The month of October; marked the beginning of my golden days every year
A Saturday combined with an afternoon class meant I wouldn't get a chance to visit the library. I had almost finished KTG, with four pages still left, and studying at home till afternoon was tough.
But as I often say, I've been a bit lucky: Maa's heavy breakfast was too delicious, and I was confident it would fill me up enough to last through lunch. So, I decided to head to the library. Ramesh wasn't going to attend Shashank sir's lecture, which was likely the last one on electrochemistry—and probably the final day of our game as well, which had been going on for nearly four months.
Our scheduled class was in Room 9, where a group of juniors was having lunch and discussing their doubts. I kept my bag on the second bench and went to the library.
Despite there being only four students, including me, the library had never been a conducive place for real studying. I got up after a while and went back to our classroom—but forgot the AC remote. So, I stepped out again to retrieve it.
On my way back, I paused at the door of Classroom 10, where our lectures were usually held. Out of curiosity, I pushed it open slightly.
Through the narrow gap, I spotted Naira—and felt oddly glad I'd looked.
When I opened the door fully, I found Arjun and Sanjana J there as well.
"Huh...? Have you been sitting in Room9 all this time?" Naira asked.
If only you'd been a bit more curious earlier… my sixth sense taunted me.
Yeah, if I'd known Naira was here, I would have come here earlier, I thought to myself, and quickly replied to Naira in a positive,
"Haan-" I couldn't even finish my words before I was interrupted.
"Aye Tuh-nish, will we have two separate math exams for boards?" Sanjana asked.
I always got serious goosebumps whenever Sanjana J and Naira called me "Tuh-nish," instead of my usual "Tanish."
"Nahi…" I replied to Sanjana.
"Ek hi hoga na?"
"Yes, yes," I responded.
"Will you keep my bag in the other classroom?" Naira asked, her eyes squinting.
Naira, I wish I could hug you tightly and keep you in my arms forever. I kept thinking to myself.
"Sure," I agreed.
"Keep it on the third bench," she continued with a smile.
"Well, I'm sitting there," I teased her.
"Classroom Number 9 ke third bench pe ham bethte hai,"
Naira proudly stated.
"Sure. I had actually saved the bench for you," I reassured her.
"And for CS, we have two separate papers, right?"—before I could even turn back to Naira, Sanjana had already moved on with another question.
"I had asked ma'am about it, and she told me there would be two separate papers," I replied.
"But in the timetable..."
"...ha... there's only one CS paper listed,"
Her questions didn't seem to end—when the paper was, why it wasn't visible in the timetable, and a few more in the same breath. Only after I found it and showed her did she seem satisfied.
"Since when have you all been sitting here?" I asked, trying to figure out how much more time I might have had with Naira—if only I had come a little earlier.
"Ek baje," Sanjana answered my earlier question, and then her series of questions continued.
She moved rapidly from one thing to another—about the form which was in Marathi, the message I had sent, the group, and a couple of more questions I don't remember—while I kept answering without much thought. Naira tried to jump in at one point, but Sanjana brushed it off and continued just as quickly.
"I'll get it translated soon. Hindi Marathi toh…" Sanjana added, explaining her difficulty in reading Hindi and Marathi—which Naira agreed with.
"Then what's the point in being a Maharashtrian?" I teased them as they stood up, ready to move to Classroom 9, where I'd been sitting earlier. Naira took her bag from me, and I followed them while Arjun stayed back, saying he'd join us later. In fact, I had even forgotten that Arjun was also in that same class.
"Second bench pe projector lagta hai na?" Naira asked me.
I told her that three students couldn't sit there because of the projector, and even claimed that only one could—since I needed more space.
She might have missed the detail, but Sanjana was always sharp.
"Two students sit there with the projector," she turned back and corrected me.
I somehow excused myself, muttering a curse under my breath as they opened the door and we exited the classroom. Turning towards Classroom 9, I caught a smile on Sanjana's face from the side. I knew she had heard it.
"Ye toh har baat pe bas gaali dene lagta hai," Naira said. I defended, half-laughing that it was just my catchphrase which I often used.
The three of us entered the class, and I noticed the juniors were still there. I moved my bag to the second bench and sat down, stretching out and relaxing with my legs on the bench.
I suddenly remembered the question I'd been pondering over the past few days—and thought maybe Sanjana and Naira could help answer them.
"Hey, listen up… I wanted to ask something," I said. Both girls turned to me with curious expressions.
