The love story Part I

Each person has a story to tell, it could be a story of a successful business venture or a great career, a story of an unforgettable adventure, or a story about a magical life event of famous person. I'm not a famous person, and this is not a story about business or career, it's hardly an adventure, but this is my story, the story about love and its definitely unforgettable, most magicable 6 years of my life. It is a good story? Now, that is debatable. Those who always see life as half full, for these people, it doesn't really matter if the story has an unhappy ending, at least the sweet memories were there, although they don't last, at least they happened. Others felt that stories with bad endings are bad stories. This is my story, and this is how it all started.

Seven years ago, I was just a 20 years old student, I major in all the sciences and mathematics back in my college days. The truth was, I never really liked them. Since young, my passion was primarily on drawing and art. I'm always good with pencils, and I went to attend drawing lessons at very young of age. My father would encourage me to join many art related competitions, those were my glory days, where I was happy doing what I love most. I really missed those times. I wanted to be an artist who draws and paint beautiful pictures, I wanted to open a gallery of my own, and all I ever wanted was to show the world my art. But dreams are called dreams for a reason, they are not real, sadly, not in my case. My parents wants me to pursue medicine. I still remember how they would make me talk to family doctors about pursuing the career as medical promised good and easy life with good job prospect. At that time my sister was already in India as a first year medical student. My sister would call and talk to me about how great were the courses, the place, food, how beautiful the campus, and at that time I was really scared. I was scared to lose my dream, to pursue something that I was not familiar with. But in the other hand, I dare not make a firm stand on my choice, so I chose the easier way out. I went to become mommy's good boy and agreed to go to medical school to pursue my parent's dream. No, they were not my dream.

I enrolled in a medical school in a small town in southern state of India. This place is very secluded, far from civilization. You need to board a plane from Kuala Lumpur to Bangalore (often called as the silicon valley of India), from there, you will need to transit to a smaller place called Mangalore, you then take a two hours taxi ride to a small place called Manipal. I've heard horror stories of India, told by aunties and uncles who dare not even set foot there themselves. They too, listen to stories  told by another person whom I suspect, got the stories from another person.. yada yada.. You get the idea, those stories were basically false stories and most of the part does not paint the real picture of India. I went there with full mental preparation of the worst case scenarioes, no electricity -check, smelly environments -check, unhygienic food -check, poor water supply, you know the drills. I've basically psyched myself up, I said "bring it on", I am ready for the next 5 years of hell. Little did I know, god has planned a little surprise for me.

I still remembered vividly my feelings the first night I set foot on India, I was scared and lonely. This mark the first time I left home, to a foreign place, far far away from my parents. I went to my hostel, the room was huge, it has a small kitchen and boy even the bathroom was big as well, it was a pleasant surprise! I told myself, maybe India is not as bad as how they potrayed them to be. I couldn't sleep well the first night, I missed my bed, I missed the smell of my room, I missed my brothers who I shared bed with since young. I have no friends with me, heck I haven't meet with any of my classmates yet. It was definitely mixed feelings for me, I was unsure what this new place has in store for me, I was sad about leaving my comfort zone, at the same time, I felt a tinge excitement in me.

Early the next morning, my sister brought me to the nearest most indian kind of place for breakfast. Enjoying your roti paratha (canai, they called it here in Malaysia) with ur tables set right under a tree in a small open space area, with bollywood indian hit songs playing in a low quality radio mono sound in the background. The place was packed, it seems like a hotspot for breakfast, I thought to myself. As we were eating, my sister noticed three boys walking past our tables to the next table. She instantly noted to me that those guys were my new classmates. Well, the place is small, everyone knew everyone. She pushed me to go and have a little chat with my them, making friends with them as she's leaving for classes soon and I better be having my own gang, rather than having her babysit me most the time. Yes I was rather dependent on my big sister, why wounldn't I? It's partly her that I'm halfway around the world away from home. I was rather a shy and timid person back then, especially to unfamiliar new faces. Gulp!

