The Lost One: Story of the One who ends it all (Shiva the Destroyer Book 1)

by Aarohan Atwal

I look at him with surprise and puzzle. “Do I have to come, like right now?” I ask.

  “Yes, right now” he replies, calmly.

  “I am in the middle of a paper” I reply.

  “You can do it later, for now, come with us.”

  I get up from my seat and I take a look around the room, everyone is looking in my direction, as if convinced I am an international convict on the run. And then there’s this guy, oblivious to the world around him, cheering me - Siddhant, He gives me a thumbs up, and moves his lip to say - ‘Best of Luck’, I try to smile. The girl at the door looks relieved but disgusted, as if she was looking for me for all along but not happy at all to finally see me. I look in her eyes once again, but this time I don’t look away, my gaze hunts for the answers. Together we walk, in silence, out of the room, less dramatically as opposed to her entry. Once out of the room, the girl breathes easy, so much so that I can hear her deep breaths.

  She says “Dean wants to see you.”

  “Dean? Why?” I ask. “Doesn’t he has anything better to with his time”

  “Just come with us, will you?” Gusain replies wryly. Dean of ITS, is one of a kind more cynic than anyone else in the college.

  Dean Nainwal is a heavily built, square faced man, a thick grey moustache adorns his stern face. His office is near the reception, the big entrance hall. A curved table is placed at the center of the hall and four crescent moon shaped sofa’s with their back against one another is placed near it. We settle on the side which faces the big aquarium, the aquarium where miniature hammer heads and shark fight for the supremacy of the aqualand. We sit beside each other while Gusain goes to see the Dean. Although we sit next to each-other awkwardness and uneasiness fills the space between us. I look at her face and try to smile, but her face gives away nothing, carrying only one expression - Disgust. I don’t understand in which way I wronged her, I press against my memory to see if I could find something, I don’t know her, I have hardly seen her around, but still in some manners unknown, she looks vaguely familiar. I take a really long look at her face, fixing her picture in my mind and try to locate her in my memories, after a few futile minutes my brain gives up, I fail to remember where she fits in. Nothing comes up in my mind.

  Her aversion to participate in a small talk and her constant disgust toward me intensifies even more the awkwardness between us, with every passing minute I pray for this to be over. The scene looks much like the one where two people for the arrange marriage meet first time, compelled to say something without having a slightest idea about what to say, knowing fully they might have to spend rest of their life with other. I tap my feet on the ground nervously.

  Mustering up the courage, I ask her:

  “What is the matter?” I add. “Why are we here?”

  She looks at me in complete disbelief as if I am lying to her.

  “Where did I see you? I am sure I have seen you somewhere.” I continue to hunt for answers.

  “Seriously!” she says acting little surprised. “You don’t remember me?”

  “No I don’t” I reply gently. Pause.

  “Stop pretending,” “it won’t work now” She lashes back at me. I am startled by her sudden change of tone, so much so that I almost fall-off from the sofa.

  From a distance, near the Dean’s door, I see Gusain signaling us to come.

  Sit down, he says signaling all of us, the two of them take the adjoining seats, I too bend down to take the last one left, when he says:

  “No not you.” “You stand there”

  “Do you know why you are here?”

  “No”, I reply “I do not know”

  “Do you know a fellow student is in ICU, due to severe injuries” He says “inflicted to him by the students of our institution.”

  “I know that a boy is hospitalized, sir”

  “That’s all? You know”

  “Yes, yes sir” I say hesitantly, avoiding an eye contact.

  “So let me ask you then” He begins “Where were you on last Thursday evening? I mean in the afternoon?” He gets down to business, cutting the small talk.

  “I left early that day sir” “I was not feeling well.” I add up.

  “How did you go back home?”

  “I took the bus sir” “public bus, sir” I add up the piles of lies.

  “Are you sure about that, you took the bus”

  Hell with him, he already knows.

  I say, thinking for a moment. “No, sir. I think I took a lift from a guy” “I went along on his bike”

  “Anything else happened that day?” “Along the way?” He asks. The girl grows impatient. ‘Wait a minute’ I say to myself, ‘is she the girl from the other day?’

