A High School Crush #2: Exploring the World Around

The first semester of college was undoubtedly great, meeting all these new people, making new friends, understanding that high-school actually was nothing compared to the college environment, living on your own away from the family for the first time in your life, it all felt great. With every new face came a new story. And with every such story, came the realisation that the efforts you put in your high-schools didn't account for much at all, except for maybe getting among more interesting people. Every person was trying to make it big on what they had been handed. And I'm not even talking about academics here. There was so much variety with people here, there were musicians, poets, true artists, actors and all the other things you can think of. Academics, it seemed, was only relevant because you can't compare apples and oranges, so everyone needs to be handed grapes, and compared on the basis of how well they handle it.

Needless to say, I was approached by a fair share of boys in those first six months. A few of them genuinely intrigued me. But there was a deep seated belief that I wanted Aarush. There was a compulsion within me to keep trying to win him over. Soon, all the other boys got off from chasing me. Of course there were some rumours about why I didn't respond to anyone's amorous advances, but that's where I found a similarity between high school and college. Rumours have a habit of fizzling out on their own. The only difference being the time it takes for them to disappear. Rumours in college were forgotten much faster, everyone running around through their days as if every day was a challenge on its own. Everything moves faster in college.

A few of my girl friends guessed that maybe Aarush and I had been together since high school, and that we still were, but I never entertained their speculations. I did tell them that I knew him from before, but I never voiced my desire for him. Because like I had written in one of my childhood poems, chase your reflection carefully, lest you become its shadow.

We continued as the close friends that we were. We explored the new city together and sometimes with our other friends too. He kept helping me with subjects which needed one to memorise stuff. I helped him with anything involving an algorithm.

Aarush soon picked up a new hobby of photography, and by the end of the first year, he had his own DSLR camera. I once heard his friends joke around that now that he had this camera with him, he'd be flocked by girls all the time. And I heard him reply humorously, that's the plan.

How naive and childish, I thought. But surprisingly enough, the Instagram page that he set up as his personal gallery was filled with pictures of girls from our class and some from other departments too. Do girls really love getting photographed so much? I wondered. So the next time I met him at the college library, I asked him, "Why don't you ever take me on one of your photoshoots?"

He thought for a few seconds. "You never asked!" He quickly realised how that sounded, "of course, that's not your fault at all. I should have asked. I'm sorry. Would you like your picture taken, Ruhi?" Feigning formality. Funny.

"Sure, Aarush, where should we go?" I replied in the same tone. Two could play this game.

"Let's go downtown today evening then, there's lots of lights there at that time, lots of colours, I think we can get some really cool shots."

"Sounds good, but I have nothing good to wear for good photos."

"Hey! have you even looked at the photos I took of those other girls? None of them are dressed especially for it. I like casual and candid."

"What's candid?"

Aarush launched into a detailed lecture about the types of portrait photography, about the different types of camera gear, how expensive they were and about the various ways you can take and edit the same photo to look like completely different scenes. It had been a long time since our high-school days that I was quietly listening to him. I realised for the hundredth time maybe that I liked listening to him when he talked about something he was passionate about.

We went to have lunch in the cafeteria from the library. I was thoroughly not in the mood for any more books and notes, and Aarush was obviously in a good headspace. I wanted to keep it that way. A happy Aarush made me giddy to the toes.

"Do you want to bunk the second half?"

"Are you serious?" He looked at me wide-eyed, "what happened to giving it your best in this mediocre college?"

I laughed. "I am in a rebellious mood today. And anyways, all work and no play will never let you give it your best."

"Amen to that," he nodded, "Where do you want to go?"

"Let's go to your place, grab your camera, then let's go to a movie. Once the sun is a little down, we'll go downtown for pictures." Well, I guess I can still think on my feet, and come up with a possible plan. Or a whimsical date idea for that matter.

