09: About the Fun Trip - Part 2

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[Continued…]
The girl had just offered a Twenty and a Five out of her purse. These seven were watching everything without uttering a word.
“I hope you are not checking her out, because you know who she is” whispered Sunidhi to the guys.
“Yeah!” replied all of them in unison, and staring at the girl like four drunkards. Rishab, ofcourse, managed to keep his expressions in control, but there was some change in the way he was behaving and it was apparent.
Meanwhile the girl was still talking to the guy. When she offered him twenty five bucks, the boy got really happy. His shake was just worth a Fifteen, and he had made a profit of Ten.
“Excuse me!” said the girl stopping him. “Actually I came here asking for a donation for the Homeless and Starving kids. You seem to belong to a well-to-do family. I hope you won’t mind making a donation for those kids.” She had said it loud enough so that others could hear it and the guy would be forced to make the donation to save his image.
“Sure!” he said. “How much do you need?”
“50 bucks is a minimum, if you don’t mind!” she said, further gripping the guy.
“Sure, take 75” said the guy, trying to be the hero not giving the exact minimum amount. The girl made the receipt and gave it to the guy, and thanked him for his generous contribution.
“Hey! The minimum mentioned here is just 10 bucks” complained the guy on reading the receipt.
“Oh!” said the girl, aware of what she had done. “I am sorry. But you were not going to pay the minimum amount anyway, were you?” Everyone smiled, and the guy left without uttering another word. The girl looked around and came to these guys’ table. Interestingly, they had not been able to hear any part of the conversation that took place at the cafeteria gate.
“Hi!” the girl greeted. “I am-“ she started to introduce herself.
“We know!” Sunidhi interrupted, trying to be friendly.
“Would you like to have something?” offered Rishab.
“No thanks!” the girl replied.
“Stop hitting on her! You know who she is, don’t you?” said Antara to Rishab and also to the other guys, hardly moving her lips. Yeah, they were sure that the girl was Pratigya.
“So…” Sunidhi said to start a conversation.
“Yeah, I was here to talk about-“ began the girl.
“We know..” Sunidhi interrupted again. The girl looked at everyone. She was astonished.
“So how did this all start?” said Sunidhi, her voice all chirpy. They wanted to hear how Kanishk and Pratigya’s story began.
“Uh, I saw a kid on the roadside one evening. He was beating his mother for food!” the girl replied.
“Oh My God!” everyone exclaimed. They were shocked and looked at each other. They couldn’t believe they were hearing how a love story started, but they somehow made an effort to.
“Kanishk never told us about his past, did he?” whispered Armaan to Rishab.

[Meanwhile, at a Café at Rajiv Chowk]
A girl with beautiful hair was sitting with her back facing the main door. Her hair were extremely beautiful, as if God had taken the best of the Silk and textured her hair with them. She brushed through her hair with her hands that were so pretty that she seemed to be the ultimate creation of God that He had been trying to create for all these years. She turned her face a little to look around. Only the corner of her eyes could be seen. She was definitely the most beautiful girl Kanishk had ever seen. He had forgotten everything. He stood right there on the gate looking at the girl.
“Look dude! We do not have a vision as good as you. We need to go closer to the menu to see what is there to eat. Would you mind getting out of our way?” said the guy standing right behind Kanishk on the gate. Kanishk turned around to respond, but saw many people gathered behind him waiting for him to leave the gate. He moved away immediately.
Kanishk didn’t know what to do. He had come for a breakup, but the girl had already made him forget the World, even when he had not seen her face. Now comes the bad part. Only to irritate her, so that she would dump him, he had changed the venue for this date thrice. Not that the changes were enough to irritate her, he made these changes only after she reached each venue. If that wasn’t enough, he also made her wait for 3 hours before finally showing up. And now he was shouting at himself in his mind “Am I the biggest Idiot? What have I done?”
He ran to the girl to greet her, and finally saw her bright face. She stood up with a smile that was so divine that Kanishk forgot what he was there for. Anyway, a slap on his arm helped.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting?” said Zarine angrily.
“I’m so sorry! I was an idiot.” Said Kanishk not sure of what to say.
“Forget that. Where are we sitting? I don’t have much time” said Zarine, expressing her discomfort in sitting there.
“Yeah! Sure” said Kanishk agreeing to ‘God knows what’.
Zarine looked at him and passed a smile that was more of an expression of confusion and discomfort. They said nothing for a while. Zarine broke the jinx. “That was a Question.”
“What? What was the question?” said Kanishk, all blank. He could not understand anything. He was lost in her bewitching beauty.
“Where are we sitting? Here?” she repeated, this time screwing her nose to make it obvious that this place was just not right.
“Where do you want to go? I don’t know many places out here” said Kanishk. Her beauty had begun to take Kanishk’s mind over.
“Interesting! It is when you don’t know many places out here that you made me sit in three different restaurants in this place. And strangely, no two of them were any close to each other” taunted Zarine. This brought Kanishk to his senses.
“Oh Yeah!” he said, as if just been jolted out of his dream. “I know some places. I do, I do!”
“And you won’t mind taking me there, would you?”
“Ofcourse not! Let’s go…”

[In the College Cafeteria, the conversation with the new girl had grown very interesting]
“So you are saying that this all is happening for the welfare of the society!” confirmed Sunidhi, and the girl nodded in affirmation.
“I love her. She thinks so much about the society” said Antara to Vineet, feeling very happy for, eh, the World.
“Yeah! She’s amazing. She chose ‘Kanishk’ just for the welfare of the society. And people say the Freedom Fighters made the greatest sacrifices for the country!” agreed Armaan.
“Amazing! So when are you guys planning to take it further?” said Sunidhi.
“We are making every effort to make it move further faster. We already have adopted some kids” replied the girl.
“WHATT?” everyone exclaimed.
“How will you take care of them?” said Antara. Now she was worried. Anish pulled her back. He calmed her down before she could get violent.
“That is what I am collecting money for!” answered the girl. “I can’t. But together we all can” she continued very proudly.
“You guys started this all and thought we would keep contributing to make life easier for you?” said Vineet. He was more of confused than irritated. He had already gone blank, but as he always used to do, he didn’t let people know that. Eh, actually, he thought he didn’t. The girl didn’t know what to say. She had never seen such a reaction to her appeal for donation before. She had no idea that she was actually discussing with them about her relationship with Kanishk, which did not exist because she was not Pratigya.
“So they let you adopt kids without knowing that you can’t take care of them?” finally enquired Smiti.
“No, they didn’t. So we had to pick up kids from the streets. Kids who had no clothes and nothing to eat” replied the girl, her eyes stuck on the wall behind. She was thinking about those kids and how she found them.
“Uhh, don’t you think, you should have lived some life of your own first?” said Anish. His face had become tensed and concern clearly showed.
“Oh shut up! May be she also adopted some kids of my secret society, who had been kicked out of their families because they were not like you all!” screamed Armaan. The girl certainly became uncomfortable, but now that she had invested so much of her time in this group of weirdos she was not ready to give it up.
“May be we should talk money!” said the girl.
“Hey, let Kanishk come. Till then tell us more. Where do you wanna go for Honeymoon?” said Sunidhi, showing a lot of interest in this topic, and the three girls giggled. The girl was all confused.
“Girls! That was so inappropriate” said Anish. The girl felt relieved. Poor she! Relief ended with the next statement.
“Where was your first date?” continued Anish.
“Ehh, will that decide the amount of your contribution?” asked the girl with a little hesitation.
“May be!” joked Rishab. They all thought the girl was joking too.
“Actually it was in an orphanage” answered the girl. Out of a shock, everyone stopped laughing and became still.

[In another restaurant at Rajiv Chowk]
The date was not really going well. Kanishk did like Zarine’s beautiful face, but he just could not handle the tantrums.
“So if this place is not good, which place is?” Kanishk complained. He was already irritated with the toffee-nosed daddy’s princess.
“I love this restaurant in Grosvenor House called.. uhh..” Zarine started, fanning her face as if she had been made to sit in the midst of a hot desert. This was so when the temperature was regulated by an Air Conditioner to make it ‘absolutely’ comfortable to the people.
“Where is Grosvenor House?” said Kanishk.
“Oh! That’s in Dubai” casually replied Zarine, and went on with her description as Kanishk gradually grew deaf. “So that’s Mezzanine, and it serves the best ‘blah bley blah bley..'” Actually finally none of what she said made sense to Kanishk, and the gibbering was all he could hear.

[An hour later, Kanishk reached the cafeteria]
Kanishk dragged himself to the table and stood there staring at everyone listening to a stranger’s (girl) weird stories.
“Hey guys!” he greeted.
“Shhhhhhh” they all said, signalling him to quietly take a chair and listen to the story.
“Atleast an introduction would be good for me to be able to join in!” said Kanishk.
“Introduction?” exclaimed Smiti, as everyone shifted attention to Kanishk.
“Uhmm.. Is that too much to ask for?” said Kanishk, already exhausted because of the date.
“Dude, why would you need an introduction to Pratigya?” said Anish. This, finally, cleared the mess up.
“Who’s Pratigya?” said the girl as she got up from her chair.
“If you’re not Pratigya, then who the hell are you?” shouted Sunidhi.
“Yeah!” said Smiti in the same tone.
“I am Ann, and I came to collect some Charity donations from you. But believe me I don’t want anything from you now. Please let me go” cried the girl and left. They didn’t say anything, as they knew what had happened was not good. Armaan broke the silence.
“What happened? She was gonna tell me where those of my secret society are!”
“Where’s Pratigya?” asked Kanishk, all vexed up by now.
They all picked their stuff up and left the cafeteria. On their way, Armaan whispered “I think the girl we told to shut up and get lost was Pratigya then!” Kanishk didn’t know how to react because no one was looking at him so that he could express his anger. He did stare at Smiti for a while, but she began to talk about something to Vineet. When he gave the same look to Rishab, he responded in his 'Code expression language' with "Dude! We're divorced. No expectations from me." After this Kanishk didn't give that look to anyone and just walked towards the gate.
On their way to gate, Antara and Sunidhi were busy discussing something.
“So you really plan to go?” said Antara. Her voice sounded sad. “You know if I were you I would have kicked this opportunity off for my friends. Sunidhi felt that Antara’s right. She immediately pulled the ‘Ticket’ to Fun trip out of her bag and threw it aside.
“Hey! Good job” celebrated everyone.
Antara ran and grabbed the ticket, and thanked Sunidhi.
“Hey! That’s not fair. You said you would have never taken the opportunity” complained Sunidhi.
“Yeah!” responded Antara immediately. “If I were you!” she continued and left.
[The day concluded]

08: About the Fun Trip

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It was now confirmed. Class ND06C, or in simpler words, our buddies' class had a quiz. And the interesting part is that the quiz winners were to be taken for a 'fun' trip. Though initially everyone hesitated to participate, because they had not been told where they were going to be taken. But then as the hype built up, many of them took part.

"What?" exclaimed Antara, expressing her shock through every part of her body she could use for that purpose.
"Uh, I didn't know when I was saying that 'either all of us go, or none of us does', I was mentioning about the ghost of the dead cleaning boy on the third floor." joked Rishab.
"WHATTTT?" screamed Antara and stood up, now using every 'cell' of her body to express her shock.
Smiti agreed (not with Rishab; with what he said, as she clearly expressed).
So it was official. Either all of them were going or none of them was. And to keep their standards at the same level, they all went to the Library, and Rishab and Armaan were told to keep out. Yeah, he did talk like an idiot, but Armaan sure was an Encyclopedia.
Anyway, so our wise men (and girls, dare we call them women, even in a joke!) were busy with their wonderful studying in the library. Let's cut to their Library session.