"In a lehenga…," I began. Just then, Naira turned back to Rushika, who had just entered the class, but Sanjana kept listening.
"In a lehenga, what is the bottom part called? I know the top one is called a blouse." I questioned, with a hint of awkwardness.
"Woh poora lehenga hi hota hai," Sanjana answered, keeping it casual enough to not increase my awkwardness, as I quickly made a note of it for the book.
(Readers will understand that question belonged to which moment.)
"Do you like this?" Sanjana asked, turning her phone toward Naira to show her something.
"Let me see…"
"Yeah, it's nice," Yash, who had arrived and was sitting on a bench behind the girls, added, glancing over from his spot.
"Isn't it?" Sanjana asked again, sounding half-curious, half-excited.
"You guys like Korean stuff more, right?" I guessed, half-teasing, half genuinely curious. I assumed Sa must have shown Naira a photo of some Korean actor or singer.
"No," Sanjana replied immediately, adding, "It's not like that." Naira nodded in agreement, and for a moment, I felt relieved that my assumption hadn't turned into another round of teasing.
Sanjana then asked the other girl if she'd heard a certain Marathi song. I watched them, slightly outside the conversation now, but still close enough to catch bits of it. Sanjana described how she'd danced to that song at a function.
"I danced to that song, and then I blinked like this in front of the camera," she said, demonstrating with a quick, playful blink, "and then I turned around," she continued, joining her hands together with the middle fingertips touching, like a small finishing pose.
The conversation drifted to board exams as Sanjana read out the schedule from her phone. For a moment, there was confusion about the dates—she pointed out that the exams extended till March, while I was sure ours would end earlier.
We even compared it to our 10th boards, recalling how late they had stretched back then due to covid. I and Naira corrected each other on dates and papers, since we both were from ICSE.
Soon, Sanjana mentioned that form filling would begin in a couple of days. When I asked how it worked, she said the college would guide us, just like they had for the identity cards—which reminded all of us of how delayed those had been, sparking a brief, chaotic discussion. Sanjana said that in her school, they got only one identity card throughout their term and by the end of it, she joked about how we probably wasted more plastic than needed.
For once, I didn't argue. But my habit of having a comeback wasn't going anywhere. With nothing else to say, I just muttered, "State Board…"—and somehow, those two words were enough to make us laugh.
"Whenever I think of State Board, it reminds me of Gurukul," I added, which made them laugh even more.
"Gurukul ke teen niyam: Pratishta, Parampara, aur Anushasan. Waise hi tumhare state board mein bhi teen niyam hai kya?" I joked.
"Are…" Sanjana began,"Ek minute ha, " She said, as if asking me to wait, and opened her phone.
I wondered what was coming—
"She shows that to everyone," Naira teased her, half-laughing.
"Ha... mai sabko apni school dikhati hu," Sanjana admitted, then turned the screen toward me.
I leaned forward slightly from my comfortable slouched spot on the bench. On her phone, I saw pictures of a turf and a basketball court. It instantly reminded me of my own school, though her school building itself wasn't clear in the photos. I didn't touch her phone—just glanced—and leaned back again.
"You had a turf as well?" I asked, still surprised.
"We had turf, a swimming pool, two basketball courts…" Sanjana started listing. I couldn't recall everything she mentioned, but it sounded impressive.
"Our school's full name was Father Angelo Multipurpose School and Jr. College. We had more than one building-"
"Reminds me of Gurukul again," I blurted out, and both of them laughed.
Sanjana turned back to Naira, who, just as Ramesh had told me, always seemed to hold Sanjana's attention quietly.
I switched to Instagram to check if our school page still had that top-view picture—but it seemed it had been deleted. A bit disappointed, I turned back to Google and searched again for the top-view picture of our school.
The first result showed exactly the image I'd wanted.
"See, the top view of our school," I said, unable to hide a grin.
"Bro, this looks like a prison." Sanjana was being real, and for a moment, I was speechless.
My school—awarded as the best ICSE school in the city by Jacqueline Fernandez in 2019 and by Suniel Shetty a couple of years later—was now being compared to a prison. Sanjana looked at my phone a bit longer, probably checking other images of my school, which I didn't really mind.
I opened Instagram to check if our school page still had that top-view picture—but it seemed it had been deleted. A bit disappointed, I turned back to Google and searched for that picture of our school.
The first result showed exactly the image I'd wanted.
"See, the top view of our school," I said, unable to hide a grin.
