Love Part 6

“Tawsif.”

The voice sends a chilling, electric wave course beneath my skin. I know whose voice it is, but then I again I’m not perfectly sure. I can’t be.

I turn around in the slowest possible way. It’s Nidhi.

“Um, yes.”

“You look awful in that hairstyle, you know that?”

If anybody else in the world had said that, no matter a boy or a girl, I would’ve yelled without even trying to listen. But Nidhi’s remark penetrates my mind with solid power. It isn’t mockery, or coarseness, or the effect Nidhi usually has on me that induces the power; it’s the tone of her voice. She’s actually scolding me, like a friend.

A part of me wonders if the hairstyle really looks odd. It did take a long time to turn my hair—which has never before agreed to take on anything other than the plainly combed good-boy style—spiky. So I try to protest: “Really? I don’t think so.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Nidhi says, still scolding. “You better change that.”

She strolls past me and out of the class. I try to say something, maybe another weak protest, but end up floundering.

Come on, Tawsif! says the inner voice. It’s okay you like her. But that definitely doesn’t mean she can tell you whatever she wants. After all, you did make a lot of effort to get this hairstyle done. Plus, you checked in the mirror at least ten times. You looked handsome, for god’s sake! And now she calls it awful and you just agree?

I didn’t agree, okay? I fight with the voice. I did complain.

BULLSHIT! That was nothing! You should’ve been a MAN!

Okay, okay! You’re right. I didn’t act like a man. But, maybe……

Maybe what?

Maybe she’s right. I wasn’t so convinced when I looked in the mirror today. I looked… clumsy.

What? It was supposed to be the hottest hairstyle you’ve ever made.

I know. But it didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.

The silent conversation would go on and on. But all of a sudden I realize I’ve totally forgotten about the morning assembly. Possibly the assembly has already begun.

Before sprinting off, I declare my final decision on the hairstyle to the inner voice: It wasn’t hot, okay!

That night, sprawled on my bed, I keep on thinking about the hairstyle. It’s not like the thought is weighing on me; it’s rather an embarrassment. I’m not sure why I feel embarrassed. Is it because the hairstyle I anticipated so badly turned into an absolute flop? Or because Nidhi was the one to first notice I looked crazy in the hairstyle? —I don’t know. I’m totally in a muddle.

Suddenly, it hits me like a thunder.

Holy fuck! the inner voice shouts. She talked to you! For the first time in your life, she talked to you!

I fling myself up on the bed. The entire action is so abrupt that the wooden legs of the bed creak in protest. Even a moment ago I was all embarrassed, and now my entire body has turned on.

I had tried to talk with Nidhi earlier. A number of times. But I didn’t know what to say, or how to say. You can’t just bump into a girl and say, “Hey, girl! What’s up?”; not when every single boy in your class has a strict aversion towards talking to opposite gender. Though I’m usually comfortable with girls unlike my peers, that comfort would always dissolve with Nidhi. In those quagmires, I’d think of the Bollywood movies where boys of my age talk freely with girls. I wished such freedom had been possible in my country. But Bangladesh isn’t America after all.

Nevertheless, there were times when I overcame all my shyness, after a long, tormenting wrestle with the inner voice, and stood in front of Nidhi. But the moment she’d look me in the eye, the enigmatic sensation, the mixture of strength and weakness, would capture me, and I’d just look the other way and dash past her, as if I didn’t see her at all.

And today, she talked to me. Willingly!

Surges of ecstasy keep assaulting me. I find myself giggling relentlessly, almost like a hysteria patient.

As time goes by and the wild excitement diminishes, I begin to see the light more and more clearly.

Nidhi must be against the avoid-opposite-gender rule like me. Otherwise she wouldn’t come and talk to me on her own. Besides, she remarked about my hair, a completely trivial issue. It wasn’t like she talked because it was absolutely necessary.

Nidhi and I were the only ones left in the class at that moment. Was it possible that she’d waited for everybody to leave for the assembly so she could talk in private? Could be, no matter how fanciful it sounds, that she’d been looking for the chance to talk to me?

But it didn’t look like she had this all planned. There was no sign of pretense in her eyes, her voice, or the gestures. She was being natural, a friend scolding another friend.

Right, says the inner voice. No need to be excited. She isn’t falling all over you.

It’s alright, I reply. She talked to me, and that’s what matters most.