Episode-1: Meet Cutes Don't Just Happen In Movies.

Prologue

  

Miral Rai was your ordinary teenaged Indian girl. Skin color- average. Weight- average. Height- just above average. She always got okay marks in school, which means she never failed but never topped in her class. She had a small group of friends, but most people in her school didn't know she existed. But you can't make out anything from that because not being popular is just a part of being, well, average.

Miral lived with her parents, so theirs was a small family. As a child she had wanted to add a puppy to her clan but that was before she knew that puppies grow to become just like the sharp-toothed creature that had once chased her down the neighbourhood and finally bitten her in the thigh, an incident which resulted in her having to get rabies shots. All of her extended family, with aunts and uncles and cousins, lived far away in Kolkata and rarely visited.

Miral's story begins in the big, bad city of Mumbai. If you don't know, Mumbai is the commercial capital of India with a population of God-knows-how-many-million. Everything is just busy and rushed and crowded and there are big buildings stacked very close to each other. Houses are small and offices are enormous. And the sound of local trains chugging over tracks forms the background music. 

So anyways, Miral was living in Mumbai at the point where her story begins. She was sixteen years old and in the second to last year of high school. In the two years she had spent in her reputed school she had come to realize that she was not very good at making friends and that was why she had very few of them. If you counted her number of boyfriends, you would probably get a a negative number. At that point, nothing interesting was happening in her life.

When you turn to the next page, Miral's story will begin. But don't shut the book yet because it's about an average Indian girl, because as you will soon see, a thing like that doesn't really exist.

 Now Let's Begin...

Miral was in love with a boy. He was tall and dark and handsome, the most popular guy in school. She spent a lot if time thinking about what it would feel like to be with him. He had this bouncy walk and it always made him stand out in a crowd. It was like he owned whatever ground he walked over. All popular high school guys in the world have this quality, but Miral didn't know this at the time and she thought this boy was just so special.

His name was Aryan Kanwar.

Nobody knew how Miral felt about Aryan. Not even her best friend, Piya. For all everybody knew, Aryan and Miral belonged to different planets. She was the simple girl with close friends and little popularity. He was the school hot property who played sport and had about a thousand girls chasing after him. Given these differences between them, everybody just assumed Miral and Aryan didn't know each other.

But that was not true.

Miral and Aryan had met only once, at a school event. It was a dance competition between all the schools of the city and Miral's school was hosting it that year. Miral was one of the kids helping out. Miral was always helping out with things, so she didn't expect this time to be any different. Very dilligently, she put banners on the backdrop of the stage and helped put up the curtains. She also brought the podium to the stage and placed it in a corner that was visible from the audience's side but not obstructive to the dancers. She made a rangoli in front of the stage, which is a design Indians make with flowers and colored powder. Everything looked beautiful and by the time the show began, Miral was exhausted.

But Miral had been wrong. This time was special, because this time, Aryan Kanwar was also helping out.

 

She spotted him backstage after the show had begun. He was standing alone, shoulders square and arms folded over his chest. Miral had seen him before- in the hallways, playing on the basketball court, talking to the dumb and skinny girls who act like school groupies- and every time she had thought he was so handsome. But Miral had never had the chance to talk to him. This time, it just felt like destiny. He was alone and she was alone and they erred separated by a big stage from all those people who thought Miral and Aryan together was a big joke.

It also felt like destiny because the dancers on stage were swaying to a romantic Hindi song from the 1990s. Over the piercing stretch of the emotional violin and the softness of the piano in the song, Miral decided she wanted her chance with Aryan. Her steps matched the rhythm of the song as she slowly walked to him.

"Hi", she said. It was a low hi, but there was a pleasantly nervous undertone to it. She spotted the undertone immediately and hoped he hadn't.

"Hi", he said. He looked at her briefly and then went on to watch the silhouettes of the dancers through the translucent black cloth cutting off the backstage area from the stage.

"So you like dance, huh?" Miral knew it was a stupid question. In her school, nobody really helped out at these things because they liked dance or music or whatever. People like Miral did it because they were nice and incapable of saying no if a teacher asked for help. Some people did it to set a good impression on their teachers. Some participated because they were actually quite talented and wanted the platform. The moment Miral asked the question, she started wondering what category Aryan fell under.

"I don't do it", said Aryan shyly. "But it's okay to watch".

The words sounded so sweet when he said them.

"So, how long have you been in this school?" Miral asked.

"This is my fourth year".

"One year more than me."

He didn't say anything to that. So, Miral went on. "Do you like Mumbai?"

He shrugged. "Kind of."

Even Miral knew this was going nowhere. She took one last chance and said, "So if you're not into dance, what are you into?"