"Bro, this looks like a prison."
Sanjana was being real, and for a moment, I was speechless.
My school—awarded as the best ICSE school in the city twice —was now being compared to a prison.
Sanjana looked at my phone a bit longer, probably checking other images of my school, which I didn't really mind.
"Tanish…"
Someone else finally spoke.
It was Sai, always smiling, like every time I'd seen him since my school days.
"My penalty fee… I was absent from the last lecture." he said, handing me two coins.
"Are, and what about you? Even your penalty remains," I turned to Sanjana.
She opened her purse and started searching. For a second, I caught sight of the colourful mix of new Indian notes: the purple hundred rupee note, blue fifty rupee note, green twenty rupee… She pulled out a ten-rupee coin, turned it in her hand, and handed it to me.
That's all I have for now."
"Look for five more rupees," I urged, a bit impatiently. It had been over a month since Sanjana's penalty was due. She withdrew her hand and kept checking through the notes.
"Sanjana has a lot of money," Arjun observed from nearby, smiling lightly, no malice in his tone.
"Ice cream party!!" Naira announced suddenly, her voice bright with excitement.
At that moment, I couldn't help but smile. The way the conversation kept shifting—from exams to schools to random jokes about parties—somehow made being around them feel strangely comforting.
"Do you all get money every month, or do you ask for it?" I asked—partly because I didn't want the conversation to end, and partly because I was curious if anyone else got a monthly allowance like I did.
"Like... it depends on mummy," Sanjana began. "I just go to her and ask, and she gives me whatever she has—like a hundred rupees or two hundred." Naira nodded, agreeing it was the same for her.
"I get two thousand rupees every month," I shared.
"Every month??!!" Sanjana's eyes widened, her surprise so genuine it almost made me laugh.
"Yup!" I confirmed, almost proud for a second.
"Tch... mujhe teri zindagi jeeni hai," she sighed.
Her voice softened, gaze drifting toward the empty benches. There was something in her tone—a hint of regret mixed with quiet envy—that caught me off guard.
It might have been a normal conversation for her, but for me, it was something bigger than it seemed.
Sanjana Jaiswal—known for her high standards, confident demeanour, and an Instagram that, as Ramesh put it, showcased a certain lifestyle—was openly wishing she could trade her life for mine, just over money.
"You shouldn't be saying this..." I started, my voice quiet.
"Huhh??" She blinked and turned back to me, caught off guard.
"I mean, you might not get as much pocket money as I do," I said, trying to balance it out, "but you probably have a better house and a better car than mine."
"Aisa tujhe lagta hai," she asked, her voice low, still looking at that same empty spot as if weighing something in her mind. For a brief moment, it felt like there was something deeper troubling her.
"Which car do you have?" I asked, falling back into my habit of comparing.
She said it was a hatchback, and I realised that even if our car might have been bigger, it could still seat the same number of people. Sanjana nodded, smiling gently, as if to say maybe my guess about her life being "better" wasn't entirely right.
"How big is your home?" I continued, more curious, not really worrying about whether I was asking too much.
Quietly, she lifted three fingers.
"Three...??" I confirmed.
She nodded.
"Ha, your home is three times bigger than mine," I said, my voice rising slightly.
"Ghar me kitne log hain?" she asked
"Four."
"Mere ghar me paanch log hain," she added.
And then, before I could ask anything else, Shashank sir entered the class. I quickly turned toward the whiteboard, the conversation finally pausing as reality resumed.
Since it was the last day of our quiz, and the scores had been reset to zero. Sir introduced a new concept quickly and then posed the tie-breaker question. I stared blankly at the reaction he'd written, my mind refusing to connect. Electrochemistry had become one of my weakest topics, thanks to all the irregular lectures.
I copied down the question mechanically, hoping something would click. It wasn't the first time I'd felt this helpless as a captain; I'd frozen the same way in chemical equilibrium earlier.
I turned desperately to Sanjana, who was still focused on the question.
"Look," I whispered, my voice edged with urgency. "I know nothing of this chapter, so please solve this question."
"Even I have no idea about this one," she admitted, meeting my eyes with the same helpless honesty.
I told her to keep working while I scanned the room, hoping to spot someone who might have finished. Sammy suggested I wait patiently and let him solve the question. Karan and Piyush admitted they hadn't understood it either. Around us, no one else seemed close to an answer either.
