Dedicated to
The loving memory of the girl whom I loved, yet could not marry.

– Anonymous

… Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come across an author in me.

Days pass by somehow
But nights now are a wagon of pain

Injuries may heal with time
But marks will always remain
Restless on my comfortable bed

I toss and turn and try to sleep But thoughts are bulking my head

And have formed a huge heap The past is flashing its scorching light beams
Tearing me apart, breaking me at the seams,

The darkness of my life is more visible in the dark And now I am trying to give it a voice, trying to speak my heart.

Reunion

I remember the date well: 4 March 2006. I was in Kolkata and about to reach Happy’s home. I had been very excited all morning as I was going to see our gang of four after three years.

After our engineering, this was the first time when all of us—Manpreet, Amardeep, Happy and I—were going to
be together. During our first year in the hostel, Happy and I were in different rooms on the fourth floor of the Block-A building. Being on the same floor,

We were acquaintances but I never wanted to interact with him. I didn’t think him to be ‘a good guy’ because of his fondness for fights and the red on his mark sheet.

But, unfortunately, I was late in getting back to the hostel at the beginning of the second year and almost all the rooms were already allotted by then. I was not left with any choice other than becoming Happy’s roommate.

And because life is weird, things changed dramatically and, soon, we became the best of buddies. The day our reunion was scheduled, he had been working with TCS for two years and was enjoying his onsite project in London. Happy was blessed with a height of 6’1”, a good physique and stunning looks. And Happy was always happy. Manpreet, or MP as we called him, is short-statured, fair and
healthy.

The reason I use the word ‘healthy’ is because he will kill me if I use the proper word—‘fat’—for him. He was the first among us to get a computer in the hostel and his machine was home to countless computer games.

In fact, this was the very reason Happy and I wanted to be friends with him. MP was quite studious. He had even cracked the Maths Olympiad in his school days, and was always boasting about it.

His native place was Modinagar but, at the time of this reunion, he was working with Ocwen in Bangalore. Amardeep has been baptized ‘Raamji’ by MP. I don’t know when he got this weird nickname or why, but it was probably because of his simple, sober nature. Unlike the rest of us at the hostel, he was not at all a night person and his room’s light would go off precisely at 11 p.m. At times, MP, Happy and I used to stand outside his room a few seconds before 11 and begin to count down, ‘10, 9, 8, 7, 6,
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … and Raamji has gone down.’ The only mysterious thing about Amardeep was that he
used to go somewhere on his bicycle, every Sunday. He never told us where he went. Whenever we tried to follow him, somehow he would know and would digress from his path to shake us off.

Even today, none of us knows anything about it. The best thing about the guy, though, is his simplicity.

And,very importantly, he was the topper in the final semester of our Engineering batch. He made our group shine.

He belonged to Bareilly and was working with Evalueserve when he, along with MP, flew to Kolkata for the reunion.
After college, all of us were pretty much involved in our stereotypical lives. One day, we found out that Happy was coming back from London for two weeks. Everybody was game for a reunion.

‘Happy’s place in Kolkata, 4 March 2006,’ we decided.
Finally, on the scheduled date, I was climbing the stairs to Happy’s apartment two steps at a time. It
was about 12.30 in the afternoon when I knocked on his door. His mom opened it and welcomed me As I had often been there, she knew me well. For me, Happy’s house never meant too many formalities. I was having some water when she told me that Happy was not at home and his cell was
switched off.

‘Wow! And he asked me not to be late,’ I murmured to myself.

A little later, there was another knock on the door. I got up from my chair to open it, as Happy’s mom was in the kitchen. I pulled it open to shouts of, ‘Oh … Burrraaaaahhhh … Dude … Yeah …
Huhaaaaaaaaa … Ohaaaaaaaaaa!’

Huhaaaaaaaaa … Ohaaaaaaaaaa!’
No, it wasn’t Happy. MP and Amardeep had arrived.
Seeing your college friends after three years is so crazy and exciting that you don’t even realize you are at someone else’s place where you should show some manners and be polite. Then again, the very purpose of this reunion was to recall our college days and this was the perfect start.

While we made ourselves comfortable on the sofas in the drawing-room, MP asked about Happy’s whereabouts.
‘He’s not on time in his own home,’ I said looking at MP and we laughed again.
For the next half hour or so, the three of us talked, laughed and made fun of each other while eating
lunch made by Happy’s mother. Yes, we started our meal without Happy. This might not sound decent, but we had genuine reason—nobody could predict his arrival, so there was no point in waiting.

A little later, there was another knock. Happy’s mom opened the door.

‘Happy veeeeeeeer!’ MP shouted, getting up from the dining chair.

Amardeep and I stared at each other. It seemed as if MP was going to shed tears as he hugged Happy. We remembered how these guys used to cry during their long boozing sessions, when their brains switched off and their hearts started speaking.

Amardeep and I used to enjoy our Coke, while seeing them getting senti.
We all stood up to hug him and as soon as that was done, we continued our lunch. Happy also joined us.

The food that day was very tasty. Or maybe it was just because we were having lunch together after
so long and that made it special.

After lunch, we moved to another flat, a few floors above, in the same building

This was the second
flat which Happy’s family owned, and was meant for relatives and friends like us. We were laughing at one of MP’s jokes while moving in, and were probably still laughing as we fell on the giant couch in the drawing room—upside down—legs on the couch and our torsos on the floor, arms spread across and facing the ceiling; we made ourselves comfortable.

Nobody said anything for a few moments. And then it started again with Happy’s big laugh.

I guess he remembered some incident involving Raamji.
That evening, the four of us in that flat were having an amazing time. Talking about our past and present. About those not-so-goodlooking girls in college. About the porn we used to watch on our computer.

About our experiences abroad and many other things.‘So which one did you like more, Europe or the States?’ Happy asked me, getting up.
‘Europe,’ I replied, still lying down and looking at the ceiling.

‘Why?’ Amardeep asked. He always needed to find out the reason behind everything (though he never gave any reason for not telling us where he went every Sunday, during our hostel days). ‘Europe has a history. The languages change when you leave one country and move to another.

The food, the art and architecture, fabulous public transport, the scenic beauty, everything is just wonderful in Europe,’ I tried to explain.
‘You did not see all this in the US?’
‘Some things, like public transport, are not that good in comparison to Europe. You and your car are the only options in most of the states, New York being an exception. You won’t hear as manylanguages as you get to hear in Europe. I mean the US is damn advanced but still, I would prefer
Europe to the States.’
Amardeep nodded and this meant his questions had ended.

‘This is the best thing about IT jobs, Amardeep. We get to visit different places which we never
dreamt of during our college days,’ MP said to Amardeep. After college MP, Happy and I joined IT
firms, while Amardeep joined the KPO industry. He had never liked the hardcore software business.

We were glad to be together again, finally, after the farewell night in college and we kept talking for hours that afternoon. We were planning an outing for the evening when we realized how tired we were and how badly we needed a little rest … I don’t remember which one of us fell asleep first, that afternoon.

I WILL UPDATE SOON VOTE PLZ 😭💔