As I walked up to them, I noticed a very japanese looking young boyish face. This guy was stylo, his hair was dyed light brow, his eyebrows were thick, his eyes were dark brown, he has good complexion, he was about my size and height, was fit, and he has the most handsome smile ever. He's exactly the type of guy that anyone would notice walking by. I walked up to them, acting like I'm not distracted by the good looking guy on the same table. I forced a friendly smile in my awkward face, I said hi and introduced myself to them, at that time, I did not realize that this is the group of friends who I'm gonna spend most of my time in India with. Let's call mr. handsome face mr. Z. Naturally, I was extremely shy with Mr. Z. Yes I talked to him but dare not look directly into his eyes. We hangout, most of the time for the next one year but mostly in groups, so I hardly had private moments with Z alone. Mr. Z was a great friend of mine, he's probably the nicest person ever. I always made comparison of him with dinosaurs and how his species of men has reached extinction and he would just laugh out loud about it. He was a person with little opinions, he is well mannered, a true gentlemen -he would say yes to my suggestions, will  not reject any form of requests and definitely will not say no to helping a friend in need. He mixes well with many people, he's always the good guy, never the bad guy. He do not gossips about friends, and he has no enemy.

I got very close to Mr. Z during our first year final exam study period. At that time I already moved out of hostel to a small apartment unit where Mr. Z stayed next door with his friend. Either he came over to my unit, or I went to his unit, it was a routine, we both spent good times together, studying at most part. Of course, secretly I was already falling for him. But I dare not whisper or act it out in front of him, I just played cool at most part. Why would I act stupid and tell him how I feel and then have our friendship completely ruined?  I dare not cross my border to jeopardize the relationship that we are building. We spent almost a month together,  just me and him, til the day of exam. We were studying mostly, sometimes we would just relax and talk bout all the silly things we did in schools, all the people we met, all the things we enjoyed doing. We had breakfast, dinner and lunch together. It was definitely intimate and my feelings grew much stronger for him than ever before. So, after exams were over, we both decides to join the after-exam celebrations. It's a ritual our classmates had each time after writing our last paper. Everyone will gather in the local club and drank our heart out, dances to musics, it was both fun and silly. Frankly, Z and me, we both were and still are lousy drinkers. I would lose all my inhibitions and just talk silly after sips of beer (and I am not exaggerating, this has been proven over and over again!). We hangout there for awhile, most of my friends were already drunk and Mr. Z was halfway there. I secretly took his alcohol away, and then poured them into my own glass, so that I would help him drink. My way of reducing his alcohol intake. Then, I insisted to go back home as it was already late at night. Z agreed.

We took the tok-tok, it was the local form of public transportation around the small campus towm. It is basically a three wheeled transport with a driver in front and it only sits three person max, two person if both passenger are obese. The night was cold, Mr. Z sat closely besides me, he was already talking nonsense, usually he's more of a quiet type of guy. He then rested his head over my right shoulder. He lifted his head, then whispered in my ears. He told me that I am the closest person to him with a soft gentle voice. He layed his head over my shoulder for the next 30 mins till we reached home. It was definitely an awkward moment for me, I wasn't drunk, and my I made sure I did not move a muscle over my shoulder, I want to enjoy the moment. As we were reaching home, we went straight up to my unit, to my bedroom. We both sat down on the floor,  I leaned against the wall behind my back. We chatted for awhile, still mr. Z remains talkative, we went on chatting and laughing, we had great fun, enjoyed the company of each other. This was the moment when the magic happened. He moved closer to me, and stared directly into my eyes. Then the most unexpected word came out of his mouth. He asked me with a gentle voice "can I kiss you?". I was really stunned, I felt palpitation, my mind went blank. He's only a few inches away from kissing me. I paused for a moment, I held my breath for a second and then I whispered back yes. Then I went for it. We lip locked for a brief moment. It was my first kiss, and it was amazing... There were like firework just like the one in moulin rouge's kissing scene. It was beautiful! Nothing could be more perfect than that!

Enjoy, the elephant love medley, scene from one of my favourite movie!