It all started with A.. - Part 1

He saw her the first time at Sr. (forgot her name)'s house. He was in the 10th standard, and they were all gathered there to practise for their parish's annual day, which incidentally was celebarted on Don Bosco's birthday. They were to perform a gujarati dance item (also called garba). She was to be his dance partner. For the D-day, he was to don a colouful gujarati dress, which he borrowed from one of his neighbour's son, who was saving it up for Navratri.


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She, as pretty and cute as she was, was to wear a traditional gujarati dress meant for girls. He had no idea how she would look in those colorful dresses... but right now at Sr. (forgot her name)'s house she was looking like an angel from heaven. When he looked at her, he thought - "My God! Heaven must surely be missing an angel!!"

So there he was... love at first sight. Since his first encounter with her at Sr. (forgot her name)'s house, his eyes would automatically start scanning the prayer hall for her every Saturday evening. He used to go for the Saturday evening mass at 7:30 p.m., which used to be held at a marriage hall. This marriage hall, called Perriera Hall, was made available to the Chirstian Community in Virar by Mr. Perriera, till they got an official church in place.

So where was I?... yeah...eyes scanning, scanning, scanning... and there she was. Sitting admidst the huge congreagation gathered for their weekly mass. As soon as his eyes found her, his heart would pound twice as fast... He would get goosebumps too quite often, as and when he looked at her. Though he was physically present in the prayer hall, he would mentally be with her.

Then, after communion, he would close my eyes to say a little prayer and include her too in prayer. Well, yeah... you would just think of him as a stupid loser. Every second a sucker is born into this world and may be he was one of them. Hmm... this happened every week and he started looking forward to go for the Saturday evening mass... he became religious all of a sudden, his parents thought. He still remembers his first Christamas Party of their parish with her (with her... in the crowd of course). It was fun, with her around. He got to know at the party about the school she goes to, the apartment she lives in, etc, etc.

Since their parish was growing, one fine day the parish priest announced that the church council would soon be forming a Youth Group. This group was formed with a purpose of bringing the youth of their parish together, and then create a proper parish choir, a festival group (who would take care of arrangements for special masses such as Christmas, New Year, Good Friday, et al), and so on. He go to know from a friend that she joined the group... and it was time that he joined it too. Why, you ask? Well, first of all he was a religious guy ...remember? Ok, Ok... he was not a religious guy. The reason was, he wanted to make friendship with her. Friendship was obviously the first step towards growing much closer to her, which would soon bloom into a really nice relationship...