A Valentine's Day Story - II

“You look troubled,” said Pete-Pete, as we munched our vada-pavs at the school shop, located about 20 meters down the road from the School Gates.

“I am,” I said, “I’ve agreed to talk to that Joshhound Prawnson. In fact I’m waiting for him to come out right now, fellow’s probably putting up Party Decorations in the Biology Lab.”

“Talk to him? What about?”

“Oh stuff,” I muttered, “something Arabella told me to do”

“Arabella Radeyevna?” he asked in awed tones.

“There’s only one Arabella in the school, you nut.”

“I’d do anything for her. Anything, man….and you freak out about something minor like talking to Joshhound! What a girl! Wow!”

“You’ll be doing something for her soon enough, no doubt,” I said, casting a disgusted look at his drooling tongue.

“What do you mean? What do you take me for…” he began indignantly, and would have continued for some time, I don’t doubt, but just then I spied Joshhound step out of the school and trudge slowly towards the crossing. With a muffled apology to Pete-Pete I stuffed the rest of the vada-pav into my mouth and raced after him.

“Joshhound, wait up!” I said, as I caught up with him.

He stopped and waited for me. Joshhound Prawnson was about my height, but had none of the slender elegance that characterized yours truly. In fact he was built like a certain senior of ours by the name of John Abraham from the neck down. His face, however, was – no matter how hard Arabella or her friend Rita denied it – like that of a chimpanzee.

“Thought some company would do no harm,” I said, putting on a bright smile.

“Oh yeah. Whatever,” he said, contorting his already contorted face to make it clear that he wasn’t exactly euphoric about the idea.

For the first half-kilometre we walked in silence. It’s hard to know how to approach a subject like that. Arabella had made it clear that she didn’t want Joshhound to know that I was acting on her behalf. On the other hand, for me to ask anything personal ex-parte to a chap I hardly knew would have been dashed presumptuous. Much to my relief, I didn’t have to open the proceedings.

“You used to like Talmyra Kringle didn’t you?” he asked, out of the blue.

“Me? Ah…well, no. I mean yes. But that was a long time ago,” I added hastily.

“Did she even look at you?” this in a mournful tone.

“Well, we’ve been in the same class for years, so we did talk. But no, she didn’t have any feelings for me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Ah,” he said and subsided back into silence. But this short exchange had given me just the lead I needed.

“So, Joshhound,” I said.

“Yes, Jormund?” he asked.

“I hear you’ve been kinda down lately? Anything you might care to share?”

He seemed to give the matter some thought. Finally he said,
“Yes, Jormund. The thing is, I’m in love.”

I thought about it for a while. People in love generally were bouncy, blithe fellows declaring their love to one and all, behaving generally like songbirds on weed. This kind of morbid reaction on the part of Joshhound could only mean one thing – his was a posthumous love.

“With Marilyn Monroe?” I asked sympathetically.

“What??” he almost shouted. If we hadn’t been crossing the road at a busy junction he might have reeled. He gave me a look of apprehension.

“What have you been drinking?” he asked, “What’s that in your bottle? What is it, huh?”

“Water, you ass!” I said, “I mean, I figured you were in love with someone dead from your depressed state, you know. It’s all right; lots of guys were in love with Marilyn Monroe. Good chaps too – Joe DiMaggio for one. Arthur Miller, for another. Even Frank Sinatra. Strong lads all of them. You have nothing to be ashamed of. But she’s dead, you know. She isn’t coming back. You’d best move on to someone more…alive. Pamela Anderson, for instance.”

“Would you STOP drivelling?” he yelped in anguish, “My head will explode! I like Pashiella Murky!”
“Oh,” I said, “I’m sure she’s a…nice girl.”

Actually I remembered Pashiella as an awfully stuck-up creature with huge spectacles and a leering smile. Her sole purpose in life, it was rumoured, was to score more marks in the next revision test for the practice test for the Unit Test to be held the following week than anyone else in the class.

“She’s perfect. She’s so demure and so shy and so modest.”

“Ahhh yes.”

“She appeals to all that’s fine about a chap.”

“Uhhhh of course.”

“Unlike some who appeal to the carnal instincts.”

“Hmmm no doubt”

“But she won’t look at me.”

I could hardly blame her for that. Seemed quite natural if anything. So I didn’t say anything and hemmed and hawed noncommittally.

“Valentine’s Day is coming up, you know!”

“I know. We’re having a party aren’t we?”

