Friday, 2nd September 2022
Sanjana And Naira
"Did anyone see her outfit?" someone asked.
It was the day of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebration at the academy, and for once, my mind wasn't occupied with physics, chemistry, or mathematics. My performance in the subject-wise tests that had begun in August had been fairly average anyway, and our first JEE-level test was still a month away. So I had been looking forward to this day—not for any grand reason, but simply because it offered a brief escape from the routine and everything that lay ahead.
"Whose?" I asked casually, setting my bag down on the bench.
"Sanjana's," Paresh replied.
"That one from B1?" a girl sitting nearby asked, just to be sure.
"Yeah. She's different," he said, with a hint of admiration in his voice.
"Arey, but who is Sanjana?" I asked.
"That B1 girl… the one with long hair… just look at her," Paresh and the girl beside him tried to explain, but it didn't really help.
I nodded anyway, even though I wasn't particularly interested. I didn't know who Sanjana was, and I didn't feel the need to find out. At that moment, my mind was occupied with just two things—munching on snacks and enjoying a break from lectures.
Seeing everyone in their traditional outfits was always enjoyable, especially when you weren't particularly excited about anyone's outfit in particular. I was wearing a yellow kurta, white pyjamas, and my red jacket—the same combination my family jokingly referred to as my "Raja Babu" look.
The day's schedule included only two lectures—Sameer sir's physics and Meera ma'am's chemistry. Even the faculty were dressed in traditional outfits, although Meera ma'am mentioned she hadn't had enough time to get ready.
Between the two lectures, there was a half-hour break, during which I decided to indulge in some snacks—one of the two things I had been looking forward to.
Students from both the batches crowded near the only major snack shop. The smell of fried food mixed with constant chatter, and suddenly choosing what to eat felt like the toughest decision of the day.
With just fifty rupees in my pocket and my natural stinginess fully active, I settled on a kachori.
I watched as the vendor cracked it open, filled it with chutneys, added curd and sev — turning it into what I believed was a masterpiece.
The first bite confirmed it.
I congratulated myself instantly.
Eating it, though, was a different story. The chutneys found their way onto my cheeks, making the whole situation slightly messier than I would have preferred — though I didn't care enough to stop.
On my third bite, I noticed a group of girls approaching the shop.
The one in the middle drew my attention almost instantly.
She wore a lehenga—a warm reddish blouse, I thought, paired with a cream-coloured skirt.
(Though it was months later that she corrected me herself: it wasn't red—it was orange and pink.)
The life of a proper senior, I thought to myself.
Both her hands were held by the girls beside her as she stepped onto the footpath, careful, composed—almost as if the moment belonged to her.
And, as usual, before thinking—I spoke.
"Waah bhai… matlab itna support chahiye kisi ko?"
I didn't know her.
Didn't know her batch.
Didn't know anything.
Yet there I was—commenting, like I always did.
To my surprise, she immediately turned, sat down on the bench, and replied,
"Support toh chahiye hi hota hai."
We both laughed, and within seconds, she was surrounded by her group again, and the moment slipped back into the noise around us. I quietly returned to my kachori, wondering whether to buy another one.
I didn't know then that she would go on to become one of the most important people in my story.
As the day went on, the celebrations continued around the academy.
Every group was busy with their decorations. Ours was working on a flower rangoli in the corridor, and I sat near the centre with my phone—occasionally leaning forward to capture a photo, and otherwise just showing everyone how the rangoli was turning out.
Soon, the heat made everything feel heavier, and I walked into our classroom and stretched out on one of the benches, my legs sprawled across them—a habit that had already led to a few unnecessary arguments in the past.
And sure enough, it happened again.
A short girl stopped in front of me and asked me to move so she could pass, but the benches were placed too close together, leaving barely any space.
"Arre, if there's no space, where are you planning to go?" I blurted out as she still tried to squeeze through, already bracing myself for another pointless argument.
"Now I want to go, so I'll go, na?" she shot back, clearly irritated, her eyes widened and fixed on me as she moved ahead anyway.
I had seen her before — in the service lift, or sitting on the first bench in the B1 classroom whenever I accidentally opened the wrong door.
But we had never spoken until that moment.