Miral already knew the answer to this one, but it proved to be her lucky question because after this, Aryan just went on talking. He told her about basketball and his last game. He said sports in India presently didn't have much scope, but things could change. He didn't make eye contact with Miral, but that just seemed sweet and shy.

"So do you have any siblings?"

"Yeah. A brother."

"Younger?"

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess".

Miral asked him more and more questions- his favorite book (Percy Jackson), favorite film (Mission Impossible), favorite game (basketball, duh!) and so on. When she was done with the basic questions, one group of dancers took their bow on stage and everybody did the obligatory applause. It wasn’t all that great a performance, really, because the dancers were doing a Bollywood number and the song was something about a girl asking someone to stick her lips on to his chest with Fevicol. Miral shrugged. She didn’t know how school authorities allowed a song like this, but she had to admit that Fevicol was a great adhesive because she’d been using it all her life  to stick things.

“Okay, so who’s your favorite actress?” Miral asked.

“Huh?” said Aryan, as if the question had caught him off guard somehow.

“Or the hottest star”, Miral elaborated. “I mean, that’s what’s important to guys, right? Guys your age, I mean”.

“That’s not true for all guys”, Aryan said defensively, but he was laughing a little bi.

“I’m sure it’s not”, Miral sarcastically said. “Come on, tell me”.

“What- Why would you-”

“Hello? I’m a sixteen-year-old girl. It’s important for me to know what guys think is hot”.

Only Miral could talk like this in the whole school. Maybe in the whole state, or even the whole country. Miral didn’t know why, but she wasn’t living in a planet where boys and girls are always frank to each other.

“Megan Fox”, said Aryan.

“What?”

“Megan Fox”, repeated Aryan.

“I know, right. I wish I looked like that. But try again”.

“Better than Megan Fox?”

“Megan Fox is not very original.”

Aryan pretended to think and then said, “Katrina Kaif’s pretty good”.

“Yeah, I wish I looked like her too”.

“You wish you looked like everybody”.

“No, it’s just that… Okay, so maybe that’s true”.

They both laughed.

“It’s like God made some rule that only people on TV get to be good-looking.”

Aryan laughed again and nodded his head in sympathy, “It’s not fair”.

“It’s not. It’s plastic surgery”.

“Don’t say that. It spoils the aura”.

At that moment, the vice-principal, Mrs, Perreirra,  appeared backstage. Miral didn’t like her much and she had a feeling the vice-principal didn’t like her much either because she didn’t even notice Miral standing there. She was a fair-skinned lady with short, poofy hair and her saris were always immaculate.

“Aryan”, she said, flapping her hands like a duck. “Oh, thank God. It’s break. We need to give out the food packets to the audience”.

“Yes, I’ll see to that”, Aryan said. It sounded great when he said the words as if he was the most reliable person in the world.

Vice-Principal Perreirra smiled in a way that made people think if maybe even the teachers had a crush on Aryan.

“I’ll see you”, Aryan said and left.

Miral followed him with her eyes. He went to some of the younger kids and pointed at the stacks of food packets. The kids nodded eagerly as if they were hearing a prophet’s sermon. Then, they started picking up the packets on by one and taking them to the audience. Miral wondered how Aryan did it- make people fall in love with him. She also wondered what was in the food packet because she was kind of hungry.

Miral didn’t see him anymore that day because a teacher asked her do make-up on a dancer who was doing a mime-inspired performance. Miral had to paint the girl’s face white and her lips red. It was harder work than it looked because a lot of the backstage crowd kept coming up to ask her what she was doing. Miral guessed they had never seen a mime before, so she kept saying, "You know Batman's enemy 'Joker'? She's doing a Joker-inspired thing today." The mime girl laughed at this joke in the beginning, but afterwards her face was too caked with white paint to muster even a smile.

Miral floated home on a cloud. No, actually she took the very crowded bus no. 511, but it sure felt like floating. She’d done it. She’d talked to Aryan Kanwar and he had laughed with her.

Miral’s mother opened the door. When Miral entered with a smile, her mother asked, “What happened?”

“Nothing”, Miral said, because this wasn’t something she wanted to tell her mother yet. She fought the smile away from her face till nightfall.

That night, as she lay in bed, she congratulated herself. But Miral was intelligent, so something came to glare at her in the face. It was the fact that Aryan had said he’d see her but hadn’t, had never asked her what her favorite book, favorite movie or favorite game was. These facts gnawed on Miral like a rat that you know is eating your cheese, but you’re still hoping it’s not there. He had also not asked her who her favorite hot actor was, but somehow, Miral hung on to that like a ray of hope.