[In the library]
"Now what made them conclude that matter is made of atom?" Sunidhi raised her doubt.
"They saw it... Under 'microscopes'!" bluntly replied Kanishk.
"What are you? A geek?" said Sunidhi.
"Try Nerd!" taunted Smiti, and went back to her reading.
"Anyway, I don't understand why they should conclude that if we somehow see around the time dimension, we could see our future? Future obviously depends on the present, and the present is changing every nanosecond. See, it changed.. It changed... Again.. Again.." Everyone stared with a "Yes! We got it. Do murder us with any further of it". That helped. Kanishk left this and started with the next statement which had some semantic significance.
"So the future should be all messed up when seen from the present!" Kanishk said, coming out of the book that he had virtually entered before he began with this unusually abnormal doubt.
"Kanishk!" said Smiti, keeping her hand on his shoulder, as though stopping him from something. "Today, it will be just questions from the books that 'Normal' people read-"
"Well, normal people do read these-" started Kanishk with a shrug.
"-and" continued Smiti, "for definition of my 'Normal' refer to the 'Normal' Oxford Dictionary. I don't care how 'Normal' is defined in your dictionary"
Kanishk didn't appreciate that, but he had no choice. He smiled and shut up.
Finally Antara spoke up, and she had real big news.
"Hey guys! Does it mean something if you have just found a major flaw in a research work?"
"Ofcourse!" everyone said.
"What did you find a flaw in?" said Anish, coming from his seat, where by the way under one Science book, a number of "Fashion and Trends" magazines were piled up for his reading.
"Look, they have mentioned the timings, but they did not use their brains." said Antara, pointing at her head with her index finger. "Now, how would I know whether it is morning or evening?"
When they read what she was talking about they did not know whether to kill her or kill themselves. All logic had suddenly disappeared from this Universe and they forgot all about the Life and Death. Gaining some consciousness, Anish replied. "I understand it is a lot of complex mathematics, but if you subtract 12 from any value of time going beyond 12, you will get the time in regular values we studied in Elementary school."
As if she had not butchered the whole concept already, she blasted everybody's heads off with her doubt unaffected by the explanations.
"So how did that solve the problem? You just changed the numbers. I still don't know whether it was morning or evening! Crazy people...!"

[Outside the library]
"So how was your date?" said Armaan, trying to pull Rishab's leg.
"Yeah, it was good. We ended up kissing!" said Rishab, blushed and took a sip of his coffee.
"Ohkay!" said Armaan, pretending to feel happy for him. He was feeling jealous, however, which he expressed when he turned his head away from Rishab.
Rishab was smiling and celebrating inside. "This works! This works!"
"So when do you have 'your' date?" asked Rishab, cunningly smiling.
"Oh, me? I have already had two dates. We 'started' with a kiss." replied Armaan and went to the food counter.
Rishab's eyes (and his mouth) were wide open. And Armaan was standing at a distance with the same expressions. Poor guys! They were getting jealous for a reason that they had both just made up.

[Time lapse. It was finally the time. The quiz was beginning]
"So, Andecians ('NDEC'ians), today is the quiz which will give the few lucky ones of you a chance to go for the so much sought after 'Fun trip'!" declared an enthusiastic anchor, and the crowd applauded for no reason. Apparently they were just clapping because of the way the anchor declared the beginning. It was pretty obvious that applaud should follow.
"HU HU HU HU HU" Armaan celebrated.
"Did someone tell him the trip is to the African jungles?" whispered Sunidhi to Smiti and Antara.
Antara giggled. Smiti, however, didn't find it entertaining. "Competition.. is.. a.. COMPETITION! And Competition spirit should not be made fun of!"
"Ohkay! Goddess of Competing." taunted Antara.
"Dude!" said Anish, trying to stop Armaan. "We are still waiting for the competition to start. Are you with us?"
Armaan brushed Anish's hand off his shoulder and firmly replied, with index finger raised upright like a hero, "If we are here, we'll clear the rounds, and then we'll be the winners too."
"Are you playing Blindfold? Or you are pretending to be unable to see so many competitors sitting with us in this hall?" taunted Vineet. Rishab was busy with an eBook he had secretly downloaded, because he had been commanded to not touch any book at all.
"Touching an eBook is virtually touching a book!" loudly said Kanishk. Well, it was loud, but with the noisy crowd in the hall, only the eight of these and probably some others sitting nearby could hear it. The others looked at Kanishk, gave him a "Don't keep proving that you're jerk" look, and got back to their talking. Rishab immediately closed the eBook, and started looking at the book in a guy's hand, who was sitting in the next row.
"And reading a book in someone else's hand is-" began Vineet.
"No! That clause had not been mentioned!" interrupted Rishab, smiled and got back to reading that book.
"Shame on you! Now you don't even read a book that a 'girl' is holding!" giggled Armaan. This finally stopped Rishab.

[Few minutes later, in that hall]
"So, all our contestants have been eliminated! One round to go. Sunidhi and Antara, are you ready?" said the anchor. They nodded in affirmation.
"Now, since atleast one of you 'has' to clear this round, we have greatly reduced the difficulty level of questions." said the anchor very seriously, but clearly he was telling them that they were idiots.
"Do anything! We won't win." whispered Antara to herself and Sunidhi.
"So," started the anchor. "if you were standing under Eiffel Tower, where would you be?"
"FR-FR-French" shouted Antara.
"You mean 'France'?" corrected Sunidhi.
"Absolutely!" celebrated the anchor. "You said it! It's France. Sunidhi, you get the ticket to the Herbert Park. Have a 'fun' trip!" he said and handed the ticket over to Sunidhi. All of them were dumbstruck. No one moved. Well, actually the rest of the crowd did.
"How could you do that?" screamed Smiti.
"I DON'T KNOW!" replied Sunidhi, holding her head, as if this was her worst loss.
"None of us is going!" drawled Rishab.
"THAT I KNOW!" said Sunidhi, angrily repeating Rishab's tone.

[That afternoon, they were all sitting in the cafeteria]
Kanishk had left for some work. He had told them that a girl would come to that table. That would be 'Pratigya' and that they should keep her engaged till he returns.
"He told Pratigya how we look. Would it have been wiser had he told her the table where we invariably, 'always', sit?" commented Vineet.
Anish put his bag on the table (trying to show everyone the new designer bag he had just got, err, just been gifted). Rishab replied to Vineet, "Yes! But then everyone has a signature style. This is his."
Everyone became quiet. Anish wanted people to see his bag, and so he started tapping on it.
"Stop it!" screamed Smiti. Anish stopped at once.
"May be you guys wanna have something?" said Sunidhi, trying to cheer everyone up.
"NAW NEY NO NAY NANNA NAY NONTHIN" angrily gibbered Smiti.
"Come on! Don't be rude." said Antara. "When you are with us, speak in our language only!"
Unknowingly, Antara had cracked a real joke. 'Unknowingly' because she thought Smiti was actually using a language.
"What's the matter? You guys don't think it was my mistake, do you?" said Sunidhi, smiling, but clearly aware that everybody was upset with her.
"Yeah!" loudly agreed Antara.
"Hadn't we decided that we won't give the right answer?" said Armaan in a little break he took from drinking the third glass of Milk. He had been drinking milk like a heart-broken lover consumes alcohol in a bar.
Sunidhi began with her explanation. “What? I was out of my mind, I admit. I was not even thinking at that time. And that was the plan. I was not going to think, so the answer would never come to my mind. But then Antara said French, and since I was NOT thinking, I didn't know that I was actually answering the question. I just tried to correct her."
"Have you forgotten the rule? Never correct her!" shouted Smiti, and immediately turned to Antara and said "No offence intended!"
"Oh, okay!" replied Antara.
"Yeah! You answered the question right over there, do you know? Eiffel tower is in France and nothing can change the fact now unless continental drifts speed up and take Eiffel Tower out of France before the End of Day!" complained Rishab.
Armaan smiled and said, "You and Kanishk never let people realize the absence of each other!" Rishab stared at him, and started to read the pamphlet he had just got from a junior.
"France was the RIGHT ANSWER? Oh My God!" said Antara, and covered her face as if she had just been declared the Miss Universe for the rest of the years of existence of the Universe.

[At the gate]
A girl with big glasses and messed up hair had just entered the cafeteria. She had hit a guy and was apologizing to him for causing him the trouble.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said.
"You just caused me a loss of Twenty Five bucks!" screamed the guy.
"Here" she said, gently pulling a Twenty and a five out of her purse. "I did not want to cause any kind of loss."
While this was all happening, these seven could not hear the discussion. They could see a girl and a guy discussing something, and the guy screaming at the girl.
"Is that-" started Armaan.
"Let's wait! Don't jinx the moment!" said Antara. They were all waiting for the girl to move expecting her to reach their table.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]

07: About all the Dates

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Smiti and Antara were sitting with Armaan, listening to his GI Joe stories.
"You know, once my GI Joe punched Puntoo's" said Armaan. (Yeah, Puntoo was his childhood buddy's name)
Smiti and Antara appreciated with half open eyes.
"I tried to give his GI Joe a-" he went on.
"Hey guys!" Kanishk greeted. "Wassup?"
"Heeyyyy!" celebrated both Antara and Smiti.
"You got some story, eh? C'mon, c'mon! Tell us..." Smiti said.
"Uh, if you want me to.." said Kanishk and began. "Last night, I called up Pratigya. She was with her sisters. She told me how much she liked my new song. You know, the one I wrote about how love changes life? She really liked the lyrics. What do you think about the song?"
There was a silence for a minute. Finally Smiti said "Yeah! So you were saying that his GI Joe could just not take the blow, right? Carry on!"
Taking the hint, Kanishk turned to Antara. "You heard the song, did you?"
"Ofcourse huney, I did! I really loved the part where you used 'Love' very, uhmm- you know, the word you used uh, 'Love'-"
"The song was all about 'Love'. You didn't hear it either, right?" Kanishk said.
"Yeah!" Antara affirmed and left.

[Vineet and Rishab were sitting in the Library, hunting for entirely different objects]
Both of them found something out and together started with
"Hey! Check this book out." (This was Rishab) and
"Hey! Check that chick out." (This was Vineet)
"I cannot have said that." said Rishab, repeating pronouncing "Book" to confirm he said "Book". "You said that? No, you can't!" he added.
"I know! But I think I need to change. Look at Armaan!" said Vineet brushing his hair with his fingers.
"And how about me? Why don't you look at me?" said Rishab.
"I do 'that' too. Whenever I'm feeling low and need some confidence, I compare myself to you!" mercilessly replied Vineet.
Rishab angrily stared at Vineet with a "How dare you? You mean I am dumber than you?", and Vineet looked back with a "Duh!".
"See, in their early twenties, guys rather check the girls out. What do 'you' do? Check the 'books' out-" said Vineet and grabbed the book from Rishab's hand, looked at the second page and continued. "-that have not even been written by a girl."
"That's not true. I did check a girl out." Rishab replied, implying Smiti.
"And from what I remember, you've not received any confirmation to your girlfriend registration with Smiti as yet!" said Vineet, his eyes moving around searching for some eye-candies.
"Dude!" exclaimed Rishab. He didn't like Smiti being referred to as 'girlfriend'.
"C'mon! You have to move on. See, I did! Girl's don't need so much time. And if they take it, you take the hint.. You're just not on her mind." explained Vineet. "I proposed Sunidhi, she ran away. The other girl proposed me, I ran.. uh rejected. I moved on. Now I'm checking new girls out." Suddenly his phone rang up.
"Call from home. Listen, you just find yourself a date for this evening. Party hard, or keep reading these highly distasteful books like a loser." Vineet said and left.
Rishab gave it a thought and decided to find himself a date for the evening.
Outside, Vineet was apologizing on the phone. Psst.. The call wasn't from home. Read on.
"Sorry, sorry! I'm very sorry. I promise, from next time, I'll take a book and keep reading it. No more checking girls out anymore. Love you! But where did you see me from?" he said, paused for her reply and then continued, "Yeah, ofcourse, that doesn't matter. Such an idiot I am." and concluded with a "Muaaaah, miss you too, Barbie!"
And then the smile disappeared and he went away mumbling swear-words.

