I, Shravan Dutta had a way of staring past the present, as if the air in front of me were a window back into time. Class 12 now, physics notes open, pen uncapped, but my mind kept slipping to a year ago—Class 11—when the ordinary turned vivid. The ceiling fan hummed; memory clicked into focus.
It was 12 April. Morning batch. Biology at the coaching centre. Another morning, such a drag. I was bored the moment I stepped through the gate, the early light already too bright, the air heavy with the smell of dust and dry-erase ink. I slid into the room and took my usual place: second-last bench, corner seat—close to the wall, safely out of notice. The fan ticked at a slow rhythm. The whiteboard shone clean for exactly a minute. Bio mam entered the class. Then class began, and time moved in rectangles of blue marker.
Half an hour passed like that the class was going smoothly ma'am was giving notes, the soft scratch of pens, just then the door clicked open. A girl came from the door, she slipped in a little late, introducing herself—Aisha Roy—still in her black school dress with the pleated skirt, a neat ribbon at the waist. Her round glasses caught a bar of sunlight from the high window, a tiny glare that made me blink. Short, silky hair skimmed her jaw, swaying when she turned to scan for a seat. She didn't hesitate. First bench, left side. She sat at a position from where I can easily watch her eye movement and her face clearly. Close to the board, close to the answers. She was small—4'11"—the strap of her bag tugging lightly at her shoulder, but she moved with a quiet certainty, fitting herself into the room without making a sound.
I didn't say a word. I only watched in that careful, invisible way I had: the soft thud of her notebook on the desk; the three taps of her pen before a fresh page on a new copy; the way her fingers nudged the round frames up her nose, leaving a faint fingerprint on the rim; the small tilt of her head when the teacher said "mitochondria," as if the word needed catching from the air. Blue ink squeaked lightly on the whiteboard; the ceiling fan ticked; someone's highlighter hissed across a line. I stored these sounds and movements the way I stored formulas—precise, ordered, safe.
Class ended. Desks scraped. Bags swung. The corridor folded them into its noise. I went home, washed my face, dropped onto the bed. The phone lit up on my palm with a text -
"Hi"
From the girl I'd been pretending not to stare at.
A second message blinked in almost immediately:
"I am Aisha, from the tution"
Another text came within a minute:
"If you don't mind can you send me the bio notes from previous classes as i joined late"
I typed, erased, typed again. Finally: "Yeah, sure. I've got everything. I'll send them now."
I flattened my notebook against the desk, turned pages with his thumb, retook any photo where a shadow touched a diagram. Labeled each image in order. Sent them. A reply came with a "thank you!" and a small smiley that felt brighter than the screen.
The next morning, I came for physics, expecting the same slow drift. Second-last bench, corner seat. The whiteboard glared softly; the marker cap clicked. The door eased open—and she stepped in again, but not in uniform this time. A half-sleeve pink T‑shirt, blue full pants, hair the same soft line at her jaw, round glasses catching the light for a heartbeat. She moved straight to the first bench on the right, sat, and opened her notebook. Surprise lifted through me, clean and bright. Seeing her in another class, in casuals, made the room feel different—like the day had quietly shifted its furniture. A few periods later, in another room, i noticed her again. That was enough to understand: she was studying all her subjects here. The realization settled like warm light. It meant simple math—more days, more rooms, more chances to see her—even if only from a distance.
Inside class, I noticed something else: she wasn't like me at all. In the short stretch before the bell, she had already picked up names and threads of talk; by the time the period ended, a small circle leaned toward her desk—one girl asking about the syllabus, another pointing at a diagram, a boy cracking a joke that made her round glasses tip when she laughed. She was easy with people in a way he wasn't. And yet, later that evening, their conversation on chat moved cleanly—no hesitations, no awkward pauses. Online, they were good. Better than good. She asked smart questions, sent neatly cropped photos of her attempts, and replied fast, like they were both standing on the same side of a table, looking at the same page. Offline, i kept my distance, kept my words short. Online, the sentences arrived like stepping stones.
On the third day, as she slid into her seat, she turned and waved—small, quick, certain. First bench, right side. The round glasses flashed once. I lifted my pen in response, a quiet acknowledgement that made sense to me.
I still remembered all of it: the clean edge of the pleats on the black skirt, the faint smudge on the lower left of her glasses, the almost-soundless way her hair brushed her collar, the slight lift of her chin to catch the teacher's words, the neat loop of her handwriting when she underlined a heading. I remembered how careful i'd held my phone that first evening, as if the messages could spill.
Another notification slid across the glass:
"Shravan I'm having problem with maths can u help me over call if you don't mind?"
I stared at the screen, heartbeat counting seconds.
The cursor blinked.