The Beginning

It was a beautiful evening as winter was just starting to set in. Students were standing outside the entrance of Wilbur Woods Auditorium. A grand entrance, amazing decorations, dazzling lights, lots of noise: hooting, clapping, shouting. A huge crowd was present at the Auditorium to witness the final of the Zonal Dance Competitions.

I was there with my friends to support and cheer for one of the finalists who was a friend of one of my friends, but I have never heard about her before. So I wasn't that interested I was there because Priyanka Chopra was supposed to be judging the final and here I was amongst the crowd with my friends. The stage was set and the show host was ready to begin.

"A very good evening ladies and gentlemen... It gives, Archana Sanyal, singular pleasure, double delight, triple excitement and quadruple satisfaction to be here, on this platform and welcome you all to the spectacular show of dance."

"I request the judges to be on the stage, Mr. Shiamak Davar, Ms. Farah Khan and Ms. Priyanka Chopra"

The last name raised lots of noise and clapping. And it excited me, this was the first time I was going to watch her live, from a distance of 12 feet from the stage and 20 rows of chair. What the hell! This was supposed to be the VIP row.

"Good Evening People", Priyanka said with lots of sensuality.

The crowd started hooting and whistling.

The show had begun with this shout. The judges were introduced. All the contestants were called upon the stage for the last group performance.

The group performed on the song "Dhoom Machale."

"Who do you think is going to win?", Jaanvi drained off the entire bottle of Coca-Cola.

"That girl in yellow dress, she was amazing." Mahi said.

"She's so beautiful and graceful." Adit stretched his limbs and made some adjustments to his merchandise.

Jaanvi, Mahi and Adit have NOTHING to do with this story. They were just three, among thousands of persons gathered at the Wilbur Woods Auditorium to witness the grand finale of Zonal Dance Competition.

The 'girl in yellow dress' that Jaanvi, Mahi and Adit were swanking about was Sunidhi. She has a LOT to do with the story.

A little mascara... Some lip gloss... And a lot of mysterious sensuality- Sunidhi SHARMA.

The hostess was back on the stage and the final three were called on the stage to declare the two of the finalists who will proceed based on the votes and marks of the judge.

Till now I had no idea who I was supposed to be rooting for, neither did I bothered to ask. Because now I was rooting for Sunidhi.

"Rochelle Malhotra is at the first place based on the count of the votes from the last weeks performance." announced Archana, which received a mixed response from the audience.

"Who do you think is the other finalist?" asked Archana, which again received an obvious mixed response from the audience.

"Aditi Rana is at the last place, so the finalists are Rochelle Malhotra and Sunidhi Sharma."

There was clapping, hooting and whistling. And I was happy that I will see her dance again and cursed myself for not watching the whole series.

 The first performance was a face off challenge. Then the individual performances. The judges had the marks secured in an envelope which was given to the hostess by one of the crew members.

"So here are the results, I request the judges and the final contestants to be on the stage for the announcement of results."

"And the winner is...... Sunidhi Sharma"

I was really happy to know the fact that she was the one we came there to support.

A shabby stubble... Some wicked humour... And a lot of spontaneity - that's me, Aryan Anand.

I had had only the opportunity to congratulate her on that particular day. As she was going out to celebrate the victory with her family.

It has been six months since the event where I first met Sunidhi. And now I had fallen for Sunidhi. I had been running away from girls for little contradictions, for small arguments over petty things. And here was Sunidhi Sharma…. word to word, letter to letter, idea to idea, thought to thought, character to character opposite to me. The OTHER EXTREME.

I’m 5’11” tall and she was 5’8” tall. She had the best complexion and her face was spotless – not a pimple and she had a naturally even-toned healthy skin. She had long, black, straight and silky hair that she tied in a pony tail. She normally donned a pair of jeans or shorts, sneakers or floaters, and a top. The only make-up she put on was the kajal she put in her eyes and the lip balm she applied every few hours! She was every bit sexy.

Sunidhi was a complete rock-and-metal music freak while I love passionate and soulful songs! She watched nothing other than thrillers, sci-fi, action and horror movies, I did share a similar choice of thrillers, though I put romance above all genres. She was an excellent chess player, I’m a terrible loser. She played guitar and danced since she was nine, I’m only capable of breaking the guitar strings. She loved reading mysteries, adventures, Harry Potter, Jeffery Archer, Robin Cook, all kinds of fiction, I am a big romantic-fiction fan especially, Nicholas Sparks. She stuck to her philosophies and methodologies regarding life, could relate to you all the Indian Mythological stories without a flaw! I’m good at giving advices but I hardly follow them.

My favorite color is black, hers was white! I am a patient boy. She was Queen impatient! She was cool and at times rowdy. She could talk for hours non-stop even with strangers; I believe ‘Speech is Silver, Silence is Golden’ and follow it!

It was a day after the event, we were both sitting on the play-ground as my leg was injured (not really, it was just to sit with her) and she hated to play; everyone else was on the ground playing cricket. I had realized how different she was from all the girls. She was quite childish yet she had great understanding. She was funny, fierce, adamant… principled… in her own weird way! She could make me smile so easily and I could share my innermost secrets with her and be sure that she would not gossip about it. Her laughter was genuine, no sign of any artificial feelings in it. Some of her thoughts sounded impractical, but thinking over the later, I had realized that they made sense. She cracked silly jokes but it was hard not to laugh heartily over them. She was simple in her talks, and had her own boisterous style of speech but there was so much sweetness behind that raucous kind of talk that even her rudest of words could not hurt your emotions. She was sincere about her studies and an extreme career minded and yet she desperately wished that she were a part of X-Men. She was not exactly a tomboy but she was not even girly. She had her own unparalleled élan. She was different.