[Antara, Smiti and Sunidhi were sitting in the cafeteria]
"So, I think you took Vineet's proposal really well!" taunted Smiti.
"I-WAS-NOT-READY!" angrily replied Sunidhi.
"Yeah, my lip-color was fainting out, my eyes were sleepy, my heels were an inch shorter, my nose was an inch longer, darararaaah, tarararaah! You girls and your tantrums!" 'Grandma'ishly commented Antara throwing her hands in the air. Smiti and Sunidhi stared at her. They were confused whether to give an angry look or confused look. Antara looked at their faces and said "Fine! I just thought of taking part in your discussion. I'm sorry if you don't like my participation!"
She went back to reading the notes that she had stolen from the 'secret notes repository' near the cafeteria, as she called it. Yeah, when Sunidhi came to know that Antara called it "Secret Notes Repository", she tried to explain to her that it was rather public. But before she could tell her that, Antara warned her of getting jinxed if she said anything bad about the "secret Notes Repository".
"So what does it really take to get ready?" asked Smiti, looking at Sunidhi.
"See, if he did it in a better way I would have accepted his proposal. By the way, now that you are talking about Love, why did you break that poor guy's heart? And if you really don't like him, tell Rishab that you don't." said Sunidhi.
"Uhh, I- I- It's not about me, and you're not good!" cried Smiti. Tears were as if ready for the command, and began to drip on the first complaining sound coming out of Smiti's mouth.
"O-M-G, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't cry. Please don't." said Sunidhi giving her the shake she had and grabbed a tissue paper kept on that table for her.
"That's alright" said Smiti still crying.
"No! No! I'm really sorry. Here, wipe your tears. Please don't cry."
Smiti pushed the tissue paper and the shake away.
"I said I'm sorry! C'mon. Please" said Sunidhi, when Smiti did not accept this friendly gesture.
"No, it's not thaaaaat." Smiti explained, her words hardly understandable in those cries. "I have just cried, I don't wanna puke around, and can't you see, that's Chocolate Shake made in our Cafeteria?"
"Oh! I'm sorry" gently said Sunidhi and kept the shake away, and brought the tissue paper near her face and tried to wipe her tears. Smiti bounced out of her seat and stood up a little away.
"Don't bring that near my face." Smiti warned, putting her crying on a temporary halt.
"Why?" said Sunidhi calmly.
"Because Naresh has cold, and he sneezed multiple times into it." replied Smiti.
"Yeah! He left it here to dry. Didn't it feel wet?" Antara said casually, still reading her notes.
"It did. But I thought it is just water. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww" cried Sunidhi and threw the tissue paper away. Coincidentally, the other end of the projectile was a secret admirer's drink.
"Hey Naresh!" he said.
"Yes?" Naresh replied and blushed.
"There's a tissue paper in my drink."
"Oh, I'll remove it" said Naresh. He planned to keep that tissue paper with him as something coming out of that guy's drink.
"No no! Can you just throw the drink away and give it to me?" the guy said.
After a few minutes he received the tissue. He looked at it with his eyes filled with love, kissed it and kept it in his breast-pocket.
This time, really guys, even I would say 'Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww'!

[Two hours later. Kanishk was on a call outside the classroom, while inside the class only a few students were sitting]
"Guys, don't you think Kanishk has started to spend too much of his time on phone?" said Smiti, feeling concerned (about the people on phone).
"Atleast he is doing something! It's better for the World's safety than waiting to be doomed by his unstoppably producing 'Musical' compositions" commented Antara.
"That's rude, Antara!" said Sunidhi.
"Why? You want me to start talking about your unreasonable complaints?" bluntly replied Antara.
"O-M-G!" began Sunidhi.
"Yeah! Nujifew!!" replied Antara pronouncing it as 'NOO-ji-FIU'.
"What?" Sunidhi and Smiti said all confused.
"So you don't get this, but you understand her 'O-M-G' everytime. I said 'Now Use Just Initials For Every Word'." explained Antara.
"Bravo, Kanishk! Bravo!" celebrated Kanishk as he entered the class after completing his call.
"Great! Everyone's doing that." Antara said pointing at Kanishk with her hand.
"That's a word! Bravo means-" started Sunidhi.
"Ofcourse it is. You will obviously support your like." grumbled Antara and then said to herself. "Phhhua.. Now bravo is also a word. Wonder what it means... 'Because Rebirth's Are Very Obvious?'" and then her eyes got all bright.
"Why? What happened?" said Smiti talking about Kanishk's celebration.
"Pratigya said she's coming to meet us all tomorrow." declared Kanishk.
"What?" Sunidhi said. It was just not clear whether she was happy about it or this was a tragic news to her.
"Kanishk, are you sure you wanna do this?" Smiti said.
"Hell yeah! Give me one reason I should not date this girl." challenged Kanishk.
"One-Exams are nearing. You can't afford to spend time-" began Smiti, and Kanishk began to give looks which conveyed 'Oh Come on! Not that exam stuff again.'
"I knew that won't work for you." snapped Smiti. "Two-Have you really told Zarine about your break up?"
"Uhh.. Wh-Why do I-Why should I be the one to tell her? Why can't she break up?" argued Kanishk, fumbling a couple of times. Smiti and Sunidhi kept looking at him.
"Why don't I think before I speak?" grizzled Kanishk and went away.

[In a few minutes the news had spread around]
As if "WE-HATE-SUNIDHI" wasn't enough, girls had come up with a "WE-HATE-KANISHK" group too. Guys wanted to make a "WE-LOVE-KANISHK" group but then they how the "Pervert & Co." would interpret this, and dropped the idea.
"How can he do that? Who leaves a girl and never tells her?" said a girl to another.
"That is a real 'Guy' thing. Date her, Leave her, Date next, Leave the next..." giggled a guy to another.
"He's such a jerk and an idiot. Every guy is after Zarine, and he's leaving her!" complained another girl.
"He's such a jerk and an idiot! He's leaving Zarine." celebrated another guy.
"For God's sake, leave me alone. I never dated her. I have only met her online. We have never seen each other!" explained Kanishk.
"And soooooooooo, you can just stop calling her and think that the matter is solved!" snapped Anish.
"Then what do I do?" said Kanishk. No one said anything. "Question mark!" continued Kanishk.
Everyone remained quiet. Nobody had an answer. Antara broke the silence.
"Exclaimation mark, Ampersand, Pound sign, Asterik, Question mark!"
They understood what she meant and started to find a solution.
Rishab got a call.
"Shhhhhhhhhhh. Not everyone's blank as you, Rishab! People are thinking." shouted Smiti.
"I am sorry!" apologized Rishab and went out to take the call.
After five minutes, he came back celebrating. "Woho! Yehe!"
"Everyone's like that! Omg, Bravo, Woho. You guys are-" complained Antara.
"What happened? The reason has to be good enough to justify disturbing the thinking session.. in which 'Armaan' is participating too!" said Sunidhi. Armaan was still busy thinking.
Rishab looked with a "Really! He is." in amazement, but then he returned to his celebration.
"I have a date this evening." he declared. Everyone remained quiet waiting for the name. ".. with the blonde Librarian."
Everyone gave the 'It was expected out of you' look.
"Cool! Where? In the library?" taunted Smiti. Rishab looked at everyone, and then cried.
"What can I do if she feels comfortable only in the presence of books?"
Rishab went away.
"I got it!" said Armaan. Everyone looked at him expecting some words of wisdom. Duh!
"Some plan?" said Vineet.
"Yes! A Plan. The ants had already planned that. I saw them hitting each other with the tentacles under my sweet box. I hate ants! GRRR.."
"O-M.. I mean Oh My God!" said Sunidhi.
Finally Kanishk came up with something. "I know what I have to do."
"What?" said Smiti. She knew it was not good. She could read Kanishk's expressions.
"Don't worry. You just take care of Pratigya till I return tomorrow." Kanishk said with an evil smile.
"Let's go!" Kanishk said and they all started to leave for the day. Smiti was still wondering where Kanishk was going, but she had already had enough for the day.
"Now you do it all the time" mumbled Antara. People didn't care. They didn't even stare at her and left.
[The day concluded]

06: About the Proposal

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The grocer was giving the last Home-made candy to the fat girl. Antara had been dreaming about that candy all night, and now she just couldn't afford to let it go. She ran to the counter, grabbed the candy and slapped a 50 (which is 40 bucks more than the candy's cost) on the desk and then screamed at the fat girl. "You don't deserve any more candies. You have already consumed half of the World's candies into that horribly inflated bag of fat and crap!" While the others went all numb and were staring at Antara, the fat girl took another 'different' candy, gave the grocer some change and left, looking at Antara as if nothing happened.

[At college]
While on one hand the 'WE-HATE-SUNIDHI' club was on with all its activities, there were guys spread all over who said 'Crazy people! Thanks for hating Sunidhi. You reduced the competition'. A guy in the basket-ball court would always forget about the ball on seeing Sunidhi. Once he started patting on stray dog's head (stray dogs were an important part of the College's Academic Society, remember?) which the dog did appreciate for a while but then he showed the sharpest of its teeth to warn thid guy of a lethal attack if he didn't stop the patting.
Anyway, it was a pleasant weather, and so the students were not willing to attend the lectures (basically for this day this was the reason). So the classes had all swapped their rooms. Antara was unwillingly sitting with the others.
"I can't believe you guys are such jerks. You can't attend your lectures, what will you do in your life?" she was mumbling.
"Antara, has someone ever told you how dumb you are?" said Anish, giving angry stares to Antara.
"No!" Antara replied. She got very serious. "Why? Did that fatso bitch say that to you? She's such a-"
"Who?" Smiti and Anish said in unison, which made Antara realise they were not talking about that fat girl.
"Oh my God! Was I sleep talking again? Why don't you wake me up when I sleep?" said Antara trying to cover it up.
"Because, we are not in a habit of meeting people sleep with eyes open and hands moving around in full swing!" replied Smiti.

[A little later, Sunidhi and Smiti had left for a routine face maintenance]
Antara came with a book and sat between Rishab and Kanishk.
"So?" said Rishab to Kanishk trying to break the ice and start discussing about his date the previous evening. He could not digest the fact that Kanishk was not sharing about his date with anyone. Kanishk however ignored it and continued with accessing Facebook on his phone.
Rishab spoke again. "May be you wanna tell us what happened!?"
Antara raised her eyes. Her eyes were wide open and face all terrified as if she just received a threat call.
"May be you wanna tell us what all she said to you!?" continued Rishab, to which he finally got the response from, uh, Antara.
"NO! NO! NO! Why would anyone wanna tell you anything? It's all personal.." And then she pointed at everyone and screamed. "It's all personal. You don't have any right to question what is happening in people's personal domain! And eating a candy is not that big an issue."
"Antara! I'm sorry. I just thought it would be nice to know how Kanishk's date was." explained Rishab.
"Oh!" said Antara suddenly cooling down. "Yes! I know you were talking about Kanishk." she said justifying her anger. "And I still maintain my stand. And I can't see someone mercilessly breaking into someone else's personal area which.. I li-ke to call as a.. as a candy. So I- I am going. Commit this sin behind my back, you- ba- you weirdo!"
Antara left, and Rishab did not speak a word after this.
"Yeah dude, it's really not right talking to people about their candy" giggled Anish.