  I guess - I better start coming clean. “Sir, there was a big brawl that day. I saw-“

  “So you admit to it?” He says,

  “Admit?” I ask suspiciously. “What’s going on sir?” “I don’t understand” I ask completely confused.

  “I think I must clear myself about the gravity of the situation here, Shiva.”

  “Did you catch anyone of them, sir, who assaulted the boy?”

  “Yes!” he says, jumping-off his seat dramatically, pointing his fingers toward me.

  “Infact one of them is standing right in front of me.”

  My mind goes blank, refusing, to understand the whole situation.

  I ask “What, what are talking about?”

  “Stop pretending, now” the girl who was sitting quietly, interrupts.

  “Ihita you are a really-really brave girl” Dean admires. Daring girl - which believe me is even more rarer than the blooming of the flower Brahma Kamal.

  “First you helped Devraj in such a situation and then you stood up against these wrong doers. Our institution is extremely proud to have a student like you.” I am shuddering with horror, trying to get a grip.

  “Where are you friends?”

  “I am not involved in the accident” “- incident sir“ my throat dries up.

  “I’ll repeat, who else was there?”

  Ihita replies “There were five-six people involved.”

  “I honestly donot -“

  “Shiva, you are not co-operating at all, you are suspended for fifteen days” he continues, “Till we decide on your future”.

  “Sir, sir” I say pleading “I didn't do anything wrong” “In-fact I tried to -“ I think my best bet at the moment would be to tell him the complete truth.

  “A month” “You are suspended for a month” he says.

  “Come to the college next Tuesday” “We are taking this matter to the DC.”

  “DC!” I froze on the ground, dumbfounded. Never in the past four years, has the DC been called. And never in the history, had anyone escaped the wrath of DC. DC is a death certificate, literally.

  “You may leave now.” He says.

  ‘How can you say so? How can you not give me the chance to say my side of the story?’

  ‘I am innocent’ I wanted to yell. ‘Please listen to me once’ But my mouth is zipped.

  I look at her with deep animosity. The rage that is boiling inside me for Ihita is incomparable to anything human. I wanted to hit her on the face, and on the guts till she cries for mercy. I wanted to see the blood flow out of her veins, I wanted to see her eyes swollen and bruised and I wanted to see limping, holding crutches.

  “You two wait here” he says to them, as I reach for the door. It’s a long lonely walk for me from the Dean’s office to the class. By the time I get to the class, test is over, but that is least of my concern right now. I am not able to think straight, my head is spinning, I’ll have to cool-off before I do something further.

  The faces of my classmates bear a big question-mark, Siddhant grabs me and pulls me to the side and asks:

  “What happened back there? You look like shit.” Pause.

  I look at him and I say with a straight face, emotionless and stern. “It’s because no body would be happy if he gets suspended”


  “What? what’s going on?” Hatttu interrupts.

  “I got suspended, buddy” I repeat.

  “I don’t understand why, for what? Siddhant asks.

  “That makes two of us” I reply.

  “I am in a big mess this time” I say.

  “Does this have to do anything with the brawl?”

  “It is about the brawl” I stress, “The dean thinks I am one of those responsible for it”

  “How is it even possible?” Raul is taken aback, “You saved the guy”

  “Didn't you tell that to the Dean?”

  “I tried, but he wouldn’t listen”

  “What did he say?”

  “Come on guys, drop it, I am really tired”

  “Tell us, what did he say?”

  “He doubled my suspension.” “It’s her fault totally, what’s her name, yeah Ihita, she told the dean that it was me who beat-up this guy.”

  “Who’s Ihita?” Raul asks.

  “It is the same girl I told you about, the one who helped the guy.”

  “Oh! my God” Siddhant says, hitting his forhead with palm of his head.

  “Why would she do that?” Rauls asks, rhetorically.

  “How would I know” I reply.

  “Do you know her?”

