Heart wrenching adoration Part-35

“Arnav come on dude! Don’t be such a spoil sport!” Anvesh yelled as I refused umpteenth number of time. 

We were in the crowded dining room of the girls’s hostel. Though, usually girls and boys dined separately in their respective hostels, yet today out hostel wardens had decided to cut us a lose slack and let us party together to celebrate our victory.

Although, out of politeness and social decency than anything else we had invited the team of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Haryana , but they didn’t turn up, possibly crying buckets on their defeat as Anvesh pointed much to general agreement. It seemed that the guests hadn’t gone down well with the entire school!

The huge room was bustling with activity. Famous numbers, like ‘Party all night’, ‘Blue eyes’ and ‘Lungi dance’ was bursting intermittently from the Music Systems that Anvesh and Akash had set up after much pleading and persuasion with our hostel wardens.

The long tables of dining area were practically creaking under the mounts of food-burgers, pizzas, pastas, paneer tikka, chole bhature, naan, kashmiri biryani, cakes, pastries, ice-creams, tarts, brownies, and most important and pride of place- golgappe! This bizarre mix of Indian and continental was attacked with ferocious speed by laughing and cheering students.

Everyone was lolling around, playing games or gossiping around and enjoying a bit of relaxation from the usual tedium to the fullest when Anvesh came up with the idea of ‘Golgappe race’ between girls and boys and suggested-wriggling his eyebrows wickedly –that I and khushi should compete with each other in the nonsensical game.

“Come on Arnav! You just have to eat golgappe and preventing yourself from letting khushi win!” Aman pleaded, winking at me.

“I don’t want to take part in it and I won’t have you badgering me about it, that’s it!” I snapped angrily, although he had hit the bull’s eye. Of course I couldn’t compete khushi, see her get all disappointed if I won!

“Leave it Aman! Anyways, what’s the point in letting him participate? He’ll let khushi win!” Anvesh quipped, catching my pink cheeks.

“Ok then,I compete with her. You guys don’t know but I’m champion of eating golgappes!I’ve participated so many times in such kind of competition and have always won! I’ll defeat her in seconds! ”Akash jumped up and  said loudly so that girls could hear his proclamation clearly and then marched over to the table kept in the centre of the room, between girls’ and boys’ team. 

The girls on the other side giggled shrilly and some of them leaned over to whisper something to khushi, who nodded in agreement shaking with laughter.

“Ok now, khushi come over here!...Now, we’ll begin the game. You guys have 5 minuted during which you have to eat as much glogappe as you can! Manju ma’am and Rajat sir will note down the number of golgappe you ate and at the end, the one who would’ve managed to eat more, will naturally win!”Anvesh announced and everybody cheered at hooted.

The game began and I stood staring amusedly at khushi as she gobbled golgappe after golgappe, smacking her lips. She looked so over-joyed, so ecstatic and so child-like that I felt all the more drawn to her as if that were even possible! But then again, I may never get used to khushi and her sweet presence ever! I’ll never have enough of her!

Akash too was trying to match her pace, but he was not successful! I should’ve known better than to think that a guy can ever even think of defeating a girl in a ‘Golgappe eating competition’!

“Akash! Akash! Akash!”

“Khushi, come on you can do it!”

“Akash don’t let us get defeated mate!”

“Khushi, come on khushi!”

“Come on!”

“Buck up guys!”

The crowd nearly went wild cheering and encouraging the two competitors who were busy attacking the poor golgappe while Manju ma’am and Rajat sir noted the number of golgappes they ate, furiously!

“Last 10 seconds guys! 10!9!8!7!6!5!4!3!2!1! Aaaaand...STOP!”Anvesh yelled, wielding the stop watch and khushi and Akash stopped eating.

 Khushi looked immensely jazzed, but Akash looked very red in face. Tears were coming from his eyes.

“Akash its Ok mate!Its just a game! You don’t have to cry like this!”Aman feigning bafflement, and I rolled my eyes. It really seemed that Anvesh’s bug had bitten Aman to!

“Shut up Aman! Of course...I..I’m not crying! The golgappe were so spicy!” He gaped and everyone laughed.

“Water!”Akash panted.

“What happened Akash?I though I heard you saying that you are Champion of eating golgappes, haan? Then now come you are looking like a red-faced monkey?” Someone from the girls’ side asked sarcastically and they all giggled, seeing him guzzle water crazily.

“Cat caught your tongue, did it?” Payal commented, grinning evilly. She and khushi hi-fived.

“Enough! So, its time to the result and the winner is....Khushi! She ate 25 golgappes while Akash could manage only 16!”Manju ma’am announced and for the first time I saw her actually smile!

“Yayyyyyy!” The girls squealed, grinning hugely and jumping up and down while khushi looked simply delighted.

“They are acting as if they’ve won the World Cup!”Aman murmured, irritably so that only we, boys could hear and then called out loudly for the girls.

“Oh hello! If you all are done with jumping around, then let me remind you that the competition is still on! We haven’t lost yet and we’re not going to!” Aman said, much to smattering of applause from boys’s side and boos from girls.

The fun and joy-filled evening continued till late in the night and as Anvesh and several others clicked photographs of our fun-filled eve and shared it on facebook, What’s app, and their respective social networking site on which they were active, I had no idea that the countdown to the disaster had started...the one which will probably snatch my khushi away from me forever!