Shahma could not get professor Salahuddin's face and voice out of her mind. He was an ordinary man with an ordinary voice but their first meeting turned out to be an extra ordinary experience for her.

She was reading an article about different ways to get a lighter shaded skin when he stood beside her. She knew that bit by bit she was returning to her old depressive self. She was afraid but she did not want yet another proposal to be rejected. She herself could not understand that why was she so worried about the rejected proposal. Her teenage years were spend with strong feminism and activities related to the ideology with her feminist friends.

Sushi was a little too girly back then. However, when she thought about it later, she could not help but wonder if the feminism was just a facade to hide from the small pain she had when she was never proposed and her bestie was proposed by dozens of boys during those days. She did not want Sushi to know that she was returning to her older self because she was afraid that her decision was wrong.

He surprised her with his presence when he suddenly told that none of the pieces of advice were going to work. She closed the magazine as he said about his friend who had tried a lot of techniques before accepting himself. Salahuddin also asked her about the person for whom she was reading it.

"Um....." Her eyes darted from his face to her phone as her lips parted and closed to find answers.

"Shahma, right?" He smiled kindly.

She nodded her head as fast as she could.

"Shahma, you are beautiful the way you are," he leaned down to be face-level with Shahma's comparatively short form "always remember that."

He handed her the novel 'Wuthering heights' after telling her that reading that reading books with rich taste could make her more beautiful. He smiled and left a surprised Shahma behind him as he walked out of the library.

The scene kept playing in Shahma's mind as she kept tossing in her bed during that sleepless night, eager for the next day at college.

The next day Shahma chose to wear a white balloon top with black skirt and a grey hijab.She looked at the mirror for one last time while Sushi kept honking outside. A person said that she was beautiful the way she was but she was still not convinced. She smiled though it did not reach her beautiful eyes.

"Someone is looking a little too special today," Sushi said as Shahma tried to run towards her while holding her long skirt.

"You have seen this dress before, haven't you?"

"Yes but when someone is loved by someone else, the first-mentioned someone looks more special, it is a universal truth," Sushi winked as she started her Activa.

Both of the friends smiled as they drove off to their love stories.

As they entered their college, Sushi saw Thomas who was surrounded by a group of girls. All of them were intently listening to one of his made up stories. Thomas knew that he was exaggerating the events a little too much and the girls around him knew that the story was definitely a made up one but who cared about the story, it was all about the person who was narrating it with his boyish smiles and soft hair through which he ran his hands, every now and then.

Sushi knew that he liked her best friend and she saw no problem with the possibility of 'Shahas' except one big problem, their religions. She kept it aside. After all,  love is all that matters when it comes to relations.

She had thought about his flirting ways and his fangirl groups but then she realized that he was the kind of person who would be perfect for her best friend. Extroverted boy loves Introverted girl, perfectly cliché!

Sushi did not waste any time and waved at the lover boy.

Thomas waved back but he stiffened when he saw Shahma beside her. A soft wind blew and her hijab and skirt waved with the wind. A thousand butterflies took birth in his stomach. However, he decided to go to them when Sushi called him towards them.

Thomas started sweating lightly as he moved away from the group of girls., parting the crowd with his muscular arms and polite pleas.The girls who were around him started speaking in hushed voices and nodding heads as Thomas walked towards Sushi and her friend.

"Girl, he is totally in love with you!" Shahma whispered to Sushi as she looked at a very nervous Thomas who was struggling hard to keep his calm demeanor as he walked towards his crush.

Only if you knew Shahma, Only if you knew!

Another wind blew and this time something managed to enter Shahma's eye. She squinted a little and when she opened her eyes, her heart simply fluttered due to the person who walked into the College. She simply shook her head and redirected her gaze at Thomas because he was their professor and it was totally wrong to have a crush on him.

Salahuddin was not worried about the fact that he forgot to iron his shirt that morning. He was not even disturbed by the fact that he wore different socks on either of his feet. There was only one thing that bothered him; his mother's persistence to go for meeting another girl. It was not even a week since he went for a useless ceremony like that, even if it was for his best friend.

Salahuddin hated marriage and the ceremonies revolving it. He liked being single. Unfortunately, according to his mother, life would not be complete unless you are married.

Life does not revolve around marriage, Ma! It revolves around a lot of things and love is just one of them!

As he pinched the bridge of his nose and walked briskly towards the staff room he slipped on a stone but he did not fall. He adjusted his spectacles and made his hold on the laptop bag firmer. As he continued walking, he looked around his surroundings and that was when his eyes met Shahma's and he gave her a small smile.

He could not forget her eyes and smile. More importantly, he could not forget her skin color it was way too similar to Swaliha's skin color.

Swaliha....

The name itself brought a wave of memories to his depressed soul.

One of the best relations in the world is a sister-brother relationship. There are many people who love their siblings way more than they love their parents and Salahuddin was one of them. Swaliha, his younger sister who had passed away, was his best friend and partner in crime. They were fraternal twins. They had almost similar looks, almost.

Swaliha had a darker complexion, she was as dark as Shahma but Swaliha was always proud of her melanin rich skin until a few words pierced through her to drain out the dignity and confidence that she treasured.

She always said that she was blessed with a dark skin since the dark pigmentation protected her from DNA damage and absorbed the right amount of UV that was required by her body. She was a preacher for black feminism even if she was only brown.

Everything was fine and feministic until that rainy day in July. She was a plus two student back then and was vulnerable for 'teenage love'. Faheem was playing guitar and singing  'every night in my dreams' in a tea shop near their school when she was standing in the bus stop beside the tea shop. She was already late but she did not catch  the next three buses that passed in front of her since she was under a spell cast by his talent in music. The feminist found herself stealing glances of her brother's classmate whose existence she was unaware of till then.

The drizzling climate, the widely spread nimbus and the small amount of sunlight that managed to reach the earth through small gaps in the blanket of clouds witnessed the enchantment of her heart by his melodic voice. The smile that hugged her lips refused to leave until the valentine's day next year.

She started admiring him from afar. She never missed a chance to listen to him singing and never tore her eyes off him when he laughed or smiled. She started staying in the bus stop until he left the tea shop and she secretly started recording his songs. She was not a music maniac but there was something about his voice that let her walk on the clouds and sleep on the moon.

She started smiling simply. She could not help but go to sleep with his songs in her earphones. She started visiting his facebook profile. She knew that she was turning into a creep but then again that is what love does to a person.

She did not hesitate to disclose the matter of her heart to the one to whom it belonged on the Valentines day but the teenager's heart was broken when he simply said a no and walked over to his friends. Her heart shattered when his friends too started laughing at her after he joined them and she knew that he had said about it to them. Her heart was burnt into ashes when some girls came to her and said that their pair would look like a crow and a dove if they ever got together and that was it...

Salahuddin did not go to School on that day since he had a fever but if he had gone maybe she would not have felt so bad and decided to jump off the three-storeyed school building. He would not have let her confess her feelings to Faheem if he knew about her stupid crush. She used to share everything with him but for some reason, her first serious crush was kept as a secret and it paved her way to her own doom.

She was beautiful but for a moment she forgot it due to some mean words.

From that day, he always tried to make sure that all the dark-skinned people around him felt beautiful and had dignity.

A drop of some warm liquid rolled down his cheek as he kept telling himself that 'men do not cry!'

Oh, what a big lie is it to say that. Men do not cry!