< FIRST LOVE >

"The past has a way of sneaking upon us, we will hear broken echoes of it everywhere." For me, it was a song that I listened on my friends I Pod that sucked me into the wormhole leading back to the then finer moments of a frozen past-My First Love.

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She was dark. I have seen her many time in the campus; Silent. Well! theoretically not a love at first sight. There was something about her that caught my attention. Something..I don't have words to describe the special feeling I had. It was an elation, the moments about her.[Just like any other person who is opening up, a very special secret into the dark and void world of internet..something always holds back.] 

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Let me tell you, not many liked her in the campus or should I say she didn't like 'the Many'.

Now to get my acts right! I had to get my 'homework' done on her, if I want to get closer to her. [Going by the Old book..err forgot the title]

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She does pop-up,(but Not Much) in the discussions at the cafeteria and the library(psst..psstt..); and I used to capitalize on it for information on her, that’s the trick to gather information on her in a natural way, without raising much eyebrows, rather than going around and asking people [What we call..feedback/Survey], startin an avalanche of rumor of a 'Love in the makin' between me and her; bringing a premature death to our case, like many cases handled by C.B.I.

Saves a lot of embarrassment! Aint it?

On all these intelligence gatherin, almost everyone had same opinion about her.

"WEIRED", "COMPLICATED", "GLOOMY", "Very 1980s","NOT OUR TYPE"

Was I surprised with 75% of the campus going after the strawberry chics with fashion statement?

May be..thats the reason why she was different, may be thats the reason I wanted to be with her. TOTALLY!!

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Cupid!! I Never believed in its existence in real other than on Archie’s Greeting Cards.

2nd Year and we were together, Same class, Same space. When I bring her into conversations, it was frown that I received from my classmates.

For some "she was too complicated and hard to understand" and for others "she speaks in Hebrew". 

But all I saw in her was genius ness, fun and attitude and helluva of em combined. 

Yes! She was different, 

Hmmmm.. I still remember our first conversation, It went like this

"Hi"

and all I got in reply was a cold stare. 

*phew!!

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First time, for anything is always the hardest, we are thrown into a scenario, which we have never faced before and brain does act in a weird way throwin up all exceptions, in short-Its all fuzzy. But, we got along well.I could feel the hard ice melting. 

She was stubborn and I kept my cool.

She preferred perfection to the core and I was matchin it.

She needed more attention and I was ready to give it.

[yeah..go ahead and call me pushover, but don't you ever talk me about sacrifice in any form]

[Patience is the key for relationship to work; Lookin and learning is the process]

Soon, I learned that, she did put up that great resistance because, she only wanted a person who loves her truly and understands her complex life, her lost past and many things about her. 

I was lucky one to 'figure her out' and dive into the depth of her soul. My patience worked magic.WE WERE CONNECTED.

Her rule was simple "know me and treat me right..and I will treat you better." 

Thank God I broke the spell.

Jeez..I loved her winks! 

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We were together almost all the time in the lab workin on some 'issues'.

My buddie got a wind of the 'relationship'; when my coffee-conversations had her flavor.

Some pitied me- some encouraged me.

But me and her went ahead, smooth cruise.

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[Ladies and gentlemen... This is your captain speaking... we may experience turbulence along the way.]

It was the month to submit our project. Since I was soo occupied with some issues I had some backlogs and I was down to just 1 day for testin and runnin my source codes before submission and live demo the next day. 

We took permission from the respective department head to finish off the project, burning our midnight oil [ The oil was much cheaper those days].That means, me and her alone in the lab all night. Not really alone, there could be the security guy, whom I was sure will leave off the campus for a tea or for dinner,smoke..anything.. And we could be together.

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We were alone, I went to the console with the multimedia attachment and played the song "Asman kehtha hey rab se...thoone chand do kyom banayee"[ Translation:Sky is asking..Oh God!! Why the hell you created two moons?]

We were together, we were close. I touched her and she was warm! I kept the palm of my hands pressed on her side, she was tremblin, her breathe- heavy.She didnt resist. How can she? 

It was a beautiful night. The chillness of the air conditioner and the mechanical hum of the Servers and the click-clack of keyboard, a pleasant date for someone who almost skipped the deadline.

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It was 5:00 Am,I was happy, I was elated. We finally managed to pull off the project together.We sure had our happy times.

I stood up backed up the project into a FLOPPY DISK[For NOOBS/NOOOBORNS):Its a small plastic magnetic disk enclosed in a stiff envelope with a radial slit; used to store data ]

I walked out of the lab , notifying the security guy.

I went to my buddies apartment for a shower and change.

 

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Next day morning, I am seeing 2 persons standing near my love.

 "What happened? Why is she blacked out?" I asked 

"Hmm.... U.P.S tripped and Your lady love is not bootin up" 

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!NOT TODAY!!!"

"Errr..I think you had your project on this, your lady love" asked Ajay 

"Yeah! Hey how about recovery? I mean..my whole thing..the database everything is on this, I have backup though; but takes time to configure"

"I think..your project demo is screwed royally" Said Ajay fiddling with something on the U.P.S

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"See dude, in Visual Basic with Windows, all we need is a connection string and theres OCX controls too.Its easy to reconfigure....."

"SHUT UP!!!!" I protested "I know it" .

 

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She was my first love..THE UNIX.

My first love crashed during a power fucktuation.

But still she remains the one to bit flip my heart.

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