“Oh yes….it will be great. The decorations are just purrfect.”

“So why the Hardy-esque expression?”

“I want to give her a card, man. A valentine card. I’ve even bought it. I just don’t know how to give it to her! She won’t even look my way. You gotta help me, man. You must.”

We were now approaching the point from where the straight road led to my house and the right lane to Joshhound’s. I was wondering how to worm out of this new predicament... Helping a chap I hardly knew deliver a Valentine’s card to a girl I didn’t know at all was something I had no intention of doing. I mentally cursed Freyja for endowing Arabella with more oomph than any five Item Girls put together. Without that, I’d never have gotten in this situation.

“I really don’t see how I can help, old hound,” I said shiftily, “and anyway I should be getting home.”

My clever attempt to sidle away was arrested by his grasping a hold of my arm.

“Do you want to see the card?” he said, in a voice filled with near-religious fervour.

“Don’t you think something like that should be…erm…private between you and her?”

“It’s a beautiful card! Don’t you want to see it?”

“Well...ummm…”

“Do you think you’re too good to see the card? Do you? Are you a snuffle-headed elitist snob? Are you? Would you rather I punched your nose off-axis? Would you?”

I followed him obediently to his home.

He sat me down on a chair and fished around a longish while for in his study cabinet before locating a Chemistry Lab Book. Out of this journal came a red envelope, and out of that came a card heavily infested with pink balloons and purple hearts. With trembling hands he put this in my hand.

I won’t go into the detailed contents of the card. It was as sappy and as trite as such cards are wont to be. Besides, I don’t remember the words. What I do remember is that Joshhound had scrawled an inscription in his large, ill-formed hand, informing whoever read it that he was her (Pashiella’s) ‘most devoted, passionate, desperate, unfortunate, servant.’

“How do I get it to her?” he half-sobbed.

“She’s in your class, not mine,” I pointed out, “surely you can slip it to her sometime.”

He stood fingering the card for a while, turning it around in his hand.
“Is it a decent card? Will she like it?”

Why on earth he thought I should know what a snooty female like Pashiella would like, I have no idea. I said I was sure she would, partly to be polite and partly to facilitate my getting out of this madman’s house as soon as possible.

“Maybe I’ll drop it in her bag,” he said doubtfully.

“Yes, it’s a good idea. Can I go now?”

I believe if he’d suggested stuffing it down her throat I’d have said the same thing.
* * * *

A Valentine's Day Story - I

[The Action of this story took place about three years after that of “The Ladies Man”. Life at Midgard-Hebrides was drawing to a close; proposals and acceptances were far more common than on that eventful day when Sahil had thrown down the gauntlet to Taryn K., and there was scarce a chap in that old Scottish Castle who hadn’t, at some time or another, admitted to having gone sentimental about a girl. Roxanne, the first Elveren Flame, had left to pursue her education in more balmy climes. This, then, is the story of the last great romance of Midgard Hebrides]


The Saint Valentine, after whom the day in February is named, was a Priest in Rome, possibly a bishop. He was imprisoned for giving aid to martyrs in prison, and while there, converted the jailer by restoring sight to the jailer's daughter.

There are several theories about the origin of Valentine's Day celebrations. Some believe the Romans had a mid-February custom where boys drew girls' names in honour of the sex and fertility goddess, Februata Juno; pastors "baptised" this holiday, like some others, by substituting the names of saints such as Valentine to suppress the practice. Others maintain that the custom of sending Valentines on 14 February stems from the belief that birds begin to pair on that date. By 1477 the English associated lovers with the feast of Valentine because on that day "every bird chooses him a mate." The custom started of men and women writing love letters to their Valentine on this day. Other "romance" traditions have become attached to this feast, including pinning bay leaves to your pillow on Valentine's Eve so that you will see your future mate that night in your dreams.

But this isn’t a treatise on the origin of the Festival that has made billions of dollars for Greeting-Card companies. It’s just a Valentine Day story from the Midgard-Hebrides Chronicles.

Arabella Radeyevna was one of those girls it was impossible not to like – especially if you were a red-blooded male. She was friendly, intelligent, had no ‘airs’ whatsoever (though she well might have, given the adulation she excited), sensible – which is quite a different thing – and a delightful, if sometimes dangerous, disrespect for authority. Though I doubt most of her ardent devotees were much bothered about any of these sterling qualities – they rarely looked beyond that fact that she bore a striking resemblance, from head to toe, to Kylie Minogue. Add to this her uncanny ability to make anything she wore, including the drab, grey, school skirt, look like something out of a Valentino Catalogue, and you can see why it wasn’t unusual to find lovesick swains trying to scribble verses dedicated to her in the quiet nooks and crannies of Midgard-Hebrides High School. Besides, ever since she had, at the previous year’s Christmas Bash, kissed Apollonia Gogol, another acknowledged beauty, on two separate occasions, in full view of the school, her stock had risen to stratospheric heights among all right-thinking men.

