PART I - The day CPT results were announced! – The day begins!

It was Monday, probably the third or fourth day of ENIGMA. Reached college early at around 8 am or should I say, was forced to reach early. Double tension – Himani and BC tutorials! I wasn’t thinking much about the CPT results, they were to be the next day. I had a bigger test today. I had just finished scripting our BC Tuts dialogue. Akanksha had to still read it and I didn’t have the time to go through it. She had been told to reach the Admin Room around 8.30 am. She came only by 9 am. Relief! We took a bench for ourselves & started preparing. She first wrote the whole thing down for herself. I did Admin duty till then. Nobody showed any signs of tension – results were tomorrow! Still I kept asking people how they felt a day before the results. Akanksha finished copying & we left the Admin room obviously having taken Himani’s permission. WE moved upstairs to ‘my’ class – S5. Took the last seats and started memorising. Some people had walked in & walked out. We hadn’t even switched on the lights. There was no need. We had bigger worries than fighting darkness. We sat lost in ourselves, individually memorising the lines of our respective speeches. After some silent monuments, we felt we were ready for dual practise. We began! After a few rounds of re-scripting our dialogues & then delivering them, I felt that was enough. We left, to meet our ‘destiny holder’. He was busy having Snacks (Poha) in the staff canteen. I told him we would wait in one of the T-floor rooms. He agreed. W left. On our way, other fellow-warriors were seen, some joined us. Others were late!

Slowly the remaining warriors gathered. I as usual was waiting at the door, waiting for the ‘opponent’. Hrishikseh & Kunal joined me on the watch. With his usual self-glorifying insults, Sammit stood tall on the platform, his short frame fighting a losing battle with itself. Then I got THE call. The call which changed the sullen morning, increasing my heart-rate, diverting my focused attention from the looming war to the nearer. More future-defining battle. A battle already fought twice. The first one ending in an obnoxious truce. The second, awaiting its fate!