Love Story

Of the young one…

Aashish Singla

Written in year 2000

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Those days, love was in the air. A wave came and swept the city with theeffervescence of eternal love. Every moment, someone was falling in love withsomeone or something at every place. Even that fellow with crooked nose found alovely girl to fall in love with. Markets and parks were full of people, as if a festiveseason were going on. Girls, all over, were buying, borrowing, consulting andreading "Mills and Boons" while boys could be seen carrying Eric Sehgal’s "LoveStory". Throughout the day, people perambulated on the roads with their beloved,reciting verses, smiling and throwing loving gestures at every other soul. Thosewere dreamy days! Everyone was dreaming - strangely enough, dreams weregetting converted to reality too. The whole city became a living dream where lovelived; love ate; and love only slept.How could I have managed to escape the love epidemic that the entire city hadcontracted? I too fell in love. Imagine how miserable it is, for a young lad of sixteento be overtaken by a passion so forceful and real. I was a young dreamer whowove dreams all day and night fatuously, and they carried me so far away I almostsaw myself holding the delicate hands of my cherished one, asking her to be mineforever. I wanted to be secretive about my affair but my "loss of sleep" revealedeverything to my mother. To find her teenaged boy in love, surely any motherwould be surprised, shocked, happy and over-cautious, all at the same time. Shesat at my bedside making all kinds of inquiries. Seeking her support, I poured outmy heart in front of her but hearing me, she fell into a fit of laughter, which couldbe stopped only by joint efforts of my father, brothers and sister together.I tried hard explaining to everyone in my home about the reality of my love. Butalas, no one believed that someone, that too in such a tender age, could fall in lovewith a language. Unfortunately, I had fallen in love with English (and not a girl).My misery was enhanced by the fact that English was not my native language.Innumerable girls were continuously falling in love with me everyday while I,smitten by the arrows of a foreign language, would pass leaving them unnoticed,drowned in my own world of dictionaries, thesauruses and Rapidex Englishspeaking course. I wanted to read all the English literature that existed in theworld; I would have jumped from the first floor to get a hang of Shakespeare’splays; I could die to be able to go to London once, the city of English. I boughtinexhaustible books from the market that promised to make you perfect in Englishin shortest time possible. Unavoidably I fell in love with each of the books too andthe whole day, I was seen carrying one of those close to my chest, hugging it astight as I could. I dispersed all the books on my bed like a sheet and slept amidthem; over them; among them; with them. Not for a single second could I bearseparation with my beloved language. My mother started to get worried for myeyes, fearing to think of her lovely young son having to wear spectacles. I enteredinto the membership of every public library around and would spend all my daysstanding between the plexus of almirahs filled with all kind of books. My joy wasboundless to find myself between a myriad of books. For the first few days, I could