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                                                                                   12

The ever increasing length of the queue in our college canteen just added to the woes of my ever increasing hunger.  I could easily guess that my number was after more than 40 in my line, excluding another line which was for the girls only. This kind of situation was like a blue moon for me as I used to find myself among the first 10 persons of the queue. In such a time, when I was going mad in the unbearable hunger, my eyes found a reason to be happy. A glimpse of pipasa , who was waiting in the other line for her turn to come, was enough to distract my attention from the grueling heat of the summer and hunger. May be the hormones secreted when I saw pipasa dominated over the acid secreted in my empty stomach.

Rahul and lalu, who were just behind me in the que, were trying their best to find a suitable meeting point their all irrelevant argument.  So I preferred not to interfere in that and continue my work (of eying at pipasa).

Pipasa, though knew that I was looking at her persistently, was busy in gossiping with her friends. She was looking at me only once in a while, may be to verify whether I was still looking at her or not (or to someone else!!!!)!!!!

All of a sudden, I found someone patting on my back and turned back to find that it was dev. He wanted to get into the queue and stand before me. There was no scope of refusal as dev was a good friend of mine. Dev, being of same height as me, obstructed my vision and and I couldn’t get the view of pipasa any more.

My hunger was deepening with every passing instant and now I began to feel it again.

‘don’t you think pipasa is too short for you???’- dev asked, “you are  almost 5’7” and she is hardly 5’!!!!”

May be he started doing the same thing that I had been doing for last 10 minutes.

“May be she is. But I don’t think so. It seems u think a lot about that.”- I replied, trying to be funny as usual.

“no”- dev said, his tone intensifying ,”was just thinking on behalf of you, as a friend ”.

Perhaps he was not expecting such a reply from me.

“Well, the true fact is , she is too short for you as well”- I heard rahul saying , “if both of you give a little thought about it, then I’m the only person to match her height among us”.

As all of us laughed out, I could easily see the discomfort in dev’s face, evincing his displeasure.

May be he didn’t like rahul’s words, may be he didn’t expect such a reply to his question from me and rahul, may be he didn’t like to be linked with pipasa in my presence. Or may be, on the contrary, he was in love; he was in love with pipasa……