Yesterday, Sagar made a startling revelation to all his buddies, including me.
'I love her, guys. I am the Next.'
'Whom?', we asked in chorus, as if rehearsing for some third-rate, forcibly-make-believe street play. Though I never used to get his unnecessary jargon I did get a hint of what his 'next' would be about.
'Aastha, you dumbos.', I heard from him and thought 'who's the dumbo ?'
For a second there was the silence of confusion. I suppose all of us were ten percent happy and ninety percent amazed at his courage. Happy for his face was lighted with cheer, a face that had just managed to smile mildly for a second when he got a cent in his Numerical Analysis paper, and then made up by yawning for a minute. Amazement, was even more obvious. Aastha had dozens of aspirants dreaming of her, and half of them were listening to Sagar at this moment. Though the amazement was at his imagination that made him believe he could win the race. The other day a seminar on 'Heights of Imagination' was arranged by the cultural society people. We never knew he had attended it even as he told us he's going to sleep in his room. Now we were sure he did.
Probably he attended it sitting on the front bench. That is his trademark. Sagar isn't a stud, apart from his grades. But no one knows about his grades. Yes I forgot he's unknown too. Half the class wouldn’t recognise him on phone, because they'd not have ever heard his voice.
'Its DCE mate! Where every girl with two feet and a nose considers herself an Aishwarya Rai and all of us some Rajpal Yadav duplicate. And you're talking about the best goddamn material there is.', yelled Abhay. Pretension was never Abhay's forte. But he could have done without this one, I thought. So I went ahead to mend matters so that Sagar doesn't get depressed.
'Great Man! Who knows, you might not even talk to this funny Abhay once you're done. You know what I mean.', I added with a superficial smile followed by a wink of an eye that didn’t come naturally with the mood either.
'What the hell. I thought you guys would be happy on hearing this. You guys are no friends. You are hopeless.'
None of said a word, and we agreed to him partly. Apart from Vaibhav who chuckled, 'Better be hopeless than a hopefool!' and then laughed loudly and raised his palms before mine hoping I'd clap my hands to his. That was a tough situation for me. I had already resisted laughing out along with him, but now I had to refuse his clap too. I couldn't resist the temptation. On the spur of the moment, I clapped my hands against his, and then immediately looked back at Sagar and winked an eye to him indicating to him that Vaibhav's the fool. Sagar looked foolishly confused.
After about an hour of conversation in which most of us were hell bent towards pessimism, Rajat finally agreed to help him out. Rajat had a better track record than all the others, so that made Sagar all the more bullish on his chances of success. Though I'd still call the bullishness, pure foolishness, but they were both very proud of their optimism.
Rajat has got this better reputation than all of us, all for nothing I believe. I have never believed his tales about his sky high feats. And none of those feats had been achieved in front of our eyes, we were just told about them. By none other than Rajat himself. All I held about him was that he is my friends' friend who knows nothing better than occupying one computer centre seat all the time and never taking his ass off it, however important the waiting guy's work on the computer might be. He was as happy about his fanlist on orkut reaching two hundred as Mika might have been at the Rakhi Sawant pappi. He is known to have more than a thousand friends there, and doesn't forget to mention at the slightest provocation that he has more people in his fanlist as you'd have in your friends' one. The addict that he is, I wouldn't be surprised if he answers his exam sheets starting with a 'u there?' and putting a :) following correct answers, a :( following presumably incorrect ones, brb before his 'may I go to toilet/drink water' breaks, and gtg at the end of the exam. That might as well be the case infact, coz hiz marx r a bl8ant p8h8ic. He is a humble guy though, lolzz.
Anyways, I went back to my room then, my eyes already strained by the excessive winking.
( ...... Shall be continued )
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