Love Story: The Unforgettable First Kiss

Roop came in. She had gone cucumber picking, she said, and had got delayed. She was distracted and jittery.

“Sing me the verse that you had promised to sing. Make it fast before the rain comes again,” she said hurriedly.

“Wah! Someone’s in the mood for romantic poetry! But wait a minute. That’s how you greet me? After a month? Let the rain come. Won’t you ask how I did on the tests?” Kishan said.

“Oh yes! The tests? How did you do?” she asked.

“I will soon be packing my things,” he winked. Random drops of rain began falling from the skies.

“But you will return for the holidays? Won’t you?” she asked. 

“Someone’s missing me even before I’ve left,” he said. 

Who said anything about missing?” she pouted. 

“How long will you be in college?”

“A few years. Then I will be a government officer and all the girls from here, there and everywhere would want to be my wife,” he smirked, raindrops hitting his head, trickling down his face.

“Oh really! In that case, you’ll have a hard time picking a girl,” she said, looking away.

“I won’t have to bother with picking. You know that,” he laughed.

“I know nothing. Now stop laughing as if the Princess of Paradise is dying to marry you,” she frowned.

“Why, yes. She is a princess indeed. And there is nothing that she wants more than to marry me even though she wouldn’t EVER say it,” he smiled.

Blood rushed to her face. She looked down. He felt her breath on his kurta. His heart pounded against his ribs. Bending, he drank in the smell of her hair. It was a delicious, layered-with-promise scent of wet fields and wild flowers, of playful breeze and fresh corn. He imagined her wedding dress. What colour would she choose? Red? Orange? Magenta?

“Yes! Magenta,” his mind whispered.

Just then she looked up, her face glowing, her hair dripping raindrops.

“What colour?” he asked.

“Magenta,” she replied, turning pink.

Blown away by that meeting of minds, he gazed at her in wonder. She was flushing irrepressibly. Their eyes met. He leaned. She moved closer. Greedily, they kissed and kissed, his hands feeling her curves, fondling her hair. In the bushes, the mynahs cooed. The unsung verse from the love poem played in his head.

In the days that followed, Kishan remembered the kiss with frenzy, adrenalin rushing through him like a flash of lightning. Most of all, he remembered how the kiss tasted. Sweet. Sweeter than the looping bright orange jalebis in Ramdeen’s sweet shop, sweeter still than the sugarcane flaming in the faraway fields.

(An extract from ‘The Rainbow Acres’ (Om Books), a historical novel by Simrita Dhir, with permission from the author. Dhir is a California-based academic and novelist. Views expressed in this article are personal and may not necessarily reflect the views of Outlook Magazine.)