Karan looked across the floor of the store. He couldn’t be sure but the man browsing in the books section definitely looked like Amit. At least, like Amit might have looked thirty years older. He tried to convince himself that he was hallucinating and tried to look away. But his gaze kept getting drawn back to the man in the crew neck t-shirt.
“Amit”, he asked softly from the other side of the book rack.
Amit’s head jerked up. Karan detected a flash of recognition and love in his friend’s eyes before it shut down and a dead pair of eyes returned his gaze.
“Hi Karan”, Amit said in a most noncommittal tone.
“Hi”, Karan replied with an enthusiasm that more than made up for the lack of the same in Amit’s tone. “Fancy running in to you after all these years. Where have you been? C’mon, let’s grab a coffee. There is so much to catch up on.” He said all this in a single breath to not allow Amit to cut him off or wriggle out. As they met beside the rack, Karan pulled Amit into a tight hug while noticing his friend’s lack of enthusiasm. But there was nothing that could ruin this moment for Karan.
“Where have you been all these years? For a year after college, I went to your place multiple times. Each time your parents told me you would get in touch when you were ready. Then life took over and I am ashamed to say I never went back.”
The two talked for hours. Finally, someone came and informed them that both their flights were boarding. They exchanged mobile numbers and promised to keep in touch before being guided in opposite directions towards their gates.
***
Mor and Khargosh sat down to watch the scene unfold. Across the road from the tea shop where the two friends sat, the third arm of their trident, Kachua, approached Mariam, who was waiting for her bus home after college.
Kachua had been obsessed with Mariam from the first day he saw her, which was also their first day in the college. It was easy to see why. She was a classical beauty – sharp features, slim, tall, long hair, the works. Over the past three years, he had professed his love to her multiple times; and she had rebuffed him every time. He would end each of those conversations with, “Cool, I’ll ask you in a few months’ time.”
What surprised everyone was why she continued to stay friends with him. Through all the unwanted attention, she would never break off the friendship. That, in a way, was the reason for his continued hope that one day she would recognize his true love for her and accept his proposal.
With less than a couple of months to go before they left college, his time was running out.
But when Kachua turned around to look at them with a beaming smile, they knew this proposal had received a positive answer. A few more words with her and Kachua ran across the road to ask Mor for his motorcycle to drop Mariam home.
***
“I wish I could look that good in something so silly”, Kachua said to Khargosh as they watched Bharat walk the ramp at the intercollege festival.
Mor was everyone’s typical idea of the college stud. An outstanding sportsman, blessed with a natural athleticism that most people had to work hard for. But once he left the field, instead of hanging out with the jocks, he preferred to hang out with Amit and Karan. It surprised a lot of people when he left the college hostel to move in with the two nerds. They had become fast friends over the first semester. Around them he felt safe, unjudged. Everywhere else, he was under the spotlight. It was tiring.
The two friends were sitting on the wall sharing a cigarette. On the ramp, Bharat strut about wearing what was a bedsheet that he’d styled like a kaftan and paired it with jeans.
“It helps to be handsome”, Karan noted.
“Does it piss you off that he gets away with almost everything with his looks and smile”, Kachua asked. “It gets my goat. But it is useful when we are in trouble together.”
***
“Hey Kachua”, Karan said into the phone.
“It’s thirty years since I was called that”, Amit replied.
“It better be. I’d be insulted if someone called you that since the last day of college. That would mean you met someone from college without meeting me.”
Amit laughed and said, “It was good catching up man. I really didn’t know how much I missed you until I boarded the plane.”
“Same to same”, Karan said, using the term they had picked up in college to indicate that they agreed on something.
There was a brief pause before Karan said, “I spoke to Mor.” Then he waited.
The pause that followed was thick with tension.
“How is he”, Amit asked. “How is his design outfit?”
“You know what he is doing?”
“I kept track of both of you”, Amit confessed. “LinkedIn is useful that way.”
“Kachua, can we meet up?”
“Where?”
“I mean the three of us”, Karan clarified.
“I don’t know”, Amit replied.
***
“What happened”, Khargosh asked Kachua as he stepped off the stage.
It was a shock elimination from the quiz contest. Amit was the best quizzer in the college and was widely expected to win.
“Happens”, Karan reassured his friend.
“Leave me alone for a bit, please.”
Karan went back to the hall where the quiz was on. Amit went out to the tea shop to sit by himself. A couple of teas and cigarettes later he was still tense and decided to go back to the apartment he shared with Khargosh and Mor.
Entering the house, he froze. Mariam had just come out of the kitchen wearing just a towel around her. Surprised by his presence, she let out a yelp which brought Bharat out from the bedroom.
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