  “No, I haven’t even seen her before”

  “Ihita-” Raul repeats, thinking something.

  “Maybe she misinterpreted the whole situation” Siddhant suggests.

  “What’s there to misinterpret” I say irritatingly. “She clearly has some sort of personal vendetta against me” “That bitch” I let the anger get better of me.

  ~~~

  Sonu’s Dhaba started about two years back, the time when I had just joined the college. Serving hundreds of student everyday with scrumptious meal, the place stands taller than our college canteen. The gourmet butter-bun and masala noodles are almost unbeatable. But it was not always like this, it had a humble beginning with a takeover of a small tea stall. The news was among the most talked about at that time and evoked lot of public emotions, after-all people had their sentiments attached with the Savera tea stall - they begin their morning with its tea and ended the day with its tea. Faculty to students everyone was jolted by the takeover. Change! Nobody likes it. But then there were other set of people who supported it, who came forward for the change, they said that it’s time that we get more, they argued they wanted something to eat, give us an option, college canteen is too dull. Reality was different though, it was not just the change these power dealers sought of, they sought something more, something which was hidden under account books of the Savera, their accounts had reached to the brims, their debts ran into tens of grand, the Savera pressured them, terrorized them, he troubled them, and there was only one solution - change! and so the Sonu happened. Sonu was brought in hurriedly, and he made an offer to Savera that Savera couldn’t refuse. In one shot he recovered all the money lent to those broke power brokers. Savera was happy, Sonu was happy, people were happy.

  We grab an empty table, which is usually a difficult job to do. As we settle down multi-talented Raul takes the center-stage, making full use of the table, he showcases his talent in playing table-tabla.

  Irritated, I urge “Stop it yaar”, I say “Don’t you see we are serious.”

  “Should I play classical then?” He quips.

  “I’ll kill you if don’t stop.” Siddhant replies.

  “Chotu” he shouts. As with every dhaba this dhaba too comes with a menu item called chotu, it’s not a specialty but a regularity.

  From behind the stall a tall boy, about five-ten, appears, complete with a printed cotton shirt, rugged bellbottom jeans and some weary sport shoes.

  Well this is not how we imagined chotu to be, the first time we saw him, we assumed him to be a small, meek boy wearing a khaki short and a dull white undershirt complete with a scrap towel put on his left shoulder. He wipes the table clean with the same towel, as he takes our order often getting confused, his mind obviously is not on the job but somewhere else, maybe thinking about an ill mother lying on a tattered bed, whose medicines are getting increasingly costly every day.

  But it’s a different story with this chotu, this guy is all about style and attitude. He comes at the table, takes out the pencil tucked under his earlobe. And he jots down, as he stands putting his weight on one leg.

  “Noodles, I presume” He says.

  “One masala noodles” Siddhant repeats.

  He looks at us with doubt.

  “Don’t you see we are three people here and we will need one full bowl of noodles.”

  ‘And I thought three people would need three bowls’ He mumbles under his breath.

  “What?” Siddhant quizzes.

  Boy genius Raul, chips-in, “Okay, Get us one noodles and three bowels”

  Raul reads out his T-shirt ”My attitude is my style.” The boy stops and gives him a long stare.

  “Never mind him” Siddhant says, signaling him to go.

  “And yeah - ” I shout, bring us three teas meanwhile, I say stressing on the word three.

  “And not printed tee” I add. “Just plain”

  “Make it 2/3” Siddhant amends, kidding us. Chotu pulls his hair in utter frustration.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll give you one free, on the house” Chotu snaps back.

  The crowd at Sonu’s is a mix of students from IMD (institute of management Sambhala), PWC (pryl ween college), and our very own ITS; IMD students can be identified by a red tie, on a blue blazer, blazer that they are required to wear all the time, all the seasons. They are also knows for their bindaas female students who often could be found smoking cigarettes, shouting on the guys and liberally swearing on each other. PWC is some hot shot private school; the students are often seen horse riding down the valley, in one of their playgrounds.

  There’s Pathak sitting in one corner smoking incessantly with one hand and giving fundas to juniors with other. He waves, when he catches me staring him. He comes over and says,

  “I heard you took a round too”

  “Yeah, I got the good fortune to visit his place” I reply assuming he is talking about the Dean.

  “You are a daring man,” “Hatts-off to you, excellent work bro.” He says.

  I am not sure what impression does he have of my rendezvous with the Dean.

  “I got suspended” I say with actually some pride.

  “Suspended!“ He looks at me bit surprised.

  “How comes?” “Whatever bro, that’s even better.” “Look I have been trying hard to piss-off that old man myself, but he just doesn’t take the bait.”

  He continues, “You are just lucky bro”

  I feel like punching on his mouth and robbing him off of all his frontal teeth, but I somehow manage to curb my urge and patiently talk to him till he leaves. What a douche, I think, as he leaves.

