It's About Selfless Support

"People who are competent of constructing a way on the ground of coincidences always enjoy a better life, they probably believe more in existence and superiority of the creator, they believe in the oneness of the most merciful."

'Varun,' was sort of a guy, for whom even the sudden cut-off of street lights was a signal for changing his route to the destination. He relied heavily on his instincts, based on coincidences. His calculated approach towards life didn't bring any improvement instead it worsened his condition. Apart from his illusive mental satisfaction, everything in his life was mismanaged and incomplete.

Low grades in boards and in all other entrance exams, where he was depended upon his divine sneeze to predict the page in his notebook from which questions would be given had hardly managed to get him college for further studies.

His habit of escaping hard work had left him capable only of nodding to every concept in his physics class, but answering any of the questions ended up only by dividing and multiplying all the numbers that appeared in white on the green board. Alike few in the front benches, who were looking into other copies for solutions, his head remained unmoved from his own copy. Even if he had not acted to be sincere towards that question, the rest of the bench mates had not even noted down the questions in their newly brought notebook.

His confident eyes in the professor's direction after spending a few minutes in wasting the ink of his pen tried potentially to fool the professor's experience of years. Before the professor could ask anyone to solve the answer, coincidence played its role and the bell rang. He considered it help. In fact, it was a dose of illusion which pushed him a bit farther from hard work.

While being defeated on most of the fronts, he had still saved his fortress of morals. Even touching a bottle of cool burg was a distant event in his life. Companions do matter, but being an ENTP, he had the faith of changing things around him without getting affected. It was very common for a personality for whom nearly everything is practical. The friendship with few boys in the dropout years, who started their day with weed and ended it with blenders pride and dozens of Marlboro in between, never bothered his moral stability and determination of avoiding it even on strongest invitation in the name of friendship.

Classes went on and with the gratifying speech he had managed to get a badge of class representative.

A boy hailing from the same place where he resided during his dropout year had found a person in him to solve all his complications and requirement in a city. In this unknown place, most of the people, he had seen around him were suspicious in his eyes. Some of them appeared like drug mafia, some even members of sleeper cell waiting for their master's command to demolish the whole college at once. His qualms were extended to every cell of his body after encountering a girl, who was strongly taking some amount of whitish powder kept on the back of her palm through her nose.

It took nearly fifteen minutes after five longs hours of class to satisfy his appetite. Varun was putting his clothes on a hanger stuck on the back of the door, when a known sound of footsteps made him open the door reluctantly. Only one centimetre at first to see whether he could avoid him without letting him come inside his room and then walked back toward his bed with frustrated eyes longing for sleep.

It was the fifth day in a row when Karan had arrived within twenty minutes after classes had ended.

'Can you please lend me your mobile phone, in case you are not using it now?' said Karan, who was sent without any multimedia phone in this city to avoid any sort of distraction.

'Surely, you can.'

The saved moral fortress stopped Varun from turning down his request. His mind was never in a state of refusing to someone, who at least seemed like claiming to be his friend. Varun spent the next two hours listening to all the stories of Karan's childhood while Karan was surfing all his social media accounts on his phone. Varun's patience was running out, another day with the same sequence of events and he would allow the fall of few bricks from his strengthened fortress.

As expected, the next day too he arrived without any delay. But today he asked for a glass of water. Few minutes had passed in listening to Karan's stories, but still Varun had held his phone slackly. More likely he was not in the mood of surfing social media, but I doubted whether he was being paid for disquieting my nap.

'Have you noticed roll no 809?' Karan asked in a way like he wanted to hold back those words but lost control over his tongue.

'Sometimes I didn't remember even my own,' neglecting his serious face, Varun laughed out.

'I am starving for her, even hunger and thrust is not bothering me,' Karan was almost in tears. His Words seemed true as he always knocked on the door even before Varun could sit for a while after eating his lunch.

'Can you please find out her name anyhow?' Karan pleaded.

'OK, wait for tomorrow, I will do it for you,' Varun assured him.

'It was very easy for such a talented guy to approach a girl for asking her name or anyone in the class. Why had he bothered himself for a week to cover a distance of a mile?' Varun asked it to himself.

