Sarayu

Chapter 4

You guys are familiar with the routine, so I won't re-explain it to you. We reach, and the first thing I see is Sarayu, limping. She got her Shruthi box and went inside, limping again. Her book fell when she was about to take her Shruthi box, so I went up to her and helped her with the box and the books. For the first time, I asked her, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you."

I take the books and the box to the place behind, where she teaches, and kept it on her coffee stand.

"Thank you so much, Abhi."

"How do you know my name?"

"I heard my mom call you."

She noticed me. She actually noticed me. "Oh, okay," and I leave from the place, to not show the happiness she gave me.

I waited, and then came the other students, Ram, Amulya, Sahana, Srinidhi, and Kalpana. Ms. Malini came from the kitchen.

"Sorry guys, I was making soup for my daughter, she wasn't feeling well."

Sahana asked, "What happened to Sarayu akka?"

"Nothing to be afraid of, she has a condition where she cannot walk for thirty to forty five minutes after waking up. She didn't have a class today anyway, and she forgot to keep her alarm on, so she slept."

I was quite shocked upon hearing that, but I didn't think about it too much, at least not during class. We were sing, and we suddenly hear a song blasting from the back. I look back, and I saw Sarayu, looking embarrassed and saying "Sorry!" I thought back to the many times I've done that on purpose, to make my dad end the call with his friends he has every Friday and Sunday. It made me chuckle, seeing how innocent she was.

I tried to hear the song she was listening to. This time, it wasn't "Sasivadane" for sure. Some of the lyrics were audible.

"Nanu nene marachina nee todu, virahaana vegutu eenaadu, vinipinchada priya naa godu prema..."

My favorite song from my favorite movie. "Prema Prema" from Prema Desam. Although I've never been in a situation like any three of the main characters, Rahul has always been Tabu, but instead of two guys like in the movie, several girls fell for him at once. That's how much of a playboy he was.

But she liked the song! She was humming the song as it was coming and was fixing her veena, because she constantly plucked it at different notes, and no it wasn't a song.

I returned home, happy that one, I talked to her, and two, she liked my favorite song, but my happiness didn't last long. Vaishali, Rahul, and Krishna appeared, but not physically.

Scarily optimistic in terms of relationships, Rahul, started saying, "Dude, you guys have the same taste, tell her right now, or you'll miss your chance when someone else likes her later on!"

The president of "The Pessimistics", Mr. Krishna, argued, "Or maybe she has liked the song since forever and thinks of you as her mom's normal student."

Tomboy Vaishali said, "Or maybe you both are wrong, and she was just randomly listening to the song and Abhi is overthinking."

And I realized that it was my weird imagination "helping" me out. Ughhhh.

For the first time ever, I was silent during lunch. SILENT. It was a big thing for me.

Krishna asked, "Dude, chill. It's only the beginning," and whispered, "unlike my hopeless prem kahaani."

Rahul came and said, "Bro there are probably ten girls from our classes alone who might like you, why you going for such a girl?"

Vaishali, who absolutely "hates" Rahul, barged in saying, "Well maybe he likes those types of girls. Now will you shut up and eat your lunch and let Mr. Abhimanyu eat his?"

"Who the hell likes those girls anymore?"

"Well, I like old-fashioned guys."

Krishna, shocked, was shaking me. "Dude, dude, look! She liked guys who are old-fashioned..."

"But she didn't say nerd, right?" He got silent.

Rahul in turn asked Vaishali, "Well what if he was a nerd of some sort, like education wise or music wise or..."

"So what? If he likes me, a lot, then I'll like him too!" Krishna shakes me even more.

"Well, that's gonna be tough," says Rahul, and Vaishali almost stabbed Rahul with her fork for her noodles and started strangling his neck.

At night, I was thinking about my previous imaginary friends and my real friends and what they said about Sarayu. Although I gave an answer to myself, I thought again:

Why is she so special?