Batten down the hatches

To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!

A/N - I need to speak a few words. I lost a colleague today. Since yesterday, after spending the entire day at hospital, and trying everything, he passed away. We are all devastated. He was fairly young with a wife and kids.

So today, it was either sit and cry or write. I do not think I managed to get much good work in this chapter or the humour down pat, but I couldn't make myself write an emotionally charged story today.

Some comments would be great. And I am sorry, that the chapter is not up to mark. Please excuse the same and any typo. I could not edit. Just wrote and posted.

Thank you all. It has been an absolute pleasure to write here at Wattpad and it is only due to all you amazing people.

Three people I need to mention today - @bleedblue2011whose Mahabharata stories was the first that drew me to write on Wattpad

And @AadeezTrashLuv whose comments inspired me so much and whose 'braincell' comment I shamelessly used.

And @DilSeRe_who had been an ardent supporter since my first story.

There are a lot of others too but these three, I needed to thank them. Life is too uncertain to keep regrets.

5. To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!

"To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!"
-Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis), A Fish Called Wanda

Rohit

Even the smartest people can be fools and I, Rohit Sharma, am not the smartest but most definitely a fool.

I should have realised the utter futility of travelling to Ranchi amidst the pandemic. I should not have indulged Virat's stubbornness or Jaddu's idiosyncrasies. I should have realised that Kohli was in no condition to take any decision especially when it came to the ultimate retirement of his MS; our Mahi bhai.

We all loved Bhaiya in our own little ways but the mutual love and respect that MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli held towards each other could be seldom seen in today's cricketing world.

Also, apparently, stupidity is a universal and timeless phenomenon and I probably had extremely delusional beliefs about my nonexistent greatness; I foolishly believed that I could control the storm that is an angry MS Dhoni.

Because, after their mutual 'love' and 'respect', came their not so mutual, non verbal agreement that what MS Dhoni says, goes, and I do not even mean that in a bad way. It is just that Bhaiya uses his brain that much more than Virat, Jaddu and I. And he may expect the random weirdness from Virat and Jaddu, he certainly much have not expected one Rohit Sharma aka Virat's Sharmilo, to have accompanied the bunch of designated idiots in a harebrained scheme.

"Who blabbed?"

Virat was standing (read that as standing and pouting) next to the window which looked out to nowhere.

I had quite forgotten that MS Dhoni came up with the most innovative punishments and that it was never single levelled. Oh yes! MS Dhoni, our dear Mahi bhai, gave punishments that spanned over days and held lots of nuances. We would often forget the crime before Mahi bhai would finish with the punishments.

"Who blabbed?" Virat asked again.

Jaddu had been hanging out of the partly opened door of the outhouse and now pulled his head back in.