NITT Diaries — Chapter 6
The Next Step
What happens in Festember most definitely does NOT stay in Festember. Or you can say the Festember scenes were discussed over and over again even days after Festember decided to wind up. And with luck like mine, what was I even expecting? Almost everyone knew me by then. First it was my brilliant stage performance at Moonlight, and then it was the story of me being slapped across my cheek by a girl who didn’t even belong to our college. But just like every other aunty in the neighborhood, my batch mates modified what actually happened into a well-versed story that took much longer to narrate than the actual overall duration of one among the many (mis)adventures that God has so lovingly bestowed upon my poor self (And Rajeev said that if I pray with him everyday, I’d be blessed. What a liar.) A slap was now upgraded to three continuous slaps and a few more dialogues were added to the scene along with the much required sound effects. But all this barely made any difference to me for Sneha didn’t react adversely. She laughed it off saying it was okay, so yeah, it was okay. I liked talking to her; she made me feel different, happy. I soon quietly acquired her class time table so I could ‘accidentally’ bump into her every now and then. And soon stories of us circulated like wildfire. As if I didn’t have enough popularity on my plate already.
I clearly remember how I was in the deepest of peaceful slumbers one morning when my phone decided to rudely interrupt my sleep by making a rash decision to participate in a ringing marathon. I grunted like a baby dragon, muted my phone and collapsed right back onto my bed. What seemed like a minute later to me, Bruce yelled something across the room; it sounded like Greek to me but I caught two words- ‘Priya’, ‘Sneha’ and ‘confession.’ I think I was grinning in my sleep when a pillow came crashing down on my delicate head. I swear I could see stars even in the broad daylight. Bruce handed me his phone, something he never does. I remained in a state of drowsy confusion.
“Read it you idiot”, he said with an exasperated expression.
With a confused expression I scanned the words on the screen infront of me. And then it dawned upon me what Bruce was yelling in Greek. There was a page that one of the first years had decided to create called NITT CONFESSIONS. This was basically a platform where random people would write even more random confessions about their friends while maintaining their anonymity. It was basically where the life-less people of NITT resided. And there, confession number 46 just unlocked level 100 of my popularity. My impersonator wrote an open letter to Priya Kulkarni about how I had fallen head over heels for her from the time I laid my eyes on her ‘perfect face.’
Now let me tell you all who Priya is. Priya is Sneha’s best friend and also the only female acquaintance I have other than Sneha (Sneha is more than an acquaintance of course). I guess I really was shipwrecked and in desperate need for someone to throw me some help after all. I decided that I would just ignore this and tell people to keep their delusional minds out of my personal life if they decided to intrude it.
But some things are just easier said than done. Because the moment I walked out of my room, I was surrounded by paparazzi (after all, I was unwillingly the most popular kid on that block then). Soon every corridor was buzzing with the NITT confessions gossip. I was armored to shield myself from accusations and random rumors from anyone but what was I to tell Priya? How was I going to face her? She would probably be of the view that I was going around pouring my heart out and some decent soul felt pity and decided to make a public announcement of these imaginary feelings in order to so generously help me out. She probably thought that there wouldn’t be a fire out of nowhere. And what about Sneha? She probably had a hunch that I had feelings her and now God knows what she thought of me. I wanted to explain to her that I was innocent and at the same time a part of me wanted to evade her under any circumstances. And thankfully, as I had wished for, Sneha was nowhere to be seen for a long time.
Soon the much awaited Aaveg Inductions had begun. And suddenly every single person on the block wanted to be a part of the team of their interest. An induction is a long and systematic process of eliminating certain people and being super selective about the others before they are finally a part of the team. My first PI was surprisingly shorter than the others claimed theirs to be and honestly, this disappointed me. I was dead sure that it was probably because they were not going to select me at all and that honestly made me feel more dejected than I already was.
It was an extremely bright Sunday morning, brighter and sunnier and hotter than usual I’d say. To add to our miseries, the electricity was also not really being helpful so Bruce, Rajeev and I decided to find a cozy corner in CCD, the only outlet that has an AC facility. To my surprise our usual spot was occupied by a group of utterly noisy girls.
Just when the entire NITT confession drama had died down, I spotted her. Simple and perfect. I decided to make a run for it, but Sneha had already waved at me and started walking over. Bruce and Rajeev started doing their whole ‘give them privacy they are a thing’ move and walked away to some other corner of the galaxy (as if things weren’t awkward already). To my surprise, Sneha was not even the least bothered about the confession or the page or even the glances the first years around were giving us, or so I thought. I heaved a euphoric sigh of relief. We were talking casually when my phone buzzed. Being the good man I was, I ignored it because Sneha was animatedly talking about something I don’t remember. But the phone buzzed a couple of times more so she insisted that I pick it up. But what she said next struck me like I was whiplashed.