Finally, the timer ran out. Sammy, our vice-captain, was the only student to raise his hand. He confidently chose option C—which turned out to be the right answer, and just like that, we won.
All the stress of the past few weeks seemed to lift in that moment. The four-hundred-rupee prize was to be split among the twelve of us.
"Does anyone have change for a hundred?" I asked, holding up the note. I had already broken my 500 at the medical shop—now I just needed to get the rest of the larger notes changed.
"Ha, mere paas hai," Sanjana replied immediately.
"Take this hundred and give me thirty-four back. The remaining sixty-six, divided between you and Naira," I explained.
"Are haa, your team won na? Waise isme 20 rupees mere bhi hai," Rushika smiled, reminding me she had missed one lecture and had to pay a twenty-rupee penalty.
But Sanjana gave only fifteen rupees as her penalty, right? My sixth sense teased from the inside.
"Bhai, wo fifteen rupees bhi badi mushkil se diye usne," I teased myself back, laughing.
Sanjana carefully pulled out a twenty-rupee note, a ten, and two two-rupee coins. I took the money and, as always, placed them neatly in my wallet, keeping them separate from the rest of the money —just like the fifty-rupee note I had won in my first game in B2, a memory which was still very special.
I stepped out of the academy and started walking toward the bus stop when a thought suddenly struck me—it was the first time I had spoken to her that much.
With Naira, things had already been easy. We had talked a lot, and built a familiarity. But this thought was about Sanjana. In fact, it had been in the back of my mind even while I was talking to her.
It really was the first time I had had a proper conversation with her since I'd known her. Over the past year and a half, I had heard a lot about Sanjana, but even after joining Batch 1, I was never completely comfortable around her. I had kept my messages limited to homework or oral exam discussions. What I hadn't realised was that I had never actually tried to know her—her thoughts, her opinions, or who she was as a person.
As I boarded the bus home, I opened my phone and decided to write about the afternoon, since the memories were fresh.
It struck me just how significant that day would be for my book—and for me.
Without even planning it, I'd ended up capturing a day that had felt real, new, and unexpectedly important.
The next day marked the beginning of India's World Cup campaign, with the country hosting the tournament. The academy, too, was buzzing with that excitement. In class, the usual faces were there—Naira, Sanjana, Shaurya, and a few others.
Strangely, though, no one was talking much. I had already written down most of what had happened the previous day, glad I had done it while it was still fresh. And then, I think it was me who finally broke the silence—with yet another random question, this time about facial expressions.
"Hey, what's it called when you look at something with your eyes almost closed?" I asked, squinting to demonstrate, but not knowing it was squinting.
"I don't know." Naira turned around and shrugged.
An awkward silence followed, and with each passing second, my discomfort grew as I found myself unsure of whom to look at for an answer.
"Squint," Sanjana replied without looking up from her phone.
"Squint?" I repeated, just to confirm.
She nodded, finally glancing up.
"I mean, when you kind of close your eyes, like a cat trying to see something better. Is that squinting?" I tried to describe.
Sanjana nodded again, pressing her lips together in that way she often did.
I thanked her and typed "squint" in my draft, to use it for describing how I'd looked at her phone the previous day while trying to read the timetable.
"What?" Sanjana asked.
"Kya?..." I repeated the same question.
"What is that?" Sanjana questioned again, noticing my typing.
"Mai book likh raha hu" I told.
Her eyes widened slightly, and she covered her mouth with her hand—a soft reaction that I'd later end up asking her about the next day. It felt more like a quiet mix of surprise and a faint smile; neither a proper gasp nor a sigh, but something in between.
"So, are you going to publish it somewhere?" she asked.
I told her maybe in the future, mentioning the four books I had already written, out of which in reality, only two were full books. Others I left unfinished in between
"Six books and two girls," I joked. Naira shook her head, pointing it out as a bad one.
I went on to tell them about the first one… with whom my current relations were so bad that we might end up strangling each other if we ever met again. Sanjana laughed and mimicked my words, lightly pointing her pen towards Naira's neck.
"So, are you planning to publish it online now?
On Wattpad?" Sanjana came back to her question.
I had no idea about Wattpad. Honestly, I even misheard it as WordPad—the one that came installed on most computers. I had used it once or twice a long time ago, back in childhood. I didn't even know you could publish books on something like Wordpad.
I said I was hesitant because my books used real names, and it was all non-fiction. I was honestly too scared of what could happen if people read them.
"What's the harm in that? …nothing will happen," Sanjana reassured.
