"Ever had one of those nights where you're not quite sure what's real and what's a dream?
Today, I'm thrilled to share my previously published story that perfectly captures that hazy, in-between feeling. It's a tale of missed connections, late-night adventures, and the blurred lines between fantasy and reality..."
I Should Have Slept That Night
It was 10:00 PM. I had just woken up after a long nap, thanks to attending five lectures and a guest lecture. Fortunately, the next day was a holiday. I was feeling famished, and the mess had closed, so I thought of going out for a paratha. I went to Andy’s room and asked if he wanted to join me, but as usual, he wouldn’t leave the campus even if a catastrophe occurred in his room. Damn lazy fellow he was.
"Come on, let’s go!” I said.
“Why don't you just sleep?” Andy replied.
“I haven’t eaten anything; I slept off,” a hungry me said.
“Why don’t you just order from Kukkad Wale?” Andy suggested.
But the food delivered by Kukkad Wale was as good as the pre-reads we had before each lecture; it was hard to swallow, and most of the time, I didn’t even know what it was.
So, I had no option other than to go by myself.
It was a cold winter night, the air was filled with smog, and within that smog, I could see some people doing their weed sessions; it seemed like they were the ones responsible for all that smog.
I walked to the academic block’s ATM to withdraw some money, inserted the card, and suddenly, someone’s face flashed in my mind.
“Who was it?” I kept thinking.
I could just remember the long hair and beautiful eyes.
“Damn, what’s going on in my head? Must be the after-effects of sleeping for so long; maybe I just saw someone in my dream,” I thought.
Just like any other single guy walking alone in the streets on a dark night, I was thinking about my first love. I thought about meeting her, so I went to the nearest paan stall.
“Give me one big,” I said. The guy handed me one big Gold Flake with a lighter.
The only difference between others and my first love was that I could meet her whenever I wanted; I could touch her, I could feel her.
We met, and my lips touched the beauty. I lit it, and we were one. Yes, the cigarette is my first love.
As soon as I took the first drag, again the same face flashed in the back of my head.
Then I remembered what happened in the morning. It was Marketing Management class, and there was a new girl sitting right in front of me.
“But how can a girl just appear from nowhere when we are one month into the course? Who is this mystery girl?” I thought.
She looked at me and passed a smile.
“Can I see your notes?” she asked.
“Certainly,” I said with a smile.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her while she was checking my notes, and suddenly, shit happened!
“Yes, my friend, what are the primary activities in a value chain?” Prof. Verma asked.
“Umm, sir, these are the activities that involve adding value to a firm’s operations...” I replied hesitatingly.
“GLOBE! Minus-one to you; don’t give me global answers!” Prof. Verma said.
“Damn, this globe worked last time; maybe it’s not my lucky day today, or I guess that was a different question,” I thought to myself.
“Ha ha, minus-one,” Andy said, laughing.
“Yes, you, you tell me,” Prof. Verma said, pointing at Andy. And very quickly, Andy’s laughing face shriveled into one of an innocent baby.
“Ah, sir, it is... It is…” Andy’s vocabulary instantly got limited to ‘it is’.
“Yeah, it is exactly what you don’t know; minus-one to you too,” Prof. Verma said.
“It is… it is… a minus-one,” I said while trying to control my laughter.
“Sir, the primary activities are Inbound Logistics, Operations, Outbound Logistics, Marketing and Sales, and Service,” the mystery girl said.
“Yes, exactly; plus-one to you!” Prof. Verma said.
“Hey, thanks for the notes...” the mystery girl said while handing the notes back to me.
“Primary activities in the value chain,” that’s what was written on the page she was reading.
“Wow, definitely not my day today; got a minus-one for no reason,” I thought.
“Hey bro, get up, the class is over,” Andy said.
“Oh shit, I dozed off; where’s that girl who was sitting in the front?” I asked Andy.
That was the last thing I could recall about what happened in the morning. Taking another drag, I came back to the present.
I was enjoying my cigarette, looking at the busy street, which was barely visible through the fog. Cars could be identified by their lights, and people looked like shadows roaming around. After a while, I saw someone coming towards me; as the fog started to thin out, I could see the face clearly. It was someone I had seen before.
“What’s going on? I can see her right in front of me; Damn, it’s really her!” I said to myself because the person standing in front of me was actually the mystery girl.
“Hey!” said the mystery girl.
“Hi!” I said with over-enthusiasm.
“You look stunned, is everything alright?” she asked.
“Yeah, everything's fine!” I said, getting back to my senses.
