Episode - 6

I didn't get through any of the engineering exams that year, and I blamed it on my obsession with Nisha. So the next one year, I spent at home and prepared for the exams, which I should have cleared the first time around.

It is strange to think of it now, but I had totally lost touch with everybody. My old classmates had started to go to college and moved on with their lives, and to be very frank, I was never very popular amongst my friends; I had like two friends and they weren't friends, they were more like study partners. They promptly forgot me, and I forgot them. It worked for me though for it gave me more time to bury myself in Quantum Physics and Integration.

Sitting at home, I was getting even fatter; eating was the only way out of the labyrinth of

self-pity and depression and loneliness. After six months of staying at home, I weighed

close to ninety kilograms and our family physician told me I would soon be obese and

diabetic. My mom, concerned and panicked, thinking it was her fault that her son was flabby and dying, put me on a healthy diet and forced me to jog every morning.

Although I hated fruits and sweating in my tracksuit every morning, six months later, I was lighter by twenty pounds. I was still was pretty heavy—weighed around eighty kilograms in a five-ten frame—that was still better than weighing a hundred and ten.

Soon, I cleared the engineering college entrance examinations. College started on a

diametrically different style than how school had ended. All my jeans were loose now, so

they hung low. And unintentionally, I was among the first ones in college to have caught on to the low-waist baggy jeans phenomenon that had just hit the country!

Nobody knew now what an ugly nerd I used to be. Ugly, I still was, but not as nerdy as I used to be. Everyone took me as a quiet well-dressed guy; some people mistook my quietness as attitude, and they said I was a snob, something that I didn't mind.

Weeks later, I found myself hanging around with the coolest, hippest people in the college

although more often than not, I found myself out of place as I lacked the skill to converse! I

had never talked to people. I didn't know the places they hung out. And I never spent money on recreation. I was a misfit.

'Man! Why don't you say something?' Arnab said, miffed that I had stood there like a

dumb statue while he was talking to two girls from the dance team of our college. He, on the other hand, had been doing a remarkable job at keeping them entertained. They had kept giggling and laughing at his stupid small jokes. And frankly, I was a little jealous.

Who was Arnab?

I had known him for long … he had been in another section in our school and though I

was sure he didn't know I existed, I knew all about him. House Captain, captain of the football team et cetera … Though he was not very remarkable looking, he was certainly one

of the smartest people I had ever met. He was one of the few guys in our school who had a

girlfriend.