[Sunidhi and Smiti were in the Girls' restroom]
"So, for how long are you gonna keep doing this?" said Sunidhi talking about Smiti and Rishab's strained relation.
"Uhh... You spend not less than an hour painting your cheeks even when they are screamingly red already, putting eye-liner even when your eyes are less visible than the liner, and rubbing the lipstick around your lips even after your lips have become a lip color factory. And five minutes for me are unbearable, huh?" snapped Smiti.
Sunidhi was all blank for a while
"Wha- What? I take-" she began to explain, but then she realised that she wanted to talk about the Rishab and Smiti issue.
"That's not what I meant! I am talking about Rishab"
"What about him?" she said and after a little thought she continued, "Oh! Hasn't he stopped staring at that blonde librarian yet?"
"Nooo!" Sunidhi said, now a little irritated. "You are not behaving normally with him. I have noticed that you aren't really talking to him much."
"C'mon! I am. I can't just go to him and talk about anything. You see, he needs no good reason to start off with his Super-smart geek talk, even if what I say isn't even remotely related to 'technology'" she said, making the quote mark gesture.
"Yeah, I know that." Sunidhi agreed, recalling the 'travelling in time' event (Remember when Sunidhi was taunting Rishab at telling Smiti about his feelings, and Rishab began to explain how it will not be possible for Sunidhi to travel back in time and see that proposal thing happen?)
"Anyway," Sunidhi said as she opened the door. "I am outside. As soon your five minutes, that by the way started 15 minutes ago, get over, please come out."
When Sunidhi left, a girl came out of one of the doors behind Smiti and while washing her hands, she told Smiti to rather go for a blind date with that "Weirdo Nerdo" (in her words) so that she could finally tell herself that it was a blind date and so she was not responsible for the mistake.

[Few hours later, while the others were attending a lecture, Armaan, Anish and Vineet were out]
Armaan had just entered the cafeteria, when he saw Divya at the counter. Before she could even realise that it was Armaan, his face had gone red with blushing. He slowly drifted towards Divya. Finally with her food, Divya came to him and took him to his table where other friends of Divya were waiting.
"What is with this girl?" said Vineet.
"Don't you ever watch channel Zoom? It's public. Armaan has this girl drooling over him." Anish replied, following the angry look he gave to Vineet when he tried to approach the chips Anish had brought for himself.
"Armaan? Where did that girl get her Pre-University Certificate from? Blind School?" said Vineet.
"Shut up, Loser! He has a girl, and you have only these lame comments. Go get a girl if you are good enough." casually commented Anish. Vineet just couldn't take this. He went right away to the group of all the girls where Divya was standing and said, "You know what, I have many girls drooling over me, but I don't just blush like a girl and stand with them. I am going to get the girl of my destiny today. Just see what happens this evening."
Strangely, while all of the girls just smiled, the girl who was trying to stop Divya from shouting at Vineet (in that fight at the cafeteria gate) didn't really feel happy or even amused at this.

[Later that evening]
Sunidhi was trying to explain to Smiti, how bad it is to stop talking to a person when he expresses his feelings. Actually, since Smiti, Sunidhi and Anish were walking along, she was also trying to let Anish know that doing it was bad. Psst.. Really, reaally big news, and I know it is too big to be revealed this way. But can't help it, because Sunidhi was almost about to propose Anish. Yeah, she had a crush on him.
"You don't understand, Sunidhi!" said Smiti.
"I don't? C'mon. When someone loves you so much, there is no point behaving like that. Believe me, only a true lover has the courage to propose you in front of so many people." said Sunidhi, and started thinking of a way to propose Anish. She had just turned towards Anish, when she heard her name cried out loud.
"VINEEEEEEEEET??" they all exclaimed. Vineet was sitting right in the middle of the big open area near the main gate. People who were all leaving for the day stopped. Everything was at a standstill. Weirdly, even the dogs had stopped barking.
"Sunidhi, this may look like the weirdest way, but I couldn't think of anything better." said Vineet and beckoned someone. Naresh, the canteen guy came rubbing his tears, holding a banner with some more guys. The banner read
'Sunidhi, I don't know how many enemies I'll make after this. Everybody's saying WE HATE SUNIDHI. But in front of all of them I wanna admit that I LOVE SUNIDHI. I LOVE YOU, SUNIDHI!'
"O-M-G! O-M-G!" Sunidhi said, almost fainting. "Everyone come back, go back to where you were, go back!" she said gesturing everyone to return to where they were a little while ago. "Let's take the time back, for Heaven's sake. This is not supposed to happen. Let's undo this, pleaaase!"
"What? Why? It's so beautiful!" said Anish. "He proposed you in front of the whole college. The 'courage' thing, right?"
Sunidhi didn't say anything and just went out.
The girl was standing right there with the crowd. When the crowd again started to move and began to go out of the gate, she came to Vineet and told him that he's a nice guy and he deserves a lot of respect.
"Don't disrespect yourself, please! It hurts me." she softly said and left brushing his hair with her beautiful hands.
[The day concluded]

05: About the big Fight

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It had just been a day after Sunidhi redrafted the rules of the college, and the students had already started making "SUNIDHI! WE HATE YOU" groups.
"Oh boy! It seems your perfection in the rules didn't come easy to them." commented Smiti as they all walked past a group of juniors making posters with slogans telling Sunidhi to stop killing innocent kids coming to college. They were crossing one of the connectors when a guard standing at the other end stopped Smiti.
"Yes?" Smiti said.
"You need to come with me to the Dean's office." guard replied. He was big and talked like a bouncer.
"Why?? Now are there any rules against walking on the connector? Sunidhi?" said Smiti and looked at Sunidhi. Sunidhi suddenly recalled a clause that she had added to keep the connectors free from rush for them to relax.
Sunidhi whispered to Smiti "Do you have your ID card?"
"Ofcourse! I have it.." she declared and put her hands in her pocket to search for it, continued in a lower tone "in my bag", and further lowered her voice, as she looked at everyone in embarrassment. "And it is downstairs"
"And" the guard began, looking at the door at the other end as if making Smiti realise that now she can't even run back, "you have already come too far, and crossing the connector without an ID Card has given you a golden chance to see the Dean for an offence. Thanks to clause number 666."
"Seriously?" said Kanishk, looking at Sunidhi. The way he looked conveyed "You really kept awake through so much of reading?".
"No.. It wasn't her. There aren't so many clauses in the rules" started Antara. Smiti tried to make the guard forget the punishment and get involved in this intriguing discussion.
"Oh! You wanna hear it too, honey? I'll tell you the whole story. Now go, go! Talk to the dean." said Antara. According to her she was being really kind to Smiti for offering to tell her the story. But only the wise men knew what Smiti was upto and how Antara blew her plan.

[Fifteen minutes later, during Mister Sanal's lecture, the whole class was trying to draw his face on their notepads as he went on and on with his lecture]
"Is he still talking about Machines or he's shifted to the remains of Mohenjo daro?" whispered Rishab to Kanishk.
"Oh! So you're here with us, huh? I thought you're still busy missing Smiti!" snapped Kanishk.
"What's the matter with you?" said Rishab screwing his nose, and then suddenly bringing his face back to 'sincere boy listening to every single word' look. "I thought you'd cooperate".
"'Cooperation'? When did you learn this new word, kid?" replied Kanishk, speaking as though talking to a little boy, and then he brought it back to the complaining tone. "Because you didn't know what it means when I tried to ask that beautiful girl at the Levi's showroom, out."
"Hey! That was my sister." said Rishab.
"And Smiti is mine." Kanishk replied raising his voice, and finally loudly he said "She is mine!"
The class suddenly got filled with pin-drop silence, which by the way was supposed to be the scene during the lecture.
"He's my boy!" celebrated the Professor. "No one in the history has appreciated my work like he did."
He came to Kanishk and hugged him and said that Kanishk could definitely learn more about the new pulley Professor was teaching about and called him to the Mechanics Laboratory after the lecture.
Rishab and Kanishk didn't know whether to get amused or upset. But the class did. They burst out in laughter, but covered it up with even louder clapping of hands (which was just not an applause).

[Time lapse. Anish, Antara, Sunidhi and Armaan sitting were sitting in the cafeteria]
"So, how did you come up with number 666?" asked Armaan, excited to know about the whole thing.
"See!" started Antara, leaving her shake, keeping her bag aside, and pulling a notepad out to explain.
"Uhh, why do you need a notepad for this explanation. It's a simple one. Just that-" said Sunidhi trying to give the reason in very simple words but was interrupted by Antara.
"BLAH BLOOH BLEY BROOM" loudly gibbered Antara, to stop Sunidhi.
"What?" said Sunidhi with a stroke of laughter and confusion.
"So you couldn't understand this little thing I said. How are you so sure you understood my theory? So just keep quiet." said Antara and continued with Armaan.
Anish began to talk to Sunidhi. "So how was it writing the rules?"
"Oh please! Something else." said Sunidhi pulling a comb out of her bag and brushing her hair.
"Something else? Like?"
"Uhmm.. Gossip, Affairs, Relationships and stuff" replied Sunidhi. Vineet entered the cafeteria and sat right next to Anish.
"Hi everyone, EXCEPT ONE" he said.
"Hi!" responded everyone, but Armaan didn't.
"Say Hi to Vineet, Armaan" Antara told to Armaan, like a 'Mom' tells his son when she takes him to an Aunt's place.
"I 'am' the One" replied Armaan.
"Really?" said Antara, smiling and then continued with a doubt which she thought was one of the wisest she had ever come up with. "The Everyone 'One' or the Except one 'One'?"
"Tell me the story about clause 666, Antara!" said Armaan.
"Ohkay!" said Antara, and slightly turned around to look at Vineet. "By the way, I can read it on your face. Something is gonna happen that will make you sad and Anish happy. Actually I'm not really sure, because it will be a mix for Anish. Don't worry. Mother Nature is with you both."
Antara giggled and got back to telling about the clause number 666.

[Rishab, Smiti and Kanishk were sitting in an empty lecture hall. Though the reason was not clear to Smiti, but she knew Rishab and Kanishk were fighting over 'something']
"Guys! What is it with you two? Stop fighting." she said trying to cool them down.
"I don't always start it." said Rishab.
"Yeah! I do. Right?" responded Kanishk.
"Stop fighting like you're husband and wife." joked Smiti.
"I don't. And I don't want to either." explained Rishab.
"Ofcourse you don't! That is exactly why you don't think before you do or say something." replied Kanishk, and turned his head on the other side with a jerk.
"Uhmm, don't you guys think you are really entering a Household fight?" carefully interrupted Smiti, but had neither of them listened.
"'I' DON'T THINK? You give me every reason to be angry with you, but I keep giving you another chance." said Rishab forcefully pointing his finger at Kanishk. Infact, at this point Smiti looked at the finger and thanked God that she didn't come in its way.
"REALLY? YOU DO? And what do I do when I get all that lack of cooperation from you?"
"I don't cooperate?"
"Yeah! You don't." said Kanishk and turned to Smiti. "Tell me, Smiti. Who cooperates more, he or I?"
"Yes! You tell us what 'YOU' think." said Rishab, the finger coming to Smiti with a lot more force.
"You know what I think? This marriage won't work. You guys need a divorce. Lawyer anyone?" replied Smiti to shut both of them up, and started reading a novel she had just bought.

