She was staring at the turtles. She loved the turtle pond, and so did I. I didn’t care much for the actual turtles, though. I loved the landscaping around the pond. It was the kind of place where you could lie down and read a good book, if you were so inclined. On a sunny day with the right kind of cool breeze blowing, the turtle pond was my place to be. And this particular day was that kind of day.

She was staring dreamily at the turtles. I tried staring at the turtles too. It didn’t last long.

Come on, they’re turtles.

—-

I was waiting opposite the University Co-op for the red hand to change into Mr. Pedestrian Man. The last time I’d checked my watch I had 33 minutes to get lunch, buy my textbook and get to class. 31 minutes now. I looked up at the signal again, and the red hand was still shutting out Mr. Pedestrian Man. I wasn’t the only one in a hurry, though. The girl standing next to me was having an animated conversation on her phone about how she was only a couple of minutes away from Hai Ky.

“I’m almost there, I’ll be there by… excuse me?”

It took me a couple of seconds to realize she was now talking to me.

“Sorry, but what time is it?” she whispered.

“31 minutes to 1,” I said. Very smooth.

“Thanks… Hey, I’ll be at Hai Ky by 12:31, promise.”

And Mr. Pedestrian Man finally overthrew the red hand.

—-

During the first week of every semester, I decide on an extra-curricular activity to involve myself in. During the second week of every semester, I quit the extra-curricular activity. In my fifth semester in college, I took West Coast Swing dancing classes. And I stuck with it.

“One, two, lock-step, one, two. That’s it, quite simple. Guys, spread out and form a circle. Ladies, find a guy to dance with.”

Before I knew it, I was holding hands with my random dance partner and the music had started.

“Ummm, what exactly is a lock-step?” I asked my partner.

She shrugged. I stepped on her foot. She didn’t exactly smile back at me when the time came to switch partners.

Dancing has never been my cup of tea. It’s not that I’m afraid to try - there isn’t a move I haven’t tried when I’m drunk. It’s just that I’m not very good at it. It might be due to the fact that everyone in my family has two left feet.

‘Practice makes perfect’, a supposedly wise person once said, and so I decided to get the lock-step down before I injured anyone else.

‘One, two, lock-step, one… damn it. From the top, one, two, lock-step…’

“Hi there, Mr.31-minutes-to-1.”

“Oh.”

She had a peculiar smile on her face. It might have been because my legs were criss-cross and that the position of my legs was well complemented by what I can only imagine was an extremely surprised look.

“You all right?”

“Oh. Yeah. Hi. It’s just… I was practicing you know, and I didn’t expect to…”

“Haha.”

I don’t fall for women at first sight. I fell for her laugh, though.

“So…” She was holding out her hand.

“Oh right, sorry. So I heard the instructor saying that I’m supposed to position my fingers like I’m trying to shoot you and then kinda tilt it down…”

“Or you can do this.” She took my hand and showed me how it’s done.

“Right. Or I can do that.” It brought out that laugh of hers again. Damn her stupid, awesome laugh.

The music started and I was just as woeful dancing with her as I was with my previous partner.

“It’s not that hard, you know?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“No really. Listen closely to the music - your problem is that you aren’t moving in sync with the beat.”

I tried to follow her advice and listen to the music. However, I forgot that I had to multi-task and she danced right into my stationary self.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I forgot to move backwards.”

“Haha, don’t worry about it.”

“Time to switch!” the instructor shouted over the music.

Already? It definitely seemed like I danced a lot longer with the previous, ungrateful chick with the non-awesome laugh.

“It was … fun.” Who was I kidding?

“Yes, it was, Mr. 31-minutes-to-1.” She was being polite, for sure.

“Haha, call me Nikhil. Nikhil 31-minutes-to-1.”

“Well Nikhil, you can call me Aditi. And remember, listen to the music!”

I stepped on the feet of quite a few women that night. But I did get that lock-step down. Eventually.

—-

“Please.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Dude, I’m gonna quit this if you don’t help me.”

“Fine, quit.”

“You know you don’t mean that.”

“Of course I do. With all my heart.”

