“The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end.” Love knows no bounds, no limits and most importantly in this piece, knows no age either. For a teen from school, the few threads of hair over his lips are believed to be a sign of growing; but if he is anxious to trim them off to look clean, this for many is a sign of love. Genetically it is understood that a girl spends more than half her age standing in front of a mirror but when a guy starts doing so, that is love. Teen love is being stupid for each other; teen love is being stupid together but under all this stupidity, lies a divine truth - that it’s the first step towards growing up. Yes folks you need to love in order to grow up. We would be lying to each other if we say that we haven’t fallen into this beautiful net of emotions early in life. So it wouldn’t be a bad idea to walk down memory lane and actually see how stupid we were for a sweet girl/how stupid we were for a cute guy.
School is the cradle of all love stories and the center of all heart breaks too; but the courage of happily overcoming the latter to experience the former is the quintessential element of our lives. Perhaps being a notorious fellow in the class is the birthright of every guy and that often leads us to share a bench with one of the most studious and shy girls in the classroom. Whether or not, it mends us to be as studious as our partner, is a thing to be decided later. Those who are notorious will always seek the attention of one and all but when they don’t get it from the person sitting right next to them, it starts concerning them. Is that the beginning of our sweet little puppy love story? Your guess is as good as mine.
Then the attempt to know her favourites began and putting our ownselves in her colours was evident. The blush that shows up on our faces while filling up the slambooks, especially the section that reads “Your latest crush” speaks more than what we actually end up writing. Although we complain, yet somewhere deep inside our heart, we love the fact that some friends have mischievously written our names together. The joys of writing love notes and hiding it inside our pockets, the nervous excitement while playing a round of “Dare or Truth”, the stupid calculation games like “FLAMES” to find out the percentage of our love are all a proof of the cuteness we have been through.
Her favourites were my favourites now. Right from using the same color pencils to watching her favourite movie over and over again; humming her most loved song to bringing her favourite dish in the lunch bag were the crazy things we did. All this, just to convey her a simple message that we were made for each other. Soon the route to her home was the route that I took up too because the end of the day at school seemed to be the end of the world for me. She meant the world to me!
If she had a flat tyre I didn’t have any qualms in pushing my bicycle along just to give her company till her destination. The times spent with her seemed to be the best time of the day. The anxiety revolving around, ahead of her birthday kept me awake night after night. The grit behind every single pie saved to buy her a gift, the brain racking involved in planning a gift, were all a special part of life. The calls we made, hiding from everyone’s sight; the entire roll we spent on clicking her pictures during picnics, were the blushing moments of those beautiful days.
Love and songs seem to share an inseparable relationship. Our parents of course have passed through our age way back and hence when the likes of Enrique Iglesias and George Michael are on a never ending loop on the music systems it certainly pings them to ask us “Beta jawaan ho gaya hai chakkar kya hai?”. How many times youngsters might have seen them lean on the tea gardens and jump off the hills singing the cult song “Pehla Nasha Pehla Khumaar”? Suddenly, I developed this knack of watching romantic movies and relating to it was obvious. The urge of converting the reel life to real life was tempting and all those songs which showed love birds singing on screen seemed fascinating to me.
Whether this fairytale lasts a lifetime or not, is a matter of fate but the fact that it happened, is a thing to be cherished forever. The simplest things are often the truest. Love marks the beginning of the moment when we start thinking ourselves as adults, whether we actually are or not, is a different case altogether. And to add to it whether it was love or not we don’t know. But a few years down the line when someone looks at it at the hindsight, one’s face will be lit up by smiles and mind filled with sumptuous, enriching memories. Name it puppy love or nostalgia; it is indeed a defining moment in life.
So remember the next time you come across your old friends don’t forget to relive those moments because there are a few moments which are worth dying for and a few which tell you that you’ve indeed lived a life!
This article was written during the Valentines' week and was published in P3.. Not Just Page 3 and a few other periodicals including college magazines.
