Chapter Text
[Late September]
“Get your ass outta bed,” yelled Advaith, yanking my blanket off me, “before the warden gets here. You don’t want him snitching your first nap to Kalpana on your first evening here.”
The mention of the warden threw my eyes open, but mentioning Kalpana had me on my feet. I yawned and stretched, then picked up the blanket Advaith had dumped at the end of my bed. I folded it and threw it crudely on my pillow. It landed in a sorry pile. I didn’t care anymore—this wasn’t Rashtrotthana anyway.
I walked out of the room with my face wash in hand. The warden really wasn’t such a big concern. I’d arrived at Deeksha earlier that afternoon, later than most of the other students (being NRI during COVID had its perks).
I’d met Kalpana earlier, the bitchy lady who claimed she was the principal of the campus. Well, “met” was a polite word. I’d witnessed her. Screaming at a few students in the central courtyard, veins nearly popping.
“Why yours-ki lu talking in the class-lu? Girls-ki boys-ki no talking. If again in the talking, sending in the house-ki!”
Her voice was enough to make dogs howl three blocks away. Maybe she’d been the inspiration for the movie. I’d mistaken her for a maid who probably watered the garden or something. Who knew the self-proclaimed matriarch roamed around campus in gym clothes, looking like she was late for her Zumba class?
I washed the gunk out of my eyes and walked back to the room. It was time for my first study hour at Deeksha. Advaith had been telling me that they went on till 11 in the night. There wasn’t much to expect from Deeksha, given it was an institute famed for its JEE and NEET rankings. However, the fame had slowly started fading, with management issues and internal politics slowly cracking open rumours and controversies. But then again, none of that was my concern. I was here to study (which I obviously didn’t want to do) and score well in JEE (which I obviously really wanted to do).
I changed into the first sweatpants and t-shirt that I could find in my suitcase. I really hadn’t unpacked much. Given the regular routine of classes and study hours, I doubted if I ever would get the time to do so. Soon, I was out of the room, tailing Advaith as he guided me out of the hostel and towards the college building.
“The guys sit in the classrooms on the ground floor,” he started explaining, “while the girls sit on the second floor. We’re again divided into JEE and NEET classrooms, while the CET guys just adjust wherever they find places. There should be an empty bench in the class I sit in. You could sit there. Or else, womp womp.”
I shuddered at the idea of sitting in some random classroom. Advaith had been the only guy I had met at lunch. I hadn’t even met the rest of my roommates yet. For the time being, he was the only person keeping my introvert ass from spiralling into oblivion. COVID had left me detached from society. I’d stopped talking to almost all my old friends. I’d nearly given up on JEE. But somehow, I’d pushed on.
We entered the class—G3, to be exact—and there were about forty-odd guys huddled in numerous groups and chatting away. Advaith looked around and pointed to the far end of the class. “There,” he said, “Go sit. I’ll go get the gang.” I slowly walked towards the empty seat. Only to realise that there was someone already there.
The guy sitting there was skinny and wore glasses. He looked like a typical nerd, but I didn’t wanna judge someone just because they had glasses. I wore a pair myself. At GIIS, I’d been that nerd. He sat with his legs outstretched on the bench, with his back against the wall. He had kept his bag behind his back for cushioning, although I knew that it was filled with books, and it did not look comfy.
“Hi, can I sit here?” I asked the guy.
The guy looked up from his tab screen, studying me. After what seemed like an eternity, he moved his legs and muttered, “Sure, sit.” He didn’t really sound welcoming, though. His eyes were already back on his tab screen. I just had to find a new place tomorrow, I guess.
I sat down and tried to act normal. The guy next to me definitely sensed the awkwardness and broke his silence, “New here?”
“Yeah. I just came here this afternoon.”
“Hmm. Which room are you in?”
“Uh, 312, I think?” I couldn’t even remember my own room number.
“Not bad, you have a pretty silent room. You should be glad you didn’t end up in 302 or 313. Or 310. Or 301.” At this point, I was concerned he’d list all fourteen rooms that were on the 3rd floor. “I’m in 303, by the way. Name’s Ishaan.” And he stuck out his hand.
“Vihaan,” I replied, shaking his hand.
“Most of the row behind me is in my room. There’s Aaron,” he pointed at a guy with curly hair in the last row. “He sits next to Akash. We just call him for short sometimes. That’s Vikas,” he gestured at a tall dude sitting in the next column. He had mildly Asian eyes. “His cousin is in your room. I never realised why they didn’t room together until I spent a night with the guy in my room.” He sighed and continued pointing out people, whose names I promptly forgot in the next two minutes.
“And that’s Dhruv.” He gestured at someone sitting two benches ahead. He wore a face mask, and was quite pale. He seemed shorter than me, but barely. He was too engrossed in his tab to pay attention. I noticed movement to my left and turned to see Advaith walking in with a bunch of guys. Those were probably my roommates.
