SMOKING KILLS

It had been 2 weeks of my continuous encounter with the girl; but all I ended in was a cursory smile and a slight wave of hand, which she just started noticing and passed a smile back.We never had any vocal conversation within this period , not even a 'Hi' from eithers mouth. But still she responded to my sign language, may be because we bumped into each other, (obviously in my thoughts) for almost 2 weeks exactly at same time and place.Sometimes I thought it was weird, but I just kind of liked it.
In the evening when I came out of my room I saw Abhinav and Bihari smoking their 'twilight' Gold Flake.I somehow didn't like the smell. I was a little worried, because our landlady will kick up a row if she gets to know about this smoking episode.
And above all the Great dramatist Tharki always had the pain in his stomach of not digesting even the tiniest of the secrets.So the threat was not the lady alone but Tharki too.
"yaar Abhinav,agar Tharki ko pata chal gaya to problem ho jaayegi". If Tharki gets to know this he could make us land in troubled waters. I said to Abhinav nervously.
"Don't worry,yaar I'll take care of Tharki and the lady too."Passing the Gold to Bihari,who too didn't looked too much worried about the case.
"Hey! who the hell is smoking",suddenly Tharki stepped in.
"Is there a problem?" asked Abhinav puffing out thick rings of smoke out of his mouth,more precisely on Tharki's face.
"ya"'
"so who asked you to come out of your room."said Abhinav.
Tharki was now getting annoyed so he left the room grimacing in pain...in his thoughts.
"huh...!'' Abhinav murmured something which was possibly a strong abusethose which include your seven generations in one word.
Leaving them I walked towards CM's room (CMT).I knocked at his door a couple of times but he just shouted "aa raha hoon" I am coming.After about 5 minutes the door opened and CM's 6ft tall thin frame was leaning on the door,a towel was tied across his waist and water was dripping all over his body from his long wet hairs which almost covered his face.
"Had a bath or what?" I asked.
"Ya,was just doing prayers so it took some time to open the door", he said.
"come,come in".
As I walked in I smelled the odour of the dhoop batti,but it was not smelling sweet as it usually do smell,may be I was smelling something fishy in that room.
"Hey is the smell of the dhoop batti?".I asked CM again pondering how bad has gone the quality of dhoop batti's nowdays,but something in the back of my head said this is the smell of the cigarette mixed with the dhoop batti.
"ya,ofcourse its the dhoop only,why?"he clarified.
Suddenly Abhinav and Bihari broke into his room,and no sooner than Abhinav entered and he asked "Cm are you a smoker?"
"N..n..no" CM stammered in shock as if he was asked to drop down his pants.
"No !you just can't fool me dear,its the smell of the cigarettes and the empty pack of the Gold Flake says the rest of the story",said Abhinav smiling wickedly pointing towards a pack of Gold Flake lying beneath CM's pillow.The guy was swelling with pride for his detective skills,detective my ass.
CM hung his head in embarassment and didn't said a word.
"don't worry yaar, we both are also of the same category as you",said Bihari winking at him.
These words gave CM a lot of confidence and as a loyal suttebaaz he offered them GOLD.
And three of them had their first mutual cigaratte.

IRONICALLY, THE SMOKE CLEARED THE AIR.

"Yaar, I just didnt' want to tell you all about this because you just cant' trust anyone and God knows who'll spill the beans...." CM didnt' even completed his sentence,suddenly a loud roar took us by surprise.
"Beans are spilled dear and now I am gonna tell your parents" roared our landlady.
Everybody looked each other quizzingly but it didn't help.
I looked at the pack of Gold Flake lying on the bed with a warning on it in bold letters
"SMOKING KILLS"
Which had almost came true in our case.
Later that night Abhinav had a hot potato meal with his parents,which ended in Abhinav making a promise to them to not to smoke again.But promises are made to be broken,as soon as he hung up the phone he was in Bihari's room taking a drag of peace from his Gold Flake with his old dont' give a damn" kind of attitude.
Definitely the boy had his own ways and no good in telling him his mistakes.
Because according to him he doesn't commit any.

