On the last day of November, when Simran made her way back into the college gates she found people to be dressed in a bit thicker clothes. Though the weather wasn't chilly ,being in Mumbai other than summers and Monsoons nothing was perfect weather. Winters were never winters and nor were the autumn and spring. It was either summer or the monsoons. There was nothing in between them.

Smiling at the watchman who had now begun to recognize her face she walked into the gates, the little haphazard moment at the stairs still surprised her as much as it did on the very first day of her college. Simran's phone buzzed in her hand as she reached the first floor, the corridor still a bit empty with the morning lectures still going on, she walked up to the window that overlooked the street of their college and then attended her phone.

"Hello." She whispered, her heart beating loudly.

"Simran, I want to meet you. This one last time please listen to me once and then you can decide what is it that you want to do. Please." The person on the other side pleaded. She didn't know what it was that she should do? Accept his apology and meet him and listen to him or let it slide by, focus on the things that were in her hand at the moment.

She found the later one to be more reasonable and said, "I am sorry, I have a busy day today. We have our meeting, and then lectures till evening."

"Evening... how about evening, even at night would work, I can come at your place for dinner."

Simran was about to reply to him when she felt herself being pushed into the window pane, "Hii simran!!" She recognized the voice very well and she cut off the call immediately, turning around and hugging her tightly. She needed this hug that would assure her that things would be alright.

"I missed you so much, whom were you talking with?' Divya asked as she let go of her. Simran studied her smiling face, she looked happy. She had seen different faces of Divya. The one who has been the strongest of all after Nandini. May be because she never let out her feelings to others, but she had seen the days when she would meet her out at the tea stalls with her shoulders slumped down,, but her smile...her smile had always been as bright as this one. There would be these other days when she would just come and hug her randomly because she needed it, or the times when Divya herself knew that something was wrong with her and she would come up to her, hug her and ask,

"Is everything okay?" just the way she did the moment she realized simran wasn't replying to her just yet.

"Yeahh, Where is the meeting?"

"Ohh I am yet to find a classroom, you wait here I will go and do that...or maybe you want to come along? Nandu is here in college itself."

Adjusting the strap of her bag, Simran's attention then went to her buzzing phone, she cancelled the call and said, "Yeahh I will come with you, I might be of some help." The two walked upstairs where Nandini was talking with one of the peons, more like laughing. Simran looked at Divya who excitedly waved at the two. It seemed she knew them.

The old man with specs who was seated on the chair looked at her with admiring eyes as the two conversed in Marathi, Divya kept on narrating how her diwali went off and asked him about his. A few moments later the old man stood up and made his way upstairs on the third floor. However making way to yet another floor with Nandini and Divya by her side wasn't that easy. People would come and meet them at each step, it was as if she was walking with two celebrities. Majority of them knew both Nandu and Divya, a few who were from the Degree section of their college seemed to know Divya only...and then there were some who knew only Nandini. It finally made Simran remember why she avoided walking with the two through the college lanes. They knew a lot of people and hence a walk of 10 min would somehow take up 30 min with them.

Finally as the three reached the third floor, the peon allotted them the classroom and asked Divya, "For how long will you be occupying the class?'

Divya looked at her watch, the old citizen watch which needed to be replaced soon yet she never bothered to, as she smiled at the uncle and said, "We will be done by 2, the Junior college comes in by 2:30 right?'

"For this class, yes my duty will be over by 12, so after that you will have to convince the aunty." Simran saw the way Divya and Nandini groaned a bit as the uncle laughed, the joke quite missed out by simran.

"Alright, I will see what is to be done. Thank you so much kaka." Divya said, as the three entered the classroom, switched on the A, and while Simran made herself comfortable on one of the benches, Divya sent a few messages in the cultural committee group regarding the meeting. It was already 10:30 by now and everyone was supposed to be here but that wasn't something that made Simran worried about...rather the fact that her phone was still buzzing again and again made her agitated. At one end there were calls whereas on the other end there were texts. She couldn't understand what it was that would be best to do.

Was she to ignore both or attend to one and give up on the other. It felt as if she was on two boats at the same time, both of them sinking. If she was to choose one, she knew the other would sink and so would the one she was sinking...however she had failed to realize it wasn't the boat, rather she herself that mattered...it was she who needed to be saved and not the sinking boats.

Two hours later, as Divya wrapped up the meeting, and sat on the desk with Nandini, Simran and Rishi by her side. A lot of things were discussed and she was still confused as to how things were going to work out. A students week was supposed to be organized in just seven days, the other vice president Gautham was going on a long weekend, and the president wasn't really happy about the fact that they had to work together with the degree people.

