The Great Indian College Romance

23. Disagreements

"What do you mean there's nothing you could do?" I asked incredulously. 

Virat stood in front of us wringing his hands. We were in one of the classrooms with every Rhapsody member. Yug signalled for me to keep it down. I realized I had been louder than I had intended to be. Some people looked my way curiously.

"Sorry," I lowered my volume, "What I mean to say is that they will go scot-free after physically restraining me and doing this to Angad?" 

I pointed in his direction. His reports hadn't indicated any sort of internal damage so that was a relief but he was sporting a bandage on his forehead along with the bruise near his cheekbone, his split lip had mostly healed. 

"What you all have to understand is that we couldn't find the culprits on campus yesterday," Virat explained, "Even if we did there would be no way of linking these incidents to YLF. They always cover their bases. Whenever we have tried to get them arrested they always find one way or other to evade. Connections to the higher-ups, bribes, you name it. They will use every tool to fight our accusations. Besides, we have no way to way to prove what they did or tried to do to our event. Without any evidence of what happened, we have no chance." 

I gaped at him. It was appalling how easily they had made their peace with it all.

"There were witnesses! Is my testament not enough?" 

Virat shrugged,

"You could, obviously, report the incident within your own capacity but it will be a nuisance to you and no one else. Take it as a piece of advice from a friend, don't go ahead with it. This is their domain." 

***

I stalked out of the room fuming after an hour-long discussion with everyone about how we would proceed. After the disappointing conversation with Virat, I had suggested we should go ahead and report to the authorities anyway but to my surprise, we weren't on the same page.

Only Deepani had been on my side. Everyone else had agreed that what Virat had said made sense and that we shouldn't drag it out any further. 

"I really don't want to blow it out of proportion. You know how hard I am trying to keep this from my mother," Angad said. 

Which was true. He had slept at Yug's place last night to avoid running into his mother. She was the worst of the worriers in Angad's words. He didn't want her to see him in this state. 

I wasn't too enthused about involving the parents in this mess either but I was willing to consider it. 

I had hoped for an ally in Siddharth but he agreed with them too. 

Defeated I walked to the audience seating outside and plopped down next to Vahni. She looked up from her phone and smiled at me. 

"So you finally have time for me," she said.

"Sorry, this has just been a crazy month for me." I sighed.

She nodded sympathetically, "Is that the reason for your acne then?" 

"What?" 

My hands shot up to my face to check, my acne hadn't been flaring up just this morning when I had last looked in the mirror. Vahni started to laugh.

"I am kidding!" 

I managed a tight smile. 

"What is up with you guys these days?" Vahni asked, "Smriti is always running off somewhere and you seem to have been..." she paused and scrunched her face up a bit.