Introductions came rapid-fire. Nikhil, Vikas’s cousin. Vihan. “We’ll have to call one of you something else,” Advaith decided instantly. “I can’t afford to lose my mind calling out to you guys.” I wasn’t really expecting to room with someone with the same name as me. I didn’t mind a nickname. I’d been called Singapore all 3 years at Rashtrotthana. Then there were Yash and Vedant. Two others, Advaith added, “don’t really stay in the room too often. They just come in to sleep. Well, that’s the room for you. We’ll see you back there after the study hour.” And they exited as quickly as they’d arrived.
Advaith had barely settled in his seat at the front of the class when a new figure appeared at the door. “Students sit-uh. Leave your tabs-uh. Study ra. Open the books ra.”
“That’s the JL, Praveen,” Ishaan whispered. “He’s pretty chill. He just yells now and then to throw Kalpana off his scent. But always stay on his good side. Always.”
Praveen was pretty much the average Junior Lecturer. But he had that chill vibes aura around him. He was lean, and was obviously Telugu, given his strong accent.
He walked into the class and everyone settled down. He stopped at the start of our row, and I knew he was coming for me. He started walking up the aisle, and I started rehearsing my intro, when he stopped two benches ahead of mine. He looked at me dead in the eye, and yanked Dhruv’s tab.
“Sir, sir, sir-” Dhruv stood up.
“I told you no ra? Leave the tabs-uh. I’ll give to Kalpana madam?” the JL asked.
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Hmm. Warning you ok? Kalpana madam not nice. You all know no? Simply don’t make here unnecessary the drama.” And he handed back the tab. Dhruv sank into his seat. His expression was unreadable because of that damn face mask.
“Mmm, who’s this new piece ra?” I hadn’t noticed Praveen had walked over so quickly. Had I been staring at someone?
“Vihaan, sir,” I said, standing up.
“Sit, sit ra. I am Physics JL, Praveen. Any doubts-uh, come ask ok? Read nicely ra.” he said. I nodded, and he went back out of the classroom.
“The other JLs aren’t this nice,” Ishaan whispered. “They just snatch your tab and hand it over to Kalpana. She creates unnecessary drama and makes you do obnoxious stuff before you can get it back. Just be careful while using your tab during study hour. If they’ve locked it, just let me know. We get the updated password from Praveen every week.”
“Does everybody really hate Kalpana that much?” I asked.
“Yup. Haven’t you met her?”
“I have, but she didn’t really seem that significant. I mean, I thought she was the cleaner lady or something.”
Ishaan giggled. “That’s a pretty good first impression you had of her. Trust me, even the lecturers here thought that until she announced she’s the principal. Rumour has it that she’s the founder’s wife’s half cousin twice removed or something like that. Both her phones’ wallpapers are his wedding picture. She’s here on some serious nepotism business.”
“Rey Ishaan, read ra.” Praveen was back in the doorway. “Why you is disturbing new boy ra?”
Ishaan promptly shut up and went back to his book. I also went back to mine.
About an hour had passed when I heard giggling from behind me.
Aaron and the guy he was sitting with were busy doing some shenanigans, and they were the source of all the giggling. I looked at the door to see if Praveen would magically appear like last time. He didn’t.
Aaron yanked on Ishaan’s shoulder to get his attention. “Yo, this Akash keeps saying annoying stuff da.”
“La boom de la kaka.” Akash said, and Aaron started giggling all over again. Ishaan turned around like he had been through this a few million times.
“What the fuck? Akash, shut up. I don't want a JL coming back here to whoop your ass.”
“BOOM DE LA KAKA!” And Akash started cackling. I couldn’t help it either, and I started giggling.
“Ley Akash, tika muccho,” a new voice called out. I turned.
Dhruv had removed his face mask.
I hadn’t really noticed his features until now. He had dark brown eyes set between a slightly crooked nose. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. He must be addicted to coffee, I thought. His moustache wasn’t as bushy as the other guys’. Maybe he clean-shaves now and then. And his hair. His hair was wavy. Some of them stuck out at weird angles, which reminded me of noodles. It made me wanna run my hand through it.
I had to stop. I barely knew the dude, and here I was thinking like a fucking idiot. Get a grip.
“Bro, why’re you getting so serious? It’s just a harmless joke.” Akash had started talking normally now.
“Yeah, but like Ishaan said, we don’t want JLs here constantly.” Something told me from Dhruv’s tone that he was back on his tab again. And he didn’t wanna get caught using it. Again.
“Ok macha. What can I do if y’all have such a bad sense of humour?” Akash sounded like he was about to get his face punched by someone.
“That’s enough. Shut up before some JL shows up.” Ishaan intervened.
