Someone said that when you look into right eyes, your world comes to a stop without any warning, it all freezes, sort of this happened to me not because of her eyes, but because of her voice. She called me from the immediate backbench ” hey, can you please show the answer to the 7th question, if you wrote, please.”

I encountered this girl in my 10th class public examination center on the maths exam day. first her voice, then her face, I turned my head and saw her. her voice not matched with her face, like the voice at 10 on 10, but looks maybe 8 on 10, and that’s okay, I said to myself. I smiled at her and replied

“what are you doing in-home without preparing for the exam, watching daily serials with your grandmother, go I don’t show you any answers.”

she replied, ” arey please na, I read and prepared all the chapters but my dummy brain can’t process these problems in mathematics, if you don’t show me answers now, I will fail in the exam for sure, and I don’t want to study this devilish maths one more year. Please show me 2 answers, I somehow managed to write 3 answers already.

I felt she is genuine, and she was asking only a few questions, so I said, ” Okay wait, let me complete my exam first. rest assured I will complete my paper as soon as possible.”

She ” I knew it. I observed you complete answer writing quite early every day on the previous exams. that’s actually made me ask you this confidently today.’

Me ” Okay, Just 2 questions, remember”

For a while, I forgot about her and wrote my exam at full speed. I just realized about her suddenly and turned back to see her. she was literally crying silently.

I said, ” what? is any will cry cry for not getting answers in the exam”

she replied, “no, actually I prepared and did night-outs for this exam, but I am still not getting a single answer.”

Me “It’s okay” I showed her my answer sheet, and we were done with the exam.

The next day for the science exam, she was already there before I went to my place. I winked at her and said, “hope you won’t cry today” she smiled in return offered me two chocolates, and said thank you. still I refused to take chocolates and i told her that I don’t eat chocolates.

Then she replied, “so tell me what you toppers will eat to get good marks and all the answers to questions in the maths exam.”

I replied, ” super funny, keep your chocolates with you. I do eat ice creams few times.”

she ” okay then, since I can’t bring ice cream here, whenever we meet next time, I will buy you ice cream for sure.”

we smiled together, and we both settled into our own worlds later on.

our exchange of smiles continued for the rest of the exams, and our exams were over.

I missed her voice a bit, but I became super busy with where I should join for my intermediate and a little concerned about which group to take since most of my friends are opting for the M.P.C. It got me thinking about those things made me totally deviated from her thoughts.

But one day, while me and my friend sandeep walking on the road searching for one panipuri stall in a nearby street, which one of my school friends referred to as the best panipuri stall in vijayawada. after so much searching and navigation, I found that, but to my surprise the same girl who I met in the examination center eating panipuri. however, that panipuri stall is crowded and filled with many people. I can see only her.

I never thought I would see her again, right at that moment I thanked two people, one that friend who referred this place in my heart and the second my jumbo foodie friend sandeep for bringing me here (even now after many years, my friend sandeep will go any distance for delicious food, once a foodie always a foodie)

I remembered what happened to me in the atkinson school love story. I don’t want to repeat the same. so I collected all the information about her full name, where she is studying, and every other small detail collected in the examination center itself.

I smiled at her from a distance, she looked weird and confused, I didn’t stop I went straight to her and “hello navya.”

she replied, ” may I know who you are? I can’t remember you, are you from our school, by the way, my name is not navya” In a different voice, that was not the same voice I heard at the examination center.

Me inside ” really?”

I was shocked and confused at the same time, silently moved on from that place without eating anything at that stall, you should see sandeep’s face at that moment, now when I remember it’s funny, but at that time we both had heartbreaks, I can see that in the sandeep eyes. but we moved on, and I told the complete story to sandeep while returning from that panipuri stall.

I felt super awkward at that time, but eventually, I even forgot that total episode. after a week or ten days, one person taped me from back, I turned back. navya was there, and she said, “hey topper, what are you doing at the exhibition? you people should be reading books, not roaming like us. It’s a crime, you know.”

