Chunztenz

Part One: A Broken Motorcycle, Deer Park, and the Beginning of 22 Years

There are some stories that begin with grand gestures, dramatic confessions, or life changing moments.

Mine began with a broken motorcycle on an early January afternoon of 2003 in Bylakuppe 🙂

I have debated for years whether I should ever write this story. Perhaps because I was afraid that putting it into words would somehow make it real. Or perhaps because some stories feel too sacred to share with the world. They live quietly inside us for so long that we begin to protect them.

This is one of those stories.

For 22 years, I have carried the memory of one particular person with me.

Not because he was my boyfriend.

Not because he was the love of my life.

Not because we built a future together.

In fact, we never really did any of those things

But somehow, through every chapter of my life, he never really left…

As I sit here in Canada in 2024, I find myself thinking about him again. It amazes me how life works.

Thousands of miles away from where it all began, after decades of growing up, heartbreak, moving countries, and becoming entirely different people, there is still a small part of me that remembers him exactly the same way.

And every time I think about him, my mind travels back to one specific place.

Bylakuppe!!

Winter of 2003

I was twelve years old that year

Every winter, I would travel from North India to Bylakuppe to spend over a month with my mother’s family. Those trips were the highlight of my entire year. My mother’s side of the family lived in the South, and Bylakuppe is a second home to me.

But if you asked anyone who knew me back then, they would probably tell you that I was impossible to manage.

I was mischievous.

Stubborn.

Wild.

And a complete tomboy.

I loved adventure and had a habit of doing exactly the things I wasn’t supposed to do. The more someone told me not to do something, the more determined I became to do it.

My late grandfather owned a TVS motorcycle, and he absolutely did not want me touching it. everytime i ride it, he will say, Dhasa bhumo treptoh dhi…

And as as notorious 12 years old kid, Naturally, that became my favourite thing to do.

Seeing older kids riding motorcycles around Bylakuppe made me desperately want to join them. There was something about watching them move freely from one camp to another that fascinated me. To my 12 yrs old self, it looked like a freedom of escape.

So every chance I got, I would secretly take the motorcycle out.

At twelve years old, I was convinced I knew exactly what I was doing.

Looking back now, I absolutely did not.

One winter afternoon, while riding near Pema Koe, close to CPV School, my confidence disappeared within seconds.

The motorcycle suddenly stopped right in the middle of a three way junction.

No warning.

No explanation.

It simply refused to move.

Nearby, a group of boys sat around the Pemakoe store playing carrom board, laughing and enjoying themselves while I desperately tried to restart the bike.

I kicked the starter once.

Nothing.

Twice.

Nothing.

Again.

Still nothing.

I could feel my face becoming warmer and sweats running down by the second.

At first, I was frustrated.

Then embarrassed.

Then nervous.

At twelve years old, moments like these felt enormous. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.

Then, out of nowhere, someone walked towards me.

Twenty two years have passed since that day, yet I can still see that exact moment as if it happened yesterday.

It’s funny how memory works.

There are entire years of my life that have become blurry.

There are birthdays I barely remember, conversations that have disappeared, and countless faces that have faded with time.

Yet somehow, I remember his smile.

Perfectly.

I remember how calm he looked.

I remember how kind he was.

And I remember how nervous I suddenly became.

He walked over without hesitation and helped me start the motorcycle.

Just like that.

Within moments, my crisis was over.

To anyone else, it was probably a completely ordinary interaction.

To me, it became one of the most unforgettable moments of my childhood.

Looking back now, it sounds dramatic, but to a 12 year old girl, he truly felt like a knight in shining armour.

I thanked him and quickly rode away.

But something had already changed inside me.

That afternoon was the first time in my life I understood what butterflies felt like.

At twelve years old, I didn’t know what a crush was.

I didn’t know how to explain the sudden excitement I felt whenever I thought about him.

I only knew one thing.

I hoped I would see him again…

Back then, life was beautifully simple.

We didn’t have Instagram.

We didn’t have smartphones.

We didn’t have instant access to people.

If someone occupied your thoughts, you simply carried them there.

