HIHMYMY – Chapter 2 – Teacher’s Daughter (Ms. M)

As a kid I used to have terrible handwriting as I mentioned in the previous post. Homework was a burden which had to be dealt with even before I got back home from school. My mom and teachers tried everything from carrots to sticks to get this problem fixed but to no avail. I was in fourth standard when a new teacher came to our school. She used to teach English as well as another subject called SUPW. I don’t remember what that abbreviation means but it had something to do with paintings, handicrafts and copy writing books. I used to do the painting and the crafts alright. But when it came to copy writing books, I sucked big time. I had to curl the Gs properly; my Os had to be circular and not amoeboid. It was too much to handle.

Since the external impetuses to improve weren’t working, I guess my mom and this new teacher conspired to use another potent weapon, “Shame”. During those days there was no shame to a guy than to be made to sit beside a girl as a punishment. The other boys would giggle at you. You couldn’t look at anyone but your own feet for the fear of crying and making a bigger fool of yourself. Crying was serious business those days, you would be labeled a pussy and cry baby and people would imitate your crying and girls would whisper while you pass them in the play ground. Any self respecting 9 year old would be left with no choice but to change schools.

So one fine day, this new teacher of mine tore the 2 pages of copy writing book I had finished in 5 minutes and asked me to sit beside Ms. M as a punishment. I was horrified; I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, the giggles had already started. With great reluctance I made my way to the bench where I was supposed to sit. While I was about to sit, my teacher made me feel even worse when she said maybe I could learn a thing or two about hand writing by sitting beside Ms. M whose hand writing was nothing short of calligraphy. I was fighting hard to control tears by then, was concentrating hard on a spot on the desk.

After a few minutes I mustered up the courage to look at her copy writing book. I couldn’t tell the difference between what was printed on the top of the page and what she had written. Then I looked at her face, she was intently writing. She was a pretty lass alright, but what attracted me to her was her eyes, she had cat eyes. She caught me looking at her and smiled coyly. I went back to concentrating on that spot on the desk. She said “Let me help you with your homework”, my male ego was swelling, I replied rudely “I don’t need a girl’s help”. She was shocked by the rudeness and her eyes started getting all teary. I was scared shitless because I knew she was teacher’s daughter and if I make her cry, I would be in big big trouble. I said “I am sorry, please don’t cry. I would let you help me with my homework”.

From that day onwards, she used to help me with my copy writing home work. She would hold my hand and curl those Gs and round those Os. I would feel very shy and look around hoping that nobody was seeing this. To everybody’s surprise I started making progress. My hand writing was getting readable, my Os were getting elliptical. By the end of the year I had improved by leaps and bounds. So during the last SUPW class my teacher held a hand writing competition. We had half an hour to copy one passage from the English text book. The winner would be based on handwriting and the neatness of the page. In the first 5 minutes I tore 4 pages because I had to use an eraser. After half an hour of arduous effort I was done. I was pleased with my effort. Then I looked at Ms. M’s page. It was immaculate. I still don’t know why I won that year’s competition and why Ms. M came second. When I went to receive the prize I looked at her, she was happily clapping. At that instant I fell in love with Ms. M.

Ours was silent love for the lack of a better word. We used to talk only using eyes and smiles. Both of us dint have the courage to speak to each other. And it was considered lame to play/talk with a girl. Girls played using dolls and men played outdoors, was the unwritten code. Then after a couple of years I left to Chennai. We used to write to each other for a year or so. Letters started getting infrequent and one fine day they stopped. We teenagers weren’t strong enough to handle the stress of long distance relationship. And of course that was the time I met Ms. A.

HIHMYMY – Chapter 1 – Height Asymmetry (Ms. K)

I was seven years old when the first time I had romantic feelings for a woman. Yeah I know it’s quite early, I probably dint even knew what to call it then. It all started one hot Monday morning, the first day of second standard. Being the shortest boy in class I had the privilege of standing in first row in the school assembly right behind the girls’ row. There she was standing right before me by virtue of being the tallest girl in the class. I just saw her hair styled as 2 pigtails. She looked so cute in that hairdo. We all sang Jana Gana Mana to glory and the assembly was about to be dispersed. Then I saw that she had dropped her badge. So I picked it up and gave it to her. She smiled coyly and said “Thanks”. The fact that I had to look up to her to catch that smile dint deter me from being floored by it.

