and shouted at me.
(continues)
Mistake #50- Six months back, you even forgot to wish me on my birthday.
(continues)
Mistake #101- One year back, You forgot to book my tickets even though you knew it was so urgent.
(continues)
Mistake #1001- Three years back, You followed me whole night like a jerk. I was so scared and you had no concern how would a girl feel if someone follows me at night"

"Hey that's not fair. I don't agree with your last point. That was me!"
"Did I know you then?"
"Still that was me. Dekha apni galti accept nahin karni hoti to excuse banati ho. Dekha. I win I win. Wiase how do you manage to remember 1001 list?"
"Coz I care about you. Everything you do wrong, hurts me a lot"
(Silence) "Theek hai na! Ab aaj tumhari galti maine maaf kar di na. Main kuch bol raha hoon"
"Warning di thi tumein"
"Tumhari galti hai. Better warning diya karo aage se. And Mujhe nahin sunna. You really don't care. Ek chota sa kaam bola tumein. Itna bhi nahin kar sakti"
"Haan nahin kar sakti. Khush"
"Dekha. I knew I knew. Acha ab sorry bol raha hoon na. Chalo. Sorry"
"I'm sorry. Please leave me alone"
"Yaar ek to tum galti karti ho. Upar se main sorry bolta hoon. Upar se tum bhaav khati ho. Kabhi main tumhein realize karata hoon tumhari galityan?"
"Oh aisa! jara ek batana?"
(thinking hard) "Hmmm..are main koi mistake database thode na maintain karta hoon! Maine tumhein maaf kiya! Bas khush!"

Beep...Beep...

That was the time when phone was disconnected from other side!
And I was still wondering-"Yaar maine kya kiya! Ajeeb hai!"