Given all this it’s hardly surprising that a certain Elver named Jormund found himself quite ecstatic when ensconced on the picturesque hedge of the picturesque garden that bordered the picturesque heritage building where we had our classrooms.

What we spoke about for the first half-hour is…ahem…immaterial, and has no bearing on this story. Suffice to say that I had been on the verge of saying something devastatingly clever when she cut me off by saying,
“I’m worried about Joshhound. He seems to be terribly depressed these days.”

I thought this was a most unwelcome change of subject.

“This is a most unwelcome change of subject, Arabella,” I said accordingly.

Like legions of women were to do after her, Arabella ignored my objection and continued,

“I wish you’d talk to him.”
“Me?”
“You!”
“I hardly know the feller!” I protested.
“Yes you do. I saw you waking home with him after school last week.”
“Well he lives in the next lane. But I don’t really know him!”
“Nonsense. You must go and find out why he’s so down. He won’t talk to me so it must be a guy thing.”
“I don’t see why you’re SO concerned about a silly chimp like Joshhound anyway,” I muttered resentfully.
“He’s not a chimp. My best friend in the whole world, Rita Stringthing likes him very much. She can’t bear to see him like this. But the poor thing is so shy she won’t talk to him. And so she wants me to talk to him. But he won’t talk to me. I tried to talk to him when we were putting up the decorations for the Valentine’s Day Party in the Biology Lab. He insists nothing’s wrong. But I know something’s wrong. He has such a moony look about him,” she spouted out in a breathless soprano.
“But I don’t see where I come into this!”
This objection met the same fate as the earlier one.
“You’ll do it won’t you?”

Of course I said yes. It was against my finer judgment, no doubt. A little voice in my head told me that nothing good would come out of it. Another one – I must’ve been borderline schizophrenic – told me I would be best served by keeping my fingers out of this particular pie. But when someone like Arabella looks up at you out of her earnest grey eyes, with her hands clasped in appeal and her cheeks aglow with excitement, you tend to say yes. It’s a law of nature.

“Right now, I mean,” she added.
“What? Now?” I protested, “I don’t even know where he is right now!”
“I mean after school, Jormund. You two can walk home together and share confidences!”
“Yes yes all right, I’ll do it,” I said, as the bell rang to announce the end of the lunch break and the commencement of Geography Class (for me) and English Literature (for her), and we walked our separate ways.

“The things a chap will do for a woman with a figure like that!” I muttered to myself as I entered the classroom.
“Did you say something?” asked Mrs. B., our Geography teacher, a fearsome woman with the face and build of a rhinoceros and ears sharper than a CIA bug.
“Nnnno, ma’m, nothing ma’m, I was just memorizing the figures for rainfall requirements for the kharif season, ma’m.”
“Good,” she said with a cruel smile, “then you can share with the class your observations thereon. Please take the floor, Mr. Elver…I think this will be very interesting.”

I threw up my hands and took my place at the centre of the platform. This was going to be a long 40 minutes.

* * * * *

The Ladies Man

[Pulled this one from the archives...I remember this one had offended some sensibilities on first publication. Sat down and excised some of the more potentially objectionable parts last night - they weren't really integral anyway. Derivative, maybe]

Attention-arresting first lines. They aren’t essential – some of the greatest works of literature have begun with the most ordinary opening sentences - but others have been set apart and marked for greatness by the sheer brilliance of their lung-openers. Whether it was Melville’s grand Biblical parable, Dickens’ tribute to a man’s sacrifice set against the French Revolution, or Collins’ tale of the forlorn Woman in White, their first lines have made it amply clear to their readers that they were about to embark on a literary journey of rare quality. And it is, therefore, rather unfortunate that I don’t have quite the talents of the two British and one American gentleman mentioned above, because the history of Nishant Sahil certainly deserves to have been treated by a writer of comparable quality.

A poor Elver shall, then, have to suffice.

So let me begin, therefore, by saying that this is a story of what one man’s fortitude can prosecute and how womankind has no option but to endure it.

