“What should I wear?”, I questioned. We were going to meet after a long time, so obviously he and me, we both were excited. “Anything except the magenta ‘ice-gola’ coloured top”, he replied. I had no idea why he hated it so much. “What makes you hate it so much, after all it’s not that bad.” I asked, doubtfully. “I don’t know. I just don’t like it. That’s it. Now can we just talk about something else?” he said, in an irritated tone. Boys are weird. And they do have a strange and eccentric fashion sense. Anyway, it was me after all. “Now you see, I will wear that only. Hah!”, I said spitefully. “Whatever”, he murmured. We decided the time and venue and kept aside our phones and started getting ready. He was there, standing near his vehicle, at the right time as usual. By convention, it is the guy who is always late and the girl reaches at right time, but we had it other way round. I was always late and he, before time. Somehow, I loved him for that. “So, where are we going?” I asked enthusiastically. He was silent. I knew his answer. “See, I really don’t know. I just couldn’t think of any place. We have visited every place possible. Nothing is left.” I guess he was right. There was no place left. We had visited every place, not just once, many times. “Okay then, let us do something which we haven’t done before, something crazy, worth remembering.” I said, without having a clue of what we were going to do. “Let’s go to the lake, sit there and think something.” He didn’t have anything else to say, so just agreed upon it and said “Fine.”
The roads were full of chaos. People hustled from here to there. We walked through the screaming crowd and sat on the wall by the side of the lake. It was a good-weather day. And he had put on my favourite black and white chequered shirt. He looked happy and adorable. It was the time of the sunset. The apparent “introspection” time. We discovered ourselves in a new way. I rested my head on his shoulder staring out at the empty sky and the picturesque view of the setting sun. “I love you.” I said. He just smiled back. And the smile he passed was enough for me to understand that whatever I say means to him. It was a warm and comforting smile. Minutes passed away, we just sat there, doing nothing. I kept my water bottle in between and I was frequently fiddling with it. Suddenly I exclaimed, “Let us play a game!.” He saw my devilish expressions and said “Umm.. okay! Only if it’s not something lame.” I explained the rules to him. We decided to play a game which we all played during our high-school, “spin-the-bottle”.
So the game began. I spun the bottle. It pointed towards him. “Hahaha. You are trapped”, I laughed loudly. I started searching for ideas. I saw an ice-cream parlour opposite to me and an idea flickered in my mind. I explained him his dare. He entered inside, and approached an uncle who had come there with his son. As soon as he reached near the uncle, he started laughing. I could see him from the transparent glass and he laughed like crazy. He had a conversation with him and he came back laughing out loud. I asked him for the audio tape as that was the evidence for his dare. It was hilarious. The uncle first refused to buy him an ice-cream and he had to actually beg him for it. “I am very hungry and I don’t have money for buying food.” he said. And that was the lamest statement. He didn’t even look like he was penny-less. After convincing him for a lot of time, he agreed and bought him an ice-cream. And then, we enjoyed the ice-cream, laughing about his stupid statements made.
Next was my turn. He started to think something weird as he wanted to avenge me. “Go to the one who’s serving the ice-cream in the ice-cream parlour, wave your hair, run your hand through it, seduce him and buy me an ice-cream.” I mean I wasn’t going to do that. He asked me to do many things but I didn’t do any amongst it. Then we decided to go to another place. ” Joggers park it is”. He told me what I had to do and moved a few steps away from me. “Okay, I’ll do it” I said. There was a boy sitting, he was 21-22 years old, listening to songs from his headphones. He looked like he had a recent break-up with his girl-friend. He was pre-occupied in his own thoughts and was least concerned about what was going on in the world. I went to him and abruptly asked, “Excuse me, what is the last thing you would do, if you knew this was your last day?”. And then, he took his headphones out and I realized that my words were in vain. Stupid girl. In a surprised tone he said, “Pardon?”. I had to repeat my words as I goofed up during the first time. And this time I couldn’t resist but laugh while speaking, so he got that it was a prank. “Listen, I am not in a good mood today, so please...” he replied in a serious and a deep, husky voice. “But still, what would you do...” I said laughing again but only to realize that he was actually not in a good mood and could hit me at any moment, so I stepped back. He glared back at me with that “Fuck-off” look. He was intimidating. I came back and we listened to the audio. Oh God! He was scary. He really was.
“I gotta pee”, he said in a low voice, may be because he knew my reaction. “Ugh. Why don’t you pee and come you moron” I replied. This was his usual problem. Whenever we went out, he had to, in the middle of the conversation, go away and pee. It was so bad. “Why is your bladder so small?”, I laughed while saying. “See, I can control but I don’t want to because...”. He started giving me an explanation for some lame-ass question I just asked. “Okay, let’s find a place.” I blurted out. We started walking again, talking lame, laughing on each others’ insecurity, making fun of each other, gossiping (yeah he’s very much like a girl and that’s why I love him more). We have walked on that road seldom times, but we never noticed that board ever, “Shabana Bakery”. “Let’s go inside” I pointed in its way. “Really? I want to pee and all you can think of, is about eating? What is wrong with you girl?” he said disgustingly. “Oh God! Such a cry baby you are. I am saying, you go pee, and then we’ll just have a bottle of coke for formality, atleast you’ll get to pee in a cleaner place.” I replied instantly. His expressions changed. “That’s gonna be embarrassing but okay since I cannot control anymore let’s try this also.” He sounded helpless. Poor guy!
It was an open restaurant kind of a place. A lawn, a dais, low instrumental music, attractive chairs and tables, lightings everywhere, lanterns put up on all the trees around, beautiful antique paintings. It was a beautiful place. He came back running, he looked relieved. “Hah! Finally!”, I said. He just smiled sheepishly. It was such a beautiful place, so we sat there ordered something to eat. Then we went across to see more of it, and inside it was like an art-gallery. There were these amazing paintings and art-works hung in the room. The room was beautifully decorated with lanterns and other things. I did not see anything so beautiful, in such a common place like walkers. Plus, the food there was in-expensive and tasty. What more do you want? We came back from the stroll and had food. I saw a boy sitting alone there, bored. So I just got reminded that we were playing a game and so it was my chance to give a dare. “Your dare is to go to that guy, there, ask what’s wrong in his life, talk to him for a moment and click a selfie with him.” He glared at me, “You are so annoying. I should do whatever you say and you’ll never do it. I am not going to do it.” I chuckled. He was right. But then he couldn’t refuse. So he went to him and had a conversation with him. “I am in 12th standard and just a little worried about the board exams”, he said after talking a lot. So as a good human being he told that boy all his past experiences, guided him with tuition classes and tips for studies, clicked a selfie with him and they exchanged numbers. That was a good deed done.
And in similar ways, the game moved on with many more dares and many situations. It was all fun playing that stupid game. Sometimes you need to go into that “childhood zone” to actually realize that the world is the same, it’s just that we have changed. Happy realisation. We were engrossed in our own world, until the clock struck 8:50 and it clicked in my mind that I have an intime of 9:00. So we rushed back to the hostel. He left me on the gate. We thanked each other for spending a beautiful time together. Even though it was non-productive, but we had a lot of fun today. We discovered a new place which was unknown to many people, went into that childhood phase where we did not care about anything but fun. We felt more alive. That’s how we find happiness, in the little and quintessential things. We hugged each other like it was for the last time. He smiled and said, “Oh by the way, this magenta top looks good on you. You should wear it more often.”. He kissed me on my forehead and walked away. And this is how our “Ultimate pee-break” day ended.