My Heart Skips A Beat!: Story of An Incomplete Love

by Shubham Mohapatra

  call him for more but each time it said“The number you are trying to reach is currently switched off. Please try after some time.”

  Then he rushed to Bicky Bhai’s room. There he was busy playing his favourite Counter Strike match with his batch-mates. Sumit described about the unknown phone call in detail. Then another senior present there named Sanjib Bhai suggested him to check the phone number in the Truecaller

  app. Sumit also did that. But the result left everyone surprised. They looked each other’s face and uttered“What the fuck”! “Is it really Possible?”Because the fame is in the name. It was Manav Pradhan, the Hero of AUIIT.

  Hero To Villain

  AFTER that night Sumit wished to know

  the reality of the relationship between Puja and Manav Bhai. Manav Bhai was also intimate with all the third year boys as they were in the same hostel few years ago. So, it was natural that the third year seniors were also quite curious to know the truth. Among all the third year boys, Krishna Bhai was closest to him. So he tried to contact him every time and asked about Puja, but he could not get more information. Then they all vowed to start their investigation to help Sumit. After few days they came to know something interesting about both Puja and Manav Bhai.

  According to them Puja was from Sundargarh, a western district of Odisha. Few years

  ago her father was dead in an accident. She had an elder brother. She had her graduation in a nearby city named Rourkela. One year ago she joined our college to pursue her Master’s Degree in Computer Science. She has strong command over her academics with glorious grades in her semesters. She was a straight forward girl with some attitudes. She had a big friend circle in college. All her juniors respected her. Few years ago she had a boyfriend, but due to some personal reasons they broke their relationship up. From that day she might have no trust in love and she might not try to love anyone.

  On the other hand Manav Pradhan was an alumni of AUIIT. He was the jewel of AUIIT. He had managed to score more than 9 grade point in his semesters. He was from Berhampur, a southern city of Odisha. He had his schooling & intermediate studies there before coming to our college for a bachelor degree in Engineering & passing out in 2016. He did a project under ITRA during his B.Tech.

  The full name of ITRA is IT Research Academy. It is a National Programme initiated by Development of Electronics and Information Technology (Deity), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Government of India. His project was Development of effective Wireless Sensor Network system for water quality and quality monitoring. In that project he worked as an intern during his summer vacation in his second year of engineering. He did paper presentation of the project

  & got awarded at several platforms. After passing out he joined as a Robotic Engineer in Nexta Robotics, Bangalore.

  As Puja was in the final year approached Manav Pradhan for helping her out in her final year project. Manav helped her as a guide. So naturally everyone assumed that Manav and Puja were in a relationship, but there was no evidence in anyone. Being questioned about his relationship with the girl by the third year boys, he would ask them to wait for

  the proper time to get the answer.

  Before joining AUIIT, Sumit came contact with some alumnies of AUIIT through Facebook. So that he also knew Manav Pradhan and became a friend in Facebook. He was continuously chatting with him and asked some doubts when he was facing in his subjects, but after being aware of this rumoured relationship he stopped talking to him. To break the clutter of complicacy, he texted him to unveil the mystery behind the relationship.

  Sumit:Hii Bhai…

  After 2 to 3 minutes

  Manav:Hii Bro.

  Sumit:What’s up??

  Manav:Nothing.

  Sumit:Everything is known to you about me and Puja. So please tell me about your relationship with her.

  Manav:first thing that call her as Puja Didi.

  Sumit:Sorry! U know very well that I can’t call her Didi. But please tell me about your relationship.

  Manav:We r friends.

  Sumit:Just friends!!!

  Manav:Yes. By the way why r you so interested in our relationship??? What do you think about our relationship???

  Sumit:I think you are her boyfriend.

  Manav:U r absolutely correct. So try to call her Didi from now and also try to forget her as soon as possible.

  Sumit:first thing is that I can’t forget her. Second thing is that before sometimes you told me that you are just friend. I am totally confused. Please tell me the truth.

  Manav:I don’t want to talk to you on this matter. You may do as your wish. Bye. (Went offline)

  After that day many times Sumit tried to

  ask him about his relationship, but every time he avoided the discussion. So it remained unsolved that whether Manav was the real boyfriend of Puja or they both planned to mislead Sumit regarding the love affairs.

  Generally we all the new comers assumed Manav Bhai as our hero. Some boys of our batch treated him as their ideal also. But after his rumoured relationship with Sumit’s crush, he had become a villain for us. He had turned a matter of gossips for many of us. A funny guy called Sanjay from our batch started giving some bad comments against the relationship between Manav and Puja.