Throw your mind back, then, to a balmy winter afternoon some twelve years ago. A contemplative pre-teen Elver stood leaning over the railing of the old stone steps the led up to the music room. It was, indeed, time for the school’s weekly music class and other people from my batch were also lounging around, awaiting the high-pitched call of the Music Teacher. I silently contemplated the pressing question of whether I should, during the ensuing lesson, sing “Rivers of Babylon” in the earthy, Jamaican tones of Boney M, or the higher, mellifluous tones in which the Psalm was sung by the Bandra Church Choir. While the latter was more musically consistent, the former suited the protestant, multicultural nature of the school better.

“You read, don’t you?”

This query, uttered in a conspiratorial whisper, clearly addressed to me, startled me out of my reverie. I took a step backwards and took a long look at the speaker. The short, very dark, skinny, ferret-like individual who was looking up at me wasn’t someone I’d ever spoken to before. In fact, he wasn’t even in my class. But the music lessons were given to all the divisions in the school together, which was why he and I were at the same place at the same time. Moreover, given the smallish batch size and the camaraderie that was common in the school, I had no difficulty placing him as Nishant Sahil of Division A.

“Why yes,” I said in response, “I also ‘rite and do ‘rithmetic, in case that was what you were going to ask next.”
For a moment he stood bemused. But minor setbacks like this, I was to soon discover, did not faze the likes of Nishant.
“No I wasn’t. What I mean is, I need your help. I want to propose.”

I leapt a clear three feet backwards and crashed into Raul, the massive but gentle rugby-player.

“What??”
“To a girl, I mean,” he said hastily, “she’s in your class, and I figured that you might’ve read something about folks who proposed. Need some tips on how to go about it. You’ll help, right?”

This was unprecedented. A bloke actually proposing to propose! There was to be a time when Aphrodite would entrance all but a few of the batch of ’96 into her wily webs, not sparing Jormund Elver himself, but that was still a few years away at the time. And while we, the students of Midgard-Hebrides had been taught in an inclusive atmosphere and did not regard girls as monsters or demons (a practice quite common in less liberal schools), the thought of seeing them as anything other than irritating little squirts was quite alien to our sensibilities.

However, the abiding ambition of my pre-teen self was to make myself agreeable to my peers. I could as soon have told him ‘no’ back then as I could tell Ariel now that yellow does not become her.

“Of course,” I said accordingly, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Oh thank you. I mean to pop the question in a few days. We’ll talk later.”
“Right, but who is the girl in question?”

He was about to reply when the music-teacher’s piercing voice trilled into our ears that if we did not carry our miserable carcasses upstairs within the next thirty seconds, we’d have to suffer the ignominy of being caned. Students of Midgard-Hebrides knew better than to disregard that threat.

# # # # # #

A few minutes after the lesson was over, we found ourselves trudging up another flight of stairs to get to our classrooms to collect our satchels. A familiar voice called to me as I ascended, and I stood still to let him catch up. It was Pete-Pete, the transfer student from Delhi.
“Hullo, Pete-Pete,” I said, “what’s new?”
“Oh nothing – wasn’t that Nishant I saw you speaking to just before the music lesson started? I didn’t know you knew the chap.”
“Yes it was, and no I don’t,” I replied, turning the corner of the corridor that leads to our classroom, “he approached me ¬ex-parte, you might say.”
“Hmmm,” said Pete-Pete, “anything to do with that rumour that he’s got the hots for a girl in our class?”
I was a touch surprised. Rumours, as I was to find out, spread fast.
“Well so it appears,” I admitted, “he said as much himself. Wants to propose to her, too.”
Pete-Pete gave a low whistle.
“Now that’s something. Did he say who it was?”
I shrugged, as I stepped into the classroom and located my bag, “Nope, not a word. Do the rumours say anything on that?”
“No,” he replied, “but we can guess, can’t we? The rest of the class is still to come in anyway. Who do you think it might be?”

Our classmates were trickling into the room in ones and twos, and I found myself gazing upon the female members with a touch more interest than ever before. While my motive for knowing who was the poor unfortunate target of Nishant’s affections was not, like Pete-Pete, that of idle curiosity, I felt it was an important fact to know if I was to offer any constructive help in formulating a proposal. After all, it would be incongruous to suggest he use an expression like “your unfathomable, dark, Hera-like eyes” if the girl in question was to have clear, grey, Athena-like eyes.