While Naira got busy creating a Wattpad profile, I showed Sanjana the PDF of the first chapter of my first-ever book, First and First, which was all about the first time I saw my school crush.
To my surprise, she even started reading it, still shocked I had actually written a whole book. As she went through the first few lines, she asked if I tore out an entire page whenever I made a mistake.
I told her no — that I tried to write carefully, framing each line in my head first.
"What's childish about it?" she asked, glancing up from my phone.
I realised she had reached the part where I mentioned the nursery rhymes we had to sing at age ten during our morning circle in school, which I found childish. But the eighteen-year-old Sanjana didn't seem to mind singing nursery rhymes, which made Naira laugh.
"Hey, he's even written about us in his book… I mean, mentioned us once or twice," Naira jumped in—just like she had been doing since the previous day, often stepping into my conversations with Sanjana.
I chuckled internally, knowing they had no idea just how many times both of them had actually been mentioned.
* * * * * * * *
It was one of those nights when I was in my bedroom, half-studying, half-scrolling through my phone after dinner. Everything seemed normal until I suddenly got a message from Paresh on Instagram.
"Btw, don't be offended, but I heard you have a crush on someone from B1."
The message caught me off guard. We had barely spoken since he joined B1, and even those few conversations were mostly me calling him out for his "alpha" attitude—something we all knew didn't quite match the way he passed careless comments about others. And now, out of nowhere, this.
Had someone actually guessed it was Naira?
But how?
Then again, maybe it wasn't that surprising. It had been around three months since she had started sitting behind me. There were plenty of moments when she'd lean forward, whisper my name to ask for a notebook, clear a doubt, or sometimes just to gossip. I'd even save her seat if she came in late.
"Who?" I asked.
"Do you?" he replied, sticking to his question.
"I'd love to hear the name. Naira? Kavya? Who else?" I pushed back, staying on mine.
I did like Naira—but if there had to be rumours, I had always expected them to be about Kavya. I was closer to her, and she often sat with me. With Naira, there were plenty of conversations too, but she was always behind me.
Still, I was curious.
"I mean, I talk to them the most, so rumours are obvious," I admitted.
"Rumours will always be made. Even I had mine. Leave it," he said, suddenly pulling back.
Now he was being oddly evasive.
"Tell me," I insisted.
"It was Naira, I think. But it wasn't me who started this. I just heard."
So I had the name. Now all I wanted to know was—who started it?
Strangely, I wasn't really worried about the rumours spreading. One name came to mind: Neil. We weren't exactly enemies, but it felt like something he'd do. I still remembered how he had led the comments that day when I was made to sit between Naira and Sanjana.
I even felt a quiet excitement at the thought of telling Naira about it—though I didn't quite know why. How would she react to it? Would she just laugh at it and brush it away? Or would she get angry at it?
The next day, I reached the academy half an hour earlier than usual and waited for Naira. When the door opened, she walked in slowly—her hair tied half-up, her eyes lowered.
I put my phone aside and sat straighter. We exchanged a quiet namaste, and for a brief moment, she smiled at me before going to sit behind me.
"Uh, Naira…" I began.
She looked up from her phone and blinked at me.
"I need to tell you something."
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
"I won't tell you who said it, but yesterday someone messaged me on Instagram… there's a rumour going around that I have a crush on you."
There was a short, strange silence.
"So, he told you on Insta?" she asked, still calm.
"Yeah."
"Forget them, yaar," she said, getting up and turning toward the door. "These people have nothing better to do," she added with a small laugh. "Even in school, I was teased with a boy's name for years."
"Did you two ever talk?" I asked.
"We sat together for a whole year," she replied, before stepping out.
That one line stung a little. Three months of her sitting behind me, and we had barely sat together once—while someone else had an entire year.
By the time she returned, Rushika had arrived as well.
"Rushika, listen…" Naira began immediately, "…Tanish just told me that—"
I turned back quickly. "Why are you telling her?" I said, a bit irritated.
"Arre, she won't tell anyone," Naira assured me.
"Tanish, I won't tell anyone. Do you really think I'd spread it?" Rushika added.
I trusted them both, and deep down, I knew Rushika wouldn't say anything either.
Later, Naira told me how even Rushika understood the kind of mindset people at the academy had.
I nodded at it, but the thought stayed with me.
Not the rumour—but the thought that someone else had once sat beside Naira for an entire year, while here she was, sitting so close to me, yet never really with me.