  ~~~

  I see a bunch of second year-ers arrive, among all the people, most noticeable is the one with a medium height about 5.5’’ who does her hair like a Barbie and who hates half the mankind - Rhea Lohani. One thing come instantly to my mind everytime I see her - stalker Sumit. “So what are you gonna do next?” Siddhant asks me, in a serious tone.

  “I donno, I’ll have to survive, somehow, I know”

  I am suspended right now but that is not even half of my worries, the biggest problem is I may be staring down at, God forbid, an expulsion; this is some serious mess I am in.

  “The task is cut out I have to clear-off my name.” “One way or other”, I add, I know, I

  can’t be more vague than I am at this moment.

  Raul gives me a what-are-you-gonna-do stare.

  “I am not sure yet, but I’ll find something out, I have to, I know I have to.”

  As the tea arrives our attention shifts to the hot brew; on small glass glasses it is served. “Hold it like this” Siddhant suggests showing us how to hold a hot glass with your thumb and forefi
nger. Thumb at the bottom and first finger at the rim at the top. I take a sip and I shriek instantly, “Cardamom!” “He has put in cardamom in this” I say disappointingly.

  “Didn't you tell him not to add cardamom” “I really hate it” I say to Siddhant.

  “I am sorry I forgot that” He says sarcastically, “Oh! I just remembered it’s you who ordered the tea” he concludes. “So, you should blame yourself” He adds further. Raul pats him on the arm, signaling to stop.

  “Forget that” Raul says, as he touches the back of my palm. “Aarone! You should know one thing, just remember that we are here to help you through, better or worse, no matter what.”

  I nod in approval. “Thanks, you guys. I’ll be needing your support.”

  I can’t get my mind off this girl. Why is she so convinced of my guilt, just why?. What’s her problem, why she is so adamant in destroying me? What influence does she have on Dean that he didn't even hear my side of the story? He just trusted what she said, damn it. I pound my fist with frustration, on the table. Hearing the noise Sonu shouts from inside:

  “What just happened there?”

  Raul shouts back, “It’s nothing, the steel glass fell down, get back to your work”

  “Where is that noodles we ordered” Siddhant shouts.

  “What?” Raul enquires. “Thinking about Ihita?” He smiles.

  I nod.

  “I am sure she doesn’t have anything personal with you, the whole thing is just a misunderstanding.” Raul says.

  “A misunderstanding” I repeat, mockingly. “Her little misunderstanding can cost my

  whole bloody life. If she -”

  “Cool, don’t be so melodramatic, we will think something out” Siddhant meddles.

  Chotu arrives with a plate full of noodles with lot of onion (to increase the qty) just as suggested by Raul. I pick up a small stone and hit a dog who’s looking toward us expectantly, it lets out a small cry and then moves away to cross the road, a speeding Innova is on the way. We are frozen for a moment, our gaze fixed on the fate of the dog. The dog is frozen too, with fear. But at the very last minute, it puts itself together, gaining its composure, it pulls itself away from the vehicle.

  “Survived! it survived a sure shot death” I say thanking God. It’s a sign maybe, I’ll survive this hardship too, no matter how bleak it looks like at the moment.