Before Varun could have approached to anyone of her classmate, in the first class of that day, coincidently a professor skipped the roll no 809 while taking attendance.

'You didn't call my name,' a sweet voice cleared the air around Varun's ears. Varun turned to his head to the right. Those beautiful eyes and the sweet face with a child-like smile and cat-like attitude had grabbed his attention earlier too. She had thrown a sketchbook on the face and few abrasive words in the ears of a senior girl, who was asking her to sketch during an introductory session.

Karan was not a fool to cover a mile. He had probably guessed about Varun's saved fortress. Showing his loyalty towards that girl, Karan had managed to lock every unwanted thought in Varun's mind. Karan knew that Varun's week point was trueness and he will do as much as possible to protect his true feeling towards that girl.

When Varun returned to his room, he found a muscular six-foot guy sitting on the only left bed in that double sitter room. Harder outside but softer inside, this was what anyone could judge through his polite gesture.

Half an hour had passed. Karan possibly had altered his direction towards somewhere else, he had achieved his aim of coming here, and success always demands moving on from one step to another without caring for anything else. Varun in his place would have shown enough humanity to arrive at least for a few minutes.

Till evening our chat which started with "aap" had arrived to "tu" via "tum" and the standard of words kept on worsening. Within very few hours, whatever Varun had assumed about him in the first impression altered by 180 degrees. His words were claiming to accept him as a dangerous person, who would start getting ''hafta'' from all the shops in our surroundings.

Sourabh's parents had sent him here with a lot of dry fruits, regional cookies, packets of different snacks but still required a few things of the daily requirement. Varun and Sourabh got ready for Sourabh's first interaction with the shopkeepers, who were likely to pay him hafta in just a few days from now.

We passed by the coffee shop where Karan had witnessed a girl consuming some kind of addictive stuff. The evening had darkened and today she had encountered us.

'It must be very common to you, have you anyone in contact with this powder.' Varun asked Sourabh.

Firstly he looked confident with his reply, as he was too having it daily at some instant of life. Then suddenly his expression changed and his eyes went down along with his tighten shoulder. Varun saw a man staring badly at him from the roadside. Probably that man had heard his words. His frightened eyes and body language was a stamp on my first prediction. Not being more judgemental, we went to a Samosa shop and then got a pair of Pepsi bottles.

"I hope can we afford this every Sunday."

"In the starting of the month, we can have more than once."

Physics classes went the same as earlier, still, a sincere response was pending but the head vibrated with the same frequency. The concept was very clear at that instant but lack of revision after coming back to the room made Varun incompetent of even getting an approximate answer.

His continuous nodding and greeting along with a badge had got the teacher's attention. Every time teacher found himself disappointed in getting any answer from Varun's part, her years of experience had shown enough patience. Now it demanded only results and it seemed almost a light-year far.

Anyone could have simply had given up on him but she had decided to get her answers.

"Have you got the answer?"

"Almost, Ma'am"

"Come on the board, solve as much you had solved on your notebook."

It was easiest of the question, but today too he had only managed to add and multiply every number on the board. His legs were refusing to move further, senses were observing a blank. But then also he dared to move, as refusing meant demolishing his fortress. He picked up the chalk, wrote all the given things, and started waiting to be insulted by all.

Suddenly a sound whispered from the left, someone had hinted him formula for solving this question from behind. Varun looked back for a while. It was the professor's voice, who had her face towards blackboard and was guiding Varun for solving further till he had reached the stage where it only needed to do which he was doing daily in his notebook. Varun had written the final answer, physics teacher nodded his head with satisfaction which seemed like appreciation for the rest of the class.

This was not sufficient for improving Varun's physics but at least he had gained the confidence of the teacher's support. His ethics were now urging him for improvements for paying back the faith that was shown by his teacher.

One month had passed since joining the college and seniors had started preparing for fresher's party. Initially, most of us showed disinterest. We thought it just as their second and surreal round. Our fresher's party ended up with two rejections. Both were the most decent guys in class as per looks were considered. Rejection of both guys stopped the rest of the boys from being daring enough to approach anyone.

The next day, Varun was again in unrest. Karan again required me for consoling his broken heart.

'Why are you getting disappointed? Most of the girls never show up their love on such moments.'

