BALCONY QUEEN

By Mangesh Diwane

If you are reading "Balcony Queen (Based on true story)", then you definitely must be a victim of the 'VICIOUS MASCULINE ADVENTURE' called 'LOVE'. When Cupid strikes ambition, career and studies take a backseat. Life becomes a roller-coaster when the girl next door is the most coveted DAMSEL in this part of the world.
Going from engraving her name to impressing her was even more herculean than crossing a river in Burma.
How does a simpleton get galvanized into an 'APPLE BOY'?
Is all this enough for her to be impressed?
Does mere blushing in the balcony since childhood culminate in a heavenly bond?
Or does life keep meandering infinitely through this emotional landscape?

If you are reading "Balcony Queen (Based on true story)", then you definitely must be a victim of the 'VICIOUS MASCULINE ADVENTURE' called 'LOVE'. When Cupid strikes ambition, career and studies take a backseat. Life becomes a roller-coaster when the girl next door is the most coveted DAMSEL in this part of the world.
Going from engraving her name to impressing her was even more herculean than crossing a river in Burma.
How does a simpleton get galvanized into an 'APPLE BOY'?
Is all this enough for her to be impressed?
Does mere blushing in the balcony since childhood culminate in a heavenly bond?
Or does life keep meandering infinitely through this emotional landscape?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Sep 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9789384049102

Book preview

encounter

Number of ways to search

a number

Date 15 April, 2014

Time 3.00 am

Place My Balcony

I was refreshing my contacts list on WhatsApp when I found an absurd status.

Happy b’day to me…

It was her status. I took a sip of coffee and started searching more about her. Her WhatsApp pic was not accessible to me. This birthday status rewound old memories, and I realized life was good before Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

Few years back

24th Apr

It happened in front of her!

A broken window glass...blood running like water… a wasted Dettol bottle...

When crepe bandage proved insufficient, Mohit told me to go to a doctor...

25th Apr

Went to the doctor. Small spatter of glass embedded in hand still... After removing it, a Tetanus injection scars and makes my hand smell rotten…

26th Apr

Elbow infected... Needs bandage....

Went to doc again... He realised what had happened... Thank god nas nahi fata, he said...

I said bad luck. He used some glue like material...it captures all glass spatters from my wound... he sucked it with a syringe. And after flashing torch on it whistled admiringly... It’s awesome. Trillions of glass spatters are still there in my hand... This day also ends with crepe bandage...

I started around nine years back. I was passionate about girls. It was just the age factor. It was a usual day, the sun rose in the east as always. But it also brought something new for me.

I was studying in the balcony as usual, when I saw a gorgeous girl also studying in the balcony across. She caught my attention. She was beautiful, man! But she just turned around and went in to her house. It was too hot to continue studying on terrace. That was the exam season, around the month of March. But the moment I set my eyes on her, After that day, I lost my senses.

The balcony was my new home. I used the balcony for everything. Balcony was everything to me. Every now and then you would find me in the balcony. After exams, during the holidays, I stood in the balcony all the time. In any case, the only alternative were the dull, boring programmes on DoorDarshan!

Little by little, I gathered information about her day-to-day life. I used the balcony to bring out my old things and repair them. Most of them had to be disposed of to the kabadiwala after I had tinkered with them. Playing cricket at home resulted in broken windows, and incurring the wrath of my parents.

She went to school with her friends in the afternoon from 12.00 pm to 5.30 pm. So the timings to see her were 15 min before leaving for school and after school was over. If I had visited a temple with the same fervour I visited the balcony, I would earned the blessings of the gods.

She was bound to know of my interest in her. I don’t know whether she liked it or not, but this secret unnamed relationship between us gave me immense satisfaction. Yes, there is no name for this relationship, but I felt she was responding to me. I feel I am in the seventh heaven. I think I am in love.

That’s the great feeling of being noticed by someone. Every day between 5.30 and 6 pm, I would be in the balcony. This doordarshan (glimpsing from far) programme became habitual for us now and I had to move forward. But I was afraid, what if she complained about me at her home or mine...? The fear of being beaten up by her parents or mine paralysed me from making the next move. I was content to watch her from far.

She has two more friends who live in houses behind mine. It’s as if I am living in the centre of a triangle with three girls gorgeous forming the three vertices. Though I saw her every day, I didn’t even know her name!

