The Beautiful Game

The playground near its corners was populated with numerous small groups of friends sitting and lazing around. Meanwhile, the 14 of us covered the majority of the pitch as we started with our routine daily match of football in the afternoon. Some had bunked classes to be there on time for the match. But it was worth it. The weather was outstanding, just ideal for a football match, cloudy yet breezy. There was no hint of sun. The whole look of the day was pretty grayish, almost monochromatic. The match hence was being played with higher spirits and zeal, higher energies. On a day like that, the stamina’s increased, everyone felt like running an extra yard, dribbling the ball through the midfield like a Brazilian, it was after all ‘the beautiful game’. Our college bags were kept together forming heaps to form the poles of goals. I used to be a player predominantly on the right wing. Hence I was closer to the students sitting in chunks of 4-5 near the boundaries and corners of the playground. Time and again it would so happen that the ball would roll out of play and hit one of them. I would go to them and ask for the ball, even say sorry if it had hit a girl. But then this time even though the ball did not roll out, I noticed a group of 3 students sitting quite close to the periphery of our playing area. No wonder why I noticed them. Gauri was there. I just knew her by her name and face. She was a year junior to me, in a different course, so there was no natural way of knowing each other. I was just so madly in love with her that I had to ask a common friend to introduce me to her. She also knew me by face and name, quite lame! We used to say ‘hi’ to each other whenever we crossed paths, but that was it. I grew weak in my knees whenever I used to see her. Now this was my chance. I was now extremely eager to impress her. So I went up to her and said ‘hi’. She replied back and said ‘hi’ too. What this did was that my presence was now felt. Now I would play skillfully and try and be brilliant, and hope gauri watches it. I did just that. I demanded the ball every time my team was attacking. I gave artistic first touches, carried the ball solo through, into the penalty box quite a few times. I absolutely did not realize that it had been raining for the past few minutes now. When I did, I immediately turned to check if gauri was still around. She wasn’t certainly sitting anymore. I scanned through the playground like a hawk, saw various couples standing under trees, ‘enjoying’ the young rain. I had lost track of the ball, my eyes wandered, in pain, just hoping to catch a glimpse of gauri somewhere. I think she saw me before I saw her, because what she did next was so out of the book for her. I noticed she was under the science block roof, but then she came out in the rain, closed her eyes, and let her arms wide open, embracing the rain. I wished if I could zoom into her face, look at the water droplets bouncing off her face, and some rolling through. She just looked immaculately beautiful. I’m not sure about this part, but I think I saw her smile and look at me. I just knew I had to propose to her, there can be no two ways about it.
I turned back and saw that all my football mates were gone. By now another friend of hers had joined gauri in the rain. I picked up my wet bag and went to my classroom. I didn’t feel like going back home, and I felt like coming to college again the next day as soon as possible. With mixed ideas, I came out of my class and started for my home. I met gauri again downstairs, chatting with her friends, as the rain had ended up into only a minor drizzle by now. She saw me coming downstairs and then towards her. I smiled and said ‘bye’, she smiled back and said ‘bye’ too.