Hi! I am Raj. I am going to be your sto­ry­teller. I am 18 years old study­ing sci­ence in St Xavier’s Cal­cutta, oops! Kolkata. The com­mu­nist have recently re-​​christened the city to Kolkata. Shake­speare once wrote “What’s in a Name?” this is one writer I am sure they didn’t do a lot of read­ing on. I want to tell you so many things about myself, my gang and so many more things, but I am feel­ing sleepy after the party we had today. Today is the last day before we enter into a new phase of our lives. Tomor­row is our first day to col­lege and don’t want to be late for that. So it’s time for me to hit the sack. I will let you in on the oth­ers in the morn­ing. Good night, sweet dreams, adios amigos.

Knock! Knock!

What Morn­ing already!! Man What time is it? It’s just 9 ‘o’ clock.

“Raj Wake up dear. Today is your first day to col­lege. You bet­ter hurry up or you will be late” Mom

Man first day at col­lege, and I don’t want to spoil my rep­u­ta­tion on the first day itself. Need to hurry– up. A quick shower; some cool casu­als; my lap­top; my note­book; my bag; my bike keys yes all set.

“Mom is my break­fast ready “

“Yes son, are you ready? Come down soon. Rohit had called up twice.”

My Mom, she is the most beau­ti­ful woman in the world, very tra­di­tional, yet very mod­ern in her out­look. She is my con­fi­dant. Now where are my shades, here they are, as usual dif­fi­cult to find some­thing in this mess. I need to clean-​​up this mess, later I guess. No time right now, get­ting late. I speed down­stairs, we have a duplex house. Wow sand­wiches, great. I caught hold of a cou­ple as I speed out of the house.

“Don’t gob­ble your food, eat slowly and best of luck. Try and be home early our new neigh­bours the Seth’s are com­ing over for din­ner. You need to give com­pany to their daugh­ter. Your dad will also be home soon. So don’t be too late” My mom yelled at me as I ran through the door

“Okay! Bye mom.” I shouted back.

Now off to Rohit’s place, Rohit is my best friend we prac­ti­cally grew up together. We have been liv­ing in the same soci­ety all our lives and have been friends now for don­key years. Our par­ents met at some soci­ety event when we were small enough to be car­ried around and we have been friends since. Our friend­ship has only grown stronger since. I just slam into his house, come and go as I please and I treat his par­ents as mine.

“Hi! Aunty, Rohit’s there.”

“No Raj. He was get­ting late he left.”

“Okay aunty. Bye” oh my god! This Rohit is also very funny, first day to col­lege and he ditched me. I will see him later. For now need to hurry up. Like many of my age fel­low, I have a bike, Yamaha, it’s awe­some. What speed, what pickup!

Finally I reached col­lege. Amaz­ing it is the best col­lege in Kolkata. Lovely crowd, amaz­ing girls wow. I love being in col­lege. Where the hell is Rohit? Ah! There he is “Hi Rohit! What’s this? First day and you came with­out me. This is not good. You should have waited for me.”

“If I would have waited for you I would have def­i­nitely missed the first day. Any­way, it’s good you came on time. Our first lec­ture is in 5 min.” said Rohit.

Rohit is a lit­tle shy, very good at stud­ies, always use to top, he, like me, loves music. He is tall, fair, got a good physique. Girls sim­ply love him. But he just shies away from them. Not much of a talker thou. We have been good brats.

“5 min. I thought first day, there will be some rag­ging, some intro’s, and meet new girls, make new friends.”

“Okay, okay now hurry up. Our class is on first floor.”

Rohit rushed up the stairs. I fol­lowed. Sud­denly Bang. Rohit had bumped into some­body. Wow what a babe. She is look­ing so stun­ning. Man I wish I was the one bump­ing into her. Rohit helped her and asked if she was okay.

I neared Rohit. “So Rohit how was it.”

“Shut up.” Rohit hit me with his note­book on the back of my head

“Okay! Chill dude!! Relax!! Just a Question.”

We reached our class. The very first period was Chem­istry, how bor­ing. Lec­turer came in seemed to be an old man around 50’s. Who cares? The crowd looks good. “Hey! Rohit. The girl you bumped into. She is in our class.”

“Will you just shut up?”

Rohit is a very stu­dious sort of guy and con­cen­trates on his lec­tures and keeps per­fect notes. That has helped me scrape through this.

Rohit is a very stu­dious sort of guy and con­cen­trates on his lec­tures and keeps per­fect notes. That has helped me scrape through school. This teacher sucks man. I have been try­ing to fol­low him, but I almost doze off by the end of the sen­tence. Rohit keeps elbow­ing me to stay awake. But who cares I need to catch some sleep. When will it get over, its already an hour Man. The pro­fes­sor is scrib­bling some assign­ment on the board. Damm!! Today is sup­posed to be the first day. Get some life!