And strangely, that small, unnecessary argument became the first real interaction between us.
I didn't know she would later become the person whose presence — and absence — would shape so much of my time there.
* * * * * * * *
Monday,12th September 2022
Lizz And Ramesh
The morning had an English lecture, followed by chemistry, leaving us with an hour and forty-five minutes before the math doubt session.
Disha Ma'am, our English teacher, often shared stories about her college — mostly about friends, teachers, and food. She asked if anyone had tried the famous snack shop nearby. Some students nodded eagerly, praising it. I admitted I hadn't tried it yet, even though I had looked for it a few times without ever finding it.
With the long break after class, a few friends suggested we grab a snack. I tagged along, not really caring much about the food itself. The real excitement was wandering, talking, and just having a break from the routine.
The doubt lecture was still eighty minutes away, so Kirti and I made our way back to the Kamdhenu building. As we approached the lift, we noticed three girls running toward it. One of them was the short girl I'd almost argued with during the celebration more than a week ago.
Seeing her again felt different.
"Aap logo ka konsa lecture hai?" I asked, trying to sound casual, though I wasn't very confident speaking to people back then.
I just needed an excuse to start a conversation with her.
"We don't have any lectures right now," turning back, she replied.
I nodded.
"Aap logo ka hai kya?" She turned again, waiting for the lift, unsure if she was curious or just flipping the question back.
"Naah," I answered, shaking my head.
It struck me how different she seemed now. Just a few days ago, she had almost raised her voice at me during our first real conversation. Today, she was calm, polite, and almost approachable. There was a subtle charm in the way she carried herself — her open hair, her composure, and her eyes that, for some reason, stayed with me even after the conversation ended.
When the lift came back down, we stepped in. That was when Kirti mentioned the second girl among them — the one in the cropped denim jacket, straightened hair and a black mask.
"She's Lizz," Kirti told me, adding that she was nice to talk to.
We reached the fifth floor and walked down the corridor towards the two classrooms placed side by side — Batch-1 and Batch-2 territory.
The Radcliffe students were still inside Room 509 for their chemistry lecture, so with time to spare, we decided to check whether Room 510 was empty and headed towards it.
I pushed the door open, only to find the same three girls inside, casually munching on chips.
I quietly took a seat on the bench in front of them while Kirti opened her tiffin. The girls continued chatting among themselves, scrolling through their phones in their hands, as if that room already belonged to them.
"Why did you bring this flavour?" the same girl from the celebration complained.
The other one justified that she had bought what she had found then.
"Is that the green chutney one?" I asked, unable to resist.
"Yess," the short girl replied, glancing at me briefly before turning back to her friends.
A moment later, she looked at me again and apologised for not offering me any, extending the packet. I took some and noticed her phone. It appeared similar to the one I once had before it broke that year.
They were still chatting among themselves while I scrolled Instagram, already bored. The doubt lecture was still an hour away, and I needed something to talk about, but the three of them seemed perfectly engaged without me.
Just then, the door opened and a boy walked in. He looked around in mild surprise and mentioned that the girls were still there before coming over to sit beside me.
Healthy, yet of a fine height, I recognised him from the morning's lecture.
He was Ramesh.
After another patch of silence passed by, and to finally join the conversation, I asked the most typical question one eleventh grader asks another when meeting for the first time— their 10th-grade marks.
The girls immediately protested that it was a terrible question to start with, but the quiet one, who had barely spoken so far, smiled widely and shared that she had scored 94.5. The short girl followed with her own marks, and when I asked the boy, he admitted his score was in the seventies.
Since no one had asked me yet, I stayed quiet about mine — until the 94.5-scorer finally turned to me and asked," How much did you get?"
I told them I had scored 93, pausing for a moment before adding that I was from ICSE.
That earned a small impressed reaction. The conversation loosened after that, shifting naturally to schools, batches, and random comparisons.
Somewhere in the middle of overlapping conversations about benches, batches, and teachers, I heard Lizz casually mention that Sushant usually sat with me. The line almost slipped past me in the background noise, but it caught just enough of my attention to make me look at her properly.
She had lowered her mask for a moment to drink water, and that was when it clicked.
