CHAPTER 2: THE RETRIAL

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"You are going", I said to Shayoni when I was back into my hostel room.

"I am not going", she replied with her face hidden behind her 'The Science and Engineering of Materials', a gut wrenching and riveting novel written by two show-offs who had joined the campaign of ruining lives of engineers all around the world. If you are an engineering student, you know what I am talking about when I refer to study books not penned down by local authors.

"You are so going", I walked the gap between us and sat down in front of her to catch her attention, which I know for sure wasn't really into the interesting piece of literature in her hand.

"I am so not going", she was consistent.

"You are definitely going", I snatched her precious book from her hand and threw it on her bed.

"I am definitely not going", she dived around me to get hold of the book and I tried to stop her attempts.

"Wow", my other room mate who was watching this drama from top of her bunk bed interfered us and we paused to look at her. "Your intelligent and full of wits arguments and counter arguments are putting Harvey Specter and Mike Ross to shame."

This, my friends, is Arpita - a tiny, cuddly and pretty room mate of mine with heart shaped face, shining black eyes and long brown hair; whose talks are always filled with references from American dramas and movies; who could kill without a tiny bit of remorse for a red velvet cupcake; who finds it hard to maintain a serious expression beyond 3 nanoseconds; and who, right now, without doubt is watching Suits on her laptop.

I don't try to bug my head to decode Arpita's reference because it's common sense she was demeaning mine and Shayoni's intelligent negotiation. Instead, I decide to ask for her help. "You tell her", I requested Arpita who now turned her eyes to Shayoni, "maybe she will listen to you."

"Why don't you wan to go?" Arpita asks Shayoni, who pressed her lips into a thin line, "What's on that playground that you are so scared of? Is it haunted? Do you see spirits there? Or do you suffer from some rare phobia about cricket pitches? Or it's something completely different and related to the fame you will receive if you do win the trials? Are you batman and you are scared people will figure it out once you take the trials? Or are you a secret agent and the playground is beyond enemy lines for you? Is there a secret portal on our college playground that opens in your presence and allows creatures from Jumanji to enter our world? What is it?"

I and Shayoni stared at Arpita agape, unable to come up with any syllable that could follow the gibberish that had just escaped her mouth. After a long silence, Shayoni said timidly, "I simply don't want Adira and Karan to face any embarrassment because of me."

Well, at least Shayoni was speaking. Arpita gave a smile of triumph and went back to her latest episode of Suits and I turned to Shayoni, "If you don't want to embarrass me and Karan, go to this trial and make sure you win. Don't make me regret the fight I had to put up with Karan for an entire week."

"I didn't ask you to do that", Shayoni said trying to sound cold and ended up sounding sorry.

"Don't try to be a dick when you clearly are a pussy", I said and she winced at my choice of words. Pure feminist at the heart, she was also very foreign to the concept of use of cuss words. If allowed, she would have washed my mouth with phenyl every morning. "Look", I grabbed her by her shoulders and made her face me, "You cannot deny the fact that you miss playing cricket", and she didn't, "We all know you want to go out there on the field and score yourself a century to a round of applause of spectators. If that hadn't been the case, you never would have gone for the original trials. What with that and also the fact that you have been a national level player-"

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