Things went quiet after that. Except for my heartbeat. It felt like it was jumping all over the place. I tried to hide my face inside my book. My cheeks had never felt this hot before. I was clearly blushing my ass off.
“Come sit here,” Ishaan called out as I walked down the aisle in the mess, searching for Advaith. The table he was at was full. I took the empty seat opposite Ishaan. Aaron sat down beside me. Akash was nowhere to be seen.
“Yo Aunty, you better ask Akash to shut the fuck up sometimes,” Ishaan scolded Aaron.
“Macha, it’s all chumma fun only. Don’t take it too seriously.” Aaron defended.
“Wait, hold up,” I interrupted and looked at Aaron. “AUNTY?”
“Yeah, these dumbasses call me ‘Aunty’.”
“For what fucking joy?” I was utterly perplexed.
“Oh, there was this character on JordIndian called Sharon Aunty. We just nicknamed him after that.” Ishaan explained.
“Bro, that’s insane,” I said.
“I don’t really mind. Say, you’re the new kid right?” Aaron asked.
“Yup. I came to campus this afternoon. I’m in 312.”
“Hmm, decent room only. Lo Ishaan, add this guy to our Discord server.”
“Y’all have a Discord server? Also, what’s a server? I haven’t really used Discord a lot.” I looked at Ishaan.
“It’s like a community space on Discord. You can create different channels for texting different stuff. Mainly a hub for friends, really. There are large ones, like for celebs or specific games. We just have one for the memes, study materials and to stay in touch.”
“Aah, makes sense. I’ll have to download Discord on my tab first. Oh wait. I need to unlock it before I do that.”
“That I can do. Like I said, Praveen usually tells us the password every week. All you have to do is go to the Educator unlock panel and type the password. Open Educator again to lock it. We don’t really lock ours once we unlock it. But, to be on the safer side, we lock them whenever a JL shows up.”
“Praveen doesn’t really care if it’s unlocked. But he will threaten you. For the plot, mostly. Like he did to Dhruv.” Aaron added.
There it is again. That damn name. My heart had started doing jumping jacks inside my ribcage.
“Yeno Aunty, y’all gossiping about me?” Speak of the devil. Dhruv sat down opposite Aaron. “Tell me also about myself.”
“Nah, I was just telling the new kid about Praveen.” Aaron replied.
“Ahem, I have a name,” I chided Aaron.
“Oh. Dhruv, this is…..” Aaron trailed off. He clearly didn’t know my name.
“Vihaan. Vihaan, this is Dhruv.” Ishaan said, saving Aaron’s ass.
“Hello.” I tried. But all that left my mouth was a high pitch “heh”.
Calm the fuck down, Vi. He isn’t gonna kill you or anything. Besides, he could be straight, my internal voice resounded.
Or what if he isn’t straight? What if he likes guys? What if he likes me? I really wanted to kick myself.
I had been too busy wrestling my inner thoughts that I had lost track of the conversation happening in real life. Ishaan was waving his hand in front of my face.
“Yo, where are you from?” he asked.
“Uuuh, O?” I mentally kicked myself. Hard. The last time I’d played the NRI card, it had backfired. I had been looked down upon as “not Indian enough”—an outcast.
“Woah, woah, woah. You’re not Indian?” Dhruv was looking at me now. Damn, I could get lost in those brown eyes.
No. No one’s getting lost anywhere, I told myself.
“I mean, my parents stay there. I’ve been studying in India for four years now. Well, three. If you minus the one year COVID took from us.”
“Huh, so you’re NRI?” Ishaan asked.
“Yeah, at least because of my parents. If you consider my education, I’m not really NRI,” I said, hoping to cover up.
“Cool.” And everyone went back to eating.
I was stunned for a moment. No nasty remarks like “Oh, you probably don’t know our traditions”. Or “Hmm, you must be looking down on us, we’re not modern enough for you”. Nothing.
Not everyone is like my so-called “friends” from Rashtrotthana, I reminded myself. Bengaluru is a better place anyways. Maybe these people won’t be that bad.
Little did I know that I had just met some of the best people in my life.
After dinner, we headed back to our classrooms for the second half of the study hour. There was still time till it started, so we gathered around Ishaan’s (and soon-to-be mine as well) bench. Aaron was telling Akash about me being an NRI. Ishaan was talking to Dhruv about some game. I was trying to evade awkward questions from Akash. Which never came. He seemed fascinated by why I'd chosen Rashtrotthana.
“Rashtrotthana has a campus in Dharwad, and it’s residential. My parents preferred it because it was close to Dharwad. Their hometown. Well, my hometown.”
“There was Ramakrishna Vidyashrama in Mysore, no? I studied there. Your roommate Nikhil too,” Akash said.
“I don’t really have relatives in Mysore. My parents preferred Dharwad for the sake of safety. You know, like in case of emergencies, someone could come over and take me home.” I felt like a princess just saying that.