[In the cafeteria]
"Sooo" Antara reached the conclusion, "since I thought the clause was evil, I suggested the clause number to be Devil's number, 666"
"Oh!" said Armaan, his eyes got all bright. "But I didn't get all the story in between. I only understood the last line."
"That's ohkay. That was the only line that meant- urgh- mattered" replied Antara, touching Anish's head like a granny.
Meanwhile Anish and Vineet were discussing about what Antara had just said about Vineet and Anish.
"How can she always be right?" said Vineet, as his brows contracted. He really found it freaky.
"I have an idea. I'm gonna do something that'll make you happy and make me.. Uhh, she didn't talk about me, so doesn't matter" said Anish.
"What?" said Sunidhi.
"Well, you were not involved in this, but since you have asked, I'll use you in my idea. So here we go." said Anish and stood up. Sunidhi was sure that another mishap was about to take place with her. She was always caught in one or the other mishap, anyway.
"I want to make a declaration. Vineet out here is looking forward to get a partner for a date this evening. He's a hunk, and I have seen girls drooling over him. Now just one condition. The girl who comes and kisses Sunidhi will get a date this evening with Vineet" declared Anish and pointed with both hands at Vineet.
"Wha- What?" said Sunidhi, as her expressions turned tragic. Her eyes were all set, and were waiting for Sunidhi to faint. "Another girl? What have I done to you? I am just not ready to kiss another girl. I am not doing it." Sunidhi was blabbering when suddenly she became quiet. And when people turned around to see what had happened, the reactions were weird. It was as though a Nuclear bomb had just been detonated there. After five seconds two sounds were heard.
"Ewwwwwwwwwwwww.. Clear the way! Clear the way!" she said. She was about to throw up.
The other sound was "So! I did it. Do we have a date this evening?"
It was Naresh, the new cleaning boy (who hits on guys, remember?)

[An hour later, in the library]
"What is it?" said Smiti. "Why did you call us all to the library?"
"Yeah! We were planning Vineet's date. We're not sure what to buy, because his date has not made it clear whether we should buy a gift for a girl or a guy!" said Antara, controlling her laughter somehow.
"Huh?" said Rishab, who by the way had called everyone for something important.
"Yeah! He's dating Naresh, our canteen boy?" said Sunidhi, with a smile, and then Smiti and Sunidhi whispered something further and giggled.
"Naresh?" Rishab laughed. "Dude! You could have atleast waited for him to become 'her'. But anyway, guys! I called you here for an important declaration."
"And if you don't make it within next thirty seconds, we might have to hear a weird news, my senses are telling me." said Antara, and turned to Anish. "And my senses are always right, aren't they?"
Anish made faces at her and told her to keep quiet. Rishab gave them a minute to get quiet, and said "I thought a lot about it, and I have decided that Kanishk and I are getting divorced."
"I told him not to wait for more than thirty seconds. Now you know I am never wrong!" said Antara, moving out of the circle they had all made to listen to Rishab. Kanishk came to Rishab, and very gravely asked, "Dude! When Smiti was talking about 'divorce', were you, by any chance looking at some pendulum?"
"That seems to be the only explanation" said Smiti, her voice turning all worried.
"No! No, guys. I mean, a divorce is a contractual end of a relationship of expectations. I think Kanishk and I are having all the fights because we expect a lot from each other. We need to end this. So we'll sign a-" explained Rishab.
"Dude! But I love this. I like the bond we share. That makes us buddies!" said Kanishk. Suddenly, everything was serious.
"No! I don't think it does. I don't think we can be buddies. You and I think differently. And I don't want to create misunderstandings between us."
Kanishk was not ready for this. Rishab, however, knew that things would turn ugly very soon, if this was not done. He had seen what was coming, and to save their friendship he had to do this.
"I- I don't know what to say!" said Kanishk, and his voice began to crack. "I just- I can't-"
Smiti looked at both of them. Nobody knew what to say.
Antara put her arms around Kanishk, and took him aside.
"Why, Rishab?" said Smiti. Rishab didn't have an answer. He just knew that what was a joke today was definitely going to turn ugly very soon.

[Later that evening]
Kanishk was busy on a call.
"I think she called him up! Why else would a miser like him be talking for so long and still not giving us those expressions?" said Sunidhi. She was referring to his 'I think I'll die after this call' expressions.
"So why did you do that divorce thing?" said Anish, taking a sip from his Strawberry shake, for which he had explained that guys do like pink things at times. That had given him a license to get all pink. Yeah! He did buy a pink Shirt and a 'pink'er bag too.
"I'm gonna share something with you that I don't want any questions on." said Rishab, looking at everyone with eyebrows risen in a way that conveyed 'Hope I am clear to all of you'. Everyone agreed.
"I like this girl who-" began Rishab, and was interrupted by a group of responses thrown at him, all together.
"What's her name?" was Sunidhi's query.
"Seriously? That's the reason?" was a doubt from Anish, and a similar one came from Smiti too.
"Does she have blue eyes?" was Antara's response.
"Does she .." was Armaan's. The rest of it cannot be mentioned for obvious reasons.
"Fine! I am not talking about it. But yeah," said Rishab firmly and then turned a little polite as he continued. "she does not have 'Blue eyes' but whatever color they are, they're really pretty."
Everyone was discussing about this huge revelation by Rishab, and he was enjoying being discussed, when Kanishk gave his news.
"Guys! You're not gonna believe what just happened." he said, his was clearly in its celebration mode.
"What?" said Vineet.
"I have a date this evening" Kanishk replied, and turned to Vineet for a little leg-pulling "with a 'girl'. Yeah, Pratigya asked me out." Everyone began to celebrate this and shifted their attention to Kanishk, who was looking at Rishab and smiling. In some freaky code language of expressions he conveyed to Rishab "I am not alone without you. Now, I don't need you." Everyone was talking about Kanishk's new girlfriend.
Rishab could not take this. And he then gave the next big news.
"That girl I was talking about is 'Smiti'" he said. Suddenly everyone was quiet. Kanishk stared at Rishab with a 'Are you sure you wanted to say this? Do you wanna go back in time and correct this?'. This was the last statement said in the audible range for human ears. No one said anything before they finally left for the day.

That evening, Kanishk went for a date with Pratigya; Vineet ditched Naresh (Naresh was mumbling to himself all evening "He's such a Jackass. Why do I love him?"); Sunidhi, Anish, Antara and Armaan went to eat at a nearby restaurant; Smiti and Rishab stayed at the college for another hour, spoke nothing to each other and then left before it could get dark.
[The day concluded]

04: About the new College Rules

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The morning, the college, the streets, the people... Everything was all the same. The guard was giving the same weird stares at people, the wailing woman from the cleaning staff was screaming around the same way. The new canteen boy was hitting on the guys the same way. But there was a group of college regulars for whom the day was not going to be all the same. Rather, their life was about to take a big turn. When Sunidhi arrived the college gate that morning, she was not alone. And her companion's presence triggered the group mentioned above to start off with their Red Alert alarm. The stray dogs that were as much a member of the academic society of the Engineering college as anyone else. Sunidhi had brought along her pet, a Labrador, to the college, which by the way, is just not regular, and not permitted inside the college (or so we assumed).

[Inside the Dean's office]
"Sunidhi! Do you understand that we do not have a provision for pets inside the college premises?" said the Dean, his statements being served like sarcasm baked in absence of kindness.
"Yes sir!" Sunidhi replied so fast that for once Dean didn't even understand whether she had answered him or attempted to interrupt.
"Your pet is a big dog" he said.
"It sure is, sir!" replied Sunidhi in the same way. The Dean was confused, for if there was any fear on Sunidhi's face, of being in Dean's office for committing an offence, it was below the limits of 'detectability' to naked eyes.
"Sir," she broke the silence which was effectively intimidating the super-smart, faster-than-computers mind of the Dean. "there are no rules against bringing pets in either."
This was followed by a long stretch of silence and staring, and some discomfort to the Dean.

[Outside Dean's office]
"Do you think, Sunidhi will be kicked out of the college?" said Anish.
"I think they'll just tell her to never repeat this." came from Rishab.
"Or for worst, may be they'll punish the pet by keeping it with the Dean." added Kanishk, trying to be humorous. (Duh!)
"I think whatever they do, she'll be just fine with it." Smiti added, with optimism finally coming in.
"She's definitely not going to love the consequences.." said Antara, her hands going around slowly in the air, and her chin up as if she was receiving some information from the other world.
"I think if that girl was my girlfriend, I would have never seen her face." said Armaan.
No wonder, everyone was blank because of a weird add on to the discussion. And then they realised what it was and screwed their noses. Armaan was looking at a girl dressed scantily.
"Oh perverts!" said Armaan. "Look at her bright face.. She's just amazing and divine."
"Oh sorry. We thought-" said the others when they realised Armaan was actually looking at the divinity of a girl.
"Yeah, I know." said Armaan and gave the best of his Innocent boy looks.
The door of the Dean's office opened, and Sunidhi came out. To everyone's surprise, Antara's prediction came true yet again.
Sunidhi told everyone what happened inside.
"I have been asked to go through all the rules of the college"
"Oh Good Lord! I have never read the books for exams. And now you'll read it for a punishment!?!" said Armaan.
"That's fine! Once I was told to read-" began Kanishk to explain how once he got a punishment that was worse.
"AND  REDRAFT  THEM!" Sunidhi interrupted.
"Oh..." exclaimed Kanishk.
"FLAWLESSLY" Sunidhi added further.
"What do they want?" screamed Armaan.
"Didn't I come to your dreams and tell you that you should not make any mistake today?" said Antara, pointing her finger at Sunidhi.
"No! You didn't." replied Sunidhi.
"Oh! I should have realized that. I told her she was not supposed to make a mistake, and she didn't even make a scene at all. It just couldn't be Sunidhi." Antara said crossing her arms.
"Wha- What? I don't make-" said Sunidhi looking at everyone for support.
"Be nice, Antara!" said Kanishk. Sunidhi thanked him. "And that is just between us." said Kanishk to Antara and winked.
"Was she beautiful?" asked Anish with a naughty smile.
"Beautiful? Didn't I just tell you I took her to be Sunidhi?" immediately replied Antara.
Meanwhile, Rishab and Armaan walked away looking at the notice boards.
"So, divine, eh? Finally." said Rishab to Armaan.
"Are you kidding?" laughed Armaan. "Dude, she was the ultimate chick, and her-"
"Got it!" interrupted Rishab and went away.

[Few minutes later, in the college cafeteria]
Armaan, Kanishk and Smiti were sitting in their table 'for eight', even though many tables for four were free. Rishab reached the table with a Chocolate shake, and two burgers.
"Here" said Rishab keeping things on the table, turning to Smiti. "Your Chocolate shake and burger". Then he turned to Kanishk and realised he had forgotten the rest of the things.
"Yeah! So out of everything, all you could remember was Chocolate shake and burgers!" said Armaan.
"And chocolate shake for Smiti, who hates to have the Chocolate shake here." continued Kanishk.
"I'm a human, guys!" explained Rishab.
"Really? I thought evolution is a slow process." snapped Smiti. Rishab knew he was going to get a lot of bashing. He got prepared when a phone rang.
"Pratigya!!" celebrated Kanishk, and immediately cooled down on realising that everyone was looking at him. He got up and went away to take the call.
"You have a bad memory, Rishab! You-" said Armaan.
"Why did he go away?" interrupted Smiti. Rishab took sigh of relief. He tried to find some good reason fast (Pst, it was just to shift the focus)
"Yeah!" he said. "Guys do this only when they are in-"
"LOVE! Our little boy is in Love" celebrated Armaan spreading his arms wide open, with a jerk. However, since people are not prepared for such sudden obstacles showing up in a cafeteria, a girl carrying some food got hit, and her burger fell on another girl sitting on the next table, right behind Armaan.