“I am headed for the Paratha Junction; you wanna join?”
“Did she have the same story as mine? Maybe I am not the only lone rider, perhaps,” I thought.
“What girl, bro? Only guys sit in front of us; maybe being single got to you?” Andy said, laughing aloud.
“The way it got to you? At least I don’t check out profiles of girls on LinkedIn; bro, it is meant for improving your business network,” I retorted.
“Leave it, let’s go eat something,” Andy said, and we went to the mess to have our lunch.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Nothing, let’s go,” I said.
We went to Aradhna Paratha Junction; I wanted a large paratha, but we decided to share. Well, sharing with her wasn’t a problem at all.
Beside our table was a pretty girl sitting alone, but not as pretty as the one sitting in front of me. Was I in love? I was way too quick to decide.
“So, what’s your name? I just forgot to ask you,” I said.
“Well, my name is…” just when she was about to tell her name, a giant, barbaric guy entered the hotel.
This guy looked like he came straight out of a WWE main event. He went to the pretty girl and pulled her by the hand; seemed like she was his girlfriend.
“I don’t want to be with you anymore; we broke up, remember?” the girl said, trying to free her hand from his tight grip.
“I don’t understand no break-up,” the giant shouted.
Well, looking at him, it did seem he didn't understand any of it. He also had two guys accompanying him, sharing the exact same look as the giant—huge overgrown beards and hair trimmed from both sides; I guess they took sharing way too seriously. As usual, nobody in the hotel tried to help her, but suddenly, I heard a brave voice screaming at them. This was a moment of joy that quickly turned into fear when I realized the voice came from the other side of the table. Yeah, it was her.
“Leave her right now!” she said.
“Damn, this is the worst time for women empowerment...” I thought.
“Sit down, this is none of your business!” the giant yelled at her.
But she was brave enough to go up to him and remove his hand from the pretty girl’s wrist, who was still struggling with the gargantuan hand.
But he pushed her aside; something he shouldn’t have ever done because I was in love with this girl for the last 20 minutes—a big reason to punch him in the face.
Trying to fight by watching UFC does help for the first five minutes because I dodged the punch from the second guy and hit him with a right hook; an uppercut to the third guy, but reality struck when the giant and one of his friends caught me. But when it's about love, reality takes a back seat.
As soon as the third guy came to hit me, I ducked and grabbed a cold drink bottle; I smashed it in his face, and he fell on the ground. After all, I had to save my image in front of my love. This gave us some time to run as the two other guys were busy helping their fallen friend get up.
The mystery girl caught the hand of the pretty girl, who was still in shock from seeing the fight, and we ran outside. We were lucky enough to find a rickshaw standing in front of the hotel. As we hurriedly sat in the rickshaw, I told the driver to take us to the institute.
“You shouldn't have done that; there was no reason to get violent,” the mystery girl said; this came from the person who started it all. No matter what, girls always find a reason to blame the guy.
“He is my ex from college, and no one messes with him. By the way, my name's Maya,” the girl said while panting heavily. “I am really sorry, you guys got into trouble because of me.”
“Yeah, I did realize that no one messes with him; and don’t worry, it is not such a big issue. I am used to handling such situations,” I said haughtily as I had proved myself a hero.
We reached the hostel, and I
saw the mess was still open, but how could it be? The mess closes at 10:00 PM, and it’s almost 11:30 PM.
“What’s going on today?” I was clueless.
“Sit in the mess, I'll come back from my room,” I said, gulping some cold water.
I went back to the room just to see four guys looking straight at me.
“Where were you? We have been calling you for the last hour; come now, the deadline is 2:00 AM,” said the first group member.
“Shit, I forgot tomorrow was Marketing Management submission,” I muttered. “I'll be right back.”
“You came just now, first do something, then go,” said the irritating group member.
“Damn, this guy always gets on my nerves; he works the least but wants to talk the most,” I thought, looking at him.
“Yeah, I'll come back quickly,” I said, controlling my anger as I walked to the mess.
Of the many things IIM taught me, one is to be patient when you want to punch someone right in the face.
“Hey, did you look at the two hotties in the mess?” I heard someone saying that.
Some guys were spending an unusual amount of time pouring dal on their plates while looking at the girls; well, why wouldn’t they? Looking at those beauties was the real treat.
“So, girls, you eat something; till then, I’ll finish some work, then we’ll go,” I said.
“You also join us; you didn’t eat anything!” she said, looking at me with her puppy dog eyes; this was more than enough for me to live without eating for a lifetime.
