Romance College Confessions: with Priya and others

[rajesh93]

 
Scene 1 – Small-Town College Life
 
Our college is one of those places that’s caught between two worlds, like the awkward kid at a party who doesn’t know whether to dance or just stand by the punch bowl, hoping no one notices. It’s not quite in the city, but it’s also not far enough out in the countryside to be "rustic." It’s stuck on the highway, fifteen kilometers away from anything remotely fun or familiar, surrounded by endless fields where the only drama involves cows having staredowns with stray dogs. Every morning, as I pedal my ancient bike down that dusty road, past a couple of half-hearted tea stalls where the vendors act like they've just been dragged out of bed, I can’t help but wonder: Who thought it was a good idea to put a college here? Maybe it’s to teach us patience. Maybe it’s to prepare us for the fact that life, much like our campus Wi-Fi, often just doesn’t work.
 
I’m Rahul, twenty years old, a third-year BTech student in Computer Science. Sounds all high-tech and impressive when I tell my relatives back home. They nod like I’m on the verge of discovering quantum computing or cracking some code for immortality. The truth is, the most complex thing I’ve cracked so far is the mystery of how the projector works during lectures (spoiler: it doesn’t). The classroom is a shrine to everything that’s broken. The fans? They either spin lazily or just make a noise that sounds like they’re trying to quit. The projectors flicker like they’re playing peek-a-boo, and the benches are so wobbly, they make you feel like you’re sitting on a seesaw. We’re supposed to be preparing to work for Google or Amazon, but most of us are just trying not to fall asleep while the power goes out for the umpteenth time and we’re stuck in a lecture that feels longer than a Netflix series with no skip intro button.
 
But hey, I don’t complain. There's a certain charm in this place. It’s like an old, messy shirt you keep wearing because it’s comfortable and, frankly, you’ve forgotten where you put the new ones. The campus is made up of three rectangular buildings that look like they were designed during a lunch break. There's a "cricket field" that’s more like a patch of grass with high hopes, and the canteen serves samosas so oily, you could probably run a small car off the grease. After three years of this, we’ve all accepted it, it’s not pretty, but it’s home.
 
The mornings are the worst. Students pour in from every direction like caffeine-fueled zombies, each carrying the weight of their dreams... and about seven kilos of books and random snacks. Bags are perpetually falling open, exposing a chaotic mix of notebooks, chargers, and that one packet of chips that’s always crushed at the bottom. The bikes honk like they’re auditioning for a role in a traffic jam, and somewhere, in the background, someone’s yelling, "Bro, why are you late?", usually the guy who’s always late. Meanwhile, the professors seem to have perfected the art of interrupting this chaos with a voice that can only be described as a foghorn meeting a drill sergeant. It’s the kind of noise that makes you question if you’re in college or just stuck inside a blender.
 
Evenings are the opposite. By five o’clock, the buses line up like they're waiting for the end of the world, and students rush to catch them like they’re in some sort of race where the prize is "not having to stay here a second longer." The campus empties out so fast, it’s like someone hit the mute button. The canteen shutters come down with a dramatic clang, and the only sounds left are the cawing of crows who are probably gossiping about the human drama they witnessed today and the occasional stray dog who thinks it owns the place. The playground, once alive with impromptu cricket matches, is now just a sad, lonely rectangle of grass.
 
And then there's the sky. The sunset’s not bad, orange turning to pink turning to purple like some kind of Instagram filter, only without the annoying hashtags. It’s like the day is quietly slipping out the back door, trying to avoid attention. And while the campus is slipping into that peaceful calm, I’m already halfway out the gate, backpack on my back, helmet on my head, and my bike wheeling me home. Same route, same fields, same tea stall where the chai tastes just that much better because you’ve already survived a whole day of college weirdness. Nothing particularly remarkable. Just another day in the life of Rahul, the "average" third-year Computer Science student who blends in like the wallpaper, until, of course, she appears.
 
And she, well, let’s just say she is the one thing that doesn’t fit into my "boring college life" narrative.
 
She is a walking storm of chaos and charm, and the moment she walks onto campus, everything changes.