“Fair enough. But damn, man. RSS hard core sentiments and all. I could barely hold up in Vidyashrama.”
“Brother, you at least had outings and phone calls. I didn’t have those. I wrote letters home every Sunday.” Ishaan and Dhruv turned. What I’d just said had obviously flabbergasted them.
“Letters? Yo, did you have pigeon services to Singapore or something?” Dhruv joked.
“Haha, very funny,” I tried to sound sarcastic. I couldn’t. Not with Dhruv staring at me. “I wrote them to my cousins. They sent pictures to my parents. Or they didn’t. I don’t know. We did have computer classes. We used to text our parents through Gmail or Facebook.”
“That’s better. Honestly, I can’t imagine writing letters to my parents.”
“Well, I didn’t really have a choice.”
“Was it all-boys, like Vidyashrama?” Akash asked.
“Yeah, it was. I... uh...” I hesitated.
The silence stretched a second too long. You could almost hear the crickets chirping.
Suddenly, Dhruv spoke up before I could answer. “Stop interrogating him, Akash. Are you trying to figure out his sexuality based on the fact that he went to an all-boys school?”
Dhruv looked at me. He caught my eye. For a split second, his expression softened—just a fraction. It wasn’t a smile, but it was a look of recognition. I see you, it seemed to say. I know why you hesitated.
"I wasn't trying to figure out anything!" Akash defended himself, though he looked a little sheepish. "Just asking, da."
"Sure you were," Dhruv deadpanned, turning away from him.
My heart was hammering against my ribs. It was now or never. I could laugh it off, pretend to be straight like I had for the past two years of my life. It was safer. It was easier. In a boys' hostel, 'gay' was usually the punchline of a joke, not an identity you volunteered.
But looking at these guys—Ishaan grinning, Dhruv’s quiet observance, Akash’s harmless curiosity—something in me shifted. I was tired of pretending. I was tired of the 'don't ask, don't tell' unspoken rule.
"He's not wrong, though," I blurted out.
The group went quiet. The crickets outside seemed to get louder.
"Huh?" Akash looked confused.
I took a deep breath, gripping my knees under the table. My palms were sweating. "Dhruv. He's not wrong. I am... well, I'm bisexual."
The word hung in the air, heavy and terrifying. I waited for the flinch. The awkward laugh. The 'stay away from me' comment that was cliché in India.
Ishaan blinked. Then he shrugged, reaching for his water bottle. "Oh. Cool."
"Wait, really?" Akash asked, eyes wide.
"Yeah," I squeaked, my voice cracking slightly.
"Damn. Okay." Akash nodded sagely, processing this information. "So, does that mean you have double the options? Or double the rejection?"
"Akash, shut up," Ishaan groaned, slapping the back of his head. "Don't make it weird."
"I'm just asking for knowledge! It’s a statistical question!"
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. A laugh bubbled up in my chest—half-hysterical, half-relieved. They didn't care. They actually didn't care.
"It's fine," I said, a genuine smile finally breaking through the panic. "And for the record, it’s mostly double the rejection."
"Well," Dhruv’s voice cut through the chatter again.
I turned to look at him. He was looking right at me, his expression unreadable behind the mask, but his eyes were serious. Intense.
"Good to know I'm not the only one," he said quietly.
I stared at him. "What?"
He shrugged, picking up his pen and twirling it between his fingers. "I'm pansexual."
If the silence before was heavy, this one was electric. My jaw actually dropped. I looked from Ishaan (who didn't look surprised) to Akash (who looked like his brain was buffering).
"Pan-what?" Akash asked.
"Pansexual," Dhruv repeated, his tone casual, like he was discussing the weather or an integration problem. "Gender doesn't really factor in for me. I like the person, not the label."
"So... hearts not parts?" Ishaan offered helpfully.
Dhruv rolled his eyes so hard I thought they’d get stuck. "That is the cheesiest way to put it, Ishaan, but yes. Sure."
"Great," Ishaan clapped his hands together. "Two queers and two idiots. This room is going to be chaotic."
"Who are the two idiots?" Akash asked, offended.
"You and Aaron," Ishaan replied instantly.
We all laughed, the tension dissolving instantly into the cool night air. I looked at Dhruv. He caught my gaze again. This time, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes was unmistakable. He was smiling under that mask.
I smiled back, feeling lighter than I had in years.
I had come here expecting judgement. I had expected to hide who I was for two years, to be the quiet NRI kid in the corner. Instead, in the span of five minutes, I had found a tribe.
And looking at the boy with the messy hair and the sarcastic eyes, I had a sinking feeling I had found something else, too.
Trouble. The best kind.
Somewhere, a feeling started to grow in me. Faint. A subtle nagging. Barely audible. Within weeks, it would grow bigger. Louder. It would all start to drive me crazy.