As it turned out, none of the girls in the class looked particularly like being candidates for the stormy emotions. Few 12-year-old girls ever do – with rare exceptions, it’s an awkward age for a girl just as it is for a boy.

“It must be her,” said Pete-Pete, giving me a nudge and indicating a tall, slim creature who was sharpening a pencil over by the window.
“Talmyra Kringle?” I said, thoughtfully, “by Jove! You must be right!”

Those were gentler, more innocent times. The world-wide-web was but a distant dream and even Cable TV was the preserve of the privileged few. Which is why, though I don’t claim to have been a great judge of feminine beauty, I can safely say that Talmyra Kringle was definitely pretty. She had a button-like nose, a clear complexion, twinkling brown eyes and a trusting smile that revealed a dimple. Far less has captivated the hearts of 12-year old boys. If anyone was a viable candidate for being the lady of Nishant Saahil’s heart, it was her. Besides, I knew her slightly from having sat next to her for most of the previous two years and could vouch for her definitely being one of the nicer girls around.

# # # # #

Early the next morning I sought out Nishant just before morning prayers.
“Wait up there, pal,” I said, waylaying him in the quadrangle.
“Jormund! Just the lad I was looking for! Did you look up anything yet?”
“N..no,” I said, “I do need to know who the girl is, though.”
“Oh..ok,” and here, to my considerable surprise, he blushed. It shouldn’t have been possible for anyone that dark to blush, but he did, and continued, “Her initials are.. T.K.”
I smiled in triumph. Our hunch had been correct. It was Talmyra Kringle.
“Talmyra’s a nice girl,” I said, “she always covered for me when I forgot to bring a book or something.”
“Talmyra? Who said anything about Talmyra?”
“Didn’t you just say…T.K.?”
“Yes – Taryn Kooglbottom!”
“Taryn Kooglebottom!” I exclaimed in distress. I only had a vague memory of who the Kooglebottom was, but such as it was, it wasn’t pleasant. Besides, I knew I remembered something about her that was dashed inappropriate, though it escaped my mind just at that moment.
“Yes. Isn’t she sexy? She’s a Delhi girl. Delhi Girls. Wow!”
“I…uh…wouldn’t know,” I muttered and began to sidle away. I needed to consult Pete-Pete about that disturbing premonition.
“You’ll help me right?”
“Yes yes,” I said, and raced towards the school buildings muttering something about having homework to do.

Pete-Pete was nowhere to be seen when I reached the classroom. The Kooglebottom, however, was. She stood in conversation with her coterie at the far end of the classroom, near the window that opened out onto the basketball courts.

I am told that the statue of Venus De Milo, in the Louvre, is so breath-taking in its depiction of the Hellenistic Ideal that visitors are left speechless in awe. Taryn Kooglebottom was…well…not quite like that. It might have helped if she didn’t use as much oil in her hair. The pimples across her countenance did it no favours either. Her aspect, overall, was distinctly bovine – an expression of perpetual content, combined with a rather unintelligent expression and a penchant for chewing gum on all occasions.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Pete-Pete saunter into the classroom and chuck his bag onto the bench next to me. In a few brief words I put him abreast with the new information.
“No, seriously?” was his response.
“I ain’t kidding,” I replied.
“Crap,” he said, “that female is…”
“Like a cow?” I suggested.
“No, I mean yes, but that’s not what I mean – she’s unutterably cheap!”
“How do you mean?” I asked, but even as I did, I remembered why I had that disturbing premonition I had earlier.
It had been two years earlier to that date. The teacher had been absent and the class was mostly engaged in idle banter. I was trying to sketch Leonidas based on his depiction in the history textbook. Pete-Pete was engaged in conversation with Daniel, seated behind. Taryn, who sat next to Daniel had then proposed that we discuss the stories of the movie we had most recently seen. What Daniel and Pete-Pete had related, I don’t remember. I think I had summarized Zorba the Greek. Taryn had then, with great gusto and paying close attention to detail, retold the story of what could only have been a softcore pornographic film. My ears had burned then, and the recollection burned them again.

“Crap! We have to warn Nishant!” I exclaimed, “I’m sure that’s not the kind of girl he want to be going after.”
“You do it,” said Pete-Pete dismissively, “he’s your friend.”
My protests, though I made them, were clearly redundant. The onus of having that conversation with Saahil fell, I knew, on the Elveren shoulders.

