An Innocent Girl

AN INNOCENT GIRL?

‘Hello. Sir!’
‘Hello.’
‘How are you?’
‘Absolutely happy and comfortable at least in your company. What about you?’
‘Equally good.’
‘How do you feel here now?’
‘Very nice.’
‘I think the new environment has become quite familiar to you. Gradually girls adjust themselves in a new environment easily as compared to boys.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘The reason being that they are more sensitive and friendly than their male counterparts and they have many tactics to be one with the new situation. You know it took me many months to get accustomed to this kind of large and new set-up.’
‘OK sir, bye.’
The interesting conversation used to end the moment she bade bye. It was her usual gesture of seeking permission to go. And I was always left loitering in the world of imagination. For no man would like to leave the company of a woman for whom he felt a touching and soothing ache in his heart and whose company gave him a comfortable assistance.


Rania met me almost a year ago in a school where I was teaching at that time. She was the daughter of a businessman. She was around twenty years old, a step at the threshold of ripe beauty. She was at that time at the height of her prime youth. She was jovial by nature and calm at heart. Although she was twenty yet she seemed to be a small girl of five years who talked innocently. A perfect and pleasant figure to look at. She was tall and slim, yes very slim. She was slightly bent. She had little boobs which rarely attracted the lustrous eyes. She had black soft hair like her soft nature. She talked slowly, at least in front of me. She walked in a to and fro manner. And yet she looked graceful when she walked. She didn’t seem to burden the earth with her weight when she moved. She wore specs and the girls wearing specs always caught a glimpse of my chasing eyes. She looked charming in simple attire and simple she was. She was a real truth. She was a real life.
Rania had a taste for life. Every word of others’ was a reality for her. She could mould her life the way others desired. She was always ready to agree with others. She poured out her simple heart whenever she talked. And she talked like an infant, like an innocent child.
Sometime she got angry but her anger was always artificial. Rather it enhanced the beauty of her face. She was the reflection of a poet’s heart. She herself was poetry. There was rhythm in her life. Her life was filled with music. This music seemed to sing the song of life.
She wanted to study further but couldn’t go ahead with her heart’s desires as she alongwith her family members had many responsibilities to tackle, so much burden to bear and so many problems to solve. For her father faced a downfall in his business. Rania was the eldest daughter. Besides her, she had two younger sisters and one brother. So to move with life and to lesson the burden of life and of course to assist her family, she applied in a school as she had done NTT course and she got the job and that in a reputed school.
She was working out of helplessness perhaps, yet helplessness seemed nowhere around her. Although she seemed to be under some burden, yet her life looked burden less. Only because she had a natural heart, a heart that made others feels happy, a heart that removed others’ unwanted burden. She had a passionate heart under the garb of her body. She always smiled and never looked sad. She talked less and compelled every mind to talk with. Every word she uttered, she uttered from her loving and innocent heart. She had no ill-will towards others. She seemed to be a little pretty girl who captured the attention of the onlookers with her ever lasting charm.
She always longed to be in my company as she took the initiative herself to talk to me. As I was more passive in the beginning, she was more active. She called me behind whenever she saw me anywhere during the course of the school. Within a few months I found a place for her in my heart. I felt she was inclined towards me. The way she looked at me through her passionate loving eyes used to give a shudder in my bones. Earlier we used to come across once a week. And I longed impatiently for that moment. To reach that, it seemed, to cover thousand miles. Her company at that time was nothing less than a paradise. Her company always gave me a soothing comfort. Her simple smile removed my weariness of the whole hectic day. ‘Hello sir,’ was her usual way of starting the conversation. One day she started the same saying, ‘Hello sir.’
‘Please don’t call me sir. My name is Suhej. Always call me with my name even without adding ‘sir’ to it,’ I insisted.
‘No sir. How can I call you with your name?’ she retorted.
‘What’s the problem with it?’ I almost pounced upon her.
‘OK but why?’ she enquired.
‘I never like to be called ‘sir’. For this title demands some higher respect and knowledge which I still to possess. Moreover I have a long way to go to be a real ‘sir,’’ I explained.
She became a little bit serious and said, ‘OK sir, bye.’
She left the place without thinking who would complete the unfinished conversation. And the word ‘sir’ spoken again at this moment turned my face red.
She started enjoying my company. This I came to know when her stay with me prolonged a little bit more every time she met me. The conversation, then, moved from one topic to another. It was I who asked questions and she, puzzled and confused, answered them. My questions were short and her answers too long to end easily. It was the general tendency among girls to talk and talk endlessly on even a useless topic without thinking of the other person who had no option but to listen. It was Rania’s way of talking that helped me enjoy her company.


