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Sahana!   Best wishes, Rishav.
     
    The next day he was standing with the card in a yellow envelope clutched tightly his hand. He was wondering when her friends would leave her side and give her a moment alone so he could give her the card. He didn’t want unnecessary eyebrow raising by her friends. That’d be just too much.
     
    He waited for nearly an hour or so when Sahana was finally left alone by her friends. He quickly walked up to her and handed it to her. “Happy Birthday, I hope you like it,” he said, looking down at the card and avoiding looking into her eyes.
     
    “Wow, thank you. It’s really nice of you to give a card to a person whom you’ve barely talked to.” She smiled.
    Rishav smiled, nodded and turned around and went to the bathroom since he had nowhere else to go.
     
    After a few hours he found himself sitting near the windowsill, on the other side of the classroom, watching his new interest of sorts. He had had many interests in the pasts but this one was particularly intriguing. Sahana was talking to her friends, sitting on a desk with her back facing him . He sat there with a sadness. What kind he didn’t know. There was this weird need to get up and go sit next to her. Obviously he wouldn’t do that. But his mind was so restless, insistent upon doing so. He again opened his book to read. As he began to read, he forgot all about the classroom. All noise dimmed, people around him seemed to disappear as he was transported into the world of mystery, deceit and murder.
    He was imagining the horror of rats cutting into the wounds of his legs when he was startled by the noise
    “You want some cake?” Sahana asked him, with a box of chocolate cake in her hand.
    “S ure,” Rishav picked up a small piece, and smiled up at her.
    “No. Take a bigger piece,” Sahana said.
    “How was your birthday?”
    “You mean how   is   it? Because it still is April 29.”
    “Yeah yeah. So how many gifts? Party tonight?” Rishav asked inquisitively.
    “No party. I don’t live with my parents. And the people whom I live with aren’t you know…” Sahana said without completing the sentence.
    “They are conservative?” Rishav asked ; glad to know some private detail of this complex matter sitting in front of him.
    “To say the leas t. Anyway , I don’t want to talk about it. Party in school is good enough for now. Chalo , I will talk t o you later. I’ve gotta go. Bye,” she sai d , getting up and waving her hand.
    “Bye , ” he said - which was too late since she was already too far to hear that.  
     
    *
    Hardik and Jai huddled up near the corner of the basketball court. From the onset of it, it appeared to be an intense discussion of what strategies they were going to implement while play was on. If one managed to get closer, apart from the smells of sweat and stale breath, what one would get to sense is the amount of restlessness that had taken over His Highness Jai regarding the incumbency of his Head Boy’s post.
    “Dude, why are you worried?” Hardik asked.
    “Man, Madhuri Singh was a pet of mine…” Realising his mistake although it came from the interiors of his heart, he corrected it, “I meant I was a pet of Madhuri. The reason I could go about doing anything was because Madhuri was there. Now if she goes, there’s a big question mark over my application dude.”
    Hardik nodded. “She was a support you know, a huge one. She could single handedly get me this post but now with Bindu around; I doubt what’ll happen to me.”
    “New Vice Principal, you think?” Hardik asked.
    “Not really. Considering how autocratic this lady is, she’ll keep the group as core as possible. Maybe a promotion here and there but I doubt it whether we’ll get a new VP” Jai’s concern was evident in his mellowed down tone.
    “Dude tera toh katta ho gya !” Hardik started laughing loudly.
    “Motherfu*cker, shut up!!” Jai barked. “We need solutions here, not problems. You think I could