My Fair and Lovely Lady

What was the time of the year? I don’t remember, but must be summer of 87 when we met again. Once we met then the story changed forever. It was a meeting after a long gap. It has always been like that in life. We always meet after long gaps. So before death when I will look back how many times we met in our life, may be it will have very intense meetings and then long gaps of years, months and decades. We were in the same class till class five and then I moved out to a different city, different place and different school. She stayed back at the same place and continued her studies. I met again after a gap of four years. This time I was visiting the town to play some interschool completion; it was kho kho or football. I think it was football because after a friendly match in the night, I had broken my toes and could not continue the game further. I went to meet her parents after a gap of few years and still had the childish carry over. I think boys in that age grow slower compared to girls. Biologically girls grow up faster than boys during those days. I had no intention to see how she is doing but there was a desire to meet her and see what she is doing and how she is doing in her studies. I had food in their house and came back around 10 PM and then had just a small chat with her about studies. There were other guys who were with me, so we could not take up a fruitful conversation about our life, studies and career. Life took me to two more cities before I again met her. I didn’t meet her at first. I met her sister first. I cant call her as ‘her sister’ as I also respect as my sister and feel that in some other life, she was my sister or even mother. Her sister was in a class just one year senior to me and also in the science stream. So it was easy for me to meet her sister as we were almost nearby departments. Her father will always drive down to the college in a green fiat car. Her father had one of those earlier fiat cars in the whole town. She was in Psychology department, which was just above my department i.e. Physics department. We hardly met in those two years of our graduation and whenever we met, it was a formal meeting and not much talking in that way. Post the examinations, we had lot of spare time when we will take up playing games like carom. Her father was a very good player of carom and in one team he will team up with her and in the other team I will join her sister. It was always me winning the game and she never complained about losing the game to me. She has curly hair as a child but when she grew up, she had surprisingly straightened her hair. I never marked this change till now. When I started going back to my memories, I could guess how I could not capture this subtle change in her. She had beautiful eyes and that’s all. In my imagination I always appreciated her feminist outlooks than physical appearance. We became truly friendly when both of joined in the same business school. Same business schools but with two different outlook. I was from a basic science background and she was there from psychology background, but in the same class. We use to travel back to our home town together on holidays or weekends. While we will be travelling together and will be paying five rupees each but it was always each paying their fare. She was very sensitive to these issues though she is from a rich family and could have said okay with either me giving the fare or she doing it. But I don’t remember that it ever happened when we have paid money for each other. While travelling together and being there in the same seat brought us together and I could feel a distinctive smell from her body and latter on I realized that it was the fragrance of Fair and Lovely brand. I have never used this brand, but sometime back when I found out someone else using the Fair and Lovely at home, I ran to find the smell and realized that she used to have this brand always. She was my Fair and Lovely lady for life……