My Noiseless Memories

Not long ago…

Sumanth started the camp fire; we started off with dumb-charades followed by Antakshari. This went on for an hour before we decided to play truth or dare… Many rejected the idea saying ‘some other time’. Then we decided to play the simple confession story – To tell everyone how they met and fell in love the first time except… others should find out whether the story is true or fake… It was like opening a Pandora box… Amazing fun and everyone shared their version of funny stories, both real and fake in equal measures and it was great. Then it was Zoya’s chance to open up…

‘I was in my 9^th grade…’

‘9^th mein hi…?’ Said someone…

She smiled and said, ‘…listen… I was in my 9^th grade and there was this good looking guy in my class who always used to tell us what to do and what not to do. I was madly infatuated by him that I used to listen and do whatever he says until one fine day I realized he was already married…

‘Married! 9^th grade mein hi?’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Yeah, unfortunately he was my school teacher…’ Every one burst out laughing saying that the story wasn’t true… and there was some magic around the place and Zoya was glowing at the center of it…

People didn’t believe her… So she had to sing a song for everyone.

‘No…No…No… I am a bad singer… Please! Something else…?’

‘Nothing doing… You have to sing a song…’

This trip opened the multiple façades of what Zoya was all about. Her expressions were getting cuter with every passing moment. She rolled her tongue in cheek, her eyes popping out in surprise whenever something crazy was said / happened, her long black hair falling frequently over her cheeks, her fingers running through her hair to set them… In short, I just couldn’t take my eyes off her…

And so she finally sat down to sing…

Songs have this strange way of connecting people with the one whom you are attracted. It does bring back those feelings, nostalgia and longing to be someone’s… I was sure that she would sing some Urdu or Arabic song typical of a person from a Islamic country. I was wrong… She started to everyone’s amusement…

It was from the film, Bombay… and the song… ‘Kehna Hi Kya…’

A couple of guys stopped sipping their beers, the girls sat in a position taking notice of her, and trust me guys for a moment, I felt complete… there was the song, campfire, the moon, an angel like girl singing the song of your dreams… To me it was pure bliss…

As I said, songs have this amazing feeling of rekindling the fervor in us… and I was no stranger to it. But what made me flabbergasted was the way she sang… She sang but she looked straight into me when she sang…

There is this strange connection a guy feels when a girl sings. But when the girl looks straight into you when she sings… You just go blank and remain speechless. I stood there dumbfounded. This was definitely not attraction… but neither was it an infatuation… It was something more than that…

I just couldn’t figure it out what it was then…

But I did eventually…

My Noiseless Memories – Chapter 15

Written by Ganesh Raam

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