Sharmila's Song

"Its only words and words are all I have to take your heart away", Sanjeev played this song at full volume in his car when he saw Sharmila coming down the stairways. She could hear the faint notes of the song getting louder as she slowly moved towards the car. She could hear her heart sing that song as if it had struck a chord deep inside somewhere in her heart. "You will wake up the neighbors you idiot!" shouted Sharmila as she sat in the car and lowered the volume. Sanjeev gave her a devilish smile and sped the car away. He kept looking at her for a while till she said "The road offers better things than my clothes", he laughed and moved his eyes to the road.

"Why do you always want to leave so early Sharmz?". it was 7.30am in the morning and their first class in college was at 9.30am . "I like the early morning breeze and plus I like having tea with...", he knew what she meant and no it wasn't his company or any biscuit's either , it was her pet squirrel Chip. She loved animals and somehow all the animals who ever came near her became her friends. Sharmila once helped a parrot escape when she was 12 from her neighbors house. She hated animals being confined and even though her father an army Colonel always used to beat her for such naughtiness , did not scold her this time but gave her a hug .

"Good Morning Bhaiya , Do chai aur ek bread" , she said to the tea waala near the college. CVS was located in the busy bylanes of Triveni complex of Saket which was once a site for birdwatchers . The tea stall was build on an old mount of the Aravalis which was somehow spared by the DDA while alloting land to the college they termed it "green belt".

Sanjeev parked the car opposite the small cluster of shops which would very soon be infested by buzzing students looking for breakfast, smokes or at times stationery. Sharmila was sitting on a make shift bench made out of an old electric pole elevated by stones taken out from the nearby footpath.

"Didi Chai aur apki bread" chotu handed over her a cup of tea and a bread wrapped in yesterday's Punjab Kesari newspaper. Sanjeev and Sharmila had met on the first day of college and they both had landed early to college . They sat in the room where soon enough they would be taking there first lecture of the day .

He was reading ET which he had picked up from the nearby bus stop. She was bored of watching him engrossed in a pink paper and not taking note of her new pink tee shirt . "So you arein BBE as well" Sharmila asked the man who as she thought was "pretending" to read the paper. "Well yes and you? I guess you in BBE as well, did you know the BJP government just sold BALCO?" came the reply from under the newspaper.

Sharmila was a bit angry but she controlled her anger as he knew how to steer this conversation now, he was a man of words but they were clogged in somewhere , she needed to do some plumbing.

"No not really , I had to drive from Faridabad to Saket , so I had to get up early and the paper comes late" Sharmila explained to the man , "Oh! which sector", said the man who by now was folding the paper neatly as if he was going to sell it to someone. "I am from 21- C and you?"Sharmila replied.
"I see! I am from 21-B, you now that big brown school", he replied back.

Since, then they had been on semi-talking terms till one day when Sharmila asked him for a lift back home as she her dad had taken the car to work. They grew quite fond of each other and used to chat online for hours. Sharmila loved the mad and lunatic online side of Sanjeev and also the calm and quite offline side . She could feel inside that both of them had something in common. Sanjeev loved making up small jokes which always left her in splits.

"Chip's here gal!", Sanjeev finally spoke after he had found his semi-crushed cigarette from the million things stuffed in his jeans pocket. He did not believe in carrying a wallet or as Sharmila said he was lazy enough not go in the market and buy one.

Sharmila herself did not have a purse and all she carried everywhere was a plain bright yellow Reebok messenger bag. She never cared about matching her clothes with the bag like all the other girls and she liked to wear shades of grey.

She fed Chip the bread and glanced at Sanjeev who was carefully looking at her actions. She knew he had a liking for her but she did not know what she felt for him.