The Shy Guy

By Amaara Sha

It is the first day of college. We are a class of 40 students. Everyone is confused in the new environment. Everyone is trying to make conversation with each other as no one wants to feel left out. I end up talking to the girl next to me. She smiled and introduced herself, “Hello, I am Ananya” “Hey, I am Amaara. How Are you?” I replied. She seems sweet, bright and friendly. We all introduced ourselves, most of our names started with A. “Ayaz, Anish, Ambrish, Ambika, Ayesha etc etc.” “Who even splits the batch alphabetically? All my best friends are going to be with names starting with A, B or maximum C.” “This college is definitely weird.”

Half way through the day, I notice a guy in the opposite corner; he did not speak to anyone the whole time. He quietly focused on the assignment. We all somewhere at least spoke to our partners but I saw that guy never even turned his head unnecessarily. He was fully focused on his work only. The bell rang and it was time to leave. We all said the formal bye each other, expect that one face. I noticed he quietly packed his stuff, cleared up his space and just rushed out the door with quick steps. “I wonder what is even wrong with him, probably has a lot of attitude.”

The whole week, it was regular college assignments, the regular drama. I made good friends with Ananya. We both mostly hanged out together during recess, lunch break and group projects. Every day I and Ananya watched the silent guy opposite to us. He walked straight up to his bench, silently did his work, ate his food in solitude, finished his work, packed up his things, cleared his bench and rushed out of the door as soon as the bell rang. “What could even be his problem, why wouldn’t he talk to anyone at all? Not even girls or boys for that matter.” “May be, he is forced to be here”, Ananya replied.

“Ayaz?”, “Present Sir” is all I heared from his mouth, for almost a month.

A month later, I and Ananya decided to go talk to him. Sitting alone, he was finishing his food, at his bench, during lunch. As we both walked upto him, he is punching pins in the bulletin board behind him. “Hi, I am Amaara” I said, “And I am Ananya”. There was no reply from him. I decided to give it another try. I added, “We noticed you always eat alone and don’t talk to anyone. You can join us for lunch if you like.” As I was talking, he stopped punching the pins in the board, turned the other way, got up, and ran out of the classroom. I and Ananya just stood there recollecting what just happened. “Did we just get ignored that hard? Are we that irritating?”

With time, we became friends. He slowly started opening up. He became my best friend. In spite of everything I could not understand why he did that. I always asked him, why he reacted that way, I never got an answer.

Five years later he finally broke the silence and replied, “I came to college with a narrow mind and an orthodox upbringing.”

“I did not walk away because I was a jerk; I walked away because I did not know how reply to a random girl who came to talk to me. I was a shy guy.”

By Amaara Sha