3 Aditya's First Love

Bhadra, who was the best friend of Aditya, leaned towards the side. He asked the boy seated to his left, "Jatin, did you notice that Aditya seemed a little strange from the last few days?"

Jatin was a handsome boy with a fair complexion. He looked at Bhadra as if he was an idiot and said, "of course, Aditya feels strange. His parents have been missing for four months. And now, he has been sleeping like a full-grown Koala bear. You think that sleeping 14 hrs a day is normal. In addition to the abnormal sleeping duration, he has also started sleeping during classes, which I think Aditya is using his condition as a pretext to being lazy."

Bhadra shook his head as he said, "no, I think its more than that. Nowadays he is speaking a lot less than normal and also talking about shitty philosophy like life and happiness. The other day, I wanted to get Aditya to stop being worried. So, as a means to distract him, I had even joked about stealing his crush when he was sleeping. Normally, that fellow would have gone berserk and launched an ultra-violent offensive. But, Aditya didn't pay attention and remained immersed in his thoughts as if he did not hear at all."

"Do you remember when that scholarly idiot, Mayur, had wanted to impress Anupama? He tried to answer tough Math questions asked by Kapil sir because we all know her favourite subject is Mathematics." Bhadra calmly asked while obstructing his mouth with his hand to prevent Kapil sir from noticing them. Kapil sir had his back turned to them as he explained various terms used in Calculus while writing on the smartboard with a stylus pen.

Jatin was jotting down notes and did not pay attention to their meaning. He just copied what Kapil sir was writing while hearing to Bhadra's comment.

When he heard Bhadra mention Mayur, Jatin had to stifle his laughter when he remembered Mayur's treatment in the hands of Aditya. That chilly night Mayur was forced to drink a gallon of milk while standing on the roof of dormitory building while only wearing his short pants.

Then salt was forced into his nose. His hair was trimmed to a very short length. In the end, Aditya was not even satisfied with this, so he forced Mayur to eat raw green chilli pepper till Mayur's eyes became bloodshot. Then he made Mayur repeat the words 'Anupama is my blood younger sister' a hundred times before letting him off.

It was the most memorable night for Bhadra's gang of which Aditya was a core member. Jatin also had a lot of fun that night, but afterwards, Mayur was forced to join their group as Aditya wanted to keep an eye on him. Bhadra and his friends also knew that night that Aditya took his first love pretty seriously. From then on, they did not joke about his feelings.

The immediate effect of that night was that Mayur had not only stopped taking a proactive interest in answering questions, not only in Mathematics but in all subjects. Unless he was asked, he would not answer on his initiative. Though his grades had not been affected, the teachers were quite surprised at Mayur's change.

But coming back to the main topic, Bhadra had observed that Aditya stopped feeling the same way since his parents went missing. Aditya would generally take a peek at Anupama when they were in the class or laboratory conducting experiments.

But from the last few days, he noticed that Aditya had completely ignored her. Today from when the classes began, he had not seen Aditya looking at her even once.

So that's why he wanted to rattle Aditya when Bhadra said that he would take away his girl when Aditya was sleeping. But, he didn't expect Aditya to ignore those words.

Bhadra told these observations to Jatin. Jatin, who was also part of the gang and was a good friend of Aditya, turned solemn as he said, "Then there is only one way."

Bhadra turned to look at the rare solemn look on Jatin and asked seriously, "what is it?"

"Make Aditya sleep with a prostitute."

"Don't fuck with me." Bhadra scolded, he was seriously expecting a feasible solution. But then Bhadra realised that he was still in the classroom. Bhadra was usually not the sharpest among the gang when it came to astuteness. Now that he was worrying about Aditya, his guard was lower than average.

Jatin forcefully suppressed his laughter when he saw all the students as well as Kapil sir turn towards Bhadra.

"What did you just say?" Kapil sir voice rising with every syllable. If Bhadra could not give a satisfactory answer, he was in for it.

Bhadra's thoughts rotated fast as he simultaneously cursed Jatin. He put up his most innocent face as he replied, "Sir, Jatin made a mistake in our previous musical instruments class. He had used his dormitory key to play the acoustic guitar instead of a guitar pick."

"I had thought that it was okay if it was a one-time thing. But, Jatin was saying that he feels that his dormitory key sounds are more pronounced than when using a guitar pick. So I had to reprimand him not to do so." Bhadra added innocently.

After listening to this explanation, not only Jatin or Kapil sir, all students were shocked because there seemed to be no connection with the words and the context provided by Bhadra.

Kapil sir sternly asked, "repeat what you had said to Jatin, exactly."

Bhadra maintained his composure as he said, "Don't pluck with a key." Jatin was shocked at these words, "worthily the leader of the gang", he thought as he flashed a thumbs up at Bhadra.

Though he had his doubts, Kapil sir could not act on them, so he said, "I don't care what you were talking about, Calculus is not an easy topic which could be self-studied. So pay attention."

Kapil sir knew that students would gradually lose their attention at the end of the class, so he would usually try to get there attention by asking some interesting question which was a little challenging. It looked like it was time for one of those.

So Kapil sir turned towards the students (around 40 of them), "okay so let us stop calculus introduction for now. I have a question for all of you."

All the students immediately had an exciting look on their faces after Kapil sir said those words. He would always ask fascinating questions which caused all the students to view these questions as challenges to overcome.

Usually, the person who answered these questions could impress the class flowers. So these question usually riled up their teenager's hot blood.

Kapil sir showed a small smile as he looked at the excited expressions of his students. He turned and wrote a logic puzzle called 'Blue eyes' on the smartboard.

