A Himeshious Encounter

The other day I spotted one of my long lost school acquaintances aboard a local bus (recession hain bhai) on my way home. She was seated a few rows ahead from where I stood, playing audience to a guy who was either insanely in love with or was under a legally binding contract to play Himesh numbers in public, as the speaker of his phone kept dishing out one melodic gem after another.

Now, I am not that kind of a guy who would barge into the ladies section of a BEST bus and strike a conversation with a girl I hadn’t seen for like a decade. But, considering the dangers associated with prolonged exposure to H-rays, I did just that. Well, almost that.

For the good part of the story, I did manage to leave the musical carnage a few seats behind. Snaking past a few bystanders who seemed to have either been zombiefied or were ardent fans of 'something, something more, something more... statue!' game, I reached the ‘ladies reserved’ section of the bus and stood right behind her seat. From the top view, I could see that she was engrossed in some heavy duty texting whilst listening to what I hoped was not Himesh on her iPod. Thus, after spending a minute or two trying to recollect her name, I finally called it out.

“Hi X29C56D…” (You probably must have noticed it by yourself, but I have change the name to protect her identity)

X29C65D gave no reaction. Not a turn of head or a swing of the bag or a fling of the sandal or any such act that might suggest that she heard me call her name. However, it was not that I hadn’t attracted any response at all. Everyone else seated in the perimeter of 4 chairs or so, stared at me like a young kid would stare at a captive monkey before his acrobatic performance – anticipating some form of entertainment. A large part of my audience which unfortunately consisted of rather hefty looking aunties had already labeled me as a regular ruffian, some staring hard enough to indicate they were trying to find resemblances with their neighborhood goon.

Must be the iPod, I reasoned.

Allowing me to believe that the music player had shunned her from all forms of worldly sounds apart from the ones it was playing, I decided to adopt a somewhat ‘physical’ form of gesticulation. Thus, breathing courage into my perplexed self, I tapped her shoulder using the icebergish tip of my index finger.

The trick worked. X29C56D looked up, looking as freaked out as any girl might be when tapped out of nowhere in a public mode of transport. The aunties looked up too. They had perhaps made their mind to pound me into a pulp if she made any signs of protest or annoyance. Much to their disappointment, she recognized me in an instant.

“Hey you… you were that guy from school, right?” She asked with a smile.

Okay, almost recognized me. But, good enough to save me from featuring as the ‘Breaking News: Bespectacled pervert gets lynched in a public bus!!!’ guy in the evening show of a local news channel.

“Yeah true, from school,” I replied, nodding my head. “I had a name too, it’s Vishal.”

“Oh yes! Vishal… Vishal V, follower of girls!” She announced with a chuckle.

Now, before you take cues from this story and assume that am a habitual female stalker, let me tell you that the term ‘follower of girls’ is spoken in a completely different context. The thing is, thanks to my initials, which is V followed by another… yes, you’ve guessed it, another V; I usually ended up getting the last of the ‘boy roll numbers’… thus making way for the girls in the class, starting with one of had AA as her initials. The only possible way to break the jinx was to get a minus vowel naming Chinese or a Polish exchange student in my class, but sadly, that never happened. (Speaking of exchange students… Well, more on that later)

“Yeah, the one who had the last of boy roll number and was preceded by the girls in the class,” I replied, detailing the point for the benefit of my blood-thirsty audience. “By the way, how are you doing?”

The conversation went on for the next 4 stops, after which, she had to alight the bus. Between those 4 stops, we spoke at length about each other, about our common friends and some events which involved me in a not so lets-disclose-on-a-public-blog way, while Himesh crooned in the background, declaring some soniye that he loved her unconditionally (Actual lyrics. In English. I swear) for the second consecutive time.

No sooner than later, my stop had arrived and I stepped down of the bus, taking some bits of Himesh and the conversation along with me. As I straddled my way home, my mind began to incline towards that summer of 1996 when the first and possibly the only batch of exchange students stepped into my classroom…

Well, more 0n that later… :)