I was in Standard 8 at that time when I first saw him. He was the son of my mother’s colleague. His sister and I used to study in the same school together. She was a year younger than me and looked up to me for everything. That was the first day I noticed Shagnik Sanyal. My head swayed when I first saw him. It was just like the movies when I could feel that air blow across my face and make my hair fly a little. And before I knew it, he dropped his sister at my school and drove off.
Days and weeks passed by, but those awestruck feelings for him remained and grew intact. I knew when he would come to drop his sister so, I would go near the school gate and wait to catch just a glimpse of him. By then, my school friends started urging me to take my liking to the next step so I approached his sister one day during recess time.
As soon as she heard about this, she was furious. My friends and I just stood dumbfounded wondering what was so offensive if I liked her brother. Throughout this process, our mothers were unaware of these goings-on and remained close colleagues and friends of each other. Despite the weird reaction, his sister gave I continued to think of him romantically day in and day out. I just couldn’t imagine the thought of us not being together anymore.
One fine day while dropping his sister to school he walked up to me and told me on my face that he didn’t like me at all and that I should stop feeling for him and harassing his sister which I never did! I was shocked and completely dismayed at his words. Heartbroken and completely shattered, I ran away from him and left for home. I still remember it took me one whole week to recover from this. After that, it was time for my parent’s teacher meeting, during that, some teachers complained to my mother about my suddenly diminishing marks and grades, and they asked her to look into the matter. I was always a promising student, and such sudden decreased academic performance was a source of worry for everyone.
On the way back home that day, I blurted everything out to my mother who has always been my best friend in life. As I wept and howled inconsolably in her arms she made me understand, and much contrary to what I thought she may react like, she was all in support for me and my silly mindset at that time which had turned my life topsy turvy and made my studies suffer.
From that day onwards, I learned a good lesson never to go haywire unnecessarily with one-sided feelings and for unnecessary people. I stayed away from guys and never took them seriously at all anymore. While the rest of my classmates and friends were busy getting into love relationships, I spend my entire energy studying and indulging in various school sports activities. Within a year of that unpleasant incident, I had made up my mind to pursue mass communication and become a media professional when I grow up.
And finally, here it is!
Working happily in the PR industry now and I enjoy a lot of male attention today.
Tameena Ali, Media professional