No matter what, Divya knew at the end that she was the one who was going to get stuck in the pile of petty fights.

"Divya, do you think these people will be able to pull it off ?"Rishi asked.

"Don't make me answer you now in a diplomatic manner...I might actually give you my real thoughts and that's quite not right... at least for now. I am thinking let me get to the point of no return then we all will meet and just burst out." The three let out a laugh as Nandini took out her tiffin with pulav.

Divya quickly took out her spoon from her bag that she always carried around in case of emergencies like this and began hogging on the food all the while fighting with Rishi. She was still in the middle of her huge bite when Rishi swallowed his food and spoke in perfect hindi.

"No matter what, if these people wont let me work the way I want I will fuck them in places they have never even imagined." Divya controlled the roars of laughter that had started building within her. His expressions were quite funny to be just ignored.

"You know what ..." Divya said, as she swallowed the last remains of the rice and continued, "You have my full support do whatever you want, Maheshwari ma'am won't have an issue when it comes to things working out in perfect manner and these people have perfect capacity to ruin things. Just remember you let me know what you all are doing, so that I am there in the loop...work the way you want I don't give a fuck, just get the work done on time, with perfection and let me know."

Rishi, Nandini and simran kept on looking at Divya as she scooped yet another spoon full of food. "I am so proud of you girl... I mean we thought this would work the traditional way, getting your approval then maam's and the process keeps on going. Then you will give us the changes and then we will get it done again and again and again, and then we have to roam around you with waiting line." Nandini kept on blabbering as the rest laughed.

"Nah, I already have to keep my eyes on the designing and the PR, we can't risk with the theme... for documentation you make a list of things you think will be required, the same thing is for security and Creatives, and then I will add in the final things to it, so that we don't have go back and forth again and again."

With a slight nod, the three continued to eat, as Divya saw the way Simran stiffened at the buzzing of her phone. She looked tense as she canceled the call once again, and then her eyes met with that of Nandini. Divya knew something was wrong.

Two days later, everything was set into motion. The dates for the students week was decided to be from 14th December to 18th December, their events all finalized, and the creatives, designing, Pr, documentation were to start working from today itself. Divya pulled out her ID card from her bag, it was already 10:15 and she was right on time, she rather had a few more minutes for 10:30 and might as well take it easy to go up to the boys common room and the Gymkhana of their college where they were allotted the room for their preparations.

As she walked into the gates she looked by her side to realize her sister was missing. Turning around she found her 18 year old sister who was studying Computer applications in their college was fiddling with her things. Divya huffed out a loud exasperated sigh. Where Divya was particular as to where things were to be kept in her bag, her sister Priya was a huge disaster.

"Priyu you okay?' Divya asked as Priya finally got her ID card, pulled it over her head and walked towards her. "Ohh yes I am good, I just couldn't find my ID." Priya, though was 3 years younger to Divya yet it was quite difficult for many to believe that the two were sisters. Where Divya had the most common pair of eyes until they were to be outshined in the lights, Priya had Hazel eyes, a shade that was quite difficult to be found in natural eyes. At the same time where Divya was that of an average Indian women's height, Priya was a girl with a proper 5feet 7inches height with a perfect figure, her cheek bones were quite highlighted unlike Divya who had a round and a bit chubby face.

"Lets go, I might have to stop by the staffroom so you go upstairs there you might meet Simran and Nandini, just stay with them after a few minutes Simarn would allot you some kind of work." The two began to walk up the stairs. As soon as they reached the first floor Divya could hear her name being called as Rishi walked up towards her,

"Simran was right, one should never walk with you." Priya taunted as Divya made a face at her and then turned towards Rishi who was waving his hand at Priya. Surprisingly her friends and classmates had easily befriended Priya.

"Why are you guys so sweet with her? She is a total devil." Divya said as Rishi gave her a weird smile.

"Naah, she is just fine, and as it is after you she is going to be the one who is going to succeed you like you know your successor."

"I don't know, she isn't much interested in this stuff." An awkward silence prevailed around for a few seconds. The two then moved aside as many other people began to walk up. "Alright, I wanted to ask if you need me today?"

"Ohh no, we have already had a word with Ayush he has sent the members you guys don't have to be there till the main event." Rishi smiled at her in a mischievous way as he waved at her and made his way downstairs where the proceedings of their college event was going on. Divya wouldn't be shocked if there won't be a new event going on in their college but it surely would be a shocker to know that it's December and no new event is coming in the college.