The other day she passed by my side without looking and talking to me which she never did earlier. It was, I felt, the first sign of love on her side. Girls usually remained silent at the initial stage of love. They didn’t like to take any initiative to talk but they liked to be talked. Ours was not a love at first sight. The first time she met me in the school at her interview and I didn’t feel anything for her when she was introduced to me by her maternal aunt who was also working in the same school and enjoying a reputed place in the school and who helped me flourish in the school. When I was asked to drop Rania at her home after the interview by her maternal aunt, she got terrified as my image was absolutely new for her. A strange stranger.
She didn’t talk to me for quite a few days. How I spent those days only I knew. I observed her facial expression silently and tried to decode the language whispered by her curious eyes. She wanted to say something but didn’t open her mouth to let pass a few words through her sensitive lips. I never like to talk to a person who didn’t like to talk to me whosoever that might be. After a few days she met me and broke the ice as girls had no patience to be away from their loved ones for quite a long time without talking to them.
‘Sir, are you annoyed with me?’ she almost whispered.
‘I don’t think so,’ I answered in a defensive voice and presented myself callously but eager to be talked.
‘Then why didn’t you talk to me for a few days?’ she counter attacked in a low tone.
‘I thought why to disturb you when you don’t want to talk to me,’ I said.
‘There was nothing like this,’ she answered and smiled.
We both were tense when the conversation started, and relaxed and happy when the talk ended.


She was very particular about my choice. She looked gorgeously beautiful when she wore red suit and light parrot coloured dress. It was nothing less than a festival to see her in the red dress.
Once she was managing the students to be in a proper row. She was in her red dress. I finished my class and approached her. She smiled with protruded lips. I stopped near her. I went, then, very close to her and sought permission like an obedient child to say something.
‘May I say something if you don’t mind?’ I whispered almost in her ears.
‘Yes,’ she said in a smiling tone.
‘Why don’t you wear this red suit daily,’ I spoke softly.
‘OK, sir,’ she mildly said.
‘Do you know why I ask you to wear it daily?’ I further asked.
‘Why?’ she questioned eagerly.
‘You look very sexy in this red dress,’ I poured my heart out before her.
‘Oh!’ she blushed and expressed her surprise with a funny smile, and I moved on. After this she started wearing that red dress at least twice a week. And she proved one thing that you praise a girl and she will be yours.
The next day she stopped to meet me near the school lawn, a romantic environment. She didn’t say anything though she wanted to say something.
‘I am sorry I uttered a few non-sensical words yesterday,’ I apologized. Although there was no lust in those words, yet the other person was bound to take it otherwise.
‘No, sir. There is no need to feel sorry,’ she said making me relaxed.
‘This morning when I was coming to school, I shouted your name as loudly as possibly I could. Even a passer by noticed it,’ I explained my situation.
‘I think you have gone mad,’ she answered with smile.
‘It is enjoyable to be mad in love,’ I thought but didn’t speak a word and she moved on.


After a few days, I saw a change in the nature and activities of Rania. I felt that she was avoiding my company. I talked to her on different occasion. She did respond but reluctantly. Her attention was divided and diverted. She stood before me but looked somewhere else. She talked to me but thought something else. I was terribly disturbed at her attitude. I spent sleepless nights afterwards.


