Chapter 2: Betwixt and Between

Afternoon Lectures were called off so students could cram for the semester finals. College canteen was quaking with lunch-break uproar and Jatin had been startled to discover there were only two weeks left until the exams.

"I am fucked. Semester starts first week of may..." said jatin, shovelling Maggi into his mouth (from karan's tiffin) as though he had not eaten for days.

Karan, who had been looking warily at the time-table leaped from his seat across the table and snatched his tiffin from Jatin and chided "Leave something for me, what are you a animal or something?"

Jatin seemed too incensed to speak. He only looked at karan for a moment, then pulling the time-table on his side-

"First Mathematics ... then Physics ... Chemistry ... What crap? If I could just go back in time, first thing, I'd kill that person who discovered this dreadful concept of exams." Jatin said gloomily.

Looking at his discomfort, I offered Jatin to share my tiffin. Mom had fried last night's left khichadi with onion rings. He hawked over and decided not to interfere in my appetite, leaving out a snort of disgust. I chewed my insult with a mouthful bite of khichdi and Jatin muttered dramatically with a sob of despair.

"You give me forever ... I won't be able to clear physics this time."

"It's not your fault "I said to Jatin, patting him consolingly on shoulders, injecting a little cheer in his gloomy season. however It was undoubtedly his fault.

He sincerely bunked lectures over the complaint of tiredness which he got by exercising to much and, not to mention, his so-called 'BIRD WATCHING '

"Teachers and parents tricked me guys. They said, study properly in school. Engineering is 'fun only campaign.'" Jatin said, staring at three giggling girls, alongside table. He suddenly sucked his stomach in and puffed his chest out. "Dude look at that hot piece of ass. Pink top is mine, you kids can decide from the rest." Yes, I mentioned this specific type of bird watching.

"It ain't as difficult as you're making it sound, bro. 2 weeks preparation leave coming up. You still can get an awesome score, just start studying from today." I said.

'MARKS ARE LIKE MONEY AND SEX ... NO MATTER HOW MUCH OR HOW MANY TIMES YOU GET IT, YOU LUST FOR MORE." Jatin said. My advice rolled off Jatin like water on duck's back.

"Might be true, but you gotta work for passing grade." I said

"That's the whole point. For me Passing marks are hard to get." Jatin whined, bashing me with his ample fist and I am not ashamed of saying It hurt. Off-course nobody will have fun getting smacked by a six feet hulk of a man. From the very beginning, I had it figured out: Decency and Jatin are like oil and water; you just can't mix them together. It was the first day of college, when Jatin came late for the morning lecture with his huge biceps bulking out of skin-fit red T-shirt, which was proclaiming,

'SORRY GIRLS, I DATE ONLY SUPERMODELS'.

And our Physics teacher, Prof Rao welcomed him with a sackful of insulting comments, each one complimented by howling laughter of entire class.

There was too much insult for him to ignore, so half a minute later Jatin took his seat on the last-bench of middle row away form the overrated atmosphere of the Physics lecture, feeling angry at everybody, he bumped into me.

An half a hour later in same lecture, Prof Rao asked Jatin to write the spelling of 'ENGINEERING' on black-board. Well, he was almost through with it except he wrote 'ENGINEARING'. It is hard to believe that an engineering student made this mistake, but it's a fact about Jatin. He generally do things which are hard to believe. During his justification, Jatin claimed E and A hardly makes any difference. Prof Rao said and I quote

"From now on I will always grade you an E, whenever you'll score an A".

That day never dawned because the best grade Jatin scored till date was a 'C', in Workshop. Nevertheless, Jatin could have topped first semester if Prof Rao would

have change his long list of 'E's into 'A's.

"A rumour is going viral in campus, seniors were gossiping." Karan said, lowering his voice to a whisper and beckoned us to bend forward for a secret talk. We

leaned in across the table so that nobody else could overhear and karan hissed " First semester's question papers were leaked a week before exams."

"What arrant nonsense!" I implied. " They can't do that."

"No smoke without fire, buddy" Karan said."There has to be something beneath these rumours."