One evening when I was standing in the balcony as usual with a cup of tea, somebody called out Chaitalee!! addressing her balcony. My god! The suspense was unbearable. I couldn’t wait to see who would come from that door.

Flash...She came out to the balcony, as usual looking beautiful in a pink T-shirt and matching skirt. Absolutely like Barbie girl. That day my joys knew no bounds. I came to know her name finally after a long wait.

I muttered her name under my breath, Chaitalee...Chaitalee...Chaitalee. Her name was as beautiful as she was.

And I laughed as I realised it rhymed with Bruce-Lee, Jet-Lee… Cha-ita-Lee... I chuckled silently. My family wouldn’t be able to appreciate this joke.

I was thrilled that one hurdle has been crossed. The next was to talk to her and ask to be her friend. I couldn’t very well walk up to her and say I like you. That would usually earn me a tight slap.

So now to look for a chance to speak with her. It wasn’t that easy. Though we crossed each other many times, there was never an opportune moment to talk to her.

I didn’t think of getting introduced to her formally, though we acted as if we were strangers.

In the meantime, I was in higher secondary education and my studies didn’t give me time even to breathe now. The tiresome, hectic journey through the city streets for tuitions on bicycle exhausted all my patience and made me unable to study even when I came back to home. Two years later, I got admission in engineering college and was away for four years.

When I returned after completing my BE, my battle for love started in right earnest.

I got her number magically. That moment was awesome. When I was in school, I had searched for her number in the landline telephone directory and highlighted it. But that was how far I had gone.

Absence makes heart grow fonder. During my college days, I told my close friends – I am an open book for Mohit, Ranjit, Rahul and Arun. My life without all these friends is ZERO.

We had a cell phone craze those days, which was still not as ubiquitous. Mohit is from a well to do family. Of course, he had a cell phone. Through his cell I became friends with Shriya… Remember the name.. She is going to play big role now... For helping me to get Chaitalee’s cell number. That was the only topic of discussion between us whenever we talked to each other.

Finally we came up with a daredevil plan. One day I called Shriya:

Hi, Shriya, kashi aahes tu? (Hi, Shriya, how are you ?)

Hieee, she literally yelled in my ears.

"I am fine, kay suru aahe?" (I am fine. What are you doing?)

See, I think I have figured how to get the number.

She said Sameer, you know I really hate this kind of work.

"Shriya, please dear, I need it now. If we go on thinking like, yar main budha ho jaunga. Please don’t waste time and help me," I pleaded.

She reluctantly agreed and I told her of my plans… Rather, best possible ways to get her number…

Day with lot of excitement

Iwas working with production function in an auto company, which is where you had to start your career. If you did well there, you could rise up in your profession. But it was monotonous, and the boredom killing. I wondered about my managers and colleagues who had been with the company for 20 years! How had they managed it?

In the evening I came home after working in the first shift over. One more ruthless day in my life on production line over… I had tea and played the guitar – which I had learnt and practiced during my engineering days - to relax myself. When I checked my cell after a while, wondering why it was so silent uncharacteristically, I saw that the battery had drained completely.

The moment I plugged the charger and switched my mobile on, the screen buzzed with the message alert… Oww, it was Shriya…

Sameer I m rdy 2 make the cal. cal me 1ce u get the message

I thanked her and said, Make a conference call. I also want to listen in.

And I dialled a conference call wondering if my name will also be displayed on her landline device. Will she talk to me properly?

But when I heard the ringing, I stopped thinking. It rang twice. At the middle of third bell, somebody responded..

Shriya, Hello, can I speak to Chaitalee please?

Reply, Haa, bolatiye… (Yes, Chaitalee here.)

But suddenly Shriya got disconnected, leaving me still on the call. My heart wanted me to talk to her, but my mind overruled, "Itani bhi kya jaldi hain, already 7-8 years wasted. Let a few more days to go." (Why this hurry? Already 7-8 years have been wasted, wait for a few more days).

I too disconnected.

I called up Shriya.

We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!

We had asked to speak to her, and yet cut the line when she answered the call.

Shriya whined, Sameer, I told you na, don’t drag me in all this!

My heart was still beating faster than a Ferrari engine.

I said, Don’t worry Shriya. We had not considered this situation in our plans. Our calculations had misfired...