“No, it’s ok, you continue. I’ll be back quickly,” I said unwillingly.
I came back to the room and turned on some old songs; I couldn’t work without music. "Suhani Raat Dhal Chuki" was playing in the background; the objective was to decide on the marketing mix for a clothing company.
“I’ll take up Porter’s five force analysis,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s the easiest!” said the irritating one.
“Then you should take it; you're used to doing easy things,” I said, losing my patience.
“I was just joking; you do it, let’s finish this quickly!” The irritating one finally said while actually doing some work.
This was a very weird night. Just a few minutes back, I was using physical force, and now I was trying to figure out Porter’s forces for this company.
Just 15 minutes later, my roomie Kevin came in saying, “There’s a car outside, and three guys are looking for you.”
“Fuck, how did they find me?” I said.
“What? What happened? Is there a problem? And who are the two girls you were talking to?” Kevin asked.
“Actually, I had a fight with these guys; that’s why they are searching for me,” I said.
“That’s fine, but you didn't answer my question, who are the two girls?” Kevin asked again.
As usual, he was more interested in the girls rather than my life.
“I’ll tell you, but first tell the security guys to get them out of the campus; how did they even get in?” I said.
“Ok, I’ll do that,” Kevin said.
The security guys threw them out of the campus.
Then I went to the mess.
“Thanks to the security, they threw those goons outside; now we can go back,” said the mystery girl.
As much as I cared for her safety, I still wanted her to stay.
“Wait a minute, where do I drop you?” I inquired.
“It wasn’t just me, nobody else knew her; but she was there in the class. Damn, what’s going on?” I thought.
“Let's move out of here first!” she said, changing the topic very quickly.
“We’ll first go to Sector-2, then I’ll drop you at your place,” Maya said.
Damn, I was too tired with all the adventure; I just wanted some rest, but fate didn’t want me to rest. We took a rickshaw to Sector-2, and just after five minutes, the giants’ car started following us.
“Does this ever end?” a tired me uttered.
“I know how to fix this guy!” Maya said while dialing a number on her phone.
“Hey, whom are you calling?” I enquired.
“Just wait for a second,” Maya said, assuring me.
After five minutes, a car stopped in front of us, and a humongous figure stepped out of it. This guy looked like a reincarnation of ‘Andre the Giant.’
Their car also stopped. The huge guy went near their car and pulled the giant out, who now looked like a little child. Also, his two friends stepped out of the car just to be scared to death looking at the reincarnation of Andre. With just one slap, he silenced the entire street; after this, the two friends ran like there’s no tomorrow. Well, there wouldn't have been any tomorrow for them if they had stayed.
Being shaken by the slap, the tough guy ran to his car and left the scene, speeding his car like he was a Formula-1 racer.
“I told you not to talk to this guy,” said ‘Andre reincarnated’ to Maya.
“But bro, he came following me,” Maya said.
“Bro? This guy is her brother, and why didn't she call him at the Paratha Junction in the first place?” I said to myself.
“And who’s this?” he said, pointing at me.
“He saved me when we were in the hotel,” Maya said.
Patting my back with his huge hand, he said, “Thank you, boy.”
“Not a big deal,” I said, scratching my back.
“So, I guess I’ll leave now. Thanks a lot, guys!” said Maya, and then she went with her brother.
Waving bye to them was a very happy moment—not because all the ruckus ended, but only because she was with me.
“So, where do we go now?” I said with an inflection in my voice, trying to sound manlier.
“It’s late. I should go back to my place,” she said.
“Oh yeah, where do you stay?” I asked.
“Let's just walk to the rickshaw stand, then I’ll go,” she said.
“Not again, she evaded my question again,” I thought; anyway, just walking with her was also a good idea.
We were walking, holding hands in the moonlight, and stopped in the middle of the road; we were staring right into each other’s eyes.
Maybe it was early in the morning because I could hear the birds chirping. Just when we were going to kiss, I began to shake all of a sudden.
“Lee, Lee, what happened?”
I opened my eyes and saw Kevin in front of me.
It was 8:30 in the morning, and I was in my bed.
I realized it was a "false awakening"; then I remembered what actually happened last night. It was Kevin’s birthday party, and I had smoked sixteen cigarettes and drank almost 400 ml of whiskey. And that chirping of the birds was Kevin’s phone’s alarm.
I got ready and rushed to the class.
Management Accounting class at 8:45 AM.
I was sleepy as hell, but I entered the class right at 8:45 AM.
“Wait...is that her again?”
Interesting
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