  Once I had accompanied Sumit to a nearby ATM to withdraw some cash. I found Puja there in a jolly mood with her few friends. Another friend named Sanjay accompanying us made a rude comment in a slow voice like-“Look! Manav Bhai’s would be wife is standing thereby! Let’s call her

  tonight for some technical issues. She would definitely sort that out”. These words hurt Sumit a lot

  & he requested Sanjay to stay out from using such harsh comments against her. On being realizing his mistakes, Sanjay asked Sumit for sorry & the matter got resolved. From that day we stopped commenting Puja but kept continuing of making a bad image of Manav in front of all other freshmen. We were making a vivid investigation against him and spreading his small faults by making them big ones.

  During our tech-fest our faculty members called him and requested him to do a workshop in our college about robotic engineering for the freshmen. We planned something bad for him and requested our faculties to arrange that workshop from morning 8 AM to 11 AM. So that day Manav came to the college with his team to do the workshop at 8 AM.

  But being influenced by us no freshmen came to attain the workshop, so that he felt so shame in front of his whole team. When our faculty members asked us the cause of our non arrival, we managed by telling so many rumours against him and his knowledge.

  In these ways the hero of AUIIT turned into a villain and we became the villain maker.

  Last Meeting

  WE were not able to forget the

  questions of first semester mean while our second semester started knocking our doors. We had not covered up the syllabus yet. It was so difficult to cover the whole syllabus in a span of time. But we were determined to cover it as soon as possible. Actually the semester exam was not a problem for every student. It was quite easy for the geeks to complete the whole syllabus in time.

  It was also not the problem for them who had attendance below 65% as our Director permitted them an opportunity to appear for supplementary exam by attending the remedial classes after summer vacation. But the exam was the real cause of headache for the students like me

  and my whole friend circle having average knowledge and above 65% attendance because we had to give the exam with the strong ones before the summer vacation. As we had neglected our studies during technical fest, cultural fest, sports fest and many other activities instead of focusing on learning so it was the time for paying. When we opened the books, the formula & the concepts were not easy going for us. Any how we kept studying and made our mind to appear the exam.

  On the other hand Sumit had also consumed his times by taking part in the college activities like us. The main cause of wasting his time was his crush Puja. He was unable to concentrate in his studies as
he was trying to unveil the relationship mystery of Manav and Puja instead of solving the mathematical problems. Instead of searching the meanings of electrical terms he was trying to search the difference between love and attraction. So it was also not easy to do well in the exam by completing all

  the courses before the exam. But he never gave up and tried to do well.

  It was the first day of our exam schedule. The subject was environment & ecology, based on the biological theme. We wondered sometimes, what biology is doing in a professional engineering course. As most of us including me and Sumit were from biological background in class 12th so it was not so difficult for us to face the questions. As the paper was quite easy for us, so we did well in that exam. On the second day the paper was math. As we had no prior practices in this paper, so we had lots of trouble solving the paper.

  On the third day it was the day for our NAS exam. It was not a difficult chapter. But the interesting thing was on that day all the B.Tech freshmen and M.Sc final year students had to sit in the same examination hall. The exam began at the scheduled time. That day Puja also sat in the same hall as she was from the M.Sc final year. Sumit was

  so excited by seeing her. The ringing of the bell alerted us the completion of first one hour of the exam which was started at 8 AM. Puja was writing all the answers properly as she was so good in her academics. After some time one of our invigilators called her loudly and warned her not to help her friend during the exam hours. So the invigilator shifted her to another empty bench. I did not understand weather it was good for Sumit or not as that seat was the very next seat of Sumit. Puja sat just in front of Sumit.

  After that Sumit could not concentrate on his exam. All his he could focus was on one person and that is Puja. Sumit put his pen down on his paper and started watching her for the rest of the times. Puja also noticed everything that Sumit was doing in her backside. She also got disturbed, but she kept adhered to exam and tried to finish it as quicker as possible. After completing the answers she left the hall & Sumit was left behind. But when he saw his wrist watch it was 10.40 AM. He had to write

  so many answers with just twenty minutes in hand. It was so hard in his side to write all the answers. After twenty minutes the final bell rang and the exam for that day was over. He was only able to write the answer of two questions in that twenty minutes and four questions were left unanswered. I was worried for his condition after the exam & blamed the invigilator in my mind for this.

  Then on the fourth day it was our JAVA exam. As the questions came directly from the assignments it was not so difficult to face the exam. That paper was also good.

  After that exam there were two days of gaps. After the gaps we had to give the BE exam which was the last one for the second semester. So on the first day we successfully wasted our time. We planned to start our study on the second day. That day also came. We opened the book, but could not read well due to over excitement. Any how we completed our lessons. Then the very next morning it

  was 4th April, 2017. It was the final day of our exam for second semester. We were so excited to finish the exam. We reached at the exam hall at 7.45 AM. The exam started at 8AM. We got the paper and started writing. We answered some questions so well, but some questions were out of our knowledge due to lack of practice. We wrote the answers as could as we do and left the exam hall at 11. 45 PM.

