They were 2 months into the new semester. After the 'new arrangements', things were going fine for Shradha and Nishant. Lit club work was getting better for Nishant. The books he read during the holidays had helped him a lot and now he was getting assignments to write about smaller campus events. Rajat had graduated and another senior had taken Rajat's place as Lit club president. Shradha still worked as a freelance editor for them and attended most of the meetings with Nishant.
By now, the entire computer science department was aware of friendship between Nishant and Shradha. Nishant had been asked many times by some of the guys 'How is Shradha?' with meaningful look. Obviously Nishant had ignored them and never mentioned the incident to Shradha . She would get angry and then God knows what she would do to those people.
Shradha had also been asked about Nishant. "So you are into nerdy guys now huh !?" Was the comment she was getting. It's not that they did not try to say "we are just friends. " But when the two people who did not really have friends and who were so much different from each other, say they were friends, it was hard to believe. Also because a lot of them had spotted these 'just friends ' in the campus garden which was mostly an unofficial dating place.
So it was easy for the world to misunderstand their relationship. Or was it that the world understood the nature of Nishant and Shradha 's relationship while both of them were clueless?
The classes got over early and Shradha had taken her laptop to college that day. She had to install and configure few things and Nishant was supposed to help her. They were sitting in their usual spot in the campus garden.
It was a beautiful day; the trees were filled with flowers. It looked like the spring season shown in movies. Sun rays were mild but beautiful. Entire place was glowing in the evening sun. Shradha was busy with laptop, but Nishant was looking around mesmerised by the beautiful view. 'Whoever said beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder was right.' Was all that Nishant could think of. It was not that he had missed this season or sight. He had just failed to notice things around him. Now that life had started to be different for Nishant, he had been seeing everything differently.
We humans have this habit of chasing things that we don't have. And in that chase, we often forget to enjoy the simple things like good food, nature or time with loved ones. If only we pause for a moment and look around, life looks very different; things, people and every little thing might feel different. Nishant was feeling this change in his life. He had slowed down chasing the dreams and he had been discovering many things.
"Was our campus really this beautiful!" He murmured. Shradha looked up from the laptop and found Nishant lost in thoughts.
"Campus was always good. It's just that you are finally looking at it instead of hiding behind textbooks. "
"Hmm… maybe … "
Shradha had a smile on her face when she looked at Nishant. He was lost in thoughts and she found this very amusing. Nishant was wearing simple T shirt and jeans which complemented his thick glasses. She thought if she could give him a pen and notebook, he would totally look like a writer in that moment. Using her imagination which was also influenced by movies, she could see Nishant as a typical old school writer, murmuring to himself and scribbling in a book.
Shradha could not control herself and giggled while staring at Nishant who was still lost in his thoughts. Disturbed by Shradha's voice, Nishant looked at Shradha who was trying to control her giggles.
"Why are you laughing ? "
"Hm um nothing. "
"Come on. Tell me. "
"You looked so much like those wise writers shown in movies. "
Nishant gave a look as if telling her, 'have you lost your mind?' . Shradha continued to smile while she explained,
"I mean you have been reading more books and also your writing has improved. And today you are saying things like 'was our campus always this beautiful '. So I could not stop myself from picturing you as a mature writer."
"Whatever. Have you started preparing for next week's assignments ? "
"Why do you have to spoil my good mood by talking about assignments. " Shradha sighed. "I envy you dude. How can you be so much focused all the time? You have so much clarity about everything while I am so clueless all the time. "
"What are you talking about? You have been persistent about earning money for yourself and paying college fees, not to mention the whole 'I need a new laptop ' phase. No one will believe you if you say you are clueless. You might be confused right now, but you are not totally clueless. "
"Everyone does that right ? Trying to get a bachelor's degree I mean. Engineering degree is something that looked interesting at that time. " Shradha answered nonchalantly.
"But you are good at coding and you even score nicely in exams"
"That's just to show to people who think I am dumb. I love watching change of expression in people's faces when they see me write programs or score good marks in exams. "
"But you would not be able to do that if you found the topics boring. So clearly you like coding. You should focus on improving your skills. "
"Yea yea. Will see. Stop giving me gyan[1] and help me out here. We need to install a few more software today. "
They completely focused all their energy on the laptop. After finishing the installs, they parted ways. Shradha reminded Nishant again about their plan to play the game together. They had decided to play with Shradha's online friends the next day. Nishant went home after confirming on their plans.
***
[1]Gyan: Hindi word which means Knowledge.