Gentlemen, I do not know how many of you have fallen in love but if you have, you will understand what I mean. It looked as if she was waiting for me. With watery eyes she motioned me to sit beside her. I pulled up a stool and sat down in the pious belief that this was just another passing phase that would soon be over. In a few minutes, I was proved wrong.
She had closed her eyes forever after giving me a small piece of paper. To cut the long story short � I did not know how to react. I just did not know! I was holding my ground untill I felt a few eyes fixed at me. My eyes betrayed me and there I was siting, crying like a baby. That day, I came to know that I was good in controlling myself but as would be expected of a sentimental guy like me, I fared badly when it came to with-holding ones tears. They just rolled down my cheeks and I was a mere spectator.
A few of them even came to me and said that they understood my plight � they having lost their loved ones at one point of their life or the other. Rankly, it took me more than a week to get over the shock and after a fortnight or so I realised that I was in a dilapidated state. I had not shaved at all and if you guys can excuse me, I hadn�t even taken a shower � such was my love towards her.
Now, you all would like to know about the secret behind the crumbled piece of paper my Shalu�that�s how I called her..had given me as a parting gift. Well, her mother who was staying in Nilgiris happened to be a Leukemia patient waiting for her imminent death and my Shalu did not want her mother to know about her fate. Shalini had written that her mother was not aware of the fact that she ie, Shalini knew of her mother�s disease. She wanted me to continue writing to her mother as shalini herself would have done, had she been alive. Her reasoning was that her mother would not be around for long and thus she needed to be happy during the last few days of her life.
I could not but help praise this girl who at this young age of 16 was called back by God. If am not wrong, it was the third week after my love�s death when I met the school principal. He being as pious a man as I am, he obliged my request for Shalini�s English answer sheet.
I practiced her writing style over a period of three or four days during which I also got a letter from her mother. This was the motivation I was looking for and the very same day I reciprocated. In the letter I struck on to the basics and when she replied, I would take cues from her letter and write back promptly.
This went on for about a year during which I was promoted on the basis of my popularity amongst the students. The frequency of exchanges had increased. So much so, I was writing every week. In fact, I was getting a bit apprehensive too, for Shalini, If she had been alive, would have finished her grade 12 in two more months. In my heart of hearts had a feeling that after all this trouble on my part, I will have to stand before her mother and tell her that I was an imposter. How could I have told her that I was ona mission?
Being the right hand man of the Principal had its own problems. One day I was summoned and asked to represent my school at a meeting of reputed educational institutions in the state. In those days, we had such meetings and we learnt from each other. Its only now that the premier educational institutions don�t see eye to eye. Guess what? The meeting was in Nilgiris!