“Must be Priya. Better not keep her waiting yeah?” she said with a tone of utmost sarcasm.
“About that, that’s all fake. Let me explain-“, I had just begun when she cut me across with a wave of her hand stating she had to leave.
I stood there feeling beaten up. Sneha was upset, which obviously meant that she was affected by the confession, which in turn could only mean one thing. Just like everyone else on this planet, my phone always had to intrude in my happiness. A few more buzzes from my phone snapped me out of my happy trance. I had a couple dozen messages. My WhatsApp was filled with ‘So did you make it to round 2 for Aaveg?’ It was then that I noticed that I had also received an SMS (who checks SMSs otherwise?). I opened a message from an unknown number. It said that I was selected for round 2 of my PI for Aaveg. Immediately, I thought of Sneha. She must’ve made it to round 2 for sure if I had. She was happy after her PI, unlike me. I sprinted across to the cycle parking area outside CCD and there she was at the turning. I called out to her and after a very genuine apology for the confession/unnecessary rumor, we conversed for a while. A myriad of emotions came over me. From apologetic guilt to happiness to surprise. My happiness was obvious, but my surprise was completely different. Well, I was taken by surprise because of two reasons; one being that I made it to round 2 and second was that Sneha hadn’t.
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I’m proud to say that I have at least one good quality, I learn from my mistakes. For every Aaveg PI thereafter, I decided to go slightly prepared. Let me tell you why my first PI was sort of disastrous. In my first PI, I was so unprepared that I wasn’t even aware which edition of Aaveg I so desperately wanted to be a part of. I didn’t know the names of more than two-three Core members. In short, I had walked into a battlefield completely unarmed.
Amidst the hustle of the Aaveg inductions, one more major event turned up. I call it a major event because it was one event that was a major turning point in my life (so far at least). With Ethnic Night 2017 round the corner, we were all thrilled. The reasons were obvious; we could all dance to the most popular beats with all our friends and also eat from the food stalls that had been put up outside the Barn Hall that had been majestically decked up. Ever since Ethnic Night posters started popping up on every group chat, I had it all planned out. I had chalked out how I would make that day special for Sneha and me.
On the big day, the entry to the barn, the lanes that lead to barn and everything around the barn hall was adorned. The warmth of the dim fairy lights, the thumping of the music in the Barn and the silence in the lanes around it created an aura that I can never explain in words. And there I stood, wearing my grey kurta and white jeans. I ruffled my hair over and over and over again, waiting in anticipation for her. I wasn’t exactly nervous. All I could feel was an adrenaline rush gushing through my veins. It was around half an hour after the stipulated time that I could see a petite figure dolled up in a black saree carefully treading towards me.
“Hey you can look good too, haha.” She said nervously. There she was trying to ease the situation, as usual, being the wonderful person she is.
“You too Sneha….beautiful I mean.” I stammered. She giggled a little and then looked up at me. I gazed into her eyes, trying to read what she was thinking, but her eyes shied away, while her lips read a soft smile.
We walked towards the EEE auditorium and with every step my feet became more and more jittery while my hands fidgeted with my phone. The 2 minute walk seemed like a couple hundred miles. We walked in silence; a very comfortable silence. All of a sudden I mustered courage from I have no clue where.
“Sneha I really like you. I really do.” I blurted out with no tact whatsoever.
She just stared at me wide-eyed with a tender smile playing around the corner of her lips.
“What….why are you smiling?” I asked taken slightly aback.
Silence.
“You took long enough to say that.” She said half smiling.
Stillness.
“I do too….” she said looking up at me for a fraction of a second before looking away.
Tranquility. Serenity. Ecstasy.
There. Day made. Month made. Year made. It was like everything went into radial blur mode. All I could see was her; her straight her curled at the ends swaying gently to the tunes of the soft breeze, her eyes transfixed at the ground, her fingers playing with the hem of her saree. Indeed, this was euphoria, an immortal nectar of bliss.
The rest of the evening passed in a haze. My favourite part being us walking into the Barn Hall hand in hand. Dim lights, loud peppy music, a group full of wonderful friends and the impression of being on cloud nine; Ethnic Night was a night to be remembered, to be cherished and adored for sure.