Me and my then best friend Mr. S (yeah the second shortest boy in the class) were made to sit in the first bench and she was sitting in the last bench. The distance was unbearable. That was the first time I felt sad that I was sitting in the first bench (in those days or in that standard first bench was a sought after spot). I used to constantly turn back to look at her and she caught me glancing in her direction more than once. Then after a few days of exchanging looks, I mustered up the courage during one lunch break and invited her to play with me and Mr. S. We also invited her best friend Ms. P (yeah the second tallest girl in the class).

Whenever we used to play games in which 2 had to team up (yeah the games were always chosen by me) I always used to force Mr. S to team up with Ms. P and I always used to team up with her. Mr. S used to happily do it because Ms. P was the most popular girl in the class she was this model student who always used to do her homework, always get full marks in all subjects and was teachers’ pet. I was totally something else. My 192 page notebooks used to be reduced to 100 pages, half of the pages torn by the teachers and other half torn by my mom. I used to have terrible handwriting and partly the reason for that was I used to do my homework in the hand rickshaw which used to take me home so that I could go home and play cricket.

The four of us started spending a lot of time together over the next few months. We visited each other’s homes and when I went to her home I tried very hard to impress her mom. I think she liked me. It was an instinct or something I knew that I had to impress her parents too. Then one day I invited them all to my home. I had a premonition that it was going to be a disaster. But to my surprise things were quite smooth. We had lots of food, played hide and seek and I always used to make sure that she isn’t caught first.

Then it all happened out of blue. As soon as they left my mom made a casual remark that she is too tall and I would always be shorter than her. Till that moment I dint give much thought about height. But all the stored memories of numerous Telugu romantic movies came flashing by and I realized that not even in one movie was the heroine taller than hero. I was crestfallen. I hated my mom for breaking this to me. Since much of my earlier life was influenced by Telugu movies, I had to be true the image of a Telugu movie hero and I decided to break it off with her. I shall spare you the gory details of the break up since there were none.

HIHMYMY - Prologue

Hey kids (who are yet to be born or adopted),

This is the story of me and the various (any number greater than 13) women I have been romantically involved with over the past 26 years of my life. Like the original sitcom “How I met your mother” which inspired me to write this, I haven’t met your mother yet not at least at the time of writing this. It is not so for the lack of trying though. Over the years I have had numerous (any number greater than 13) experiences (romantic of course) with the fairer sex, some pleasant some not so pleasant, some outright funny and some absolutely stupid. Nevertheless they were experiences and as the old saying goes they are meant to teach you something. Though I have not been a great student I can unequivocally say that I have had fun and loads of it at that. Nope before you think your old man has gone gaga I would like to clarify a few things. This aint a sermon about how (not) to lead your lives neither am I trying to impress upon you not to repeat my mistakes. Every man learns the trade in his own unique way and part of the fun in living a life lies in that. So you might ask what is the whole point of writing this post?

Maybe someday when I am gone for good you might wonder what your old man was like when he was not an old man. So these stories would give you an insight into the man I was before I became the man you met. Or when you kids meet for a family get together you can laugh over the stuff written here, it would form a nice conversational topic. More selfishly I want to share with you the roller coaster life I have had and die peacefully in the knowledge that some one knows.

So without further ado let me kick start this saga. First things first there is no happy ending to this story primarily because the story hasn’t ended yet. So it won’t be anything like a traditional Jeffrey Archer novel where he starts the narration from childhood, builds the character and goes on till either the character dies or he becomes President. It’s more like snippets from my life that too focused totally on the romantic side of it.

The saga will be split into 14 (a number greater than 13) chapters. Each chapter will focus on my relationship with a different girl/woman. Interspersed into these chapters will be a bit of autobiographical content relevant only to the context. Time lines and geographies would be mentioned to put things in perspective. I sincerely hope you find reading this very entertaining and laugh your guts out while doing so.

Yours,

Oldman.

P.S - All characters appearing in this blog are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Yeah believe that if you have to…..

HIHMYMY - How I haven't met your mother yet