The Little Girl With Big Dark Eyes

Do any of us remember that little girl who used to sit next to us in the fifth year of our schooling? Most of us wouldnt, we are all now too busy checkin the grown up chicks around us. But if u sit back and think, we wud all have had a girl sitting next to us, a girl who was intelligent and smart lookin, a girl who wud have helped u with the answer of "wats 24587 multiplied by 45?", a girl who wud ve readily shared her snack with u ( but i always wondered why my half of the cream biscuit was smaller!), a girl whose presence awed u so much that u forgot to speak when u had to! Well life isnt a fairy tale u know...u leave school after fifth and lose track of her. You grow up, you meet other girls, you might even fall in love with a couple of them but u are never gonna forget that cream biscuit, are u?


Once upon a time when we boys used to look at girls as if they landed from outer space, when we used to loath them jus becoz they had pig tails instead of short hair, when we used to wonder why girls behaved in that distinctive "girly" manner which was exclusive only to girls... Thats when preethi joined us in our fifth standard, she looked as meek as a lamb and we boys got ready to give her the most horrendous time of her life ( hey! we did it all the time to all girls in our class!!!) But Ms.Cybil made her sit next to me(gulp!) and over the next few days i realised that she was as smart as she was good lookin! And we dunno why but all of us boys were a bit hesitant when it came to bullying her, and i cannot say that i didnt have a hand in influencing that hesitancy ( sure made me feel like a hero!) I started to come early to school jus so that i could get a seat and also reserve the seat next to me for her. She used to smile and say thanks whenever i offered her the seat and that made my day! But inspite of all this I was never able to bring myself to talk to her normally.I used to accept her snack during breaks muttering a hardly audible thanks, and always conveniently forgot to thank her after copying her homework. But nevertheless, i really liked her. Tamil was one subject which she could never come to terms with.Once when she stammered in reading class the whole class started laughin at her, but i still dunno why i never found that funny and also why i felt a sudden urge to rush at our tamil teacher and bite of her ear??!? And When i finally had to leave my convent and move into another school, one of the reasons that i hated the new school was that i knew im gonna miss her! And miss her, i did! But then Yoda once said to young Anakin Skywalker "You ve got to learn to give up the thing that u love most in life." I learnt to live with the fact that im never ever gonna meet her again. Adolesence came and was gone and i started lookin at girls differently. They were not from outer space after all! They were in fact lovely!

P.S : Did i mention that i met her 5 years later... in my school... well dont go imagining things... i jus didnt have it in me at that time to go talk to her... tell her what i felt for her 5 years back... i jus let her complete her schooling and leave and she once again left me, only this time i think its for good (sniff!).... goes to show wat a big loser I AM!

-Karthikeyan