Because the Sky was grey that day.

High School. Its Thursday. You are from a co-ed school. This is the first time you are getting to go to a school other than yours. For a fest. Kolkata. You are going to an old convent school for girls. It’s a business fest. Now you are somewhat of a novice but you are pretty confident in yourself. Mostly you are excited to meet new girls. Lets be honest you interaction with the fairer sex has been….lets say tainted.

A school bus has been assigned to take you to the said school. You are happy that you don’t have to sit through that dreaded accounting class. Doesn’t that teacher just bore the hell out of your ambitious but lazy mind? That is what you get when you raise a Baniya in Kolkata. A million brilliant ideas but a lot of lyadh stopping you from going after them. Anyways, what the hell is that accent that your accounting teacher has…but then you learn to get with the system because you unlike most kids at your school, are actually observant. You have seen how a small, frail woman of her stature manages a cadre of jute bags, which has some embroidery done on it. Probably her college days’ obsession. The bags have aged and so has she. And somehow she with a battery of bags filled with papers, tiffin , medicines and a promise of a better tomorrow; the latter being the heaviest, manages to get on a autorickshaw that wasn’t very keen on stopping as she onboarded. You have seen her struggle as you were sitting in the backseat of that auto. A sudden grim realization of life’s hardships with a side of question on your own future’s uncertainty makes a guest appearance in your mind, which makes a noticeable change on your visage. Your best friend notices this change. Gets you hyped up anyways.

The bus comes to a halt. You can see the destination school is uncharacteristically bustling with an aura of sweat, nervousness, happiness or in other words, peak adolescence. Your student rep emerges from the back of the bus where you weren’t sitting. Mostly because you like sitting on the early right side with your best friend where you can have a conversation with him about how avengers age of Ultron deserves to be seen in Insignia, while having a backdrop of Honey Singh songs performed by semi talented cool jocks of your class. Your battalion alights and looks at the name of the school just to be reassured that this is happening.

You enter the premises. The formalities are seemingly seamlessly being conducted by the rep who apparently knows a lot of people in the school and organizing committee. FOMO alert. Weather is already set to early Weeknd Songs and Late Sting Songs. You love your city precisely for this shade of sky. Grey enough to hide the imperfections. Cold enough to breathe freely. And rain prone enough to crave high school love. And just like that, there she was. Just another school girl to most of the crowd. But increasingly lovely with every passing second to you. Like watching a butterfly appear out of its cocoon gradually. Each and every fibre of her existence is beckoning you into a field of pure love. Wisteria and Lemongrass shades of love with lush pink skies blooming out in your heart. She was wearing those Bata PT shoes. The white ones which can become shiny white on assembly days if you rub white chalk on it. Impromptu Whitening was perhaps their only boon. Socks, White, came up to her calves, which were pronounced, probably because she plays basketball. That’s right not just girls want to date someone on the basketball team. The idea amuses you as well. A White Skirt with the hook. Looked like it would have fit her perfectly about a year and a half back. She probably could not care less about her skirt, or maybe this was a way out for her to wear comparatively shorter skirts. Not that any guy was going to make her uncomfortable. At least not before that day. An all-girls school being bombarded with curios and borderline horny young men, I guess anyone could spell trouble there. But I guess not everyone wanted to acknowledge it simply because it is an uncomfortable thought for the authorities.

She is wearing her school’s belt. Crimson really is her color. The crimson on her pale skin creates a very soothing visual. It is about this time that the insecurities that you had buried deep down with fake laughs and macho behavior are rising from the dead like a bad horror flick. Imagine skeleton hands rising from a grave, through the soil. She is wearing a grey t-shirt. Probably something to do with the fest. Cause she was one of the few people wearing it. The edge of the Collar of her t-shirt was gently brushing against her not bony, rather supple neck. A few dabs of sweat are gently making their way on to her neck. Almost making you wish you were there to catch them before they make landfall. Right about now, you see a hot guy, captain of their brother institution’s cricket team passes her. Her eyes unwittingly follow the dude. Showing you her high tied ponytail. Her straight hair were victim to the humid conditions. But all you could think of is how a mild rain will make her happy and how she will behave like someone right out of a fairly tale and spread her arms, eyes to the sky and grasp the last droplets of joy sent by the god you are continually praying to as you scan her from toe to head.

She come towards your school’s queue. She asks you if you are the school rep….and lord did you wish you were not an introvert who was too reluctant to stand up for school rep when the choice was being made. All this feeling of passion and that interaction of a fraction of a moment made you realize how she will dance with you under the rain in you day dream just for the day and that is fine. Because you know, the reality, however pleasing, won’t match up to the brief bout of love and passion you have queued up.

Nishant Gupta

Image Credit: https://newsmen.in/news/rains-to-return-bengal-skies-in-24-hours-scattered-rains-likely-in-kolata-later-today/