Finally, looks like the tor­ture is over. Oh No! Another hour of lec­ture now – it’s Physics, bet­ter. He seems to be a bet­ter guy, looks quiet young too. Well he teaches well. Why does it have to hap­pen this way — monot­o­nous lec­tures after lec­tures after lec­tures, need a break. Cool! Recess finally.

“Rohit lets go to the col­lege canteen.”

“Ok. Let’s go.”

“So what do you think of col­lege man?”

“The lec­tur­ers are really good, very expe­ri­enced and they teach well.”

“I am not ask­ing about the teach­ers. I am ask­ing how you found — the cam­pus, the crowd; isn’t it cool.”

“Yeah”

“So what will you like to have, cof­fee.” I asked Rohit, who just nod­ded his head. “Two cof­fees please” I said at the counter.

The Col­lege can­teen tends to become the cen­tre of attrac­tion, with stu­dents buzzing in and out of it all through the day. Look any­where and you will always find a bunch of friends chill­ing out, maybe because of free lec­tures or sim­ply bunk­ing lec­tures. Then you find those stu­dents always in the rush, run­ning from one lec­ture to another stop­ping over for a quick bite. Then there are the eter­nal res­i­dents, usu­ally repeaters or good for noth­ing fel­lows. I could see such a group right across the hall. Some­body called from that direc­tion, try­ing to get our attention.

“Hey Raj is some­body call­ing us.” said Rohit.

“Yeah that guy wear­ing the red t-​​shirt; wear­ing gog­gles. He is call­ing us, may be a senior. Let’s go”

“Yes, you called” I asked.

“Yeah hey what’s your name?”

“Raj, sir“

“And you blue t-​​shirt” senior look­ing towards Rohit.

“Rohit, sir”

“Now, do you see that girl sit­ting there in the cor­ner? Go give this rose to her and tell her you love her.” The senior said point­ing towards the girl.

This is going to be fun; of all the peo­ple in the world they have picked Rohit for the dare. Boy am I wait­ing for the out­come or what. I was try­ing to con­trol my laugh­ter as best I could. Rohit was very hes­i­tant, he is really uncom­fort­able with a girl, but given the sit­u­a­tion, he pro­ceeded towards the girl. As I closely observed she was the same girl Rohit had bumped into ear­lier in the day. He went slowly towards her. Rohit excused him­self, and when she turned around, gave her the rose and said I love you. Boy that was awe­some. Really, I never expected Rohit to do some­thing like this.

Bamm!!

The girl had Slapped Rohit right across the face. Rohit was stunned; he just stood there hold­ing on to his cheek. Poor fel­low did not know what hit him; he just turned around and walked back. Every­body at the scene burst out laugh­ing; even I could not con­trol my laughter.

The rest of the after­noon lec­tures passed with­out any fur­ther inci­dents. Rohit seemed to be lost in his own world dur­ing the remain­ing lec­tures. Phew what a day. Off to home.

Our apart­ment is ide­ally located in the cen­tre of the city, hav­ing all the mod­ern ameni­ties. We have a swim­ming pool, recre­ation room, pool table, table ten­nis room, bad­minton court, squash court, and a health club. A nice gar­den enclosed within the four tow­er­ing apart­ment build­ing. The land­scape was beau­ti­fully done, dot­ted with some of the best flow­ers, water bod­ies and gaze­bos; a nice pave­ment run­ning round the park; few odd benches, on either side of it.

Dur­ing evening hours, Rohit and I spend about an hour at the health club. As you might have guessed by now, I am the lazy kind and not much of a exer­cise per­son, I just accom­pany Rohit, who is a com­plete health freak.

“Mom I am back. I am going to the health club now. I will come back soon. You need some­thing for the guests”

“No thank you dear; come soon, call Rohit also, for dinner.”

“Okay.” I took my sweat shirt and gym bag.

We worked out for about an hour, Rohit was par­tic­u­larly intense in his work­out, I assume it was the fall­out of the inci­dent at the col­lege. I did not speak much. I just told Rohit he had to come over for din­ner. So we pushed off to get ready.

Back at home all arrange­ments had been done. Dad was also back home early. The door­bell rang. It was Rohit. Rohit and I moved over to my room. I was show­ing him the new music col­lec­tion I had recently loaded on my com­puter. We were busy lis­ten­ing to them, when some­one knocked at the door.

“Can we come in?” It was mom’s voice.

I low­ered the vol­ume and opened the door. Wow! I was in trance see­ing such a beau­ti­ful girl stand­ing next to mom. I was try­ing to remem­ber her face. I have def­i­nitely seen her some­where. Any­ways she was gor­geous. I couldn’t really take my eyes of her beau­ti­ful lips and ocean calm eyes.

“This pretty lady is Nisha and this here is my son Raj, and he is Raj’s friend Rohit”

“Hi” She said some­thing on those lines I believe. I was lost, what a beau­ti­ful voice she had.

“Hi” both Rohit and I said in slow chorus.

“Raj, take good care of her” Mom inter­rupted my gaze.

