It was the end of September already and Neil was all packed up to start a new chapter of his life. He was very excited to move to university. His parents had come to drop him off at the university and to settle him down.
His parents had left and it was already time for him to go for his dinner. He was living in a catered hall, named David Collett. He queued up at the DC dining hall and was waiting for his turn to be served. After filling his tray with today's set menu he made his way to the till, where a lady was there to scan his student card.
Neil did all these formalities and then he picked up his tray and moved to the juice and salad bar section. He filled his salad bowl up and picked up his tad bit heavy tray and glanced at the entire dining hall, choosing a place to sit.
Suddenly, his eyes fell on this young Sikh boy who was sitting all by himself. It's a very common trait no matter where you are born, you tend to herd up in your group, and in this case, the group was based on origins i.e. brown people.
Neil put his tray on the table opposite the Sikh boy and took his chair. The Sikh boy who was busy eating his bland food, raised his head to see and then quickly got busy again with his meal.
Neil understood that he will have to take the initiative and he spoke to break the ice, 'Hey I am Neil.' He put his hand forward for a handshake. The Sikh boy too stretched his hand forward and said, 'Hi, my name is Aditya. You can call me Adi.'
'Nice. So you are from India right?' Neil further asked and Adi nodded his head.
'Whereabouts in India?'
'Udaipur in Rajasthan', Adi replied.
'Ah cool. So what are you going to study here?' Neil asked.
'Chemical Engineering.'
'No way! I am on the same course.' Neil said shockingly.
Finally, both of them met someone from the same course otherwise every other student was either doing business school courses or mechanical engineering.
'So in which block are you living Neil?' Adi asked.
Neil said, 'I am in E-47'.
Adi was very excited on hearing this and said, 'I am in E-48, that means we are neighbors.'
Both of them chatted through their meal and instantly hit it off.
Being in the same course and having rooms right next to each other meant that they both got to spend an awful lot of time with each other and they grew quite close to one another.
One day Neil was skyping with someone and Adi could hear some voices from his room. He knocked and opened Neil's room door. He realized that it was dinner time and quickly tried to wrap up his Skype session. Adi was shameless waiting for him to get it over with soon so that they could eat as he was starving.
'Bye Raina Baby. I will talk to you soon. Love you. Miss you' And with a flying kiss, Neil shut his laptop screen.
Adi had a confused expression on his face and Neil saw that and said, 'What? That was my girlfriend, Raina.'
'Raina? Isn't your girlfriend's name is Alia?' Adi spoke in utter confusion.
'No Dude. Alia is one of my best friends since childhood. Raina is my girlfriend.' Neil clarified.
'Oh, my bad, Neil. You just mentioned you had a girlfriend and since you talk about Alia all the time I just presumed that she was your girlfriend.' Adi apologized.
'It's okay Adi. Let's go for dinner.' Neil was locking his bedroom door.
Adi couldn't shut up and said again, 'Neil are you sure that Alia is not your girlfriend? You seem to talk an awful lot about her'
'Adi. Raina is the one. Come let's eat.' Neil was a bit irritated this time.
Adi didn't push it further but over the days he realized that something wasn't right like when Neil used to speak about Alia there would be so much enthusiasm in his voice. But when Raina's topic would pop he would be gloomy. Adi would often witness his fights with Raina and it would be upon the silliest of things possible. Neil was positive that once she meets him over the Christmas holidays then things would be better. But Adi had his doubts about that.