Chapter 8: The Realization

 

We were slowly forming a group inside our group. I, Deeps and PK were kind of a group within the 7 of us because we liked each other and three of us had an identical way of thinking. We used to hang out a lot, canteens, movies, restaurants, ice-cream parlours, you name it and we were there, only 3 of us. We were so happy with each other that time in college wasn’t sufficient any longer, so we started speaking on phone after the college hours. The only form of communication in hostel was,

# Telephone in warden’s room, in which just incoming was facilitated because in past people have tried unimaginable ploys to use it without even inserting the coin and consequently management decided to make it work only for incoming calls.

Deeps used to call me from 6 to 7 or even beyond that provided her parents are not home yet. After that I used to get a break but initially I did not want that break and simply wanted to keep talking. If I was more restless and anxious then I used to go to the nearest STD booth, which was around 1.5 km from hostel and the best you can do to reach their is just walk!!! I used to call PK from there. She was not allowed to call anybody because she used to chat a lot on the phone which produced huge bills. So I used to call and talk for hours.

People did not like it, particularly in hostel. Some dementors used to corner me and advised for free that it’s not good. They said that you have come here to study and I said “I am doing that very well, so please leave me alone”.

Nagpal once said, “You should not be with them or talking to them all day long”

Me, “What's the harm ?”

Nagpal, “Because if you get serious then it will be difficult circumstances for you”

Me, “What difficulty”

“What if you fall in love, it will tough to go away from her”

“Ha ha ha, I can’t believe that you actually are saying this”

“Answer me”, asked Nagpal

“Ok answer to your subject is that even if I become serious or fall in love then I will marry her, Simple”

Nagpal frowned and left the place in disgust. Next second I and Arnold started laughing non-stop for rest of the entire evening. I wasn’t serious, I just found a small number of excellent friends. To tell you truthfully, I never had good decent friends before I came into engineering, apart from few who still stay in touch, you guys ROCK.

I considered myself fortunate to have found great friends in Deeps and PK. We loved each other’s company. But as Deeps says that “A girl and a guy can’t be friends”, things started taking a different shape. If there are 2 girls or 2 boys in group of three then there always will be contest and envy among those 2 boys or 2 girls. That’s the same thing I started to detect when the end of 2nd semester was approaching. PK used to go in gloominess if I did not give her more time then Deeps. Deeps used to feel awful if I got close to PK. There wasn’t any official announcement of any open war between 2 girls but there was something which wasn’t right. It was evident that this assembly of 3 was taking a different dimension. It used to be a triangle but not anymore. The triangle was taking a figure of a straight line where I was the centre and girls were 2 end points.

Things were becoming so convoluted that I certainly not realized why I was so annoyed if Deeps came on a bike to the college with some guy on a fresher’s party. She gave me a straightforward justification but I don’t know why I wasn’t ready to agree to the truth. The truth that he is just a friend and did her a favour by dropping her to the college. I was just a friend, I should not have gone crazy like that and I ruined that whole day for everyone just because I was pissed off. If I think of that day now, I laugh and feel miserable for the people who had an awful fresher’s party just because of me because they passed out trying to cheer me up the whole day.

When all of this was going, at the same time there happened to be 2 consecutive public holidays. After a very long time we got some release from lectures and studies. I got up early and did some studies, after a while I started feeling little uncomfortable. I wanted to talk to Deeps but she already had mentioned that she will not be able to call because it’s a public holiday and her parents will be at home. I tried to control but I was surprised to understand that how vital it had become to speak to her every day. I went to the STD booth in blistering heat. I tried 2-3 times but it was always her mother who received the call, I kept mum. I was cheerless but I was hopeful that she might call back. I rushed back to the hostel but I hadn’t got any calls. So I waited, I waited in extreme anxiety. What was happening to me, I told myself that it’s not right. You must not act this way, there is only one meaning to this. My heart was saying yes but my mind wasn’t ready to admit it.

“Annnnkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiittttttt Phoooooooonnneeeee”, someone shouted.

I ran like I never ran before, I knew who was on the other line. My heart knew it. I reached to warden’s room and grabbed the handset, I was out of breath, I waited for 2 seconds so that I could get lungful of air. I took a deep breath and said,

“Hello”

As soon as she answered, my mind accepted, it accepted the truth that I was in love.