JAW DROPPERS

Next morning,there was again the battle for the bathroom,but this time including Tharki also.But Abhinav was capable of keeping Tharki awayfrom the bathroom,for a turn or two.He throwed tantrums like that of a five years old;but none of us even bothered about it.This time I left the room all on my own without accompanying anyone to avoid being late again for the class.But destiny!How can you run away fromyour fate?This time someone else got me late.This time it was a girl.

That could have been the last thing I remembered from that day had I had a weak heart.I skipped a beat.Or may be it just stopped beating altogether.I was numb.



She was breathtakingly beautiful.She would definitely cause jaws to drop down of any boy on this planet(and I was no exception to it).And I kid you not she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen till then.She had a face of a child,a perfectly drafted nose,flawless bright pink lips and a milky white complexion that would put photoshop to shame.

Oh hell!She was way out of my league.Either she was the Goddess or the Devil.She couldn't be possibly human.

I just couldn't look beyond her face.It was going strange this time;"the cup size didn't make the first impression this time".

She was wearing a light blue T-shirt of Bansal Classes and her wet hairs were shouting aloud that she just took a bath(may be she bathed in heavens).I thought.

"I am going to die.I am sure."

I just stared at her face,and nothing more I could have done at that moment.She turned to me or by mistake I just interrupted her view or whatever but she did noticed me;like Goddess looked upon her servant.

Suddenly,a cab came between us and the Goddess disappeared.I still could not make out what happened;may be I will just wake up in a while.



The whole day;even in class I just thougt about that girl.In the evening Abhinav came to me and asked me to come with him to the market;he had to buy some books.

While we were going to the market I was thinking that I was the kind of boy who never talked to a single girl in my school life;but today something else happened.I was a changed person.I wasn't seeing right,I wasn't hearing right;may be I was not alright.All I jus remembered was her face(jaw dropping).But I didn't tell anyone about it.

When we were returning back Abhinav went on to a "Panwala" and bought a pack of ciggarettes and I was taken aback.He didn't looked like as if he is a smoker.
I almost dropped my jaw twice that day.

LATE COMERS

We reached ALLEN about 10 minutes late."Huh....,now that chemistry teacher will not leave any stone unturned to insult me in front of whole class for my coming late......again".Said my new friend running out of breath as he rushed towards the classroom.I wished not to face the same thing in my class.I still have to reach the fourth floor ,and after running a 500m dash with almost 5 kg weight on your shoulders (i.e my bag) it was just next to climb the Everest without oxygen.

Till I reached the fourth floor I was a man of straw.I struggled to reach my class and also I was fearing the embarassment of of coming late in class.But soon it all came to an end.As I peeped inside the classroom door ;my chemistry teacher gave me a wicked smile and nodded his head.And I understood what he meant to say.I was not allowed to attend the class.Now I had plenty of time to relax and ease myself.I cursed myself for accompanying Abhinav and mising the chemistry lecture.In flood of emotions I even sulked at my teacher too.

But there were other surprise packages in the days play.What I saw was Abhinav the NAWAAB OF LUCKNOW(my ass) was staring the notice board.I wondered what the hell is he doing hereon 4th floor.I felt like to kick his ass hard;had not faculty been there I would have kicked him right there."Hey,what are you doing here?"I asked him.
"Big KLPD man,that Chaturvedi,didnt' allowed me to enter the class,bloody asshole".He sulked.
I wondered if abusing teachers behind their back is becoming an important ritual to be followed in student life.
"I think you share the same fate as mine,or rather should I say that we share the same "CHEMISTRY"".He smiled and winked at me.
I nodded in a yes.

"So,what are we going to do now?".Abhinav asked.
"What?Are we not going to attend other classes in the day?."I asked him a bit surprised.
"Are you crazy?Now no more classes for the day.I am done.Lets have a cup of coffeeand go back to our room".He said.
After the event that had occured earlier today,I was also not in the mood to attend any other class,and so we walked back to our room.