  15 minutes left to over the exam, but we could not sit more and left the hall. Sumit also came with us.

  We all planned to go to the nearby city called Sambalpur to watch Bahubali: The conclusion. Suddenly Sumit gave his negative signs to come with us as he had some personal works. Then leaving him behind us went for the matinee show. Sumit stayed in the college. He was waiting for Puja. When the exam over Puja came out of the exam hall. Sumit was so excited to see her. But when Puja saw her she directly rushed to the hostel. Sumit understood that Puja was still ignoring him.

  Then after some time he also returned to the hostel.

  We spent that night with a great joy. Some of our friends left the hostel and went to their home. I with my best buddies planned to go to home after four to five days. During those days we went to some famous places of Sambalpur like Hirakud, Zero-point, Deer Park, Samaleswari temple, Huma Temple, etc. Then one of my local buddy Kamesh went to his home. In 4th May, 2017 we organized a grand feast among the rest buddies. We enjoyed the day with so much fun, but a little sad took-place in our heart and mind that we were going to depart from each other for around two months.

  The very next day our two other intimate buddies Suman and Ajit also left for the home. Now Sampark, Sumit and me who stayed in the hostel from our batch. I and Sampark decided to come to Bhubaneswar on 6th May 2017. We told Sumit in show many ways to come with us. When we celebrated all those previous days Sumit was also

  with us, but only in physically not in mentally.

  Every now and then he only thought about her crush Puja. As we were leaving for home after summer vacations, we asked Sumit to join us, but he decided to wait there for few more days & meet his crush for the final time as

  she would have been graduated & left college when we would return after summer vacations.

  It was 11th May, 2017, the day meant for the final round project review of all the final year students. The session was scheduled at 10 AM. All the final year students were gathered in a single hall. Sumit went to the hall with the B.Tech third year students. Puja was little bit shocked to find Sumit in that room. But she didn’t react as it was her final day

  & she had to perform well while presenting her project. Then the Director Sir instructed all the visitors in that room to ask them some questions about their project by going near to them. The review process started. After sitting sometime peacefully

  there, Sumit went straight to his crush Puja. He stood in front of her and made a face to face eye contact with her for some time. He was continuously staring at her beautiful pair of black eyes & left the place after few seconds. As he was really sad at her leaving, so went straight to his room to spend some time alone.

  In the evening he made a phone call to her. Fortunately Puja received the phone call and saidHello.

  Sumit:Hello. I want to talk to you for the last time. Can you give me some time tomorrow?

  Puja:Ok. But it should be the last meeting.

  Sumit:Yaa. Only for the last time. I will never come in front of you again.

  Puja:Ok. You will come to the backside of the college tomorrow at 9 AM.

  Sumit:Thanks. I will be there in time.

  Puja:Ok. Bye.

  Then she disconnected the call.

  Then Sumit went to Burla market instantly and by a small gift for her.

  It was 12thMay, 2017. Sumit went to the college backside at 9 AM. Puja had already there. Seeing Puja he felt happy and saidHi.

  Puja:Hi.

  Sumit:I am so happy that u come here and give me a last chance to see your beautiful eyes.

  Puja: It’s ok. I also want to stop everything that’s why I have come here.

  Sumit:Ok. Before staring the conversation, please take this small gift. Please take it. It is also for the last time.

  Puja took that and opened the pack. After seeing the

  gift she was amazed as it was the ‘Lakme Eyeconic Kajal’.

  Puja:A kajal! But why??

  Sumit:I felt love with you after watching your beautiful eyes for the first time. So this gift is for your eyes the cause of my first love.

  Puja:Ok thanks. Now start the conversation. What do you want to tell me???

  Sumit:Yaa sure. I felt in love with you after seeing her beautiful eyes. U called my love that it was not the love. It was only the attraction. From that day till now I am continuously searching the difference between love and attraction can’t find the correct answer. After searching a lot now I am feeling tired. So I gave up that idea of searching. You again told me that you would go to marry your ex-boyfriend. I don’t know the reality behind it and don’t want t
o know the truth anymore. Again Manav Bhai warned me not to talk to you. Some boys said me that he might be your boyfriend. I tried my best to know about the truth but every time both you and Manav Bhai told lie to me. So now I give up my idea of interfering in your personal life. So I am requesting you to forgive me for all my faults for which you are being disturbed.

  I promise you that I will try my best not to come in front of you in feature again.

  Puja:I am feeling so sad for you. You are really so cute and honest. But you are younger than me. If the age gap is one or two year then I can manage but it is too big. I think we are not made for each other. So sorry. I hope you will get another beautiful girl than me in future. So from now you try to forget me and search another one for you.