I replied, “It’s some kind of a prank or something navya, last week when I said hi and smiled at you, you just saw me like an idiot and asked me who am I. but now you came to me asking silly things.”

She ” arey, probably it’s my sister whom you talked with that day, we are twins, we both look the same except she is kind of arrogant. and I am sorry I should have told you about this before.”

I replied, ” really? don’t make fun with me navya.”

Then she showed me some photos in her mobile along with her sister. I was surprised and felt relieved. after some funny discussions, I asked her for her mobile number. though she shared her mobile number, she was instructed not to call her often since it was mostly with her mother. we agreed to that not calling every day, we continued talking for long hours later on.

In our conversations, she said that she joined for the tuition for physics and chemistry. somehow I convinced my grandmother to join me in the same tution. This time Its my turn to surprise navya by joining the same tuition as hers. In this tuition, the rule is that at the end of the day, you should explain what you read that day to a fellow student in the class and vice versa. It’s fun doing that excersie sometimes.

Both navya and sravya are in the same class. most people recognize the difference between them by looking at their faces. navya had a cute little black birthmark on her cheek. but for me, I don’t need all these things. I recognize navya just by her voice and smile. I told you na first her voice then her face.

The three of us became a little close and started sharing food and eating snacks after tuition. our 10th class results came one fine day. navya passed in all the subjects, and she said I was the first person she called to tell me that she cleared all the subjects, and she was super happy. Indeed I am super happy seeing her like that. I didn’t believe my maths sir when he said mathematics will help you a lot in life, maybe now I can understand why he said like that.

navya wanted to celebrate this occasion of no more mathematics in her life, we went to a restaurant after a while she started saying ” arey I think physics is also not my cup of tea, physics also has some problems and maths in it, I can’t understand anything, maybe I am an art person, so I decided to change from bi.p.c to any other arts group in intermediate.“

Sravya said “It’s just 20 days since we started coming to tuition. you wait for the completion of this course here. still 2 months more time is there for you to admit in the inter-college, just wait and see, if you can’t make it you choose arts. by the way, if you choose anything other than bi. p.c you gonna miss chinnu and me on your side, I decided to take that and probably chinnu also decided?”

They both turned heads towards me and waited for my reply ” I said I decided long back, as sravya said, why not wait for some days before deciding “ but I was a little sad about all this discussion since navya is not going to join in the same college with me if she took arts group.

While we were in the tuition, I joked with to navya and sravya that our physics lecturer also failed in 10th mathematics. me and sravya laughed at navya. We both used to tease navya for whenever its possible.

Later I started telling her that ” navya, If you are not good at maths doesn’t mean you are not good at physics, they are both different. First of all, can you remove that fear about maths from your brain? Why run away from subjects and change things just because you are afraid of it. I just showed only two questions in the maths exam, but you got good marks, which means you wrote other answers by yourself and they are right. it’s better to face it than running away from anything because of your fears” (By explaining all this to her, I have my selfishness too, I already fixed to take BI.P.C and I don’t want navya to go to another college for arts. little selfishness, but I have a valid point I think)

After this discussion, sravya said to me that ” you are pro at expressing and convincing people with your logic chinnu. I try to tell the same to navya many times. still, she didn’t understand anything but now she is in deep thinking now, hope she will understand this time.”

I already told you about the everyday excersie in our tuition that we should explain the fellow student about what we studied that day. One day sravya should explain the lesson to me what she read that day. while she was telling me about gravitational forces, in one of the physics lessons she started saying like ” Just like earth move around the sun, you keep me moving, can’t escape your gravity and presence Ravi.”

Me ” what, come again” I was surprised and didn’t know what she was talking about for a minute. suddenly navya came from far away and said, ” what, Mr.Topper, my sister probably can’t match your expression skills, leave her na with a few mistakes in the lesson.”