I had seen her somewhere.
She was the same girl.
The one Sushant had waved at from across the road while we were returning from the Shilp Chowk branch a few days earlier.
Until that instant, she had just been one of the three girls in the room. And then she had suddenly become someone connected to a memory.
By the time the doubt lecture began, the easy chatter had settled into something familiar, and I quietly stepped out of the classroom.
Outside, I was surprised to find Sushant waiting for me.
He greeted me in his usual way, calling me "Taanish bhai," and as we started walking, I brought up Lizz — asking if she was the same girl he had waved to that day.
He confirmed she was from his school and that they talked regularly.
"We just talk a lot," he repeated, this time stressing the lot a little more.
"Haan Haan.", I nodded, understanding his situation.
When I jokingly asked if he had told her about me too, he admitted he probably had. After all, he said, I was his best friend there.
I continued nodding, and we kept walking, the conversation settling into silence.
Over the next few days, Sushant mentioned Lizz a few more times. They were from the same school, which was enough to make it clear that they shared a history I hadn't witnessed.
And somewhere in between those casual mentions, I realised something else too — our friendship had quietly begun to grow into trust.
* * * * * * * *
My First Collective Encounter With The Four Girls
Our phones were confiscated for an entire day so we could focus on the 'real world'. I had quickly saved my Snapchat streak before handing mine over, then spent the lectures unusually calm while everyone else complained.
The next day, we were briefly allowed to collect our phones. After taking mine from the library, I reached the lift to head back upstairs. That's when I saw them approaching—the group I had noticed so many times before.
The four girls from Batch 1 who almost always moved together.
"Ya, patkan!" I called out in Marathi, instinctively gesturing for them to join. Maybe I did it deliberately—maybe I wanted an encounter with the four of them.
They hurried into the lift.
"You said it wrong I think," corrected the short girl from the celebration after a second of silence— whose name I knew by then —Naira.
"Ha, it's something else," Rushika, the quiet one added.
I laughed it off, reminding them I wasn't Maharashtrian.
That surprised them.
"You're not? But you look like one," Naira said.
I told them I was from Madhya Pradesh, repeating what my father always said — that culturally, it still counted as North India.
The three of them chatted easily, but the tallest one, masked and quiet, stayed absorbed in her phone.
"You all are Maharashtrian?" I asked.
Naira nodded. "Haan. Except Lizz."
The lift opened on the fifth floor, and we stepped into the corridor.
I realised I was still wondering about Lizz's origins. She hadn't spoken much.
So I asked her.
"Assam," came the reply.
Before I could say anything else, Naira jumped in again, repeating, "Assam… Assamese hai ye," as if announcing it to everyone.
Lizz laughed and told her to shut up just as we split toward our respective classrooms.
I hadn't even switched on my phone when someone from the office appeared again, telling us to submit the phones once more and collect them only after all the lectures.
A wave of irritation spread across the room.
I, however, didn't mind much. Instead, he asked me to inform the neighbouring batch as well.
When I entered their classroom, I saw the four of them sitting midway as I relayed the instructions loudly.
"What?!" Naira reacted instantly.
"Then why did they give it?" someone beside her — probably Lizz — added.
I simply shrugged, saying I was just following instructions.
At their request, I gathered their phones, and stepped out of the room carrying four phones, mine included.
The fourth girl — was waiting near the lift, still absorbed in her screen. She hadn't handed it to me, deciding to submit it herself.
We entered the lift together.
For a few seconds, there was only the soft mechanical hum of the lift and the numbers blinking above the door.
"Sanjana…?" I said.
She looked up immediately, her eyebrows lifting slightly.
"Which phone is it?" I asked—and almost instantly realised it was probably the most pointless way to start a conversation.
"Redmi," she replied briefly.
"Achaa… my mom had something similar once," I added, just to keep it going.
But by then, her attention had already drifted back to her phone.
(It was much later that Sanjana herself corrected me—she had always had a Realme. I had simply misheard it.)
So this was Sanjana.
The same one Paresh used to talk about. The girl from B1 he once had a thing for—or at least, something close to it.
And somehow, I had already seen her before.
