A Beautiful Quote

During my frail teenage days, in the second year of my college times, when there were some occasional political slogans thrown up on the empty air, when meaningless chit chats, gossips, and some heated discussions about securing the future echoed in the corridors of that multi-storied college building, an anonymous hand wrote the following quote in my Physics text book during the interval:

 - Real beauty is the beauty of soul - 

The quote was wrongly credited to Mahatma Gandhi. But seeing the hand writing, I at once guessed the culprit who wrote this in my text book. It could only be the elder one of the twins, I thought. At lunch time, showing my book wide open, I asked him, “Why did you write this in my book? What do you mean? Does it have any hidden meaning?”

But to my total surprise and embarrassment, he denied his role in writing anything in my textbook. Without believing him, when I compared his handwriting by snatching his notebook with the written thing in my text book, I realized that it could be written by some other one.

The next suspect was another boy in the class, who, to the best of my knowledge, had a crush on the same girl, to whom I had a crush (I’m embarrassed a little to write the word ‘crush’, especially when it has some personal undertones). Finding my interest in that girl, he might be trying to discourage me from chasing her. But when I chanced to check his notebook stealthily, I found that both the handwritings were not matching.

Now who next? The same way a girl can also think. If someone finds me an interesting guy, she can go disheartened knowing my affinity towards another girl. So, she might have written that quote in my book in order to pull me back from going after that girl. If that’s the case, who could be the girl, who has a silent infatuation for me? 

I glanced at the girl who sat in the girls’ row in the same level of my seat. Seeing her artificial innocent look, I was sure about her involvement in writing that quote in my book. How can I ask her if it was done by her? How can I check her notebook, especially when she used to keep her books in the bag? So, I found a small trick.

During the interval, when she was standing very close to a place where we guys were sitting, I said loudly the same quotation, so that she could hear. I was sure that, once she hears the quote, she would shockingly raise her head and would look at me, if it was written by her. In my first attempt, nothing happened. So, I repeated the quote once again. This time I was sure that my voice was audible to her. But, she did not give the slightest response to my voice.

I never found who wrote that quote in my book. But still my hunt for real beauty goes on.

And I believe the search for real beauty is one such of a never ending nature.