After the irresistible night beak, the flow of love
continued as Mannu opened his eyes. The end of school had made him lazy and
the time to wake up had become much more flexible, usually upto 8 which was
extended, snooze after snooze, till 8 30. Mrs. K did not disturb Mannu’s sleep.
The first thing that he watched now was the screen of his phone. It had
replaced the Thank you prayer.
A short message to wake him up and a second one, just with
the words ‘I LOVE YOU’ gave Mannu a perfect adolescent start for the day. He
rolled on the bed, side to side, unwrapped himself from the sheets for minutes
in a joyful imagination of Pia’s bedroom, little and pink; her loose off
shoulder tee shirt from which shone her yellowy gleaming skin and how
graciously she’d be sipping coffee near the bedside window while messaging him. It continued until Guddi came up and switched off the fan. The titillation by
the sweat beads on his forehead brought him out from the virtual world, back to
Lucknow. He had been deficient with the
grade of college he was allotted for graduation, but life poured in a
completely new wave of hope; everlasting, unbound. In a joyful remembrance of
the dreams Mannu woke up and went to the bathroom, hiding his phone in the
shorts. He had purchased one, just for
the sake of a pocket it had. It made his thighs sweat at night and he had to
roll out of the sheet at times, still Mannu preferred to put it on. The pocket
in it helped avoid Mrs. K’s eye on the whereabouts of the mobile phone. Love
was making him different.
He called Pia from the bathroom, turning on the tap to avoid
audibility of his talks. The conversation was in whispers, hisses but Mannu
wanted to take no chance. Getting heard by Mrs. K or Guddi meant a complete end.
He checked the lock on door twice and dialed her number. Her faint, kiddish laughs
were heard. Mannu was weak at expressing himself and the condition for the
first call was that ‘I LOVE YOU Pia’ had to be the words, not a hello or hi.
Her laughs made him sweat more. He breathed deep. Sleep was all gone. She
started laughing. The strong mobile network quickly brought her kisses to him.
“My darling wants to say something?”She spoke amid her
giggles from the other side of the phone.
“Pia...”Mannu just came out with her name.
“Ok...Say after me...I...”Pia spoke.
“I...”spoke Mannu.
“Love...”She continued.
“Love...”Mannu said, turning the knob of the tap clockwise.
“You...”Pia completed.
“You...I love you Pia...”He spoke up finally. It was a good
feeling. It felt pearls had been exchanged and now the day can go on. Pia had
set this rule to bring Mannu completely out of sleep in minutes. And it really
worked.
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