One day I asked her to meet me in the library. She consented to come at the fixed time. I reached in the library a few minutes earlier as it was my usual way of reaching earlier at the spot. I was waiting for her with curious eyes. I was planning to say this and that. First five minutes passed. Then the next ten, fifteen and even twenty. I was dying with impatience. Countless questions toppled in my disturbed mind. ‘Why didn’t she come when she agreed to come?’, ‘What is wrong with her?’, ‘Why is she late?’, ‘Why is she avoiding my company?’, ‘Is she making fool out of me? , ‘Is there anything else in her mind as well as heart?’, ‘Does she love me or somebody else?’ The list of questions at that moment seemed endless.
I left the library like a befooled dog who was called to be given some food but was sent empty handed. I was on the verge to break down. I almost lost my senses. Yes, I was right. I observed her inclination towards someone and that was the first sign of breaking the relation. In order to prove it, I had to do something. The table must be clear.
The very next day she met me and immediately felt sorry. I was blazing with anger. I didn’t utter a word at first. She again apologized and then I broke the silence.
‘Do you think I am a fool waiting for you there?’
‘No, sir. I had to do some important work.’
‘To hell with your important work.’
‘Really, sir. I am sorry, sir.’
‘This is not for the first time you did this. You are fond of making fool of me.’
‘No, sir.’
Without listening to another word I left the place and went to home. This was for the first time I spoke to her rudely and roughly.
After two days she met me in the library by chance. She was sitting alone as if waiting for someone. I pretended not to look at her. I started searching for a book. After sometime I picked up a newspaper and read it without reading, paying any heed to any news item. I knew she was looking at me. She, then, got up from her chair and passed by my side whispering close to my ears, ‘I am sorry, sir.’ I spent at least five-six minutes moving here and there in the library. I went close to her where she was sitting with a book. I sat beside her and pretended to read the newspaper- a reliever in my hand. She didn’t speak a word. Neither did I. She occasionally raised her head to have a glimpse of my angry face. I spent half an hour there silently. After sometime another teacher came there. His name was Suranjan, a handsome young fellow working in the same school. And Rania’s activities changed. She got up from her seat and moved here and there. I observed her minutely without letting her know with a spy’s eyes. But she didn’t know that an eye camera was following her. Suranjan’s eyes chased Rania wherever she went in the library and she was happy. All this happened within ten minutes. Then, she left the library conveying something to Suranjan through her speechless eyes. So did Suranjan. So did I.
This small incident in the library opened my so-called eyes. I remained mentally perturbed. I, afterwards, pretended to laugh when my heart wanted to cry in anguish. One night I recalled her double image and tears came rushing out of my eyes moving like a flooded stream. For the moment I felt relaxed and relieved. I myself avoided her company. Many days went and we didn’t talk or it could be that I didn’t give her a chance to come near me. On the other hand, I wanted to know the truth which only she could tell.
One day in the morning I met her near the school reception and asked her to accompany me to the other room. She did so as she always did otherwise. She came with me. She asked me where they were going. I asked her to wait for a minute. She was not pacing with me. She was at least two steps ahead of me. She was conscious and nervous. She was looking here and there as if looking for help to relieve her from my clutches. Then I asked her whom did you consider the most important on this earth? She named her parents. ‘Why were you asking me this question?’ she pounced back. Now keeping your parents before your eyes you answer me one question.
‘What is your choice—me or someone else?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she spoke.
‘What is your choice?’ I reiterated.
She kept silent as no straight answer came out of her reluctant mouth. Her face turned pale. I threw a few more burning words on her face and moved in a room. She stayed there for a minute. She, at last, came to know how much I loved her. She came near the threshold of the same room where I entered. She looked inside the room. She wanted to say something but looked at me and I looked at her. Silent glances passed. She left the place. She was disturbed but cool. I couldn’t concentrate on teaching that day. I kept thinking of her and the moment I asked her, ‘What is her choice?’


She was a gentle girl. How could she deceive me like this? I thought. She was not the same Rania whom I met a few months’ ago. But she was still intact as she used to become easily cool. She never seemed hurt. She still cared for the rude person like me. She was my unlabelled friend.
Somehow I came to know that she had a strong liking for Suranjan. And my dreams found shattered on the ground. I was left with nothing. She, a figure of perfectly imagined gentle girl, had changed the course of my life upside down. It was hard to believe that she could go to such a degrading fall. It was difficult to imagine that she had such a terrible lust in her eyes. She shifted from one relation to another very easily, so comfortable for her. But still she confessed her desires for me which now seemed so unreal that reality seemed nowhere whenever she met me here and there. Physically she was with me, mentally she was somewhere else. She talked to me but fumbled. She became conscious in my presence. Earlier she was so eager to see and meet me that she perhaps never wasted any opportunity for that. Now my same image disturbed her a lot. She avoided my company. But she did talk to me. She didn’t say ‘no’ to me if I wanted to talk to her. Neither was it her ‘yes’. She tried to maintain a balance.
She seemed to be so gentle that it was unimaginable to think of her mercurial nature. She was jovial, I was serious. She didn’t like to be serious and serious she never was. She preferred talkative people, which I could never be. Her nature attracted me, her innocence charmed me, but both the attractions had taken a significant turn.
She tried to conceal her inner, but failed before my observable eyes. She thought I knew nothing and perhaps could never know. She was mistaken. I made the things clear when she seemed to have cleared my likings from her heart. But she could never be away from my memories. She realized my feelings which were never artificial like hers. My image, my memories would torture her.
This world was filled with cunning and crooked people. She was no different. After all she was a human being. But when a person like her behaves like a cunning person, one becomes suspicious. The turn in her nature at this point was a big jolt for me. She changed and changed terribly. It is good for a girl to change clothes, but not relations. When a girl transforms her liking from one boy to another regularly and casually, people will not hesitate to call her a flirt. And a flirtatious girl has no good image in the society.
Nowadays, a man’s good and gentle nature is no good for others. The gentleness is mocked at. It becomes a favorite pastime for others. People call him a fool and no fool like a gentle fool. His gentle stupidity becomes a fun filled target
I was pure at heart, loyal in my feelings, sincere in my behaviour and attitude and sensible in my relation with her, but she threw everything away in the wind. But still I was happy, happy as I came to know her hidden image of her mind as well as her heart, so good for me. Although I was tense but I could live peacefully. The questions that were left unanswered would torture me. Why had she done all this with me when I had done nothing wrong with her? What was my fault? It was, perhaps, I loved her with a whole heart. It was that I never made fun of her as she did with me. It was that I was loyal to her. Were my feelings insincere? Yes, who would tell me?