[In her computer lab, Sunidhi was sitting analyzing the policies. The lab was empty with just Sunidhi and Antara sitting there.]
"Who wrote all that crap?" said Antara. The way she looked at the computer screen could have made people believe that she was actually looking at the dirtiest public toilets of the World at their worst.
"I know! It is like living under the Raj inside the college while the country outside enjoys freedom." said Sunidhi, as she carefully read the rules.
"I just don't think these Management guys should be allowed to write at all. They should be banned from using pens." said Antara. Her volume kept increasing. Bad timing! She couldn't hear the footsteps of the Dean being suppressed under her voice. Sunidhi saw the Dean standing right behind Antara. He was now listening to the ultimate speech on his and his management's worthlesness.
"But I think-" said Sunidhi trying to interrupt and stop her.
"I know" drawled Antara, still not stopping. "I know what you think. They don't use pens. They can't. That is why they use computers to correct all their silly blunders. And see, they still can't do their job perfectly. So many computers, a big college, a lot of students, " Antara started listing some stuff, and turning around to look at everything. "and the king of it all - A useless Dean!" And then she saw the Dean staring at her, his face all red.
"Now you'll take me to your room, right?" said Antara. The Dean still stared. He meant "Like there could anything else I could do right now."
They moved to the Dean's room.

[In cafeteria, Kanishk was still on with the call]
Smiti had just finished the Maggi she had taken.
"Guys, I'm leaving. Caustic has called me to her lab. She's got issues with the answers I wrote. Apparently, she does not agree with my explanations." she said.
"Then you should show her the book." Rishab said, interrupting Armaan who was sharing an interesting secret with him.
"Ye..ah!" Smiti drawled. "I would have considered that. But that will only weaken my stand. Books disagree with me too."
She didn't wait for any one to reply and left with her bag.

[At the college main gate. Vineet had just entered the college]
He called up Armaan.
"Dude! Where are you?"
"Hey! I am sitting in the cafeteria. Come fast. I need to tell you something."
"Ohkay! I am reaching there."
Vineet rushed to the Cafeteria. He was in a hurry and hit a girl when he reached the Cafeteria door. She had a sandwich and an Orange float which, unfortunately, could not safely bear the force and spilled all over the girl's body, and worse, hair. It was even more unfortunate that the girl was none other than Divya, the girl whose hair had already gone dirty once. Thanks to Armaan's sudden gesture of celebration, forceful opening of arms.
"Hey! I am sorry." said Vineet trying to pick the things up.
"Sorry? You come rushing into the cafeteria like your wife's gonna deliver a baby here, hit me and spill things that were supposed to be in my tummy, all over me. And then you expect to cover for it all with one word?" screamed Divya. Her friend standing right behind her tried to calm her down. But it all went in vain.
Vineet tried to explain. "See! I was in a hurry. My frie-"
"So now that you are in a hurry, you can bang into anyone.. ANNYONE?". Divya's face was nearly red as if on fire.
"Divya!" her friend said. "Don't be rude. The guy's feeling sorry!"
"Yeah! Right.. And that should be enough, because I have been packed in a plastic sheet and I never get dirty when my meals get spilled all over me." replied Divya.
By then Vineet had already had enough and he decided to give it back to Divya.
"So Div-. Sorry. Miss-Not-Made-Of-Plastic-Sheet, what else can I do to apologize? Should I roll over whatever you were carrying to get just as dirty as you? Or should I stop walking around?"
Armaan saw what was happening and reached the gate. "What's the matter guys?"
Vineet explained what had happened and waited for Armaan to say something on his behalf.
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" said Armaan looking at all the food spilled over there.
"You can't talk like that-" he said looking as serious as he could.
"Yeah!" celebrated Vineet.
"-to her" Armaan completed and suddenly brought Vineet to silence.

[Kanishk finally returned after an hour-long call]
"So, finally all the chatting done?" asked Rishab as he took a sip on his expresso and said to himself in his mind "Oh God! I should not have experimented. Expresso is weird over here."
"Yes! Almost. But then the battery went out." Kanishk answered. Rishab didn't give any reaction and kept thinking about something.
Kanishk said with a lot of concern "Weird! I say something that again establishes that I am an idiot, and you don't celebrate at all? Is everything alright?"
"Yeah! Hey, do you think it is fine to miss Smiti even when she's sitting next to me?" Rishab said, and then giving it a thought he suddenly felt that he should not have said that and immediately spoke again. "No! No! Wait.. I wanna say something else."
"Are you sure this is what you wanna say? Make your mind up and press the Save button whenever you want!" snapped Kanishk. "So you've started missing.. WHAT?" That was when he realised what was going on.
"Promise me you'll not share with anyone whatever you have realised." said Rishab.
Kanishk said nothing and went all blank. Rishab looked at him once and then got back to his coffee, all worried.

[Meanwhile, Armaan and Vineet, who had been the best buddies were about to begin a street-fight]
"I don't really want to hear your baragouin!" screamed Vineet.
"How dare you call what I am saying.. uh, whatever you called it?" shouted Armaan.
"Oh yeah! I just did called it baragouin. I am not ready to take your cacophony anymore."
"Enough!" said Armaan. "That's too much. You have already used two words which I don't know the meaning of. That's too much of an offence to Armaan. You're dead." He was about to punch Vineet in his face, when Divya's friend stopped him and said that the two should stop when fighting. They left, and so did Armaan and Vineet. And since Vineet when into the cafeteria, Armaan went out. Later he realised that he had left his bag inside and asked Rishab to bring it with him.

03: About the Realisation

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A lecture had just concluded, and the eight of these friends entered the cafeteria. There was silence around, and a couple was standing in between, everyone looking at them. And then the boy gave the girl a ring and proposed her.
"Sweet!" complimented Rishab, with a smile, nearly all over his face.
"Seventies..." commented Antara casually and moved forward.
Sunidhi quickly moved next to Rishab and whispered to him, "So? When do you plan to tell her?"
"Tell her?" he exclaimed. "Tell whom? And tell what?"
"If you want me to name her.. SMITI. When do you plan to tell her about your feelings for her?"
"Woho.. After I get those feelings!" said Rishab, with a stroke of laughter. His face loudly said 'Oh, Come on! Not the same old topic again'.
Sunidhi quickly replied "Oh! So that'll be two years back. I wonder how you'll do that. I wish I could come along."
"Eh No!" said Rishab, laughing at what Sunidhi just said. And before you draw any inference, science always struck Rishab's mind before jokes and taunts. He continued. "Moving back in time together is not possible!! You see, practically, moving in time together would mean conversion from physical to -"
Sunidhi growled with a look that loudly conveyed "Who's the idiot out of us? Here's a hint. Not Me!", and thankfully, he got it.
"And, anyway, I have never been in love with her."
"You'd say that! Forget it." snapped Sunidhi and moved away.
When they reached their table, six people were already sitting there. The good part was that there were three girls and three guys against the Eight of these. The bad part was that they all seemed to be regular at real hard workouts. While the guys out of them had their biceps bulging out like someone had inflated them till the skin began to crack, the girls seemed to have hands strong enough to break the table in one stroke.
"So? Does anyone feel like eating? Well, I don't" said Sunidhi and turned around to leave.
"NOOOOO!" shouted Smiti, breathing hard. "We have been challenged. We're not losing so easily. We are eight and they are six. So if each one of us handles Three quarters of a person out of them, the fight will be in our favour."
Rishab and Kanishk agreed, though fear rejected to leave their face.
Anish immediately threw his bag on the table and held one of the guys.
Armaan followed. Just that he took a girl, ehh, that too not for long.
Finally all of them jumped in..

[20 minutes later]
All eight of them were sitting in that table, panting badly. Eyes were swollen, and body parts seemed to be broken. Smiti and Antara however were hit less than the others. A lot less.. Actually they had not been hit at all.
"We got it!" declared Smiti proudly. "We made it, boys and girls."
Everyone mildly celebrated. "But I didn't think we would. They were really.. REAAAALLLY strong."
"You're welcome!" said Antara. "We might have never been in this table had I not told them about Anish's Feline Flu!"
Everyone looked at Antara with jaws dropped! She smiled, feeling proud of herself.
"Yeah! I told them that he had already given it to two more people. And that the disease is really contagious and horrendous"
"What? Who two?" asked Smiti.
"Don't worry about that. They don't know them." said Antara.
"But Feline Flu?" said Anish. "Have you started creating new species of diseases?"
"What do you mean? Cats give this disease. Stop questioning the power of Mother Nature" defended Antara what she had just done.
"Thank God! Thanks Antara." said Sunidhi to end the discussion before it starts, and all the guys looked with a "Really? Thanks?" at her. "So we are in the seat. Shall we eat something?"
"Sure! By the way, one of the girls and her boyfriend used to be quite good friends of mine at school only till they ate away my lunch"
"Oh that's bad!" exclaimed Sunidhi.
"Yeah!" said Smiti almost about to cry. "Her mother made the cake thrice for me. It was mine. And they ate it everytime..."
Everyone went blank. The reason was already weird. And then she added in a volume hardly audible to others, but clear to all of the seven of these. "... Out of HER box"
Rishab took a tissue paper and gave it to Smiti.
"Oh thanks!" said Smiti, rolled it and threw it in the Recycle bin and went away to get something to eat.
Rishab tried to find atleast one logical explanation but failed. Sunidhi came to rescue.
"She just threw that on those two!"
"What?" said Rishab with a hybrid of Confusion and Adoration.
"Yeah! See, she dumped the two of them, and what's closest to 'dump'?" she said, making the quotation marks gesture, followed by a shrug to mean "Obviously!"
Rishab was so impressed that for once he got the feeling that Science and Technology were probably not as good. While others kept talking, Rishab began to think about something.
"I appreciate everything she does, like all her theories, support every cause she raises, like to go everywhere she goes... eh probably not everywhere.. Anyway.. Do I really love her?"
"What?" said Kanishk.
"Yeah, what?" followed Anish.
"Whhhhaaaaat???" exclaimed Armaan.
"What? You guys say that all the time. I was just thinking that may be I do love her?" explained Rishab, and then he realized something. "But it was all on inside my mind. How did you hear that?"
With their mouths wide open in shock, they were all looking at Rishab. "Oh, you didn't!" Rishab drawled.
"Yeah, but since you've started, should we hear more?" said Anish, moving the ketchup bottle standing upright between him and Rishab aside.
"Nope! I don't like informing the worthless-but-loud people about my personal life" replied Rishab raising an eye-brow, and then continued. "You know what, I am leaving.. I need to reach home early today"
"That is what we all do, and everyday!" strongly argued Anish.
"Really? So you call reaching home after 9 early?" commented Rishab.
"Yeah" said Armaan very seriously, "that's too early.. You're such a kiddo..!"
They got up to leave when they saw a lot of crowd gathered near the service counter. They ran to see what it is, when Smiti's head popped out from between the crowd, and then she pushed herself out, as the people shouted things hard to understand.
"Run! Run!" she whispered. "Before they find out I'm gone."
"What happened?" asked Rishab all concerned. Smiti only gave a guilty smile.
"No.. You didn't do that." exclaimed Antara.
"What? What did she do?" asked Rishab as he looked at both Smiti and Antara, all confused.
"That lady was not giving me enough noodles for the money I paid.." slowly spoke Smiti, looking down.
"Well, so? You asked for it very sweet, didn't you?" said Rishab, his body saying "Say Yes and just stop after that!"
"Ofcourse" she said trying to feel a little less guilty, but failed. "Just that I guess, the punches are not counted as one of the sweet ways"
"WHATTTT?" shouted all of them together.
"Yeah, that's it? And they made an issue out of it?" said Antara, as she joined her hands thanking the God. "It's all karma.."
"What did you do then?" said Smiti. Hers got bright to know that someone did something bigger.
"This guy paid for more than he was getting. I told the lady on the counter to get him more. But she didn't budge!" Antara told the others.
"So?" they asked.
"Nothing.. I just took two forks from the counter.." she continued. By the way, the forks kept on the counter were metallic, good-quality ones.
"So, you took forks!! That's it?" said Kanishk.
"and apparently threw them on her when she was standing, her back facing me. She got the forks in a place that made it hard for her to sit for a month" she said, and then smiled at Smiti. Smiti however didn't feel any comforted by this.
The friends walked out of the cafeteria, when Kanishk's phone rang up.
"It's Pratigya!!" he exclaimed, but then controlled his excitement in front of the friends.
"Keep moving!" he said and moved a little away from them to talk to Pratigya.
The others kept moving, Rishab and the others trying to make Smiti feel comfortable, and ofcourse, avoiding any more of Antara's stories. Pratigya, on the call, was telling Kanishk about a big offer she had just got.