Crossing the road in that lehenga, her hands held by two others—someone I had assumed was a senior.
Even then on the left, standing beside me in the lift, she carried the same impression—open hair, a black mask, long nails, and eyes fixed on her phone, as if everything around her existed in the background.
We both headed to the library to submit the phones, with me trailing slightly behind, only to be sent back to the office instead.
As we stepped out, she drifted slowly toward the parking side, still on her phone, while I hurried into the office and dropped the phones into the box.
Before heading back, I stopped by their classroom again.
"Listen!" I called out.
I didn't know it then, but that small, ordinary exchange was my first real collective moment with the four girls of B1 — a moment that would stay with me longer than I expected.
A few days later, while scrolling through Instagram, I got a suggestion for Lizz's profile. I sent her a follow request without thinking much, and soon after, Rushika and Naira showed up in my suggestions as well. I sent them requests too. They were accepted quickly — I think they even followed me back.
All except one.
Out of curiosity, I opened her profile.
s n j n a, the name read.
Of course — who else could it have been?
She had around three hundred followers and followed nearly the same number. I found myself going through her following list, trying to make sense of it — wondering what kind of people she chose to follow back, and what made them different from me.
We had several mutuals. Sushant was there. Paresh too.
Paresh had been followed back.
So why not me?
I knew it probably didn't mean anything. Maybe she didn't know me. Maybe she just didn't want to. Still, for some reason, it stayed with me — a small detail that shouldn't have mattered, but did.
Then, I hardly had a clue that I would run into them again so soon — this time. on my own birthday.
That day itself was special. For the first time in my life, I received more than fifty birthday wishes. The notifications started piling up early in the morning, making the day feel different even before I reached the academy.
On the way, I received a message from Lizz: Happy Bday with a heart.
It caught me off guard for a moment, though maybe it shouldn't have. After all, she already seemed to know me—and even a few things about me—through Sushant, who, of course, shared everything with her.
As soon as I stepped inside the classroom, everyone stood up to wish me. My smile widened instantly.
For once, the attention didn't feel awkward — it felt right. The good mood stayed with me through our only math lecture of the day, with Sajit sir teasing me multiple times that I should give a treat to everyone.
At the end of the lecture, he asked me to set up the projector in the neighbouring class for his next lecture. I picked it up along with the wire and headed out, not knowing that the next classroom would turn this otherwise simple birthday into something far more memorable.
I pushed open the door of Batch 1 — The Elite Batch.
The classroom looked exactly the way it always did — like a five-star restaurant without the food. Groups were scattered like tables in a fine dining hall, with the toppers occupying the front rows while conversations filled the middle and back.
Sachin, Ayaan, Ananya, Anika — all in their usual places.
At the back sat Amit, the undisputed emperor of chatter, surrounded by his usual circle. On the left, Paresh sat with his group — the same Paresh who had once confessed his feelings to Sanjana J soon after being promoted to that batch, only to be bluntly rejected.
And then there were the four of them — Lizz, Naira, Sanjana J, and Rushika — seated apart, yet somehow always together.
The chocolate-brown curtains and warm yellow lights gave the room a distinct feel — part classroom, part something else entirely. Add a bit of background music, and it could easily pass for a high-end restaurant.
Lost in these thoughts, I walked toward the whiteboard, carefully passing between the first and second columns of benches — right through their zone. The four girls sat on separate benches, almost forming the corners of a rectangle, completely absorbed in their conversation.
As I stepped closer, Sanjana suddenly looked up.
"Happyyy Birthdayyy."
For a second, my brain stopped working.
Oh.
I hadn't expected that at all.
My heart skipped so sharply that I actually felt it as I instinctively stepped back.
"...Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you,"
I repeated awkwardly as the others joined in and wished me too.
Wait… how did she even know?
Among the four, Sanjana was the one who hadn't followed me back on instagram yet, so maybe she had seen Ramesh's story. Either way, it felt unexpectedly kind — so much so that I couldn't even lift my head properly while thanking them, my face burning the entire time.
A line I had once read on the cover of a notebook came back to me —
Kindness costs nothing.
And in that moment, I quietly withdrew every assumption I had made about her being arrogant or distant.