I swooped down on Nishant near the water-cooler during PE.
“Nishant, Taryn’s all wrong for you,” I blurted out.
“Why?” he asked, taken aback.
“She’s…she’s…she tells dirty stories,” I said weakly.
He gave me an interrogative look. I told him, in the best way I could, of the events outlined above. His reaction was, to say the least, unexpected.
“Wow! Jormund, I love her more than ever before!”
I staggered away from him in amazement. After school that day I informed him that I was sorry, but I lacked the skills necessary to help him propose to such a woman as that. In short, I washed my hands of the whole affair.

# # # # #

Not that a lack of co-operation from my side kept Nishant from carrying through his plans. That Friday, during the lunch break, Nishant Sahil walked into our classroom with a look of tense determination. In his hand he bore a box of Gems – button-shaped candy, I mean, not precious jewels. Kooglebottom stood, as usual with her coterie by the window. Nishant took a deep breath and walked purposefully forwards towards her. The coterie parted respectfully. Stopping before Kooglebottom, he took another deep breath.

I put aside my lunch and got up to get a better view of his actions.

“Taryn,” he said.
She chewed her chewing gum silently.
Nishant dropped to his knees, took up a fistful of candy from his box and held it up to her.
“Taryn Kooglebottom, I love you.”

An awed hush fell over the entire room. The only sounds now audible were of the basketball game in progress outside. Taryn turned her head towards the window and spat out the chewing gum, probably onto the head of some unsuspecting basketball player.

“Taryn Kooglebottom, you are so sexy!”

She reached out with her hand and picked up all the Gems that stood on the pal of his hand. Then she popped them into her mouth all at once and chewed appreciatively. I’d seen cows chew cud with less style.

“Taryn, are you listening? I love you! Let’s go steady!”

The love of his life plunged her oily fist into the box of candy that he had brought and gathered as many as she could fit into her paw. These she stuffed into her cavernous mouth and continued chewing in silence.

“Taryn!” he pleaded.

She merely repeated her previous action. Not a sound came out of her. And then, she let out a low sound that may have been a “No!” but sounded more like a “Moo!”

Even a Nishant can only stand so much. He got up and turned on his heels. She attacked the hand in which he held the Gems. With an anguished scream, he threw down the box and fled. Taryn Kooglebottom calmly picked up the fallen box and helped herself.

To say the incident created a sensation in the school would be stating the obvious. Never before had one so young done something so outrageous. Our illustrious seniors muttered in corridors that they had waited until the ninth standard when they had long pants before proposing to girls. Others cast aspersions on Nishant’s sanity. An uncharitable opinion was expressed that he had been on drugs.

The next year he informed me his father was being transferred to Delhi. He sounded glad about it. “Delhi Girls. Wow!” he said. That transfer order never came.

But this was only the beginning. In years to come Nishant was to propose to more girls than any other student in the school’s history. By the time the batch of ’96 lined up for its convocation day photograph, there wasn’t a single girl in that photo – not one – who had not received a proposal from Nishant, and even if there had been, it was for lack of time, not inclination.

These included all types – from Talmyra Kringle and the other bona-fide school beauties to Kooglebottom and her look-alikes (yes, he proposed to her on two more occasions). The result was always the same; a flat rejection. True, the mode varied, Arabella R. screamed in horror and fainted into her boyfriend’s arms. Roxanne H. slapped him with a protractor. Payal P. gave him a punch on the chest that knocked him out flat. Tania L. did nothing to him personally, but her two boyfriends thrashed him on two separate occasions.

Did any of this deter the great man? Far from it. Every year he’d tell me of the imminent transfer to Delhi that was just around the corner and how Delhi Girls made him say “Wow!” Through knocks, slaps, kicks, rejections, thrashings from boyfriends, thrashings from girlfriends (to whom he then proposed), Nishant persevered as only he could. He proposed to Drusilla because “Your hair look so good when you let them down.”, he proposed to Archie because “Your shoulders are so sexy,” and to Farah because “You’re so intelligent you can help me pass my exams.”

No reason was too trivial, no beauty too intimidating, no wench too homely. Through the summer and winter, at sports day and the Christmas Party, any occasion was good enough for Nishant to throw down a proposal.

What eventually happened of him, I do not know. We didn’t keep in touch after convocation day. I like to think his Dad did eventually get that transfer order to Delhi.

I can see him now, in my mind’s eye, standing in Karol Bagh on the footpath outside Roshan Di Kulfi, gazing at the passing thoroughfare and screaming, “Delhi Girls. Wow!”