"Whatever the madam wishes!" He mocked a bow, almost lost his balance, straightened up, saw my hysterical laughter, then said, "okay, enough, no need to exaggerate the embarrassment of a gentleman, let's go!"

Aarush's rented apartment was cleaner than I expected. I had been watching all these college-themed web-shows lately, and in all of them, the boy had a hideously messy room. Aarush's wasn't like that. Everything appeared to be in its proper place. There were two rooms, each with a bed, wardrobe-cum-cupboard, a table and a plastic chair. The hall had another set of the same furniture. Evidently, he shared this apartment with two other boys. Aarush's room was one to the west. There was one window that opened to the view of a field, where at this moment, some kids had set up a make-do cricket field.

"The guy in the hall seldom sleeps here. It's more like this apartment is a storage unit for his stuff."

"Where does he sleep then?"

"Mostly at his girlfriend's place, she lives alone, so maybe it's just easier to, you know..." Aarush trailed off. I realized this was the first time in all the time we had known each other, that he had said anything even remotely related to sex, even if it was about someone else.

"Oh," I managed. "Must be nice watching the sunset from here," I said looking out of the west-facing window, trying to change the topic. Why was this simple comment making my cheeks warm? I thought, mentally kicking myself. Maybe being alone with my high school crush in his house had something to do with it, my mind replied. The sensible version of myself was definitely dozing in some pink corner of my mind.

"Yeah, sort of." He said, opening the cupboard. "You can have a seat, the battery isn't charged sadly, we'll have to wait for a while."

"No problem," I said, sitting down on the chair.

"Sit on the bed, that chair is a little wobbly. I only put my backpack on it most of the time." He cautioned. I quickly got off the chair and moved to the bed. "You want something to drink? I have soda."

"I'm fine. Tell me about your roommates."

"The one in the other room is in the electronics department, and the one in the hall is computer science. No overlap whatsoever. Hall guy is one year ahead of us. We normally don't talk too much to each other, save for when one of us is late for rent. But the electronics guy comes over sometimes to see my pictures. I'm not sure if his interest is more in the art or in the subject."

"I'll guess it's the latter for sure."

"Presumably." He said, smiling. "Though I never let him near my computer. You know, an unlocked computer with pictures of girls in the hands of first year boys is a dangerous thing."

"Look who's preaching!!" I laughed.

"Hey, I am a responsible photographer, and anyways, I have a way of winning the trust of my subjects."

"Oh really?" I raised an eyebrow, "and what would that be, Mr. charms!"

"This." He said waving his arm to point at me then back at himself.

"I don't understand."

"Talking. Conversation. It relaxes people when you talk in relative terms with people. And once they're relaxed, they trust you, and once they trust you, they get comfortable, and the pictures turn out great. I make a new friend, get a chance to practice my hobby, and the girls get their share of new likes and followers."

"So girls really chase after online followership and fame?"

"Everybody chases after fame and recognition, some from the online community, and some from real people, photography gives me and my subjects exactly what we want. I get to interact with new people on a daily basis because of this."

"You're treating photography as a way to be more social and become popular along the way."

"I don't know about being popular, but I've heard you need to have good social skills for a better edge in interviews, so yeah, it's a way for me to sharpen my social skills in a way."

"Rather an expensive way to go about it, don't you think? There must be classes for it."

"Classes! Where's the fun in that?" He was definitely right about that.

"So, have you found someone who's interesting enough to be more than just a pretty subject or a social study?" I asked, coming back to the topic that seemed to be running away.

"You mean am I romantically interested in any of them?" I nodded, he continued. "No, I'm not looking for anyone at the moment."

Our talk moved to more mundane things about the college and the people in our friends circle. Of course, anything that he said was never mundane to me. Soon, his camera battery was charged, and we headed out. The time we had spent at his place made us miss all the afternoon show times, so we went to a mall and strolled around the galleries, window shopping. Just after half past five he asked whether I wanted a snack before going out on the streets.

"Sure!" I said.