'Still, it hurts a lot after being rejected in any circumstances.'

'Take it positively. At least she knows your feelings and if will maintain a good image in front of everyone, someday she will consider you.'

'Probably, you are right.'

'Yes, love requires patience and in huge amount."

His sadness has taken me in its influence, I was feeling devastated. His numbed eyes were the herald of his pious feeling towards that girl. Probably my mind was asking me to do something if I could for him. He used to sit beside me in the class. Whenever the professor would ask me to take attendance, I would send him on my behalf.

The gruelling schedule of college used to leave us only competent in getting absorbed into our bed. I felt for Karan but the girl's attitude was unambiguous. She wasn't interested at all. Karan did not want to give up. The coincidental eye contact with her seemed like evidence of love for him as if she found anything magical in his eyes. This illusion of him kept on disturbing my peace. But till now He has gained enough trust of mine, I used to have my nap while he used my phone.

That day he left his phone beside me and went out without disturbing my nap. His roommate has got some urgent work to do and he wanted his help. Varun looked into his phone. Karan was in such a hurry that he had missed logging out of his account. Reading someone's personal texts was not a sign of any moralistic work, but Varun wasn't able to avoid such an opportunity.

Varun started reading them one by one;

Varun couldn't have ever imagined such kind of conversation. How could he misjudge someone so wrongly? Varun felt offended like never before. Varun Just wanted to smash Karan out of this world. 'Was Karan lying for being smarter in front of him?' Varun's mindset of finding good in everyone questioned. 'But why will he ever go for roll number 809?' Varun had made his conclusion.

That night he slept well. The morning was very pleasant for Varun, he had just two classes to attend today that too with an interval of one hour in between. With such a blissful mood it was going to be a very easy day for him.

Don't know why? That day it seemed that there was much more murmuring going on than the usual days? Even between the lectures, the professor made a few boys stand up in their place. As the class was over, I observed a few sudden movements. A girl quickly went down the benches and closed the door of the class. Everyone was in shock but unmoved and silent. Suddenly a voice full of anger was sent in direction of a boy. 'What do you think of yourself?' 'How did you dare to use such words for me?' She brought out her phone and named five boys, who were involved in giving her almost more than twenty nicknames. Last night Varun's nap was too deep that he was in its effect till he entered the classroom. Varun hadn't found it compulsory to check out messages even once before coming here. They all had worked hard all night for naming her, there was more than 600 pending message. Varun wanted to bow down to their feet for their greatness.

She was not added to that group and they found it safe for having fun there. She had already written an application, she included all the names and rushed towards the V.C office. Always it need not be silence before the storm, sometimes there could be murmuring too. Everyone in the class was silent as if their lips had been stitched.

Anger emanating from her vengeful eyes was evidence of what she could have done to them in absence of all sort of morality, which they had lacked in huge amount on the previous night.

But not everyone there was bothered about the forthcoming scene. Amidst all that cacophony, a mixed emotion took over Varun. He was sad due to the harsh situation that few of his innocent friends had got into and happier because he applauded the feminist approach shown by any girl.

''How did you dare to consider my name in your group chats," she yelled. 'Who had given you the right of making any sort of opinion about me?' Nothing came back in reply. All the boys had unanimously decided to evade every question thrown at them. Knowing the consequences, they had aptly prepared their mind for listening to her silently.

"Do you all know the fate of this aberrant behaviour? Or you all are not concerned about your future at all." Again there was complete silence. They had already sensed the realization of the fate but only after the 'delete for everyone' option on WhatsApp became unavailable. Despite their silence and surrender, anything put no impact on her anger. She continued, till someone knocked at the classroom door, which she had closed to avoid disturbance to other classes.

It was our professor. Nervousness and the silences went on increasing as they all feared the possibility of acknowledgment of the whole episode to the professor. Today he started the class without calling the roll numbers for attendance. Might be he would reward everyone at the end of the class by cutting their attendance. Every one of them was attentive in his class like never before. Answering any difficult question or asking reasonable questions is an abiding way to satiate any intellectual person. They tried it too in an attempt of reducing the impact of the next expected episode.

