AMBAR

Chapter 19

Ambar's POV

It has been 4 months since I got here. I got accepted in St. Xavier's Delhi. Tejas had to courier my school documents. Of all the people in Bangalore my principal was relieved the most that I am going away. Tejas said our principal framed our L.C. in her office. It's like only we were the trouble makers. The interview was quite good. They liked my profile. My tenth grade marks were more than enough. I have selected Science stream just like Saami Anna and Arush. I love Maths, I am on good terms with Chemistry but the only problem is I hate Physics. I used to think Armaan is the only dementor of my life turns out physics is also like him. Last time I got confused in acceleration and velocity and that stupidity occurred in preliminary exams. Only Tejas knows how I burned those test papers. The only good thing about being here is I don't give a damn to what others will think if I get less marks. Anyways I have got along with Kabir and Ridhima. Ridhima is adorable and Kabir is a sweet boy. Once to kill time I dared Ridhima to to spin with her head down and then walk in a straight line. She collapsed and so did Kabir, when he foolishly said to Ridhima that he would walk in a straight line. Watching him taking his first step after spinning round was like watching procession dance. I had to hold him until a Shalu didi a help here bought a chair for him.

I have made friends here. A boy named Manav. He is a tech geek and its because of him that I have passed Unit test. Manav is from here Delhi. He is a little taller than me. I kind of like Manav. Then there is Prateek. He said that he had spend a lot of year in North Indian States like UP and Bihar. He has a thick North Indian accent. He is a Maths wizard and cracks joke so funny that if you spend a day with him you might end up pissing your pants. He is the one who can crack jokes in front of the teachers. Once in our lecture teacher caught us chatting in between the lectures. The teacher asked him to explain the uses of phenol and he did. In between the explanation it striked him it's physics class and then looked at me. I couldn't help it and I started to giggle. He then looked at sir and said "Should I get out or can I sit." He asked and obviously he was thrown out. I met a girl in my class. She is often hungry and loathes Physics just like me. We bonded on our comman hatred for physics. Her name is Jahnvi. She was my first friend here. She came and sat next to me. After 45 minutes she removed a box of cookies from her bag and gave me one. I took it. As we were munching we felt that someone was throwing something on me. I turned back to and saw Prateek throwing small paper balls on us. Manav was sitting next to him.

It was January. Winters are harsh here. It sometimes gets difficult to breathe when I am out with friends. Nights are longer. when I saw Manav and Prateek looking at something. "What is it?" I asked. They both sat straight and Prateek pushed his phone in his pocket. Manav looked towards Prateek and came a little close. "We'll tell you but"

"I won't tell anyone." I said in affirmation. "But what is it?" I asked.

"Do not judge us." Prateek said. "He removed his phone from his pocket and showed an image. It was a movie poster. A bhojpuri movie poster. I looked at them. "What is there to judge in it?" I asked.
"We'll go to Ghaziyabad on Friday to watch this movie after school hours." Manav said in excitation. He was high on adreline.

"Do you want to come with us?" Prateek asked.

"Ofcourse. I'll tell at home I am with Jahnvi." Because Jahnvi left for Jaipur to attend her Uncle's wedding. So no one will know.

"Very good. I am gonna book the tickets." Manav left all cheerful.

"Ok listen. I don't have idea if there are going to be girls in that theatre or not. All I want you to is bring a jacket big enough and a cap. You're tall enough and do not wear any funky clothes." He said.

"Fine." I said. After school I was dropped near Jahnvi's colony. Thank fully while leaving no one saw what I was wearing. Arush had left his jacket here and it was perfect for me. I tied my hair in a bun and left. When the driver left Prateek and Manav came to pick me up. We reached the theatre and somehow Prateek turned out to be right. There were very few girls there to watch this movie. So I was sitting in between them. The movie started and all the fans started to whistle out loud. Nothing changes human nature. When I used to be in Bangalore and we used to go and watch movies of some bigshot actor the crowd would start to applaud even before the hero could utter a dialogue.
We saw the movie and it was quite funny. I could understand some of the dialogues but couldn't catch on some words. Some times I had to look towards Prateek if he found it funny. We decided to walk till Jahnvi's home as it was not far from the Multiplex. We were laughing and talking about the movie and then about our lives before 10th standard.

"So I had to choose a hobby." Manav said. "I chose western dance form because a friend did and it was first time I experienced peer pressure. I was in 6th. But that class was on Saturday as my football coaching but on different time." He said while he smiled from ear to ear. "So we had to go for practice from one end of the school to another. I had to dance in shorts and would feel shy and awkward around girls because I knew they were laughing on me. On the other hand I realised I am a terrible dancer." As he said this Prateek bursted in to laughter.

"What happened next?" He asked.

"My friend left the class and I got stuck. So I had to dance with this class mate of mine who was disappointed in my dancing skills. When we use to meet in class it was visible on her face that I suck in dancing." We again started to laugh. It was weird to imagine him dancing. Manav then controlled his laughter. "On the last session of the class we were performing in front of our parents. There were only few who were dancing properly. I got fine because my partner wouldn't let me defecate on her performance. But some were dancing like crabs. In between the performance I had an eye to eye contact with my teacher and his facial expressions clearly indicated what he was thinking 'My life is ruined.'"

Now it was Prateek's turn. "A friend of mine gave me an adult movie." As he said this Manav and I looked at him. To be fair our eyes were shining from excitement. "I had no dvd player at my home so I decided to play the dvd on my computer. Problem was I wasn't aware that it was getting hanged. I started to watch the movie." And then Prateek got a little shy. "I was skipping the movie to" and then he was at loss of words due to his blushing.
"We understand what it was. Just tell us what happened next." I said.

"It got hanged and"

"What!" Manav yelled.

"It's nothing. The dvd slot got stucked and now I cannot remove the dvd. But after five minutes my father came home." We looked at him in horror. "In panic I switched off the monitor. He wanted to book some train tickets so he wanted to use computer. Now I could not do anything because if I switched on the monitor I was dead. If my father saw me watching that movie he would beat the shit out of me. But miracle happened and there was power cut in our entire colony. I quickly removed the CPU from living room and hid it in my bedroom. I gave it for servicing and told the service guy about dvd but later he kept it for himself." I was laughing so hard that it was hurting my stomach.

We reached near Jahnvi's colony. It was getting dark. It was again becoming difficult again to breathe because of the dust in air.
"It's like some one is scratching my throat." Prateek said. The lights of car flashed in our face. The car was for me. "That's me." I said.
"Bye." They said and went in Jahnvi's colony so that the driver may not see them.
"Bye." I said. It's not like I didn't want to give them a ride till their house. But we had lied and I had to be careful with lies.