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CAT Exam
The day I had been waiting for. I had taken coaching classes and had worked really hard to know that I was going to ace this exam. I was so well prepared that nothing could go wrong. What finally happened there was something that even years of practice couldn't have helped. When I got to the exam hall, I was oblivious to everything else around me. I tried revising a few math formulae at the end hoping that that would help. After it was time, I got my seat in the exam hall and sat down. It was a small school bench barely enough for me. It had to accommodate another person. I kept praying it was a girl.
Then he walked in. I had seen him outside smoking near where the bikes were parked. He had been looking at me intently and I instantly slotted him in the 'Absolutely not' category. Yeah, I had categories back then. To my horror, he walked up and sat right next to me. I expected him to reek of cigarette smoke. Surprisingly he did not smell so bad. He fidgeted around for a few minutes. The genius had walked in with a pen and nothing else. Did he not read the instructions? He looked at me. I had a whole kit there. Three pencils, an eraser, a sharpener and what not. He then asked me for a pencil. I felt like lecturing him about reading instructions and all but I just did not want to spoil the flow. That was just the cue he needed. A glib talker, he quickly got me to tell my name and what I studied and all. He even had the cheek to make fun of my name. I hated him so much at that moment. He told me his name was Ajay and flashed a smile. And thats when it all started.
He asked me out - in the middle of a national exam. Who does that? I stared in disbelief for a few seconds before asking him to shut up. He continued to ask me out throughout the exam. It wasn't the cheap 'please please' type. Everytime he asked me out, he had a different reason why. Despite the moment, I kinda found it innovative. And he wasn't bad looking either. Just different. I ignored him. I saw him filling up the paper at rocket speed and figured he would never pass. We gave the paper at the same time and got up. He tried talking to me all the way down till we got out of the school. I just turned around and flashed the angriest expression I could muster up and told him to go away and threatened to inform the officials. He looked stunned (like he did not expect it at all). He quietly said sorry and walked away very slowly (vintage Ajay emo blackmail). I felt miserable. I tore some of the question paper off and wrote my phone number on it. I stared at it for sometime and then on impulse, I went and tapped him on his shoulder and put the paper in his hand and ran off. The last time I turned back and looked, he was grinning at me. For some reason, that gave me such a high.
3 weeks later, I had given up all hope of this guy calling me up. I was planning to go out with some friends of mine but I was dreading this visit to the movies. There was this guy in that group who had a big crush on me and I just couldn't stand him. Out of the blue, my phone rang and it was Ajay calling. I recall being shocked, angry and relieved at the same time. He then told me how his pant got washed along with my note and then got ironed and then he noticed the number. He was lucky the numbers were still intact because of the way he crushed the paper and threw it inside. Utterly irresponsible. He asked me out then. I told him that I wanted to meet up too but I had to go out with friends. I felt horrible doing that as I wanted to meet him so bad. We went to a movie theater closer to my place which is outside the city. I told Ajay where I was going. I did not expect him to come there obviously. Imagine my surprise when I saw him standing there. He coolly walked up to me and hugged me like I was his girlfriend and then kissed me. I remember the goosebumps. I had never kissed a guy before and it was awesome. That other guy was fuming. He tried to break us up but Ajay pushed him away telling him that I was his girlfriend (in what I now think is one of the lamest dialogues ever). Somehow, I couldn't even get myself to protest. I think that was when I had started to fall in love. And the feeling was indescribable.
P.S. He beat me at the CAT exam and scored a 91 percentile without even studying. Well... I was not allowed to concentrate and he is to be blamed! :)
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