Venue: Our Lady of Good Hope High School Day 1
If anything, most of our peers were jealous of one big mistake they made this year- not taking part in any of the projects. For the venue was decided as ‘Our Lady of Good Hope High School’- the only girls’ convent in the vicinity of our school and the only oasis for students of Auxilium. Entry to this school on any other day would be out of question. We three were among the lucky few Auxilites to get a chance to spend three whole days with the girls of Good Hope. Yes- three days; with the final day being the D-Day!For the first time, Jag, Aryan and I weren’t worrying about how our project would turn out. We were too busy imagining ourselves spending gala time with one of the Hope girls. As we walked past the gates of Our Lady of Good Hope High School, our eyes followed all the beautiful girls around. We were so lost in ogling at the women…err…girls...that we forgot to check on which floor the AIDS awareness project was scheduled to happen.
“Pyaason ko kuaan mil gaya yaar!” commented Aryan.
True, we were like the desert people who hit upon a pond of fresh water after years of roaming in the desert. Finally, we managed to climb up and reach Room 210 on the second floor. Of Course, there were Hope girls at every end of the floor with batches that read “HAPPY TO HELP” with their school Insignia in the background. And we guys were more than happy to seek help from every girl at every corner.
A note about these Hope School girls- They never walked with their feet on the ground, thanks to all the admiration and love showered by every guy – school going or not! The black and white checked short skirts above the knee and white blouses practically drove any man crazy beyond limits! And here we just were helping them walk with their feet a notch higher in the sky.
“I give a sh** to the project now!” Said Jag.
“If AIDS Awareness was so beautiful, I would have done a MA in that subject by now” I said.
As we entered the room 210, we saw all the schools in our ward readying their models to be prepared for exhibition. Thankfully, we designed a model that could be put together within minutes. But we ha what most of these schools did not- Enough lighting effects for the models, mechanical devices that made the stuff in the models work, voice effects wherein we recorded our own voices to give an extra effect to the entire presentation! Talking of lighting effects, our hearts lit up when we saw our neighbors for the project- Our Lady of Good Hope!!!!
Four very pretty girls were seated near the table area labeled ‘Our Lady…’ Me and Aryan straight away walked towards the lovely girls and extended our hands with a smile. (we had seen enough English soaps and movies to understand how teenagers approach girls their age) They just smiled and one of them said:
“Hi…Don’t you guys want to first set up something for your project? I mean- you have nothing ready!”
We withdrew our hands even as Jag was controlling his laughter- In vain! We just huffed back to our table and started putting things in place. ‘Wait till they see our project model’ we thought! Indeed, they were impressed to say the least- a life size structure with some dark rooms, many charts, a few buttons on the left to operate the various mechanisms that governed our project model.
“Wow! That is something….” One of them blurted out!
“Hey… Sorry if we were rude, We didn’t mean anything” the other one spoke up now.
There was silence for a moment, and from their looks we understood they signaled us to go over to them for friendship. This time, all of us stepped forward, but didn’t extend our hands to save our noses.
“Hi, I am Ramm- This is my friend Aryan and this is Jagmit”
“Call me Jag” Jag always thought Jag was cooler- Jagmit somehow didn’t go down well with him.
“My name is Shilpa”
“Bhakti”
“Fiola”
“Binaifer”
We exchanged smiles. But had no idead what to start off a discussion with. Suddenly Shilpa got up saying “See you people...Bye” and she left. We had a question mark on our face that was very obvious. We were trying to figure if we did anything to offend her.
“Dun worry, she anyways was here for a while. She’s not in the project anyways”
Fiola said. God! Could she read my mind? Or did I blurt out my thoughts aloud?
We got some conversation started at least! We moved onto discussing about the project, about how hard we worked for it (exaggerated of course!) etc. Fortunately, Auxilium was one of the finest schools in the area, if not the city. So our school name spoke volumes about our personality. Else these Hope girls would trample upon the hopes of many and not even bother to exchange polite words- leave alone sit together and chat.
“So you like Bio, Fio?” By now the discussions had moved to one on one. I tried hard not to stare at Fiola’s shapely soft legs as she sat cross legged with her fingers just on her right knee.
“Fio…??” She remarked with a weird look on her face. I couldn’t make out if she liked that or not. Fortunately she continued,” I like that name…my friends normally call me FILA or Fee you know?”
“FILA..wel..I think Fio is cute, just like you.” Oops! Too much too soon!
She didn’t react, but she wore a special smile for the rest of the conversation. Fio was a perfect example of what you would rate as petite. She had dark brownish hair cutely pinned up way above her head. Her eyes were big, black and perfectly shaped. A gifted sharp nose that went well with the thin lip line she had. She didn’t quite have a gifted voice, but nonetheless, her pretty face more than made up for that.
We talked about our families and talked about our life in school till now. I felt as if I have known this angel for ages, and hoped she felt no differently. We just looked around suddenly and saw that we had been sitting too close- I recollected as every instance I asked her to come closer as I wanted to tell her something more private, we lost track of the fact that we were in a school- her school for that matter- and were here for a project. Sister Nivedita didn’t quite like this, and of course why would she! We were so engrossed in our chat that we couldn’t hear her till Bhakti came and literally pushed poor Fio out of the chair.
“FILA…Go…Nivy is calling…”
The looks Sister Nivy was giving me sure confirmed any doubts that I might have had about what her feelings for me would be. The discussion seemed a bit serious between Fio and Nivy. Fio came back in a while and pulled her chair closer to her school’s table even as Bhakti was waiting for her there. I saw Aryan back to our model, pretending to check the lighting. Jag was gone, so was Binaifer!
I just trudged back to our table. I developed a strong dislike for Sister Nivedita from that moment, and the feeling was just mutual. But just then, As Sister Nivy left the room, Fio signaled with her hand to me as if to say- “LATER…” Her ‘Later’ came sooner than I thought. Not sure why she was the one making the moves and not I. She got up and asked,
” Anyone coming with me to drink some water?”
Aryan and Bhakti were looking in my direction. It was amply clearly that the question was for me. Rather, it wasn’t even a question! I saw a small bottle of water in one of the bags that belonged to these pretty girls. She wasn’t thirsty for water at all!
I just followed Fio a moment after she left the room. I felt all students in the room looking at me, or maybe it was just me thinking so. I didn’t know what to expect, and what not to.
PART III underway…
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