Maybe she wasn't like that at all. Maybe it was all about that one moment which made me forget all the arrogance I thought she had.
"Bro, come here also!"
Just as I was leaving, Amit called me over. His gang wished me too — though not without their usual mischief.
He grinned, teasing me for receiving wishes only from girls, and I found myself defending, as always, that I had merely gone there to set up the projector and that they were the ones who had wished me first.
But their smiles made it clear — in a room full of birthday wishes, I had just become their favourite joke.
* * * * * * * *
Being in an integrated course, we HSC students never attended college. Our teachers simply sent us practical journals, write-ups, and tutorials to complete — and that too barely two months before the actual exams. The only clear instruction was that everything had to be completed and submitted on time.
It was around that time that I first started hearing a few rumours about Sanjana and Achintya — something that caught my attention more because of Achintya than her. We had studied in the same school for almost seven years, so seeing him around her made it feel oddly significant.
Paresh, who had been promoted to Batch 1 a couple of months earlier, had once mentioned something about them too, though I never really knew how much of it was true.
I was also surprised to learn that even Sanjana travelled by bus. Her stop was on the opposite side of the road, which explained why I had never noticed her before. Still, I often spotted her with Achintya outside the Kamdhenu building during breaks, casually talking or playing something.
One evening, I met them at the bus stop. I spoke to Achintya first, out of habit, and then, almost awkwardly, asked Sanjana if her tutorials were complete, since she was also in HSC. But it seemed that the question didn't really lead anywhere. She simply shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed on the spot where the bus used to come, and that was enough to make the moment feel slightly uncomfortable.
I quietly slipped away from there, my head lowered.
But it stayed with me for a while — not because of what was said, but because it added to the confusion I already had about her. At times she seemed kind and normal, and at others, distant and hard to read. I couldn't really decide which one was the real version of her.
By the next month, I had finished most of my journals for almost all the subjects, and was halfway through the Math tutorial. Our first practicals were supposed to happen in November, but after being cancelled by Sameer sir, we were finally called again in March. The timetable was received a week before the final exams. They were to be conducted over two days, and for some reason, I was genuinely excited.
There were only two things I needed to arrange.
First was the uniform, which I never bought. Thankfully, Maa had already taken care of that. Since our college shirts didn't have any emblems, I managed with one of my father's shirts. The pants, however, were supposed to be blue — and mine weren't. But I had no better option.
The second requirement was to bring three fruit juices. That's when I realised sugarcane doesn't count as a fruit, so I settled for watermelon, lemon, and orange.
I left home early in the morning, reaching the college just before seven. The board read Baburao Shankar College. It was my first time visiting an HSC college, and the building looked older than I had expected — not exactly impressive, but functional.
Inside, I ran into some acquaintances from the Nerul branch, who knew me because of my anchoring in the annual day held three months back.
Our first practical was physics, which went smoothly. Kirti and I were assigned a table alongside some familiar faces from B1—Ramesh and Neil.
Lizz and Sanjana, two of those famous four girls, were there as well, while Rushika and the cutest of them—Naira—seemed to be occupied with their CBSE journals.
We noted down the readings, filled in the tables, and drew the diagrams, sharing a few laughs along the way.
The chemistry practical, however, turned out to be a completely different experience.
By the time I reached my table, my partner had already disappeared, roaming around while I tried to understand the procedure. When he finally returned and asked me what to do, frustration got the better of me.
"Dude… after wasting so much time, you're asking me now?" I snapped.
That didn't go well.
Within minutes, he walked off, and somehow, I was left without any apparatus. Around me, everyone was busy with their experiments — solutions turning purple and red, students moving from one setup to another — while I stood there doing nothing.
The situation only made me more restless.
"Tanish?"
I looked up. It was Sanjana.
"Do you know what we're supposed to do?" she asked, a helpless smile.
"Nahi yaar… even I'm clueless," I replied, raising my hands slightly.
That only made her laugh.
The practical ended soon after, and I was left with incomplete readings. During the break, I had to go around asking others for help. Sonali shared what she could, but I still needed a few answers, which I eventually got from Ramesh.
"Take it from her," Neil suggested, pointing toward Sanjana.