I said nothing, and we moved to our homes. I was a little upset and thinking for a long time about what went wrong with sravya. I came to some conclusions that I just showed some care and concern about sravya along with navya. but no intention to take any care of sravya alone. Even on their birthdays I thought of giving birthday gift only to navya though sravya’s birthday also on the same day but navya insisted me to give gift even to sravya also since she feels bad about this other wise she wont accept my gift so I done same same.

I think sravya took all these things in reverse, I am doing all this for her, not for navya. since I share most things and talk more with sravya because I feel a little shy to talk with navya since I like her the most.

After that gravity lesson day, I went to tuition super normal. I straight went to sravya to confirm a few things and to clear these misunderstandings. 

While I was struggling how to start this weird conversation, 

Sravya started telling me that ” chinnu, let me first tell you something I have liked you so much since the day I see you, I don’t know why but it has grown each passing day I spent with you here, now that liking become so much that I can’t stop myself from expressing that love to you, I really want to tell you all this yesterday itself. my devilish sister came between us and interrupted our conversation. I hate that to happen. She won’t disturb us anymore like that. I discussed about our relationship with her yesterday night, so I think she won’t disturb our conversations anymore and give us some privacy I think.“

Me Inside my mind ” what? you spoiled everything sravya,” but I didn’t speak a word. I stand there without any reaction. later I left that place without uttering a word, but sravya kept telling me something, but my mind stopped listening to those things after a minute sravya said she told this matter to navya.

After the class the same day, I went to navya and said, “I need to talk with you for a minute. she said, okay, call me at night, and we talk over the phone. I said, ” no, not over the phone, and most importantly without sravya around us.”

She ” sure, will you wait at the bakery chinnu? I will come back leaving my sister at home. It hardly takes some 10 minutes or so.”

I said okay and while waiting at that bakery shop many things ran in my mind. I was more concerned about explaining what went wrong in our relationship with navya, how to tell I liked her not sravya. 

She came I said straight to her that “I like you navya not sravya for that matter, no one else, sravya proposed to me yesterday evening. I don’t know what to do now?”

I still remember every word Sravya told me that day “see Chinnu, I don’t know what should I tell you now if you said all these things before my sister proposed to you. things are different for sure, but I can’t think about this right now. I don’t want to hurt her, and I can’t see her crying. you know what though she looks like a arrogant girl at times. but she is super sensitive at heart. i cant I explain this to you chinnu? for example, if our father brought two toys for both of us, if she didn’t get her desired toy, she would cry for hours and hours and not eat anything till I give mine to her.”

Me “how funny, am I a toy to you people, maybe she hurt for somedays, think for yourself for a minute navya, can you stop this sacrifice drama and tell me do you like me or not?”

Navya continued, “I am not in any condition to think about me roaming around with a guy who did my sister wanted, she may not cry for life, but I am sure it will be so painful to her and I don’t want that to happen to her. I can’t be that cruel chinnu, though I like you I prefer……..”

Her voice became unclear, she started crying and closed her face with her hands, and talked to me. I can’t listen to the sorrowful tone of her voice. This is the second time I have seen her crying, first in the examination hall and now. I am not able to stand there listening to my favourite voice crying.

After that day, I stopped going to that tuition. I avoided both sravya and navya calls over the phone, but for relief, I said everything to my friend sandeep, but what sandeep said in return made me more disappointed actually.

Sandeep said, “arey, I don’t know what’s the big problem here, they both look the same, what’s the difference between two, accepting sravya how could make any difference to your love life since they both look one and the same exactly.”

At that time, I didn’t know what to reply to Sandeep when he said both are the same by looks and what difference it makes when they both look same. After a few days, sravya tried to call me continuously. one day I answered the call and told her that I didn’t love her. days passed I came to know from tuition friends that navya selected bi.p.c. rather than any arts group and cracked MBBS seat in hyderabad, Three of us moved apart.

This is Ravi Yalavarthi and I will see you soon, Click here to read about other women who influenced me