They were about to reach the main gate when the girl who had kicked Armaan, came running towards him, gifted him a portrait of his and then went away.
When they saw the portrait, the name of the artist was 'Divya', and at the back her phone number was written with a message.
'After that day, I've never stopped thinking about you. I kicked you because I hate it when the guys hit on me just for entertainment. In your eyes, I saw sincerity and commitment. Unfortunately, I could not see that before the kick. Will you be mine and let me have the best partner I could have dreamed of?'
"O-M-G.." exclaimed Sunidhi.
"Did she just propose Armaan!?" exclaimed Smiti.
Kanishk's call had just completed and he joined in with "Proposed Armaan?? A girl?"
"May be, she liked his innocence!" said Anish, with a smile. Armaan responded with a launch-of-merc-teeth-out smile.
"Or she liked his humour!" said Rishab.
"Or she liked his courage!" said Vineet..
"Or.." drawled Antara, "she got a high and now, she cannot see things clearly."
She attracted a loud 'WHAT?' look from all. She immediately responded.
"What? I thought we were trying to find reasons why she would propose him". Antara paused and then continued "with open minds!"
[The day concluded]

02: About Another Bet Lost

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"I'm not getting up so earlyyyyy!!"
That was 10am, and the first lecture was about to begin. But who cares, when your attendance records are being taken care of!
"Kanishk" called out the Class Co-ordinator.
"Present" answered Rishab.
Antara's call was taken care of by Sunidhi. Smiti meanwhile was on call with Kanishk.
"C'mon, get up. This is no time to sleep! How will you learn things without attending the lectures?" said Smiti.
"Seriously, how do you do it by attending the lectures!!?? I am telling you, I am NOT GETTING UP SO EARLY! Now listen to the co-ordinator and let me doze off." said Kanishk and disconnected the call.
Smiti was surprised at something.
"What? Did he get up?" asked Sunidhi.
"No! But he wasn't screaming today. Wait, did he get high last night?" answered Smiti, her eyes filled to the brim with confusion.
"I wish I could believe that, but how would he ever buy any such thing?" giggled Anish. "Kids are not allowed to drink!!" Rishab and Vineet laughed along.
"That's not funny!" very seriously commented Armaan, and then turned to Smiti. "Really? Has he been drinkin for a while? Well, ofcourse not that I'll get company.. I don't drink, you know!!" he said with so much of modulation in his voice that noticing how false it was almost got impossible.

[After 45 minutes of lecture by Mrs. Kaushik (Caustic as the students called this Physical Chemistry lecturer)]
The activity in the class room had greatly reduced. Someone poked Smiti awake.
"What?" cried Smiti with a voice choked out of sleeping.
"Get up!! Lecture's about to be over" whispered Rishab, maintaining his "I-am-studying-guys" look.
Smiti replied with her eyes not opening to let even a single particle of air in, "See, this is for the last time I am warning you. I can't bear her blabbering. Let me sleep."
Before she could sleep again, another poke woke her up.
"Ohkay listen" she said, now a little more loudly, "This woman has been on with her useless crap for one hour, but I didn't stop her. Why do you stop 'me' from dozing off to save myself from listening to her big-time loser Chemical stories? I'd rather find talking to the test-tubes more interesting!"
"Well, sure you would! Let's go and see what else interests you!" said Mrs. Kaushik, as she stood right behind Smiti, staring at Smiti through her vintage glasses. Suddenly all drowsiness disappeared, and Smiti bounced up awake.
"What? NOoooooooooo.. I was not talking about you, Mrs. Caust.. Kaushik. It was Antara. She's been talking weird-" explained Smiti, and then Antara stopped nodding, 'actually' woke up and responded.
"Who?? Me? What did I do?"
She stood up, and Smiti followed. Mrs. Kaushik was quick to respond. She knew students were good at it, and so she didn't give them the time to make anything up.
"She says you've been talking to her. Weird stuff!"
"Yeah! Like I ever do. Infact, I was attentively listening to your lecture, till she made me realise how boring it was." said Antara, smiling like she had just returned after a long tiring day at work, completing a major task.
She only realised what she had done when Mrs. Kaushik told her the interpretation of what she had just said. "So, you've been sleeping through my lecture too?"
"Urrgg.. You're sucha bi-" Antara was going to complete it with Bitch for Mrs. Kaushik, if you're intrigued.
"Binderful teacher.." interrupted Rishab. "She has some pronounciation trouble. Last time she told me she had 'bin' (been) the competition. I said 'for how long?' And then I realised, she meant she had won." He laughed aloud at his own joke, his eyes begging Mrs. Kaushik for just one smile. But Mrs. Kaushik's expressions remained the same like she had been touched by Midas, after Midas changing his power from "turn-into-gold" to "just-stone-will-do".
"Oh! Now I get what this is all about" said Antara as she finally understood what was happening around her. "No, we were not sleeping."
"Yeah? Me neither, while you were making this whole story, which for your information was not entertaining, like my lecture, at all. So how do you like this? Let's go to the Dean's office and see if he gets amused by your little tale"
The three of them got up, and followed Mrs. Kaushik.
The class was silent only till the next weird response to this came in.
Followed by a yawn, a half-choked voice asked "What happened? Did Mrs. Kaushik just faint?" said Anish leaning sideways to see where Mrs.Kaushik stood.
"I don't think so" said Armaan, followed by another yawn, rubbing his eyes. "I think the people of my secret society were here.." Too much for Anish to remain sleepy after listening to.
Now you don't want to know how the rest of the people responded, right?

[An hour later, in the cafeteria]
Sunidhi and Anish were discussing something when Vineet interrupted. "Do you think that's a guy?"
Sunidhi made her eyes smaller and saw carefully in the direction Vineet was pointing. "NO!! Ofcourse that's a girl."
Anish casually slurped on the weird new shake they had just introduced. "Ewww.." he said, but then he looked around to see if anyone noticed. He didn't like to let people know that he made a wrong choice. The real punch is that people never let him realise that they knew it.
"Really? Why?" said Vineet, quite confident that it was still a guy.
"Well.. Look at how she's walking." Vineet gave an "Oh C'mon" look to Sunidhi.
"What? I'm telling you, she's a SHE!"
"Yehaah! And you really think I'd buy that?"
"Well!" said Sunidhi. "May be we can have a bet!"
Anish was still slurping, and listening to all this carefully.
"Ohkay! 100 bucks" said Vineet as he took the challenge.
"500!" strongly challenged Sunidhi. Vineet's expressions went from 10 to 3 on the meter of confidence.
Anish giggled, and was noticed. But nobody really said anything.
"Prove it to me that it's a girl!"
"For that," started Sunidhi, "you'll have to do a little something. Unbutton your shirt, and she'll hit on you. I can see that craving in her eyes."
"Huhhh No! I am not doing that." said Vineet. His eyes were back to open after a long interesting Challenge fight. But that did not happen with Sunidhi.
"Do I hear my purse telling me it's ready for a new family member? What? Did it just say, it's a 500 bucks note?" she said with a lot of excitement mixed with gravity.
Vineet thought for a while and then began to breathe like a Mad-bull. "You don't win, Sunidhi Manchandadi! I'm in"
Sunidhi boiled up. Well ofcourse, people had been making weird stuff out of her name lately. "Ohkay seriously, do you guys not like my name?"
But Vineet didn't hear a word. He took the shake from Anish. It was brave of him, because when Kanishk only shifted his food to the other side, he got punched in face.
Anyway, Vineet threw it on his shirt and then unbuttoned it and shouted "Oh My God! My shirt... The shake all over"
The girl came running. "Did I hear it right? I mean, you need help?" she said and then whispered into Vineet's ears, with a mild blush over her face, "May be I can make some free service. You seem to work out, by the way!"
Vineet was trembling. Sunidhi immediately got up and whispered into the girl's ears, "He likes you! Give him your number."
She smiled and gave Vineet her number and then went away saying "Here.. Call me. I am Naresh!"
Vineet and Sunidhi's eyes and hands were spread in shock.
And then Anish got up and said "You could have asked me, and saved yourselves a lot of embarassment. That's one of the cleaning-boys, new at cafeteria. But anyway, thanks for another story." He called up Kanishk. "Hey Kanishk, where are you? Funny story. Vineet just..." Spices were, ofcourse, added to make it wilder.

[Another lapse in time]
"I can't believe it!" exclaimed Smiti with a big smile.
"Yeah! He's such a nice man" agreed Antara.
"Ofcourse. Such a sweet, kind.. " began Rishab, but could hold it for long and said what had been ringing in his mind. "GIGOLO!"
"What? Why?" said Sunidhi. She was keenly interested in knowing the spicy story (for a gossip, ofcourse). But then she held her expressions back and looked more concerned.
"They were sleeping.. They were talking.. They were making stories up.." complained Rishab.
"Yeah, so?" said Sunidhi.
"He has been punished to sit outside his office in the place of peon for two days" said Smiti keeping herself from laughing, but then finally they all burst into laughter.
"Yeah, because apparently, he didn't like it much when I followed Antara and Smiti, and told him how stunning he looked in that 'tie'" slowly said Rishab, looking down at his feet.
"The 'TIE'?? You liked him in the tie?" exclaimed Armaan.
"Is it my fault that Smiti complimented on the 'Shirt' and Antara, on the 'Pants'?" wailed Rishab.
"Dude! But the 'Tie'? Think of his esteem. You could have combined it with his Underpants!" came the world's wisest advice from Armaan to numb everyone listening.

[A few minutes later]
Kanishk entered the cafeteria, and dragged himself down to their table.
"You don't seem fine!" said Smiti. Sunidhi, Vineet, Rishab and Anish got busy with the discussion of what had just happened with Vineet and Sunidhi.
"I am, I am! I just fell. Anyway, I met this girl -" Kanishk started.
"Fell in love, huh?" interrupted Smiti.
"No! Why would you bring that up?"
"It's written all over your face" said Antara, like she had just completed a study on Kanishk's face.
"Here!" pointed Smiti at Kanishk's left cheek and then on the forehead, "and here!"
"Just two? And that makes you say I am in love?"
"No actually, just one. The cheek one. Everywhere else, it's written that you are in Love!" said Smiti.
"No, I'm not! Guys, the girl is Pratigya, just another friend I made today. She's an amazing singer and is here to pursue it as a profession." said Kanishk justifying (atleast he believed he could) that he wasn't in love.
"Singer? Oh.. That's bad. These guys are so -" started Anish, as a girl's topic grabbed their attention.
"No! She's good. She's just great. Don't talk like that about her." argued Kanishk. Actually, nobody was really arguing back.
"You're welcome, guys!" said Anish as everyone smiled mischievously at Kanishk.
Kanishk's brows rose up. "You don't think I am really in love, do you?"
"Yes, we do!" said Sunidhi.
"And I don't agree at all" said Kanishk, forcing his body language into conveying that he didn't care.
"Don't challenge her, dude! She's evil" said Vineet still not able to come out of his trauma.
Armaan finally found an opportunity to be the hero. "I am with Kanishk. He's not in love. We are the Single bros."
"You know what, liars often get the punishment shared by their friends. So here's Armaan to share yours!" laughed Smiti at both of them. Strangely, her prediction went true. A girl came growling towards Armaan, gave him a tight-slap, swore at him, and then stormed out of the cafeteria. And then Sunidhi spoke. "You won the bet. And I won entertainment. This is the girl I kissed. I told her after the kiss that you had threatened me into kissing her or you would... You know what stories I can make up, don't you?"
"Aaahhggg.. The war is not over yet, Sunidhi Rajavansh Rai!" said Armaan. His left-cheek had gone all red.
"What's wrong with y'all?" cried Sunidhi.
"But I think now I like this girl more than the last one...!" said Armaan looking at the door she walked out of, with a lot of love in his eyes.
"Let's move.." said Rishab taking his bag up.
"Yeah!" said Vineet and everyone picked bags up and started moving. And then Armaan threw his last question to Sunidhi
"How good a kisser is she?"
[The day concluded]