He had brought a wrong attendance register with him and for it he provided attendance to all the students for today's class. It was the last class of the day. All the offenders rushed out of the doors as soon as the professor ended his lecture to avoid any sort of argument at that point of time.

They were clueless about the next move. They had some hope left with them after they knew that she had not gone to the principal today. But according to her behaviour, they were sure that someday it will happen for sure. They wanted a way out of this tragedy but a genuine question was; How?

Karan reminded of Varun and brought all the boys with him to Varun's room for finding a solution. Varun, who was earlier mutely observing this whole episode, was now in a dilemma of whether to actually help them or to leave them on their fate. The regret on their faces again urged his saved fortress to contribute towards minimizing their agony. 'I can only try to convince her for forgiving you all, after this everything is upon her.' In between the serious discussion, Sourabh tried to pull out some mitigating ideas for rescuing them.

Handling physics as a subsidiary subject was already a tough job to do and the regular occurrence of incidents like this had extended Varun's headache. But he was sure that not helping someone at the time of need would be a greater burden for his mind to resolve, so he never refused.

''Can you please tell me what actually happened?"

''Don't try to behave like as you are unaware of everything. It was your responsibility too for stopping them if they were going wrong. Being silent in such a situation was an equal offense. Now don't try to show mendacious sympathy.''

I thought I deserved better human behaviour than this. But I accepted the fact that anger can sometimes bring you out of the criteria which limits you as a human.

"I sleep by 9 and neither had so much of free time to look those 600 stinking messages."

Every incident was recited by her.

I insisted to her, '' They will regret it in front of everyone and if even they consider your name anywhere after this I will support you fully in whatever you want to do with them. But this time please forgive them for their stupidity."

Probably Varun's words full of support and assurance affected her at the time when no one else had found a need of talking to her regarding this. She had agreed upon this. In the same evening groups of boys and girls on WhatsApp had been separated to avoid any collision in the future. Every boy involved in this was conveyed her message. They were ready to ask for forgiveness for avoiding any uncertain event. But they did it on their own terms; they went to her in personal instead of doing it in front of everyone.

Varun had successfully handled both sides. He was trying to prove the worthiness of the name given to him by her English professor just a few days ago.

It's said that God will not materialize himself for putting you in the right direction, it deals in signals, and you have to resonate your thoughts in the direction of those signals to get the best result. The previous incident was such a message for them. It was up to them about learning, but none of them mentioned roll number 809 anywhere after this.

Overcoming the initial fears Karan had gained enough confidence that he started to spend most of the evening in the same place where he had seen a girl consuming drugs. Now he used to sit inside the cafe and watched her with the hope of getting noticed by her. This had become his routine for every evening.

All this was noticed very sharply with hate by a girl, who was coming there from a few days for having coffee with her friends.

Her agitated mind resolved for seeing a better scene around herself was guiding her punch towards Karan's stomach and collide his forehead with the girl at whom he had fixed his eyes. Her undaunted mind was urging her to do it, but she let her ulterior feeling limit till thoughts. She was hopeful about getting a more genuine and long-lasting solution than this. Puzzled with so many ideas, half of her coffee always got wasted.

She had made her mind for correcting this scene. The next day, she was a bit delayed to the coffee table. '' Aren't you hastening too much for an Olympic medal,'' her friends taunted as they thought the delay was a result of excess practicing than the routine. Arunima was a national-level boxer and had secured several medals in quick time.

Her hard work and consistency were unmatchable to any other boxer in the state. An ample amount of fame hadn't made her care more only about her upcoming goals and less about the things happening around her. Her agenda about success was very clear, '' Work hard for achieving it and even harder for utilizing it in the formation of a more stable society."

Today she had brought her few boxing gloves with which she had won national championships. An organization known to her friend had ensured her good price for those through auction. She found it of more importance to helping needy people for the upcoming season than to put those gloves in the showcase for satiating her memories.

As they completed their coffee and came out of the cafe, they saw a girl yelling at people around him in the parking area. The tires of her scooter had been punctured. She smashed two powerful kicks on the body of the scooter as if it had punctured itself for troubling her.