Jatin looked up in a lopsided grin as if he was loving the fantasy of getting question papers before exams.

Mentioning karan, he was the biggest gossipy-bitch, I'd ever seen. Half of his chats are senseless lies. Though he wasn't as rough and stupid like Jatin, he'd his special ways to make fool out of himself. Though, in my knowledge, Karan wasn't a intellectual giant, he was no dope, either. Talking of looks, karan and I fall in same category, both short and bony. Except the facts: Karan need a pair of eyes less than me, and his hair are less curlier than mine, which delivers him less geeky appearance. I met Karan exactly 3 minutes after I met Jatin. He was sitting on the second last bench and even the first time I spoke to Karan I was to resolving his argument with Jatin, who for the whole lecture kept kicking his foot over Karan's

which Jatin explained as an ancient Chinese 'kick-a-stranger-secretly' technique of calming yourself down.

"Even if it is true, there is no fun cheating in exams." I quipped flatly.

"Hey ... Go and fuck yourself ... Einstein! " Jatin barked, throwing a withering glance at me. I flinched at the acidity in his voice.

Meanwhile, Girl in pink(next table) hoisted her rucksack and and took a rear exit from canteen, swaggering along the corridor. Jatin hurtled behind her, leaving us blank without a goodby. All of his exam-anxiety vanished in a flash and he was live like a dragonfly.

Karan and I looked at each other, surprised.

"He ain't coming back." Karan groaned as he buckled the empty tiffin.

After a while, Karan and I went to the college-library. We flitted around the bookshelves plucking out books to be studied from. A worried frown fell on Karan's face after realising the vast syllabus. It upset me too. It's common though. Engineers are like firework's rockets, they stay idle till exams lit their ass on fire.

One by one, We sat paging through a pile of books,4 hours straight.

"Dude, We should've studied from the beginning..."he gulped nervously, looking down the list of portion we had made in the library.

I gave a long, weary sigh and said " We're little late for that, don't you think?"

Karan was dead faint now.

"My parents are leaving tomorrow afternoon. Can come by? We'll have

E-Mechanics sorted out."

"Yeh, two heads are better than one." I said. "Call Jatin if he wants to come!"

"We better dodge him." Karan said in a immediate and predictable reaction. "He'll turn it into a slang-party like last time."

"It was our fault, we got mixed with him. This time we'll control him."I said."you leave it up to me."

Only with the idea of inviting Jatin, Karan face distorted with discomfort. He never really liked Jatin, however he started hating him from the very second he opened his birthday-present box, which Jatin had gifted him and found a dead squirrel. Though, over the time, karan held an image of Jatin as a overemotional-psychopath, Jatin had learned to embrace Karan's hatred by making himself more hateful for him.

"He's evil," said Karan flatly. "A foul-mouthed evil."

"He's horrible, yes, but ... Dude, he is our friend..."

"Your friend!"

"Whatever," ""Do me a favour and help me to help Jatin as much as you can, OK?"

"Let me remind you, we are barely equipped to help ourselves,"Karan said. "And hey! why do you care so much?"

"He's my first college friend, I'm suppose to look after him."

"We both know for a fact, he's not going to make it to second year. He still has 3 of first semester subjects due on him and need to clear all second-semester subjects at once."

"He just need guidance,"

"And you think we can we can guide him?"

"At least we can give a fair try."

"I highly doubt that. And for a moment, forget about other teachers, but I must say Prof Khan( our chemistry teacher) is the toughest graders I have ever see.

It's not going to be like Jatin'll write meaningless, lengthy answers and will get score for it. And although he passed other subjects, I bet Prof Rao is going to make him sprint for each internal mark, without which he don't stand a chance."

"Jatin knows that." I said.

"Yet his behaviour shows no trace of seriousness, besides it looks as if he is looking forward to getting doomed." Karan said.

"And that's why we should call him,"I said stubbornly. "Otherwise he's doomed."

Plus you two have a lot in common!"

"Really? Give me one example!"

"Why not? You both bunk college,"

"Dude, Jatin bunks because he kept chasing random girls, who don't give a crap to him ... while I..." Karan hesitated "have a legitimate reason!"