“It will take 5 minutes of your time. Maybe 10, tops.”

“I do not want to hold your hand… and dance with you. It would be way too weird.”

“Please. Come on, you know how long we go back.”

“What? I’ve been your room-mate for one semester. Why do you want to learn this so bad anyway? You’re obviously not good at it.”

“Thanks. Remind me to come to you when my dog dies. I’m just tired of quitting. It’s about time I stuck to something.”

“Right. So, who’s the girl?”

“There is no girl. I’m doing this for myself - self discovery and all that.”

“Yea, right. I’m sold.”

He wasn’t. But he did dance with me. After much pleading. And an offer of a free lunch at Chipotle.

He was right, though. It was way too weird.

—-

I walked in five minutes late to the sound of Clapton’s ‘Lady in Red’. She walked in two minutes after me.

“Nikhil, hey!”

“Hey, Aditi. How’s it going?”

“It’s going all right, can’t complain. Why are you standing near the door, by the way?”

“Same reason you are,” I said extending my hand.

“It would be my pleasure,” she said smiling.

This time I didn’t point any guns at her when I took her hand. She smiled, noticing the change in approach.

“Nice.”

“You haven’t seen me dance yet.” I’m not the praying type, but that moment demanded a silent look upstairs.

I got through the song without stepping on her foot or crashing into her - I could live with that.

“Time to switch! And guys, please look at your partners and not your shoes!” shouted the instructor. I had no problems with the latter.

We didn’t dance with each other after that that night. I kept stealing looks at the guys she was dancing with and it was clear to me that their definitions of dancing success were oceans apart from mine.

I caught up with her later as she was heading out after the last song of the night.

“Hey, I’m starving and was thinking of getting something to…”

“Hai Ky?”

“Sure,” I said with a smile.

—-

A night with a cool breeze - just the right kind of breeze. I realized soon into my junior year in college that a night with a cool breeze was one not to be wasted. A friend of mine once took me to a coffee shop near campus, a coffee shop he swore served the best latte in town. The latte was not too shabby (a person brought up in Chennai is also brought up on the best coffee there is) but that’s not why I continued to frequent JP’s Java long after this introduction. I loved the lighting - an array of thin, small bulbs hung across wires, the crowd - a nice mix of the young and the not so young - and the great outdoor seating that was responsible for many a wonderful conversation in my four years in Austin.

“Nikhil, I can’t believe I’ve never been here before,” she said as she laid down her huge cup of coffee on the table.

“Neither can I. I love being here when I have nothing to worry about - no assignments, no exams…” Her stare as she pulled out a humongous Physics textbook was code for shut your trap.

“…and it’s a great place for studying too.”

“Yea, thanks for the morale boost. I’ll admit, however, that you were right about the coffee. Way better than anything I’ve had.”

“There are many things I am not well versed in - West Coast Swing, for instance - but when it comes to coffee, well, I know good coffee.”

“Haha, a must-have skill, that.”

“Well, it got you here.”

“True, it would have been a shame to graduate without ever having been here. So, thank you, Nikhil.” And she clinked her humongous cup of coffee with mine only for it to spill on her textbook.

“Haha, rookie move, Aditi, rookie move.”

“Oh, shut up. No really, shut up. I’ve got to get done with my Physics homework and it hasn’t exactly been the most auspicious of starts,” she said as she wiped the coffee off the cover of her book.

She solved one problem that night.

—-

“What are you thinking about?” my room-mate asked.

“Nothing.”

“You had that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“You know the look. The one where you stare at an extremely plain wall and make it seem like you’re looking at the Mona Lisa.”

“Please, any wall is more interesting than the Mona Lisa.”

“Is it that girl?” he asked with a stupid smirk on his face.

“There is no girl, man. Really.”

“So what were you thinking about then?”

“Like I said, nothing. Can’t a guy think about nothing?”

“No. So how long have you known her?”

“About four weeks.” It was just easier to give in.

“Name?”

“Aditi.”

“Ah, Aditi. Kabhi kabhi Aditi zindagi…”

“Please stop. Please. Not for me, but for the sake of good music.”