Everyone was watching that with attentive eyes except Arunima, who had been behind creating this scene. There was no repairing shop before 2km. She was too much overloaded with addictive stuff that taking her scooter to the repairing shop was almost impossible. It had already been 6 PM. That road which used to remain the busiest road in the day time, usually become deserted. Roadsides were along that path was meeting points for chain smokers and many addicts like her. Leaving her alone was not a great idea to proceed with.

''Hey, this is Arunima.''

"Do we know each other?"

''Not really, But I know that you require some help."

''surely"

Arunima took over her scooter and they both moved towards the repairing shop.

''I didn't get your name.''

''It's Amisha.''

''Do you belong to the same city?''

''No, I have been here for the last four years.''

They had almost covered more than half the distance. Arunima asked Amisha to hold the scooter for a few minutes. She moved towards a nearby shop. She brought a water bottle and kept the chocolates in her pocket which she got in return due to lack of coins.

'' These shopkeepers have started a new way to increasing their profits."

''No one desires a loss."

Arunima offered half of the chocolates to Amisha and she accepted it happily.

''Actually it not a loss for us too, chocolates are quite good."

''Ya, better than the last one I ever had. You want more?"

Without waiting for her reply, Arunima brought out almost all the chocolates and transferred it to Amisha's handbag.

"What's your purpose in this city?''

"It's my hometown. I am a graduate, waiting for attainment a self-satisfying work with good money."

They had reached to the repairing shop. Arunima waited for the scooter to be repaired and asked Amisha for dropping her at home, which was in the way of Amisha's home.

The same sequence of the event started happening with her on every alternative day. Every such day Arunima helped her to the shop. Amisha was getting frustrated with this but this was the safest and only place for satisfying her addiction. Two boys, who used to smoke on the roadside, found this familiar incident as an opportunity of showcasing their cheap mentality. They took their bike and acted as if it too needed a repair and started following them.

Both Amisha and Arunima had noticed their intentions. As soon as few nasty comments entered Amisha's ears, she turned back and worsened her words for giving them a better reply. Listening to it boys moved aggressively towards Amisha.

''Dear, It's not done like this.''

As they reached closer Arunima handed over the scooter to Amisha. She punched both the boys in their stomachs and collide their forehead with each other. Before they could have reacted, she punched both of them on their nose and tangled their legs to put them on the ground. Everything thing happened at lightning speed. Amisha was amazed.

''How did you managed to do this?"

"I have just learned some boxing skills in the past few months."

One of them stood up quickly and brought out his cell phone for contacting their mates. Varun and Sourabh were out for having tea in a nearby stall. They both rushed towards them after noticing that incident. The boy put his phone back in his pocket and the second guy too got up anyhow. And before they could be in more trouble they found it better to escape from that scene.

''Are you both fine?" Arunima almost ignored them and so did Amisha.

Arunima's anger shifted on them. '' We will it manage on our own self."

''Everyone is not a hypocrite, some are feminist too."

"Whatever"

Arunima remained unaffected. But those words touched the senses of Amisha.

The next day when Arunima entered the cafe, she saw a coffee mug on the table in-front of Amisha. The betterment has occurred. The grin on the face of Arunima was symbolizing her victory. She just passed a formal hello to Amisha. She received a bag from one of her friends and ordered a cup of coffee. Today she enjoyed the full amount of it.

Amisha was waiting for her to come to her table. But today she seemed to have some urgent work.

Today she had planned for having dinner at some nice restaurant. She wanted Arunima to come along with her. She decided to go alone as she was in no mood of cooking food on her own. She ordered some of her favourite dishes. The order was taking too much time. That made her eyes focus on the television set.

Few reporters were trying a get interview of a girl, who had reached into an NGO for donating her earnings for supporting the deprived children. As she faced the camera, Amisha was stunned. It was Arunima. Amidst all this, her eyes went on a few of the ads flashing on the bottom of the screen. One of them was of a chocolate. She thought she had seen it somewhere. She looked inside her bag. It was the same one, which was provided to her on regular basis by Arunima. It was an anti addiction chocolate. Arunima used to exchange it with the normal candies that she brought from the shop.

Amisha had understood everything. She just wanted to hug her and thank her for the new life given to her. She wanted to talk to her, but the next second she realized that she hadn't managed to get her phone number yet. Her order had been prepared and today every dish seemed tastier to her.