The Yellow-T-Shirt Girl

Today I met one girl and that made me wish that such persons would always meet me at every situation in life…

Today I was at AXIS bank to buy my broachers for CAT’11. Actually we (me , Anant and Aniket) went there together from T.I.M.E. class. As we heard that there was so much rush for buying broachers that some of my friends had to stand 3 hours in queue, so we went there as swiftly as possible. We entered the bank which, by the way, looked like any college’s fee collection window as there were so much youngster standing and the queue was extended up to the door with some forms in their hands.

We entered into the bank and inquired for that form and got it from security guard. Then we went to end of the queue where a girl in yellow T-shirt is standing talking to her friend standing beside her. She is slender looking with small face and ponytail and has a nice smile. I and Anant went behind her to stand in queue. She took a look at me and noticed my unfilled form and told me with nice smile: “fill up your form na…”

I was surprised. I didn’t know her, didn’t even see her before this. Girls never start talks with complete strangers, as per I thought. Actually, I had noticed a huge crowd coming to join in the queue and I didn’t want to waste much time on queue so I had joined the queue without filling the form. So I told her in surprising tone (just some milliseconds had passed so I was still surprised): “I will fill it later……when I was walking in queue….on my way…”

She got the inside meaning that I was reluctant to get off my place in queue. And that was not surprising; it’s a natural thing to do and any one can get that. But the surprising thing was that which she told me after that. She told me: ”it’s ok ..sit and fill up your forms …I will keep place for you here…”

Now I was flabbergasted. What …what…what is going on…A complete stranger girl meet me just before 30 seconds was offering me to keep a place so that I could fill up my form with ease. That is …weird….good…in fact very good…but weird… I looked towards sofa as anant started walking towards sofa. So now my mouth was smiling as I was happy, my forehead might had creases and one of my eyebrows might be tilted as I was doubting her and my eyes must have widen with the surprise and sparkling with amazement at the same time. And with all this I was trying to thank her. I said “thank you” but actually I just mouthed those words and no sound came out. But she must have got that as she was looking directly into me. She might got all the gestures of my face or maybe not…no idea. But the surprise and doubt gone soon and then I was just smiling after a second. Then I started walking towards the sofa located at the center of the bank.

And then I saw anant confidently walking towards the sofa and I noticed that he hadn’t even hesitated a little bit, like me. He stood there during all the 30 second conversation just beside me. What does that mean? What the hell was I thinking? Anant must know her. She was talking in plural tone every time. She was making a small talk with him but I spoke first so it became me-and-her conversation. So I was barking on the wrong tree, nothing else. Otherwise how could Anant trust someone without any hesitation? So first mystery…then surprise…then hesitation...Then amazement…then smile...And at last…realization.

Then we all 3 set on sofa to fill up the form. (aniket was busy talking with some friend and then joined us on sofa) so we indulged ourselves in filling the form. I completed my form first and anant was still filling up.

So I asked him casually:”so how did you know that girl?”  

Anant: “what???” He was surprised :”what???? I didn’t know her. She was your friend  na…?”

Me:”what???” now it was my turn to surprise “you didn’t know her???”

Anant:”she started talking to you as if she were your friend so I thought…” he hadn’t completed the sentence.

Now we both were surprised and staring at each other with a little smile. Both confused…we were distracted by aniket laughing hard about our situation. He must have noticed us talking to that yellow-T-shirt girl. What the hell???  The person sitting beside aniket get annoyed with this but when boys are in group they don’t care about others, as a general rule. And then we were smiling at over selves.

Then we got up and strolled towards the queue. I was hesitated about join her or not. Or would she really allow us to take this illegal entry in queue.

 I asked Anant:”what to do? Should we join her?”

Anant:”…she told us that she would  keep a place then why should we hesitate? ”

Me:”ok..”

