Bhubaneswar: A Short-Lived Love Affair...

I spent a year in Bhubaneswar nine years ago. I was fresh out of high school and had just enrolled into this vocational course. The course didn’t take much of my time. So, I spent the year participating in events to kill time and earn some dough. My other pastime: a tall and ambitious girl named Jyoti. Pay attention to the adjectives I use.

We met each other during the first day of the course. I noticed her because she was smarter than the usual Odia girl, spoke well and carried herself with grace and gravity. She noticed me because I was “exactly the kind of spoilt, bratty and privileged asshole that she despised”. Well, that was how she perceived me. I was an extrovert at that point of time, overzealous and outspoken and you would also have judged me wrong had you met me then.

I asked her if I could sit in the seat next to her and she said NO. What seventeen year old doesn’t love a challenge. I didn’t know why this girl was averse to me but I instantly knew I had to charm my way into her good books. So I did that. 

Her initial reluctance was such an intrigue. It made getting her feel like a conquest. I am a tall guy and her height (5’ 9”), while a deterrent for some, was a real point of attraction for me.  I can be real persuasive when I set my mind on something. I wooed her with all the “technique” that are at a 17-year-old’s disposal. I was subtle at times and overtly tacky at other times, but I was persistent. And my perseverance paid off.

Her heart really started melting for me when she realized that I wasn’t the rich bratty guy she’d assumed me to be. Instead, my roots were actually humbler than most. Once she had that information, all of my confidence and enthusiasm that she earlier found annoying started impressing her. She now saw me as the guy who had grown up to be smart and savvy in spite of all the odds. Most women are suckers for guys like that. Ha ha!

I remember the first time I sent her a text. She hadn’t bought a cell phone yet but her landline at home had SMS facility. And she’d freaked out at my simple hello. It was the first time a guy was sending her a text at home. She was evidently a ‘goody two-shoes’. Anyway, she soon bought a handset and we started talking more often. She lived in Cuttack, 25 kilometers away from Bhubaneswar. I soon started travelling to Cuttack to see her off after classes and I’d return back alone. Now when I think back, travelling for one and half hours in crowded buses, just to spend 45 minutes more with her seems like a lot of work, but it never bothered me back then. 

I remember the day she wore a saari for the first time. We had this grooming class for ladies only and I had walked up to the institute just to see her. She looked really elegant in that purple saari and when I praised her, she decided to kiss me. For the first time. Oh, young love!

The next couple of months were blissful. She and I were tall, smart and popular among our classmates at the institute. People loved us and we loved each other. Everything seemed to be just right.

But, when have any of my love stories been smooth sailing?

As it turns out, when I came to Bhubaneswar, I was already in a relationship, a rather long relationship. And my readers already know with whom. Remember, the ‘bloomer girl’, my first girlfriend? So the bloomer girl and I had already been together for six years. And the last two years of high school had been really challenging for our relationship. A lot of issues had come up between us. We had come close to breaking up but due to our proximity and symbiotic dependence, we had stuck together. But when I met Jyoti, I felt like it was time to severe the older relationship which was already in its last leg.

But the bloomer girl and I had been too close and too dependent on each other to part ways amicably. Friction happened. Even though, I managed to keep Jyoti out of it, it took a toll on my conscience and peace of mind. And as soon as I thought, I was done with my first girlfriend, withdrawal symptoms of that relationship kicked in. Yeah, I just used a drug addiction metaphor for the bloomer girl!

Anyway, life is strange at times. While I had started thinking that Jyoti was my real soulmate, we hit a rough patch. Little did I know that this was the beginning of the end for Jyoti and me. Some local 4 star hotels had come to the institute looking for interns. Both of us got placed there. Like most internships go, it was a lot of work for too little pay. And we were placed in two different departments. So we ended up seeing less and less of each other.

I left the job after a week. I believed it was beneath me. But she stuck on as she thought this was her path to reach her future goals. As time passed, I started getting fed up of the lack of face time and started coaxing her to leave. (I was also insecure about this colleague of hers that she kept talking about whenever we managed to meet.) So we had our first spat, then the second and the third. She decided to start staying at the employee’s quarters at the hotel. This meant she’d be closer to that guy she always spoke about than she’d be to me. This didn’t sit well. 

I decided we needed to take a few days’ break. I went home for the holidays and didn’t speak to her for over 3 weeks. When I called her up after that, she coldly informed me that she had moved on. Surprise, surprise, she had started dating the same guy from her department that she used to blab about. How typical! Well, back then I didn’t know what a cliché that was. Anyway, I was broken about it for a few days and then I was not.

You see, Jyoti was the trigger. Back in school, I had a reputation of being a big womanizer. It was mostly rumors. But after Jyoti, I actually had a Casanova phase. I went out with quite a few girls in the next six months I spent in that city. Most of my flings were short-lived and casual. Anu, Anjali, Sonali, Sheetal, Shilpa, to name a few. It was my first rebound. I even reconnected with the bloomer girl by the end of that year. Boy! That was a mistake. (But that’s a story for another time.)

So, that’s the story that is usually lost between other stories, even though it was a rather important phase of my life, owing to its transitional nature. Even with the major heart break and all those compensatory flings that followed, that year in Bhubaneswar was one of the best years of my life. The years that followed were dark and they made me bitter and cynical (otherwise read “grown up”). Had I known it back then, I’d have enjoyed that time more.