“So, how’s it going with this Aditi who I’m not allowed to sing about?”

“If you call that singing… I met her at my Swing dancing class early this semester and we’ve been hanging out since. She’s really fun to talk to.”

“And?”

“We’re becoming good friends, I think. If nothing else, I’m getting better at swing thanks to her.”

“Well, if that is true, tell Aditi that I thank her, on behalf of all those who can dance.”

Idiot.

—-

“What’s your plan, Nikhil? What do you want to do with your life?”

“I dunno, never really thought about it.”

“Come on, you’ve gotta know,” she said as she beat my grab for the last of the many cupcakes I had bought from Polkadots. “Survival of the fittest,” she shrugged before gloatingly biting into the delicious honey chai flavored cake.

“I don’t have a plan, Aditi. I like to live in the present.”

“But don’t you dream about what you’re going to do when you graduate?”

“There’s plenty of time for graduation. What’s the hurry?”

“Well, it’s just fun to have a list you want to strike things off from.”

“A bit early for a bucket list, Aditi?” I asked, enjoying playing devil’s advocate.

She ignored me for a good minute or two.

“Barcelona!” she piped up suddenly.

“The city or the football club?”

“The city, of course. Who cares about a stupid football club?” she added with a mocking smirk, knowing my great love for the skills of a genius called Lionel Messi.

“What about Barcelona?” I asked ignoring the insult.

“I want to go to there, haha. Ever since I saw Vicky Christina Barcelona. How awesome would it be to sip wine while listening to Spanish guitar under the afternoon sun? Ah, Barcelona. Now living in the present wouldn’t get me there, would it?”

“True. But maybe if you did live in the present, this wouldn’t happen,” I said grabbing the cupcake she had laid down momentarily.

“Survival of the fittest,” I shrugged, as she smiled, shaking her head.

—-

I had just gotten out of my philosophy class. It had been one of the most painful classes I’ve ever had to sit through. There was only one thought running through my head, and my professor’s take on some boring court case no one cared about was an annoyance I had no patience for. I didn’t understand my restlessness. Well, I did. It just irritated me that I could do nothing about it.

I sat down on the steps leading to Painter hall and aimlessly watched the crowd of people shuttling between classes. I don’t remember how long I sat there but soon enough I started counting the number of people who walked past me - 87. Whatever I could do to distract myself. But there was a reason I stopped counting at 87.

“Hey, Aditi! Hold up.”

“Hey, I didn’t even see you. Where were you?”

“Just sitting on the steps, you know, counting the number of people walking down this road.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Where are you off to?”

“Just wanted to take a walk to the turtle pond. It’s been a busy morning, just wanted to get away from it all for a bit. Want to join me?”

“Yea, I do love those turtles.” What was wrong with me?

“Okay… You alright? You seem a bit…”

“Frazzled?”

“Haha yeah, frazzled. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Come on, it’s too nice a day to have a lot on your mind. What’s bothering you?”

I was silent for a while. Long enough for her to stop trying to decipher my weird mood. We had reached the turtle pond and the turtles seemed to be moving faster than our conversation.

“Aditi.”

“Yeah?”

“A friend of mine once told me that it should be easy. It should be easy when you really believe in it. It should be easy… well, it isn’t… This moment, it’s amazing isn’t it? The beautiful weather, this pond, you… it’s amazing.”

She was looking intently at the turtles.

“Aditi, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I’m sitting in class and I have no idea what my professor is talking about. It’s not fair that my room-mate thinks I stare at my apartment wall like I’m looking at the Mona Lisa. Of all the paintings in the world, the Mona Lisa? What’s the big deal about that painting anyway? It’s small, she’s frowning. Sorry, I’m side-tracking. Aditi, it’s not fair that I have dinner a second time just so that I can spend time with you. I counted 87 people today just to stop myself from thinking about you. It’s not fair, Aditi.”

“It isn’t,” she said, after the longest 20 seconds, turning to face me. Before I knew it, she had kissed me, and before I could recover, she was heading back down 24th street.

I could have hugged a turtle.