01: Pilot

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It was a not-so-big but a decent College Cafeteria at the New Delhi Engineering College. Sunidhi and Smiti were sitting in their regular place, a table for eight, discussing a yet another serious girl issue, with all of their attention in each other. So much that some of the guys, who could not hear their actual conversation, lost interest in these otherwise extremely attractive girls, doubting their orientation!
"What? You don't mean it!" exclaimed Sunidhi as she grabbed another tissue paper to do nothing good out of it. Yeah! Just to rub lightly around her face, and then throw the poor thing, which probably could have been put to a better use, away!
"I do! I do! He's totally into you, honey!" replied Smiti taking a little sip on the chocolate-shake she had just bought, and then suddenly changing her expressions to a "Yuks! I can make it better!"
"Actually, I won't believe it even if you swear on your score for the next End-Sem. So you may stop trying to make me believe that he likes me. And that shake; I'm sorry, it's better than yours." snapped Sunidhi.
Anish entered the cafeteria, and reached the table with a shake, and two burgers and began to talk right away.
"You won't believe what happened today. I didn't -"
"What? You didn't suck?" interrupted Sunidhi trying to shut him up.
"C'mon Sunidhi! Don't be rude. Yeah! So you didn't, lemme guess, be yourself?! Instead you tried to be something closer to Homosapiens?!!" cracked Smiti another joke. And that was more than enough to keep Anish out of the conversation for another ten minutes. Anish didn't mind. He smiled casually and went on with his food.

[Inside a classroom]
"Ohkay! So you think she likes me?" asked Armaan into Kanishk and Rishab's ears, and smiled at the girl looking at him from the adjacent room. FYI, the three were sitting in the room doing nothing good. They had no lectures. Just a lot of time, and an empty room to discuss Armaan's fantasies! Guy-talk, you see.
"Totally! I think she might like the idea of going out on a date with you." said Rishab trying to make Armaan happy. Well he really did. Armaan's teeth suddenly came out on display like a new Mercedes on its launch event, all shining and glowing! He often did it, and was only repeating it. He hugged Kanishk and quite unclearly (thanks to his unstoppable, eh, uncontrollable smile) said, "Should I go and meet her and tell her how I feel for her. May be she's feeling shy." Kanishk and Rishab looked at the girl. She was really checking Armaan out.
"YES!" they said in unison.
Armaan immediately jumped out of the seat and rushed out of the door. He was so swift that he couldn't even hear Kanishk and Rishab telling him to go after the lecture she was in. And it was only then that Rishab noticed something. That in the closed windows, it was only the reflection from inside that could be seen in the Window glass, and worse, the girl was sitting in a room where all the windows were closed.

[Meanwhile, action was on at the cafeteria]
Antara stormed into the cafeteria like a News reporter digging into a burning Scandal news. Actually, she had a news.
"Guys!" she said pressing a 'Power break' on reaching their table, "This is what I've got. Armaan finally did it."
"Thank God, he did! But dear God, he told 'you' about that? It was a guy-talk! Is he turning into a woman!!!" exclaimed Anish.
"Oh my God! Is he? But he's doing great as a guy.." replied Antara, her eyes awestruck. Yes, she could believe any weird thing to be true.
"Like there is any way it could happen!" said Smiti pulling a hairbrush out of her bag.
"So you're saying it doesn't? Well, Madam Curie, did I miss your lectures on gender unchangeability? And how did -" began Antara.
"Ohkay, gender does change. I know five people who got their genders changed. So no discussion on that. What was the news? What did Armaan do?" Thanks to Sunidhi. With this, she brought the focus back.
"Yeah! I got this news from my sources, that Vineet likes Sunidhi. VINEET LIKES YOU! Yay.." Antara's eyes had an "I-am-so-good" look as she said this.
"Another news about someone who likes Sunidhi! Can we have some action people?" said Smiti coldly and then aimed an imaginary TV Remote at Antara, trying to change the channel.
"C'mon guys! I'm serious about this one. And he's going to propose you today.. TODAY!!" Antara said pointing her finger at Sunidhi, almost poking it into her eye.
"Alright! Alright! Calm down." said Sunidhi carefully taking Antara's finger away and placing it slowly on the table. "Oh my God! Now what do I do? I can't take another proposal!"
"Well, then say NO! Ofcourse if you can afford the taxes. No wait, I forgot! There are no taxes. A messenger from the God forbade you from using the word..." snapped Anish at Sunidhi.
"Urg.. What? I can totally say NO. See, I just did it! But what did Armaan do?"
"Nothing!" replied Antara casually. "I was only trying to find out if something's happening with Armaan that you people are trying to hide from me!"
A reason good enough to get all weird expressions in response.

[Time lapse, Smiti, Antara and Anish were sitting in their table, watching Vineet and Sunidhi talking at a distance]
Kanishk entered the cafeteria.
"Oh My God! Please tell me he's not discussing one more assignment with Sunidhi! I'm not doing any more of them." he said and grabbed Smiti's burger and took a big bite.
"Hey! That was mine." Smiti complained.
"Oh, I'm sorry"
Kanishk kept the burger back.
"I'm not taking it. You took a bite out of it" said Smiti pushing the burger towards Kanishk.
Kanishk gave a screwed nose look and said "Stop being a kid! Here, take it.." He pushed the chewed bite out of his mouth into the plate.
Smiti almost puked on this. "Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww"
"Yeah! Ewww.." followed Antara. "Though I don't get the reason. Kanishk only reduced your chewing effort. Appreciate the care, people! What has happened to the World.." Everybody stared at Antara for her stupid logic.
"Ohkay, don't thank me for the eye-opener. So, what's up with Armaan?"

[Sunidhi returned with Vineet. Everything seemed fine]
Sunidhi sighed out of relief.
"So? You wanna tell us something?" said Smiti as she took a sip out of a new milk-shake, Kanishk had just bought.
"Yeaaah! Uhh.. Actually, this is Vineet. He - " began Sunidhi.
"He's Vineet, and he likes you! Now?" interrupted Antara.
"Thanks for cutting this short story shorter!" responded Sunidhi sarcastically. "He wants to be friends with us. He is not interested -" and then looking angrily at Antara "NOT INTERESTED in going out with any of us."
"Oh, I thought you are interesting, Vineet! So, what's up with Armaan? Anyone?" said Antara brushing the Sunidhi-Vineet topic away. Anish was still interested, but no one else. Sunidhi was quick with a comment. "I don't wanna alarm you, but I think you are getting Armaanophilic!"
So, officially, a cold war had begun between Sunidhi and Antara. Smiti wanted to take part, but couldn't decide on alliance, and so tried to maintain a low profile.
Kanishk informed everyone about Armaan. "Armaan just entered a room during Char Lee's (read Charlie) lecture."
"Because?" drawled Smiti. Her usually busy hands were suddenly still as dead. Kanishk only smiled. Char Lee was actually Charan Prasad, a karate black-belt, who was unwillingly working as a teacher at the college and was really frustrated at this.
"No!! He took that bet too seriously.." said Sunidhi, clapping her hand on her head.
"What bet, Sunidhi? You wanna tell us something about the sin you committed?" drawled Smiti further as she stared at Sunidhi.
Before starting with her story she gave a long explanation for something. "Well, before talking about it, I wanna tell you all, I have always been a good girl, and if I ever do something wrong, please do understand, it is under some kinda pressure. I am not willing to do it."
"Spill it, Sunidhi! We won't give it a damn anyway.." snapped Antara.
So began the whole story told by Sunidhi. Sunidhi and Armaan were discussing about how girls and guys flirt in different ways and what they like. "I was telling him about what to do to impress a girl, when he claimed he knew it better. I challenged him to even dare to attempt to propose a stranger. And that was the bet." Before the story could advance further, Armaan entered the cafeteria smiling, evidently artificially. Rishab was walking along, nearly carrying Armaan in.
"He got kicked.." explained Rishab, and everybody's jaws dropped in shock. "over there...". Jaws dropped further. "by HER!". Everybody stood up in shock.
"Oh no!" sighed Antara.
"Yeah! Are you okay?" asked Kanishk. Before anyone else could say a word, Antara jumped up out of excitement after a brief deep-thought session.
"Oh yes! Now," she explained calmly, "I know someone who got his gender changed too. You are not the only one, Sunidhi Chandramukhi Chattopadhyay!"
"What? That's not even my name..." exclaimed Sunidhi.
"Yeah!" replied Antara coldly, "But your name was too short for me to express my excitement. Be happy, Patil!"
Two down. At this, Sunidhi went blank too.
Rishab said, taking his glasses off, "Before you find another reason belonging to your world, to be happy, Char Lee didn't get a chance to kick him."
"Yeah!" said Armaan still thinking about the girl, who had just kicked him hard. "Now I like her even more. She's fast and aggressive, and doesn't hesitate making the first move!"
"I'm pretty sure, Armaan's brain just had a power-cut!" whispered Smiti to Sunidhi.
"Of course!" responded Sunidhi in whisper, "His brain just got kicked.."
"Hey Armaan, Sunidhi was talking about some bet!" said Antara, and then turned towards Sunidhi, who, at this, was looking at Antara like she had just been whipped and was set for a revenge.
After this Antara said to Sunidhi without any sound, but only with lip movement, "You're Welcome! You deserved it!"
"This day's awesome. First, that girl of my dreams. And now the bet that I just won."
Armaan's day had just gone extremely wonderful. After all, he had just got more than he asked for in return for getting kicked.. THERE..

[Everybody was prepared to leave. They came out of the cafeteria]
"Guys, wait! I need to do something important." said Sunidhi, and rushed to a fresher (girl) at the college.
"So all the guys are after her, and she's busy with girls. You know, I'm seriously worried for her." said Antara, very the best of her seriousness. And then what they saw left everyone, absolutely everyone around NUMB!
Sunidhi kissed the girl for exactly - "TWELVE SECONDS!! Amazing.." shouted Armaan in excitement.
"You asked for this!?" exclaimed Smiti.
Antara seemed to have found something occult about it. Remember her worry about Sunidhi she had just mentioned? She then whispered, "Kanishk, just stay away from the Main gate. I'm afraid, my sixth sense is at its best today!" As if things were any normal already for her to start with her weird theories. "Ah c'mon!" said Kanishk and turned to Sunidhi.
Sunidhi returned and walked right away towards the main-gate without responding to anyone's call. Kanishk immediately followed.
"Sunidhi! Sunidhi! Whoooooops!!"
Sunidhi rushed out of the closing gate, and apparently, Kanishk couldn't make it before there was enough space for him to go through, nor could he stop himself from crashing into it.
"Oh my God!" said Smiti as she ran to see Kanishk.
"See!" said Antara. "I told you to keep away from the Gate.." Rishab stared at Antara. "Yeah! And you just be careful. I might kill you for one more of it."
"No, you won't. Not on my sixth-sense reception list. You, Armaan, keep yourself from your fantasies."
"What? No! That keeps me busy. How else would I spend my day. I'd prefer dieing. Tell the God, I'm ready, when he sends the next batch of Sixth-sense" cried Armaan.
"But I gotta say this," at last commented Anish, " Kanishk did even the Gatecrashing differently.. Inside out!"
People preferred taking Kanishk for First-aid than giving another reply...
[The day concluded]