This teacher of mine has some growing up left to do. Unlike most people, I came to college with no enthusiasm or excitement at all and college felt terrible till one fine afternoon, halfway through my first year, this human being turned up in front of me. It was his first job, he was barely 5-6 years elder to us and was clearly nervous. I happened to be talking to another teacher at the time when he was introducing himself and I ended up laughing at his name despite a good amount of effort to refrain from laughing. The name within itself wasn't funny but it definitely did not suit him. By the time I stopped laughing I realised that I had made two other teachers laugh as well and all three of us turned towards the newcomer apologetically only to find him laughing heartily.

That was when my mind said, "Ok, this seems to be an interesting person." Yes, this interesting human being was my teacher at college but no, this is not some tabooed teacher-student romance. It is rather a story about how two young adults (both immature for their years) won and lost at the same time while trying to find a middle ground between what's acceptable and unacceptable.

Back to the story. About 4 or 5 of us decided that we will help this new teacher overcome his awkwardness and from then on we started asking him to help us with practical experiments. We would tell him that it's okay if he messed up a bit, we would tell him that he would get better with time, we wanted to make him feel included. We'd always try to quieten our batchmates who intended to make fun of him. In short, we were protective of him because he was more of a friend and less of a teacher to us.

I was particularly very fond of him, probably because he treated me like I knew everything, which is quite unrealistic. I don't know if he would say otherwise now but so was he. There was no crush-like feeling in it, it was a sort of platonic adoration and love that made me feel positive about myself and my life. He started taking regular classes and by now every student loved him. He was easy to approach, encouraging and friendly. He would make maximum eye contact with me. Almost every question he would ask while teaching would be directed at me, he made me feel like I could achieve anything I wanted in life.

Before he entered the picture I had been struggling with confidence issues and I hated my college, which was nothing like the place I had dreamt of. He felt like sunshine after a devastating storm. I regained the confidence I had when I was in school.

There have been instances where we have stared into each other's eyes for a good few minutes and then laughed it off. We have been caught by each other while staring at each other with adoration and not lust, we have apologized to each other for the most insignificant mistakes and we have laughed at each other for the slightest misconstruction in sentences. I haven't been able to give these a collective name till date. I don't know if it's called love as I have never been in love before. I know for sure that it wasn't what people call a 'crush' because crushes are anything but platonic. I also don't know if that human being has been able to give it a name but I know for sure that we felt the same way.

Things could have continued this way but at the very beginning of my third year in college, this human being decided that it was time for him to be a "grown-up". So for no good reason, he started treating me like I don't exist.

Even in class. He wouldn't answer questions I asked, wouldn't help me with doubts and would never miss an opportunity to throw subtle insults at me. He even went on to tell me that I wouldn't get anywhere in life. We hadn't even been in an argument and he treated me this badly. I was baffled as I hadn't done anything to offend him. In my defence, I started to pretend like I actually hated him and that is probably what he wanted. I once quiet rudely told him that he was weird and he said "ouch!" in response.

What I didn't tell him is that his weirdness is what makes him special. He thought he was being a mature grown-up but I would say that he behaved like a 14-year-old who had just learned that the object of his affection was unavailable for whatever reasons. He would have been more experienced than me regarding matters of the heart and this is how he decided to avoid the trouble! If he wanted to stop being a friend to start being a teacher, he could have simply done it. What sort of teacher treats his student like that?

I don't know why but I guess this human being felt guilty for having felt that nameless feeling. We never talked about it, never did anything that is unbecoming of us and yet he felt the need to treat me like that just for the fear of ending up in a situation that was unacceptable. What saddens me is that he actually believed I could get him in trouble.

After two years of knowing me, he didn't realize that I would have done anything and everything to keep him out of trouble.

To the person in question,

If you are reading this, please know that I would never put you in unacceptable situations. I am immature but I am mature enough to know that I don't want someone I care about to end up in a situation that spells trouble. Your fear and guilt were a bit out of proportion but nothing changes the adoration and affection I have felt for you.

Every time I have ignored you or treated you badly, I have felt terrible about myself, worse than what I feel when you are rude to me. Even if we never meet again, just know that no matter how much I act like I hate you or say rude things to you, you will always be my sunshine on a cold morning after a stormy night. I wish nothing but the best for you and will be there for you at any point in life should you need me.

We won by avoiding what is perceived as 'unacceptable' but we apparently lost the beautiful bond we shared.

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