Dinesh Mahur:

I was an engineering student in Allahabad in the late eighties. Our batch comprised of 300 students. But there were only 10 girls among us. It was therefore natural for us boys to engage in a stiff competition to make friends with someone from the opposite sex.

One of my batch mates, Mr Patram, who hailed from Rajasthan, fell in love with a beautiful girl, Ms Kavita, from Gujarat. Both were in for the same course, which meant they attended classes together. Unfortunately, it was one-way love. Perhaps, the girl didn’t even know that Mr Patram was head over heels in love with her. Even if Ms Kavita knew it, she never pretended to be aware of the adoration Mr Patram silently heaped on her.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Patram and I used to stay in the same hostel, the same wing and the same floor. Whenever I was required to go out of the hostel or out of the wing, I had no other option but to pass by his room. He was aware that I was also one of the luckiest boys in our batch, after successfully falling in love with one of our batch mates. Fortunately, this was not one-way love.

Mr Patram found me most suitable to discuss his love story. He was so madly in love with that girl he was all the time writing in his notebook her name. In the beginning, I found it interesting to share his feelings with me and help him to get his love or convert the one-way to both ways. But with passage of time it became an extra responsibility for me.

Whenever I passed by his room he used to catch hold of me and share his feelings, discuss about his love and wanted to know the feelings on the other side through my girlfriend. But he never had the courage to convey his feelings directly to Ms Kavita.

With each passing day, it was becoming more and more burdensome for me. Even in love, I never compromised my studies. Mr Patram’s one-way love affair now started affecting my studies. This was unacceptable to me. I started searching for ways to avoid his story rather than him. I could not collect courage to say this directly to him, thinking that this might hurt him. I had a choice to shift temporarily to some other room in the hostel, which I tried. This started affecting my studies.

My room was on the first floor and I tried to lock the room permanently and used the backside instead of front door to access my room. Though circumlocutory, this approach helped me a lot. I really do not know whether my backdoor strategy worked. But I was able to come out of the love story. I am sorry Patram I could not help you much.