"Hey,CMT whats up bro;and where is Bihari?"Asked Abhinav to a tall thin boy.
I was a bit amused to hear his nameand wondered what CMT means.His six foot tall frame rested on the grills of the balcony.And believe me had he not been so skinny he was a stud.
"Nothing much Abhi just basking in the sunshine;and Bihari is in the bathroom his favourite place.By the way he is building pressure by smoking a 'bidi' inside."CMT replied.
Suddenly,a dark complexioned boy with curly hairs emerged out of the bathroom smoking a 'bidi',and still half asleep.
"Hey,are you the one who came last evening?"Asked CMT.
"Yes". I said.
"Hello I am Chuna Mani Tyagi".He said.
"What Mani?" I asked after failing to pronounce his tounge twister name.
"You can call me CMT".He said.
"OK CMT,I got it."I said.
I wondered his father might have been a big fan of Bhojpuri films or of TOLLYWOOD so he named his son after one of his favourite side actors from the above industries.
"And he is Sandeep,he is from Ranchi,so we call him Bihari because of his accent,by the way I am from Agra."Said CMT.
I had a small bit of talk to both of themand got to know that CMT was in Medical course,and Bihari was in AIEEE course and both were in ALLEN.
Now I realised what Abhinav meant by the ALLIEN group.
The day was exhausting one.Firstly,to battle it out with your flatmates for who's gonna shit first,to recall their tounge twisting names,missing out the classes and finally the crap food of "NATRAJ MESS" was icing on the cake.
But "Nawaab Saab'' didnt' gave it a damn and went on to his bed straightaway.I was just jealous of his carefree attitude and went on to take a nap cursing him.But the day was still not over.

"Knock!knock!"Somebody knocked at the door.I woke up still not completely out of my daydream of sleeping with my favourite bollywood actress(ya,I do often see such kind of dreams).And I was determined if this was Abhinav,man I am gonna blow his head off.I opened the door.
"Hello,can you give some water",said the person standing at the door.He was short and his lateral dimensions were a little more than the longitudnal ones,and had a small patch of hairs on his head.It looked as if someone has beaten the hell out of his head,which has resulted in shedding of his hairs from his head.I gave him a surprised look and thought that someone's guardians are on a visit.
"Namaste Uncleji";I said.
"Hey!hey!hey!I am not your uncle OK.I am Ankit Gupta;student in AIEEE course in ALLEN",he said dying out of embarassment of being called an uncle.
"Sorry brother",I apologised.
"By the way where are you from?"I asked him as I turned to give him my water bottle.
"I am from Meerut,you know,its very famous for bats and other cricketing goods...."
Oh man!what is this happening.This guy just took over the environment and was unstoppable,I was taken aback.I wondered how come people with parched throats can speak so much.Now I really believed why Meerut is famous for bats,not those cricket bats but these blood sucking bats,like the one who is standing in front of me and just fucking my brains.
I was hoping for a miracle to happen to save me from this idiot.
But that day God might have been not too busy to ignore my plead and miracle did happen.Abhinav came to my rescue.
"Hey,Uncle whats your problem,cant' you speak a little softly,you just fucked up my nap",he roared at this sucker Ankit and I just thanked him for doing that by the wink of my eye.
Ankit was dying out of embarassment of the "Uncle" thing and he gave his clarification to Abhinav also.
"Now,have you got the water?"asked Abhinav.
"Yes",he replied.
"OK,then you leave,I need to talk to Anuj something personal"said Abhinav giving him a weird look and Ankit(the late comer)left without saying a word.
"Bloody "Tharki",definitely an idiot"said Abhinav in frustration.
"I guess now he's got his new name too,"Tharki",I smiled.
Suddenly,CMT,Bihari,DJ,Jaiswal and Chetan(one of the other flatmates,not intrested in anything except books)all came in my room and were told about the new ALLIEN "Tharki".
"If there's a sequel of Star Wars,then Tharki will end up in making a perfect Allien without any makeup".I said and everybody smiled and nodded in agreement.

I was feeling much more comfortable with these guys then last evening;especially with Abhinav.
This was the begining of a very special "LOVE-HATE" relationship between us.