We took a couple sandwiches from the food court and walked out of the mall. The heat of the noon had died down but the slightly warm air felt like a furnace once we stepped out of the centrally cooled mall. Aarush pulled out his camera and clicked a few pictures of the sky and the treetops.

"What are you doing?"

"Calibrating the sensor." He saw my confusion, and decided to give a quick lecture, "Basically once you click something in the night, then move on to clicking during the day, the first few pictures sometimes turn out looking ridiculous. It's like adjusting your eyes after moving from a dark room to bright light."

"Hmm, makes sense." No, it doesn't make sense at all, it's a camera, the sensor is nothing but meticulously organised glass. But you must know your thing well enough and I am just going to take your word for it.

Three hours later, Aarush had almost two hundred pictures of me on his camera. For me, time passed away way too quickly. It was as if I couldn't get enough of our time together. Being told to stand a certain way, to flex your hands a certain way felt good. For all of the pictures, I looked straight at the camera lens. It gave me a kind of thrill, knowing I was looking at his eyes, through the glass, and he was looking at me as a whole. Yet, along with the thrill there was a pang that he was looking at me and his mind was full of the technicalities of the frame only.

After that day, somehow we became closer. Aarush started telling me about all of his new subjects. What it was like shooting certain people. How some people have a natural knack for posing in front of a camera and how some were stiff as a board. In the coming months, I started realising that maybe continuing to chase after him was not the right thing for me. He was friendly with everyone. I didn't know if he considered me a closer friend than others, but he did surprise me on my birthdays, which I never saw him doing for anyone else. And yet, never for the life of me, I could detect any hint, any sign from him that he had any other interest in me other than being a good friend. So, I decided to try and open up to other people. After all, everyone knows that there's nothing worse than an unrequited love.

It felt as if the world had been patiently waiting for me to get out of my gloomy headspace and look outside. Once I started actively looking for people to date, there seemed no end to it. Halfway through the third semester, I had a boyfriend named Tanay. I don't even know what exactly I saw in him, but we somehow got close enough. We were talking for some time, and we had gone to the movies a couple times. He told me he liked me very much, and I said I felt the same.

I'm not saying I liked him just for the sake of it though. He was genuinely fun to talk to, had a quick wit, he was in Aarush's friend circle, and he loved just walking around while talking about random stuff. He also had a huge list of things he knew a lot about. In many ways, he was somewhat like Aarush, minus the extroverted personality, he was quite secluded when it came to people. Maybe that's why I liked him.

We had our first kiss in a park when we were returning from a movie. It was the middle of March and the weather was just right. We had been walking with our fingers entwined for about half an hour. The streets were almost empty, and it just felt right. It was my first kiss and it was every bit the memorable event that they show in movies. Butterflies, goosebumps, quickened pulse, the whole nine yards.

I felt the urgency to tell Aarush about it. I felt the dilemma whether I should tell him or not but in the end I decided to tell him nonetheless. After all, we had been sharing everything about our daily lives with each other.

Aarush responded very enthusiastically when I told him about us in our next study session in the library. "Wow! When you told me that you were dating Tanay, I didn't think you guys would move on to making out so soon." He joked.

"Do you think it's too early?" I asked him.

"Of course not, you guys have been together for over three months, it's about time." he said. Maybe I was getting over my obsession for him after all. Maybe I could be just friends with him, and be happy about it.

"You know Aarush, I think I did the right thing telling you."

"Why?"

"Because you're sort of indifferent about it. You seem happy about it and everything, but you don't give me the lectures and advice that I've seen other people do when their friends get into relationships."

"Ruhi, you're smart and cautious. You know what you're doing. I'm sure he's a fine guy. And I'm sure you'll tell me if I need to kick his butt. Heck, I'm sure you're more than capable enough to kick his butt yourself if you need to. So, yeah, have fun!"

"Thanks!"

"Although, can we please get back to this differential thing now?" He waved the maths book vigorously in front of my eyes.