Episode 9: 48 out of 50!

Although it was a group, it was more of a composition of many subgroups. Some of them mixed well between them while the others were friends just for the sake of it. So once the catamaran gathered speed and moved towards their destination, all the subgroups isolated and headed their private discussions.

While Nikhar and Nitesh Kumar Sharma were in a heated argument so as to who should be a part of the Indian cricket team, Shray Desai was busy coordinating things. Aditya had found himself a place by then away from everybody to smoke and enjoyed a private view of the forlorn and lonely sea. The girls Richika and Deepali indulged themselves in fashion chattering as Satya and Vaibhav kept on passing chips to each other, all the time while Satya kept on complaining about seating on the boat and the other passengers downstairs.

All this while Rewat kept on clicking some random photographs and Shubhankit tried his best to join in some conversation or the other but the sheer details that he used to possess regarding each topic (mind you he had a towering knowledge of everything… He was like Google to rest of the people in the group) was too much for a dickhead crowd like this, so they kept on ignoring him. So just to save the picture of this isolated group, Pranay took his guitar out of the big case and started playing some hummable tunes.

It was pleasant to see a singer-guitarist sitting in the middle of the upper deck and playing melodies that were raw, floating as briskly as the water did under the ship and the voice of that man as soft as the touch of the ship on the forlorn sea. And on those tunes a girl and a boy drifted like aimless men trundling after losing sight of what’s real and what’s not. The girl was Ketaki and the boy was Pranav.

Ketaki as usual was in high spirits and chatted with every damn possible person on the ship and synchronizing with the tune she drifted from one group to another. And she finally drifted far away where a Parsi couple was sitting. At the same time Pranav’s eyes had caught something beautiful. He too drifted away like the wind over that forlorn sea towards that beautiful thing- his mirage.

As Pranav went downstairs in search of his mirage, Nikhar observed everybody.

Just like a bad habit which takes a while to get away, the words of the coordinator remained etched in his mind. He kept on thinking about those two missing persons on the upper deck. And then suddenly he thought that those two may not have missed the catamaran. May be they chose to sit on the lower deck. He thought to check out the lower deck but that day it was even more crowded than a second class compartment of Churchgate-slow locals. So he let it be.

The real question was who was not on the upper deck?

Ah…why didn’t it strike to him earlier?

Where were Sameer Tayal and Namrata Panwar all this while?

Okay… so perhaps the author of this blog has forgotten to introduce you to the cheerful tomboy and the over-caring brother…

He realized that from his group only those two were missing. So he first asked the coordinator-Shray Desai whether they were on the boat or not. And on being asked a query, Shray answered with enthusiasm of an officer sitting at government office’s enquiry counter that he had led them safely into the boat and they were the last to enter but then somebody upstairs (he searched his mind for a while to think and said may be Abbas) cried for chairs, so he had to rush upstairs. After than what happened, he didn’t know. So Nikhar suggested the coordinator (Shray) and Abbas who he thought had something for Namrata (By something I mean feelings! Don’t get me wrong here!).

But before they could go down, up came those two- Namrata and her brother Sameer.

Perhaps out of the lot, Sameer had many noticeable peculiarities than anybody else. He had a migraine problem and his head was like a switch, if pushed it on, then god helps you. That is if suppose somebody touched his head, he would shout at that person like Sunny Deol does in Gadar-Ek prem katha. He also had this acutely frustrating habit of punching things just for fun. Now those things ranged from Walls and benches to doors and every damn thing made of steel and wood. He spoke Bahen de tite- A Punjabi slang quite too often. Perhaps being a neighbor to him at a previous hostel where all these boys used to stay together, Nikhar knew many more peculiarities about him like his flapping (sound-making) slippers, his farting only in neighbor’s room and most astonishing of all his pretence of hearing music i.e. he used to plug in earphones not to hear music but to protect himself from the surround sound!

And her sister was an interesting character as well. By the way… when the author of the blog said he was Namrata’s brother then it didn’t actually mean that he was his REAL brother. It was another one of his peculiarities. He liked making sisters. But Namrata too liked to make friends especially boys. Namrata was the badminton champ of their college. Her walk resembled that of Sanjay Dutt’s. She liked listening to Avril Lavigne and did her very best to impersonate her. She was too brittle to accept anything other than what she believed was true and currently she wanted to sing and play guitar but it was too difficult to make her believe that her voice was as husky as that of Udit Narayan’s.

As Nikhar asked what were they doing downstairs, Namrata replied by saying that Sameer was hit on head by somebody so he got into a quarrel with a person below. All that while Sameer kept on punching a wooden railing. But something that she said afterwards remained etched in Nikhar’s mind for an even longer while. She said that after being hit on head Sameer had started seeing things.

“What things, Nammy?” asked Nikhar.

“Arrey…he’s saying he saw Uday on the lower deck” said Namrata.