The pen

This is the story is of the days when I was very young. Love was not a part of my dictionary. I didn’t even know what it was like, to have the wonderful feeling of love. I was concerned about studies and Maths with which I used to struggle at every exam. My mom was a school teacher in a girls’ high school. She used to often mention about a girl. I used to hear a lot about her. She was like her favorite student. I was a single kid and often hated the kids whom my mom used to like. She was one of them. I used to hate her even though I had never seen her. The more the praise I hear from mom, the more I used to hate her! It was the month of January, I just got promoted to seventh standard. The first day at my English tutorial classes. I was waiting at the shade outside the garage cum tuition room. A girl stopped at the gate, got down from her cycle and came in. I had never seen this girl before. She came near me and passed a smile. She was bit taller than me which made me more shy. I was one of those who never interacted with girls at school even though I studied in a co-ed. I did not bother to pass back the smile and went inside the class. She sat just opposite to me which made me never take my eyes off my books. The class started and we did a few grammar lessons. Sir called her name, and soon I realized that she was the same girl whom mom used to say about. It made me hate her even more. Days passed by, and so were our classes. Even though I hated her, there was a strange sort of attachment. At times when she did not turn up to class made me wonder what made her to skip classes. It was a like a week, she was absent for classes, when she returned, she got gifts for everyone in the class.I got a pen, and it was the first time I spoke to her. The only 2 words I ever spoke to her were “Thank you” when she had gifted me the pen . Since then, I don't know what happened, but the hatred was gone. Years went by, we passed our 10th grade exams and finally we parted ways. 

   Last time while I had been  home, my parents were shifting . Mom asked me to take care of my belongings, what to keep, and what to throw. Amongst all my junk stuff, I found the pencil box that I used to carry to school, on opening it I found the pen. Yes, the very pen which she had gifted me. The pen brought in me a lot of memories of those chilly mornings and the sweaty afternoons in our tutorial classes and immensely of the girl who had gifted me the pen. It made me smile, 12 years have passed by, since I last saw her. But her picture was still vivid and lively in my mind. I quietly took the pen and kept it on my desk. Noticing that mom asked what am I going to do with that old pen, on which I replied, “ Memories, mom”. I wish I could tell her that it was gifted to me by one of her favorite student more than a decade back, however I chose not to. Was it love, affection or infatuation? I was too young to understand all that way back then.