“Okay mom, don’t worry”.

”Nisha have a seat. Make your­self comfortable.”

“Thanks, nice room.”

“Thank you”

“Nisha, he is my best friend, Rohit”

“Hi, I am sorry for what hap­pened in col­lege. It was not my fault.” Nisha said look­ing towards Rohit. I was perplexed.

Then it struck me, she was the girl who had smacked Rohit. “Now I remem­ber, you had smacked my friend that was pretty rude you know. He was just being ragged by his seniors. Poor soul had not been able to con­cen­trate on his lec­tures since then. May we know the rea­son for the smack from the blue” I demanded.

“Sorry. Actu­ally I was told by the senior girls to do so. Look, I didn’t mean it. I am Sorry”

“That’s ok, it’s all part and par­cel of being a fresher.” Way to go Rohit. Man all day long he as been behav­ing as if he was going kill her and now he is being all sporty and all. My foot, I will see to it later. They shook hands and every­thing was forgotten.

“So Nisha what are your hob­bies, and how do you find these apartment?”

“I like, read­ing nov­els, lis­ten to music, danc­ing, going out. And this place is wonderful.”

“You like music what kind of music, soft roman­tic singles?”

“Cool I have some loaded on my comp. You can hear them any time you want. Would you like to hear some now?”

“Really! That will be great.” Said Nisha.

“From tomor­row you can come with us to col­lege, Right Rohit?” I said putting on the music.

“Yes off course, why not?” Rohit added, he had been quiet all this while.

“Thanks. It’s nice of you.”

“Our plea­sure” I was quick to pounce on the opportunity.

“Raj, bring your friends down for dinner.”

“Ok mom. So let’s go friends.”

We moved over to the din­ing room. Nisha’s father and my dad were enjoy­ing a drink. Her Mother and my mom were get­ting along very well. As if they have known each other for years. We had our din­ner. Some jokes were shared I intro­duced myself to Nisha’s mom and dad. And in about another hour every­body left.

Rohit and I went off to the ter­race. We usu­ally do that. It’s a quiet place, with a cool breeze blow­ing; you can get a good full view of Kolkata. The Sec­ond Hooghly Bridge is clearly visible.

“She is a nice girl isn’t she” Rohit sud­denly broke the rather silent con­ver­sa­tion that we were hav­ing with the city lights.

“What’s the mat­ter Rohit have you fallen for her.”

“Shut up. I was just saying.”

“Yeah right, I under­stand every­thing.” I said inter­rupt­ing him.

“What did you understand?”

“First meet­ing, you bumped into her inten­tion­ally. Then went and pro­posed her. Then she slapped you. And when she said sorry, you said its okay it hap­pens. Great, any­thing else you want for evidence.’

“What rub­bish”

“Rohit is in love. Rohit is in love.” I started shout­ing and run­ning and Rohit started chas­ing me. He caught me and pushed me on to the floor and started pound­ing me with soft punches. Then sud­denly we heard some­body. To our hor­ror, it was Nisha. Rohit left me.

“Hi Nisha.” I said. ”we just fight some­times. So how… Come …you are up here”

“It was cool and breezy, and I wanted to see how the city looked at night from up here. Nice view isn’t it.”

“Yeah” we said in cho­rus. Rohit and I again exchanged glances.

There was silence for some time. There was noth­ing much to talk about, just a long silence. We had a huge ter­race and at times we would play cricket all day even at nights. We had benches made near the walls where we were sit­ting. What am I think­ing? I finally decided to break the silence.

“Nisha tell us some­thing about you. I believe you have stayed in London.”

“Yes that was quiet a long time back I was 10 when we came back to India. We lived there for 8 year. About myself, I was born in Delhi and I am a cancerian.”

“Really when is your b ‘day?” I asked

“11^th July”

“Great mine is on 10^th. That’s beside the point, please con­tinue” I qui­etened down as Rohit gave me a stern glare.

“My Dad is a busi­ness man. He shifted his base to Kolkata. My mom is a house­wife. I enjoy mak­ing new friends, sit on the Inter­net; I want to do post-​​graduation in chemistry.”

“Great. You and I have many com­mon inter­ests. Except for that last bit” I said.

“Nisha” some­body called. “That’s mom I got to go. Meet you tomorrow.”

“I will be there to pick you up for col­lege at 9 ‘o’ clock.”

“Okay. Bye. Bye Rohit.” She left.

“Bye Rohit. OOO! It’s get­ting hot out here.” I tried to mimic Nisha’s tone and style. Rohit punched me hard this time. It is dif­fi­cult to escape from him. I finally called it quits.

“Raj did she hear us.”

“Hear What?”

“The talk we were hav­ing before she came in?”

“No Rohit. I don’t think so. Let’s get going. We have col­lege tomor­row, how bor­ing.” We walked down. Rohit left for his house. He lives in the next block.

I was tired as hell and imme­di­ately hit the bed.