Story Of A Crush

Preetham was discussing of ambitions during the lunch break, "As a kid, I had the ambition to climb the steepest of the mountains. Now... I am trying to climb up the hierarchy in this corporate world... Hmm... How about you, Manya? What was your ambition as a kid?"

Manya went to a dream like state, "Hmm... Had many.. I wanted to be a Miss India... But after seeing Mr India, dropped the idea... If I become invisible who will come to know about my beauty.... Then I went on to dream of becoming a Air hostess and giving those cutest smiles.. Even practiced those smiles in front of the mirror... After 9/11 I could not get those smiles back and so dropped the idea.... Then I also wanted to be a doctor too....I still remember of how I was captivated by this ambition at the tender age of fifteen"
Preetham was admiring her, " You must have witnessed the suffering people, young and old... Like the great king Ashoka, you too got influenced... But in your case it was short lived... Am I rite?"

Manya smiled at her senior's guess, "No-where near!... It all happened in a train... It was around 10.30 PM in the night and my parents had gone to sleep. But something kept me awake. May be the cool romantic winds blowing onto my face. Then I heard a bike's sound breaking the wind. When I peeped out, I saw a bike approaching the moving train. The train was a bit slow as it had just left a station and hence the young man in the back of the bike got down and as I kept looking, he just came running and jumped onto the train."
Preetham was impressed with the introduction, "Must be a dacoit! Looks like a scene from the movie Sholay! Except there it was a horse and not a bike....Continue Basanthi!"

Manya, "Hmm... Yeah! In a a way he is a dacoit.... A Stealer of Hearts! By the way he was studying medicine and was on his way to his college after the vacations. He was around 21 and I was fifteen. I looked at him earnestly and he looked me back curiously and said that something was very wrong with me and volunteered to check. I said very honestly, 'I am not well.... But I don't want to wake up my parents'. I prayed they didn't woke up at this opportune moment"
Preetham couldn't believe his ears, "Gosh! Your a big liar! I need to once again go through your profile and the references!"

Manya smiled back, ".... And then as he took my hand to check the pulse, My heart started beating in a more rapid fashion. The doctor replied coolly 'Seems you have a light fever'. I wanted to shout at him, 'If you hold that hand for some more time, the temperature would definitely rise and I would swoon and fall on the ground'. At the moment, as if to spoil the fun, the coffeewallah entered and doctor said, 'A cup of coffee would do better for your health' and I accepted it with happiness and quoted what my mother used to say, 'always listen to doctors' though her actual warning that I remembered was something different, 'Stay away from strangers' '"
Preetham just shook his head "I always thought you as a quite simple girl. Hmm...You turned out to be something else."

Manya was reliving that day, "And from one cup... I went to have five cups... I came to know more about him. When he told me about the surgical procedures, I felt as if He was reciting a nice romantic poem to me. The cups of coffee increased to fifteen as the dawn approached. I felt that the Sun was very jealous of me and so it had come too early. But the time for departure had come as the doctor's station was next. When departing he gave me a nice friendly hug and said, 'Lets hope we will meet again'...."
Preetham concluded the sad part, "And you never meet him again? rite!...."
Manya finished her story, "Never! But that's how I got the ambition of becoming a doctor. So that I would meet him again somewhere someplace... But I don't know when, why and how, that ambition slowly vanished into thin air... These teenage crushes!!! "