When life happens

The day trip

Neha was annoyed at the whole idea of the trip in general, but Hardik (who had been warned by Virat to not provoke her anymore) promised her he would take her to an amazing park, and she eventually conceded.

Srinija and Ahona arrived early morning. Srinija was beaming. Ahona had a smile on her face too.

"BHUVI BHAIYA?" yelled Srinija as everyone was gathering in the reception.

The ICT still didn't trust her fully since her first exhibition of haughtiness, but Bhuvi did, anyway.

"Hi," he said, as he came down the stairs. Srinija dashed to hug him. 

Ahona looked at her with something like contempt, and then spotted Kuldeep and waved. At least 5 pairs of judging eyes (Virat's, Hardik's, Rohit's, Tani's and Siri's) looked at her. Neha would not look at either of them.

They had a long trek to the resort, the slope gentle enough to not trigger the acrophobic people. They were mostly walking in twos or threes.

 Ahona walked with Kuldeep, talking with him warmly. Hardik made sure he kept Neha well away from them, full of all his usual nonsensical stories. After a while Jaddu joined them, saying, "She's getting bored with your stories, because they're repititive, Harry! I'll tell you an orginal story..."

"All your Jamnagar stories have something extraordinary in them, Jad," said Rohit from the other side.

"But they're original, aren't they?" asked Jaddu.

"Yes," said Neha, at once. She was a big fan of his stories, much to Rohit's disgust.

So Jaddu launched into one of them, and Rohit found himself listening as well. 

A little behind them, Virat was walking with Jassi and Tani. Rishabh was hovering around them nervously. Jassi wanted to move ahead with Virat bhaiya and let Tani and Rishabh walk alone, but neither of them would take the hint; Tani was too stubborn and Rishabh was too scared.

Siri and Shivam comprised the tail of the group, neither talking. Walking or sitting in silence seemed to be their way of showing they liked each other, thought an amused Jinks, who in spite of joining the team late, had got to know the girls well already.

Yuzi was at an awful loose end because Kuldeep was hanging out with Ahona, and she didn't seem inclined towards a third person at all. He felt glad his little brother was not going to marry this girl after all. He wouldn't have approved.

..............................................................................

The resort was amazing, and so was the weather, chilly and windy.

After they had checked into their rooms, Shivam was to be found hesitating outside Siri, Tani and Neha's room.

He somehow couldn't screw up the courage to knock. Tani intimidated her, and Neha confused him. Thankfully for him, Siri happened to come out of the room alone.

"Hey," said Shivam apprehensively. "There's a lake outside...will you go on the...erm...paddle boat with me?"

"Uh, yes," said Siri. "Let's."

After a few minutes they were out on the lake, and Shivam was paddling. 

Siri's long hair was open and the wind ruffled it around her face as she stared at the nature surrounding them with glittering eyes. Shivam did not think he had seen anything more stunning. He was certainly not staring at nature.

A stray hair fell on Siri's face and without any time to retrospect, Shivam reached out to brush it away.

Siri jumped out of her skin in alarm, and unfortunately, the little paddle boat was not made to wthstand that, so she fell into the lake with a yell. The water splashed up and drenched Shivam too, but he was far from thinking about things like that.

"I'm sorry!" cried Shivam, horrified at the turn of events. "I'm sorry..."

He leaned over and pulled her back in. Siri was drenched through and looked rather disgruntled.

"Siri...Siri..." said Shivam. "I am so sorry, I didn't mean to overstep, I'm..."

Siri looked at him ranting and started to laugh.

"Aren't you angry?" asked Shivam, even more horrified to see her laughing.

"No," said Siri. "Seriously, I'm not..."

Shivam felt extremely relieved and screwed up his courage to say what he had been thinking all day.

"You're beautiful, you know."

"Thanks...um...I think we should be getting back to the others."

"Yeah," said Shivam, disappointed that his display of courage led to naught.

After a while, Siri blurted, "You're kind of nice too, y'know. You make me feel good about myself..."

And that, of course, made Shivam rise to the seventh heaven of delight.

............................................................

Ahona took Kuldeep for a walk furthur up the hilly road.

"We already walked so much," Kuldeep protested.

He didn't want to go. He wanted an opportunity to go and talk to Neha, even if she had flatly refused to talk to him since yesterday.

"Come on na, Kul...please," said Ahona, and as usual Kuldeep gave in.

It made him cringe to hear anyone but Yuzi (and occasionally his other team members) calling him 'Kul'. Because Kul was sacred. It implied he was one half of KulCha. It screamed out that he was one half of KulCha. That was why it was mainly Yuzi's right. Why didn't he call him Cha, now? he began to wonder. 

"What are you thinking about?" asked Ahona, seeing that he was rather silent.

"Nothing," said Kuldeep. Not that she would ever understand his emotion regarding Yuzi.

"Oh ok," said Ahona with a tinkling laugh. "Here, want this?" she asked, offering him a bottle.

Kuldeep accepted it and took a sip, asking, "What is it?"

"A grape juice. Don't worry, it's not alcoholic," she assured.

They continued on their way.

.............................................................

"Where's your park?" demanded Neha, as Hardik lay on his back on a seat beside the pool of the resort with the air of someone who never meant to get up.

"What park?" asked Hardik innocently.

"Hardik..." began Neha dangerously.

"Come and lie down here. It gives a cool feeling," said Hardik, pulling her down beside him.

It did feel cool lying down and staring up at the cloudy sky directly above them, but Neha was still in a griping mood.

"Tani and Siri have disappeared to god knows where," she said. "And now I find out you've been lying too. Why does it even surprise me? You're always lying."

Hardik took absolutely zero offence at that for once. "I was surprised you believed me in the first place," he admitted.

Neha swatted his head half-heartedly. She was trying not to think about Kuldeep at all, and Hardik was trying to distract her the best he could, so whom could she blame?

A very lonely Yuzi came along mournfully. He saw the two of them lying down peacefully and said, "Make some room!"

"There's no room!" said Hardik.

He pushed Hardik and tried to lie down himself. Hardik would not budge, and Yuzi's matchstick figure meant that he was not making any headway at all in making room for himself.

"It's ok, I'm going," said Neha.

"No, no, don't!" said Yuzi hastily.

Yuzi reminded Neha of Kuldeep, of course, so she wanted to go, anyway.

"You idiot," said Hardik, trying to grab her arm, but she dodged successfully. Neha grinned with the ghost of triumph and went away in search of Rohit bhaiya.