I thought I knew Chaya pretty well...

 ----

20 mark question in my 'Creative writing' paper: Begin with the line 'I thought I knew Chaya pretty well...' and bring about a sketch of that character.Wrote it in about 20 minutes. Posting it just because I felt like doing it. :D

----

I thought I knew Chaya pretty well, but my entire perception of her was about to change drastically. I was in school back then, 10^th grade to be precise. Chaya was a very pretty girl, extremely silent and always confined herself to her work. She smiled occasionally, more of a blush actually, when someone pointed out an embarrassing mistake she had made or when she caught one of us staring openly at her. The usual chatter among us boys was always about how someone as beautiful as Chaya could be so unaware of her beauty and behave very casually as opposed to the unlimited tantrums and air other girls her age always threw around. Chaya was a couple of years younger to me and she was my first crush. Most of my mornings were usually spent marching along the corridor, past her class, at least 20 times in my well ironed shirt and trousers until I caught a glimpse of her settling in her usual corner bench. But that specific morning, I was having a very bad feeling that something had gone wrong, when the bench remained empty for the 8^th consecutive day. Aimlessly dreaming of waltzing on my rooftop with her, I killed another painful day at school. On the 10^th day, she came to school – with a clean shaved head.

My heart jostled and fell out of my body. There was a new sense of a strong emotion that had washed across her usually calm face. During lunch break, talk floated around that she was suffering from a type of cancer and that she was to undergo constant treatment from then. I felt my entire self numbing. Gathering all my courage, I waited for her to come to the exit gate of the school in the evening. “Chaya,” I hesitated. Her deep black eyes bore into mine, searching for a cue towards what I had to say. Open-mouthed, I stood staring at her, waiting for the familiar blush that was not to come. Unknowingly, a tear stood at the brink of my eye and trying to blink it away, I made it trace its path down my cheek. A small voice in my head very inappropriately commented that I could never look cute the way Chaya did when she cried. Switching it off, I commenced on another trial at framing a sentence and failed miserably, not getting any further than saying “Chaya…” and deliberating again.

What should have been an encouraging talk from my side, ended up being a complete consoling session by her to an uncontrollably sobbing me. Of what she spoke and how she framed her words I remember nothing, but when she was done, the hysterical panting had stopped and her hand gently rested upon mine. I had spent days wishing to but get close to her, to just have my face brush past her curly hair and claim her smile to be only mine. But right then, I could barely hold myself together.

In the week that followed, we saw a Chaya that none of us had ever even dreamt of before. We saw the singer in her, the writer in her, the swimmer in her, and most of all, the will-power in her. A very strong bond of friendship blossomed and that was when the entire wave of her personality hit me. Composed and dignified, she stood tall in everyone’s opinion, the school’s star performer when she passed out graduating. Though the magnanimity of her being awed me at times, she somehow sensed it at the right moments and made sure that our relationship stayed stable.

I had proposed marriage to her in all humanly imaginable ways possible and she had softly and politely turned them all down with her rhythmic laughter. We made trips to the beach at 4 in the morning to wait and watch the sun rise. We went on trekking trips to unknown places of the North-East. My daydream of waltzing with her did come true in one of those eccentric moods she always gets into. We learnt the Salsa together and slept next to each other in tents, counting stars and making wishes. Effortlessly, she taught me that life revolved around the strong pivot of love and it was worth having lived only when we had given more than what we had got. Her success in her career taught me the power of creativity and of keeping the heart and mind open. And of a person as a whole, her life personified determination for me. But for her constant weight losses, nothing showed even a remote trace of the condition she suffered from. The lesson of her life to me is always this favourite line of some poem of hers – “When hope is all you’ve got, you’ve still got a lot.”

-        Just Someone.

Photography Courtesy:       Fahad Yunus Mohammed.