"Aye Sanjana, give him your photo."
"Haan…" she paused, then smiled, "Meri photo?"
We both laughed before she handed over her sheet, and I quickly clicked a picture of the answer I needed.
That was the second or third time I noticed it clearly—she was nothing like the image I had once formed in my head. There was no attitude, no distance—just an easy, unforced kindness. It made me wonder how I had ever thought of her as arrogant.
After all the practicals, a group of us — including Ramesh, Lizz, Sanjana, and a few others — walked toward the bus stop together. The walk was long, the heat was exhausting, and eventually, we split into autos and boarded the same train.
The conversation drifted between random topics — lectures, teachers, small bits of gossip. By the time our stations arrived, we got down one after another, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways.
Somewhere in between, things had started to feel normal. And without realising it, the distance between me and that group of Batch 1 had begun to fade.
As the end of 11th grade drew closer, a new question slowly began to take up more space in my mind — who all would be promoted to Batch 1 for the next year?
The discussions had started as early as October. Somewhere in between casual conversations and classroom rumours, my name, along with Tejas's, had begun to come up repeatedly. It was said that we might be promoted based on the recommendations of the faculty.
At first, I didn't pay much attention to it. But as the final exams approached, the uncertainty grew harder to ignore.
Eventually, I asked Sameer sir about it myself. He confirmed that both Tejas and I were being considered for Batch 1 — something he said was a result of our hard work. Hearing that felt different. Not exciting exactly, but validating in a quiet way.
A week later, our final exams began.
Thankfully, even for those, we didn't have to go to college. We were simply seated in different classrooms with question papers and answer sheets, and most of the time went into figuring out answers however we could.
And in those exam days, I noticed a shift.
I was again spending more time around the same group of Batch 1 students then. Whether the classroom was full or half-empty, I often found myself sitting close to them. More often than not, Lizz and Sanjana would be seated just behind me, with Ramesh somewhere around us as the four of us discussed answers.
I never really thought about whether it was the beginning of something or not. But it was happening anyway.
On the last day as well, we were sitting in the same way. The usual noise of the classroom on one side and the four of us writing answers and chattering on the other side.
"I don't want to be in this batch." Lizz expressed, in an uncertain tone.
"You don't like Batch 2?" I asked.
She shook her head, laughing lightly through her mask.
"Too noisy?" I added.
This time, she nodded.
Unsurprisingly, the students of Batch 2, were constantly trying to get into Batch 1 — the so-called 'Elite Batch'. And here the students from the other batch were, not wanting to come down to where we already were.
Somewhere in between all this, I already knew things were about to change. I was relieved to have received the confirmation that I would be attending lectures in Batch 1. There was still uncertainty about others, but for me, that part was decided.
The exam itself didn't feel important anymore. My paper was done early, and I had taken up writing for someone else, carefully filling in answers in the neat handwriting I always made sure to maintain when it wasn't even my own paper.
Around me, the classroom was as chaotic as always. Some students were quietly finishing their papers, while others had already drifted off—watching cricket on their phones and reacting to every ball as if it mattered more than the exam.
From the back, Sunny sir's voice would occasionally cut through the noise, asking us to keep it down as his students prepared for their entrance exams.
The environment was messy, distracted and completely unserious. And yet, it felt like the most honest version of our batch. I didn't mind it at all, since it was my last day there.
When I stepped out to submit the paper, I noticed that Lizz and Sanjana had also stepped out of the class. While looking for a stapler near the reception, my hand accidentally brushed against Sanjana, for which I immediately apologised.
"It's okay," she replied, repeating it softly.
Her voice was low, almost muffled behind the mask, but calm as always.
"Where are we supposed to keep the papers?" she asked.
I pointed toward the stack of answer sheets kept nearby. She nodded and walked ahead.
And that was it—no dramatic ending, no final moment. The entire year I had spent in Batch 2 passed through my mind in fragments of sweet memories, with Sushant being one of the most important parts of it. We had sat together through the entire session, and the thought of not having him beside me anymore felt strangely heavy.
As I stepped out of the building, holding the new textbooks for 12th, it felt like something had quietly shifted. Nothing had fully changed yet, but it seemed like everything was about to.