'A group of people with assorted eye colours live on an island. They are all perfect logicians – if a conclusion can be logically deduced, they will do it instantly. No one knows the colour of their eyes. Every night at midnight, a ferry stops at the island. Any islanders who have figured out the colour of their own eyes then leave the island, and the rest stay."

" Everyone can see everyone else at all times. They keep a count of the number of people they see with each eye colour (excluding themselves), but they cannot otherwise communicate. Everyone on the island knows all the rules in this paragraph.

On this island, there are 100 blue-eyed people, 100 brown-eyed people, and the Guru (she happens to have green eyes). So any given blue-eyed person can see 100 people with brown eyes and 99 people with blue eyes (and one with green). But that does not indicate his eye colour; as far as he knows the totals could be 101 brown and 99 blue. Or 100 brown, 99 blue, and he could have yellow eyes.

The Guru is allowed to speak once (let's say at noon, and she always speaks the truth), on one day in all their endless years on the island. Standing before the Islanders, she says the following:

"I can see someone who has blue eyes."

Who leaves the island, and on which night?

All the students were intrigued as they read the puzzle while Kapil sir wrote it down. Everyone started discussing among themselves. Kapil Satyarthi did not stop them from talking among others. His eyes had already darted towards a female student who was the brightest in his class. She was the student who Kapil had regarded as his life's smartest pupil.

She was Anupama Acharya who Aditya had a crush on and had pursued actively for over a year. She was a beautiful flower in its embryonic stage. Anupama had a tall figure and lily-white complexion. Her jet black hair was long enough to reach her waist. (which was one of the characteristics that Aditya was attracted to). She had deep dark honey-coloured pupils, which sparkled with intellect and pride.

Her brows were slightly pressed while her honey brown eyes darted side to side as she read the puzzle. She tried to figure out the breaking point, while her delicate fingers, with unpolished nails, played with her pen. Her hair was tied in the Zari French Braid style which made her look classy at the same time versatile.

Bhadra was not interested in these games, his only interest lied in chemistry and pranking. While he knew Mayur could also answer this question if given time, his opinion like Kapil sir's, favoured Anupama sister-in-law.

Just like he expected, her hand went up after only a few minutes. Kapil sir smiled as he asked her to answer, though one need not stand while answering, she still stood up and turned towards the rest of the students. Her posture, her every movement expressed confidence and excellence. Even without hearing her answer, the rest of the students had already started nodding inside.

She smiled lightly and said, "100 people leave on the 100th night."

Kapil sir nodded while asking, "Can you please elaborate?"

Anupama nodded and said," I have deduced this result through an Inductive process. Let us assume that there is only one person with blue eyes on the island. The very first day after the guru's announcement, he/she could see that no other person has blue eyes. So he/she could deduce that she was the one with blue eyes."

The remaining students nodded when they heard these words. Anupama continued while pushing some loose bangs and tucking them behind her ear, "If there are two blue-eyed people, they will each look at the other. They will each realise that if he doesn't have blue eyes, then that guy is the only blue-eyed person."

"And, if he's the only person, he will leave tonight. They each wait and see, and when neither of them leaves the first night, each realises that he must have blue eyes also and each leaves the second night."

The students had their eyes glowing when they heard this logic. It felt even more special when their class goddess unwrapped the mystery for you. Anupama smiled and said, "by using the same method. In this case, we have 100 people with blue eyes. Each person has to wait for 99 days until they can confirm that he/ she has blue eyes also along with the other 99 persons. So on the 100th night, they all can board the ferry and leave the island." Anupama took her seat gracefully as all students were unravelling her answer and mulling over it.

After a moment, no one knows who started, but claps rang inside the class. Kapil sir also did not stop them immediately as he was also delighted with Anupama's answer.

Aditya waited at the class entrance for Anupama to finish her explanation. What Bhadra had observed about Aditya not caring about his love for Anupama was spot-on. But the reason was not because of his parents missing or his excessive sleeping problem. It was due to his dreams, which portrayed an alternate world to him.

To his surprise, he had proposed to Anupama, three months back in the 'dream world' (Aditya named that compilation of different dreams as 'dream world' for convenience). But the result was not only out of his expectations, but her reply destroyed his dream self's young, sensitive heart. It was due to this dream that Aditya had given up on his pursuit.

Even Aditya felt it weird and strange to make life's important decisions based on a dream, but these dreams were compelling. He believed that if he proposed to Anupama now, the result would be the same as in the dream.

His dreams showed him a possibility where he could live alongside his parents, who were missing in the real world. So, he had grown fond of these dreams and started taking them to his heart to fill the emptiness in his inner world. But now the same dream ruthlessly crushed his first love, so Aditya was in a paradoxical situation where he did not know whether to take these dreams to the heart or not.

The crucial part was, he saw things in his dreams, which he didn't know in the real world. He was shocked to find out that these details existed in reality as well.

For example, he had checked his home address in Geneva, in the dream world, and correlated with the information he checked on the internet. Those places in the city, street names, even the house which his parents had rented were present in Google Earth.

This discovery prevented Aditya from brushing of these dreams as a figment of his imagination. His conviction on the unusual nature of his dreams further strengthened with the medical diagnosis from the neurologist. Aditya's eye movements or brain waves indicated that he was having a dreamless sleep.

He looked at the beautiful face who was engaged in an academic discussion with her friends but surprisingly, the expected heartache did not come. When compared to his longing to know his parents' situation, the other feeling did not have much significance to him now. He sighed inside and walked back to his desk after taking Kapil sir's permission.