So anant stood behind her in a queue. And I stood behind him. There was a large queue behind us now extending outside the door to the end of the steps. So this was practical choice. ‘Let’s-take-a-chance’ thing. What’s there to lose? At this time yellow-T-shirt girl was talking to her friend about Paramarsh, an M.S.Unuversity non-tech. event. That made me wonders whether she had noticed me during Paramarsh as I was part of the Organizing team. She saw us joining in line behind her but didn’t say anything. I was not even expecting her to say anything at all. But she time-by-time stealing friendly glances at us.

Then after sometime aniket joined the row and one more person behind him also joined. Practically we were standing outside the queue, expecting those who stood behind yellow-t-shirt girl to give us space to join in. The person stood behind me asked and I told him that we had been standing in the line but just gone to fill the form. He satisfied. But then came the watchman and told all of us to go at the end of the row. Anant told him that we were here and had gone for the form-filling. But he wasn’t flinched and continued ordering us to go at the back. We tried to convince but now I knew I had to stand in queue 1 more hour then I thought. But then the yellow-T-shirt girl came for our salvation and told the watchman: “they were here…just gone for the form-filling…” and boom…the watchman convinced. Generally man tends to argue less with woman. He just gave us a look and gone. I turned from him to her and wanted to thank her again but she got indulged in her phone just after that. She had same sony model that I was using. Now we legally entered into the queue.

Our human mind is skeptical. A thought swept across my mind ‘is she flirting with me or anant’?  She seemed friendly and not the kind that could flirt. But you couldn’t say for sure. And ya, none of us were flirting or anything.

So for some time I talked with Anant and then she initiated a friendly chit-chat over the CAT with us. I came to know that she was in BBA and also a student at T.I.M.E. After sometime her friend also joined and the talks flowed about various exams, date of CAT we were choosing, AIMCAT and all. In short, we had a nice pastime talk. And ya, I found out that it was never about flirting. She was just like 12^th standard girl, didn’t seem mature enough, didn’t so hopeful about CAT or even preparing. But the way by which she initiated and indulged us in friendly talk so smoothly that nobody would believe that we were not classmates. She can easily deal with strangers and could be good at marketing if she would try.

At one moment, she pointed at something and said:” wouldn’t that perfectly appropriate for our situation?” She was pointing at the notice board above the counter which states:’ stand quietly in line, we appreciate your patient’. That made us smile.   

When I took out my cell to check message, she literally jumped:”I had the same phone…”  quite childlike.

Me:”ya…I saw that…”

How could our Aniket bhai be out of picture? At one point I was talking about placements with yellow-T-shirt girl and anant was talking to her friend and anant made same witty remark and we all laughed. At that time the watchman came and told us to stand silently. Aniket commented from behind:” saumil…take her outside and talk…let us take the broachers first”. But she hadn’t heard. What if she heard, she didn’t even know my name. Not even I knew hers. Before I asked her it was her turn to pay broachers fee and then she was leaving. I didn’t want to shout to ask her name because that seemed desperate. So I just said "bye"  and she said "bye and Best of luck". She turned and left before i say thank you. So here I missed my 3rd chance to say proper thank you. So thanks to the "yellow-T-shirt" girl we got our form in 40 min instead of 1hr 40 min.

And ya at one point, she offered to help some elderly man whom she barely knew and told him to sit and took his form for submission.

OVER AND OUT.  

I don’t think I was going to meet her again ever. But the thing that made me smile and write this blog was that “how some persons arrive in your life and become friendly without even knowing each other…just a flash or sparkle and you become friends…hadn’t notice this earlier…atleast not this fast..40 min to friendship seems absurd where you don’t even know each other’s names”

And one more thing that made me wish that I meet such girls again is that she offered help to me by saying to keep a place and told watchman that we were in queue earlier. It hadn’t seemed like a big deal. I doubt myself whether I would even tell some stranger old-age person to go sit and I would keep his/her place. Or if some girl or boy standing behind me, who went out of row for some reason, then would I dare to talk to watchman about letting him in unless he asked me to help him. I doubt myself. Those are the small things but with big meanings.

There is so much goodness around us.