Divya made her way towards the staffroom and opened the door and peeped in to find their convenor for the Cultural committee. The lady Ms. Maheshwari sat at her desk with her specs on. She was one sarcastic woman that Divya had ever met. Ever ready to get a few changes in the way things work, but in a manner such that she would keep the gun on someone else's shoulder and shoot the aim, and hence Divya preferred to stay as far away from her as possible.

As she descended the stairs into the brightly lit staffroom, her eyes met with that of her coordinator Ms. Jain, the young lady was in her late 20s quite an optimistic and career oriented person. These three years she had made Divya see stars, hell, death and what not. Her requests would come up at any time of the day, such that Divya remembered designing and building up a complete new event for their course Transport Management in just 2 days. Beside her was their member faculty, a cute chubby lady again in her late 20s though married. She had been the most supporting figure for Divya. Time and again Divya had found herself being more close and leaning on her during difficult situations than she had ever been with Ms. Jain, Mrs Tavadia was the one who had helped her during the days when she first began creating contents for their courses Instagram page, times when she had reader's block, or the other times when she would be confused how she was to handle so many situations. She remembered those vague frustrated days when she would walk into the staffroom, sit right in front of her and rant out her frustration as Mrs. Tavadia would listen to her and guide her through it.

"Ohh look My dear Vice president is here." Ms. Jain smiled at Divya brightly as she opened her arms and welcomed her into a hug. When in the beginning things used to happen like this it was a huge shocker for Divya, for which professor really went out hugging their students. But here in her college things were really different. Here she had seen many professors going out of their way, being a friend, helping out students, such that even after the students would get graduated they would come back to the professors expressing their gratitude.

In fact in the last two years when she had organized the Convocation ceremony, she had seen so many of her seniors coming back shedding tears hugging these two professors and saying whatever they were today was because of the two of them. And she had to agree, if two years back this lady here who was hugging her wouldn't have told her about this degree, wouldn't have told her about the various opportunities, wouldn't have given her weirdest of tasks in the world she wouldn't have made it to the position that she was in.

"How are you doing ma'am?"

"Ohh we both are doing great, you tell me did you attend the lectures?" Divya smiled sheepishly at the coordinator who narrowed her eyes at her. The Self finance section of the college knew that it was quite difficult to manage lectures and the co-curricular activities at the same time. Hence the students were given a certain concession, however time and again Ms. Jain would ask them if they had attended the lectures or not.

"No Ma'am, actually from today we are starting with the students week preparations, I was about to come and give you the list of students who are working there from BTM, we might miss out on lectures for two weeks."

"Two weeks? Isn't that too much, what about your notes?" Ms. Jain asked, to which Mrs, Tavadia rather replied, "Ohh Maam I know how things work for them, they will be collecting the notes from the Xerox center, Divya, Nandini and Simran will study the things before hand, if they have any doubts they will sit for the revision lectures and clear the doubts and then 2 hours before the exams these three will teach the rest of the group. I have seen you guys seated there in the BTM garden...even we have eyes and ears like you all do."

The three chuckled as Ms Jain nodded her head and enquired about few more things, once that was done, Divya then went off to the convener Ms Maheshwari and took out her diary and asked, "Hello Ma'am if you have some time I wanted to discuss a few things."

The lady looked up from her diary and said, "Ohh Divya yes, I was about to call you as well. Sit , sit pihu ma'am has gone for lectures so she won't be here for a while, once she is back we can shift somewhere else." Divya nodded her head and took the seat. She observed the way the professor kept on fiddling with her diary and then took out a few lists, and the keys to the cupboard.

"Okay so this is the list for the judges, I want you to specially contact them, as well see to it if the Times fresh face is ready to collaborate with us, if that doesn't work we can then approach a few celebrities, I as well want a budget from you guys by today evening..."

"Umm ma'am about the budget, it's already ready we got it prepared yesterday itself, we actually needed funds immediately so that the creatives can start working." Divya handed the budget to the convener who looked into the things and then the final amount.

"Really 60,000 that's too huge!" Divya looked at the professor's horrified face and then back at the things that she had to add, she took a deep breath, she knew it won't be done in an hour for sure.

A/N 

Do Vote comment and share... the next two chapter are one of my favorite chapters of the story that I have written until now. 

here is a glimpse to the next chapter .

As Divya turned around and looked at the letter, she heard Nandini greeting Madhav, facing the two she smiled at him, as the latter waved.

"What's going on...By the way Divya, did you have a word with Aman?' Madhav asked.

what do you all think... what could it be that might have got Aman to call Divya and had such a keen attention from Madhav as well? 

do let me know through your comments. till then 

Happy reading 

Stay safe

Yadni Bagwe