TABLE OF CONTENTS
Her New Home
8th June 2017, Mumbai
“So this is the city where I will spend the next 2 years of my life?”Vaishali took a deep breath and yelled
“Good Morning Mumbai”
“Who is this weirdo” “Doesn’t she realize that it’s 6 pm right now” The crowd mumbled
She was too excited and, in that excitement, she lost sense of her surroundings.
She realized it soon and ran for her cab standing at exit no.1 of the Bombay International Airport.
She got into the cab and directed the driver towards her destination. It was exactly as she had seen in the photos she had, high rise buildings, tons of corporate offices, and lots of traffic. The city of success was as magnificent as it can get.
She saw the most popular street food of Mumbai, the one and only “vada pav”.
She somehow resisted the temptation and to distract herself from it, she started taking photos of the city and sent it to her mom.
The bond she had with her mother was strong and she told her everything as if they were childhood friends.
From a distance she could look at it, the walls of the place she would call home for the next 2 years. Her eyes a different kind to sparkle, exactly what it was when she was selected to realize her dream.
“Bhaiya stop at Gate No.2,” Vaishali told her cab Driver
“400 rupees!, Mumbai is as they all say, very costly”
She looked at the gate of the campus, her face glittered and her body shivered, just one look and she felt as if she was in love. She near the saw 3-4 guards near the gate, moved a few steps forward, and asked them where was the auditorium. One of them told her to go straight and then left, right and a ton of directions.
She forgot most of what the guard told her and took a wrong turn but to the right place, she was standing in the front of the hostels and they looked as magnificent as they would in the photos.
Her phone rang, it was her mom
“Oh shit, I forgot to call her, I had told her that I’ll call her as soon as I get here” she picked up the phone, a little scared.
“So it has not even been a day of you being away from home and you have stopped giving us any updates, well-done beta, is this how you treat your friends?, You had time to post a photo on social media but no time to even call me, huh?”
“That is not the case mom, I just, just, got distracted, that’s all”
Vaishali glanced at her watch while talking to her mom.
“Sorry mom, it is 7:15 already and I am not even close to the place I have to report within the next 15 mins”
Vaishali started running for the auditorium and kept on asking people for directions, talking to her mom as she didn’t let Vaishali cut the call.
Wham! She bumped into someone and her phone fell on the ground.
“I am sorry, are you okay?”
Vaishali looked at the man standing in front of her, "he looks cute", she thought, she came back to her senses soon enough and picked up her phone.
“Yes yes, I am okay, sorry but do you know where is the auditorium?”
“I am a first-year and I am looking for the auditorium myself, by the way, my name is Karan”
“Hi Karan, I am Vaishali, since it is 7:25 already, why don’t we look for the auditorium first and then introduce ourselves?”
“Sure, I asked someone and he told me to go right after 100 meters from here ”Karan said with a smile on his face and pointed towards the direction he was told to go.
Well, they eventually ended up reaching the auditorium at 7:29, they were not late, there were around 40-50 people there, all first years, they thought.
The gates opened at exactly 7:30, it was a hint at how punctual they had to be for the next two years. They entered and stared at the auditorium in awe, Vaishali started imagining herself on stage.
“Hey, they have mentioned our application numbers on the seats, I have mine just on your right” Karan told Vaishali who was lost in her world.
“Vaishali, Earth to Vaishali, anyone home?”
“Sorry sorry, I was just thinking about something, what were you saying?” Vaishali was back in the real world from her short and sweet daydream.
“What are the last 3 digits of your application number?”
“hmm,129, why?”
“129…, there, on the third row to your right,7th seat”
“Okay, thanks Karan, where is your seat?”
“Just to your right” Karan smiled again
“Well then, I’ll see you after the orientation”
“Yeah, see you whenever it ends”
They were right when they said if you miss the orientation you miss half of your college life.
It was like she already knew about the college even before experiencing those things first hand.A voice came from behind,
“Hi Vaishali, meet Rajat, he was sitting next to me and he talks a lot ” Karan said
“What gibberish, you are the one who didn’t stop talking the whole time and you’re blaming me now? , leave him, Hi Vaishali, I am Rajat Arora” and gestured his hand towards her.
“Hi Rajat, you already know my name so let’s talk about something else, so from where are you guys from?”
They talked while making their way to the hostel, Vaishali lost herself in the beauty of the campus many times in between, clicking pics of the mesmerizing view of the campus. They were at the hostel, in not more than 15 minutes and went to their respective hostels.
The room was the only thing that let her down, but what else she could’ve expected from the dorms of a 50-year-old college, there was a bunk bed on the right and a study table to the left, it was large enough to accommodate two people.
Vaishali’s roommate wasn’t there yet, she was supposed to arrive tomorrow as she had some problems at the last moment.
Vaishali finally took out her phone and stared at the screen
“15 unread chats, looks like all of them are about congratulating me and wishing me luck for the journey ahead, ugh, I’ll just copy-paste the thankyou message I wrote yesterday”
One message got her attention, it was from Vidit,
“Hi Vaishali, All the best for the amazing two years of your life, I know it is sudden but I wanted to talk with you about something important, drop me a message whenever you’re free to talk”
She kept thinking about what could it be, what is that Vidit wants to talk it out with her. As she was exhausted, She went into a deep slumber contemplating what could be so important.