Maybe that’s why our generation loved differently.

We waited.

We wondered.

We missed people.

And somehow, we remembered them more deeply.

A few days later, my old Nokia phone rang.

That phone itself felt like a luxury.

My late grandmother had bought it for my older brother, and when he eventually upgraded, it became mine.

I answered the call.

Then I heard a familiar voice.

“I’m the guy who helped you with the bike.”

I still smile every time I think about that sentence.

Of all the people who could have called me, it was him.

And for reasons I still cannot explain, my stomach instantly filled with butterflies.

Back then, receiving random calls wasn’t unusual. Being from North India, boys from the South somehow got hold of numbers all the time and i used to get alot of calls, may be i was a little fair? i definitely wasn’t cute or pretty.

But never in my wildest imagination did I expect that the boy I secretly liked would be the one calling me.

From that day onward, winter became my favourite season.

Or perhaps, if I’m being honest, Bylakuppe itself became my favourite place in the world.

Because now, there was a reason I looked forward to returning every year.

There was a possibility that I might see him again since we kept in touch over the phone.

And when you are twelve years old, sometimes possibility is enough.

The following year, he asked me if I wanted to go to Deer Park.

Today, as an adult looking back, I smile because I realize it was probably my first date.

But back then, we were simply two 13 years old who had absolutely no idea what a date even was.

There were no grand plans.

No fancy restaurants.

No flowers.

No expectations.

Just two shy children trying to spend time together.

I still remember every little detail.. (why not?)

I climbed onto the back of his blue Hero Honda motorcycle, a bike that honestly looked far too big for him.

Before we left, he handed me a white plastic bag.

Inside were packets of chips and juices.

Even today, after all these years, I still remember that white plastic bag.

Funny enough, life teaches you that it is never the expensive things that stay with us.

It is always the simplest things.

A smile.

A sentence.

A road.

A white plastic bag filled with chips and juice.

We took a route behind Camp 4 and the Golden Temple, a road I never knew existed until that day.

The entire ride, I sat quietly behind him.

I don’t know how to explain what I was feeling.

Butterflies.

Excitement.

Nervousness.

Happiness.

Everything at once.

Even now, writing about it as an adult makes me smile.

Those feelings were so pure.

So innocent.

So untouched by the world.

There was nothing complicated about them.

I wasn’t thinking about relationships.

I wasn’t thinking about the future.

I wasn’t thinking about forever.

I was simply happy to be there.

When we arrived at Deer Park, we sat by a river and dipped our feet into the water.

We barely spoke.

We were both incredibly shy.

He offered me chips, but I couldn’t even eat them.

That has always been one thing about me.

Whenever I genuinely like someone, I become quieter instead of louder.

No matter how old I become, that part of me never seems to change.

After a while, we decided to go look for elephants.

We searched and searched, but we couldn’t find any.

At thirteen years old, that somehow felt like a very important mission.

Now, looking back, I laugh.

Because I don’t remember being disappointed that we never found any elephants.

I only remember how happy I was to spend an afternoon with him. At that moment, i wanted the time to simply pause.

Years later, when I think about Deer Park, I don’t think about elephants at all.

I think about that motorcycle ride.

I think about the river.

I think about the awkward silences.

I think about butterflies i felt in my stomach.

I think about a 13 year old girl who had no idea she was creating one of the longest lasting memories of her life…

If someone had told me then that I would still be writing about that afternoon 22 years later, I would have laughed.

Because when we are young, we think life moves in straight lines.

We think people either stay forever or disappear forever.

Nobody tells us that life is actually made up of interrupted conversations, missed opportunities, and people who quietly accompany us through decades without ever fully becoming a part of our lives.

That afternoon at Deer Park eventually came to an end.

I went back to North India.

He stayed in the South.

And life, as it always does, carried on.

But little did I know that this was not the end of our story.

In many ways, it was only the beginning.

Because I had no idea that the boy who helped me with a broken motorcycle would quietly become the longest story I would ever carry in my heart.

To be continued…

Part Two coming soon. ❤️