First Date to Forever

Her College Life

"Oh God ! Not again !! " groaned Shonali. Sitting in her hostel room surrounded by her roommates , Shonali was having a great evening full of tea and gossips when her phone pinged with an incoming message. Palak , her closest friend and roommate , looked at her with a mischievous smile and enquired "One more proposal? " and everyone else started chiming in with Ooohs and Aaahaans knowing very well how uncomfortable Shonali is with all this .... That's how friends are right ?!!

Shonali has always been a quiet person who lets out her true self only when she becomes really comfortable with you. Her dusky complexion, dimpled smile , kohl lined eyes and the mysterious silence has made her the subject of affection from a lot of boys at their university! And she hated all this attention, all she wanted was to disappear in the crowd but her personality always made her stand out .

Shonali was in the second semester of her Masters in Business Administration degree. Coming from a science background with a bachelors degree in Engineering the first semester has been quite a roller coaster for her with all the financial and accounting subjects. While the academics were giving her a headache , she found relief in her new friends at the university. In a span of only 6 months she had found herself a group of friends - 12 of them to be precise with whom she was truly enjoying her college life ! All those lectures , bunks , canteen visits and hostel had become a huge part of her life now ... She cannot imagine how her life was before meeting these people.

While most of her friends were in the same hostel as hers , there were few who were staying at home and commuted to college daily. She had met Palak and Maitri on the first day itself while moving in . They are her roommates since day one ! Infact Palak and Shonali shared all the same classes too while Maitri was in a different section of the same batch.

Apart from Palak and Maitri their group of hostel friends included Charu , Ruhi and Harsha , who were staying in different rooms on the same floor as theirs but were also part of their batch in college. They had only one friend in the boys' hostel - Sameer . On the other hand their friends Jeevika , Sarika , Arush and Akshay commuted daily from their homes and were their primary source for home cooked lunches !! Another friend of theirs Sneh was living in a rented flat near their university. He is the life of their group and Shonali's favorite person amongst all !! Don't get it wrong , she had a brotherly affection for Sneh , and they shared a very cute camaraderie!

This was her life from the past six months , these people made her happy and kept her sane amongst all the lectures and presentations ... which were never ending !!!

She had just received a message from one of their classmates asking her out for coffee , and this was the 7th boy in the last 6 months to ask her out !! She has started getting irritated with all this attention while her friends were having a good time teasing her. It's not that she did not believe in love but infact she believed too much in destiny that she simply ruled out the fact that her love story will be this simple . She is a die hard romantic and believed that when she will meet the guy she is supposed to be with , it will be very special and not just a random date ... Little did she know that sometimes the simplest of start can lead to a whirlwind romance !

She quickly typed her response , much to the dismay of the poor guy at the other end and kept her phone aside . After talking and a lot of teasing the girls made their way to their rooms and called it a night .. they have an early morning lecture tomorrow and an eventful day waiting for them !!!