I trudged my way back to my room, with my shattered dignity. I swear, I had never been more humiliated in my life. Such an asshole! I felt like I'd been bullied.

No, we generally don't undergo the extreme form of bullying that we watch on TV. Ours is simply a race for first rank, those who get left behind either are backbitched about and get yelled and sneered at by their parents, friends and relatives. We go through a sort of emotional torture and pressure. It's a world where marks and scores matter a lot more than morals. Where success matters more than heart. I suppose I'm making it sound a whole lot more worse than it is, but its the essence of why we're all branded nerds. Its because we are nerds. Like, duh!

I sighed as I reached this epiphany. Yeah, I get a lot of epiphanies, mostly useless ones. I remember one from back in Engineering- When you know the theory, nothing practically works but, when everything works, you realise you have no clue how it works. This is the summary of four years of Engineering in India. Labs in India work under one principle- Nothing works and no one knows why. But hey! We sleep well when there are no exams the next day!

Anyway, I took out my keys to unlock the door and found it unlocked. I guess my roomie was home. Awesome.

IF she isn't a typical Indian nerd. I prayed to God she isn't. Okay I'm an agnostic but that's neither here not there so God has to listen to me. Besides, he listened to me last time.

I smiled remembering that exam. I was so freaked that I'd flunk. It was a tough subject and we didn't have anything to study from (Story of an Indian engineer's life, that's why we're so awesome). I told myself that if I got an eight pointer in the subject, I'd break a coconut (yes, that's how we do it in India). Surprisingly, I got an eight. When I told my parents about what I'd 'promised to God', they'd dragged me to the temple to break a coconut.

Good 'ol days.

Suddenly, I noticed a girl in front of me. Huh. I was so immersed in my memories that I missed her? Man, this chick was a ninja. I gotta learn me some ninja moves from her!

She was pretty. I could tell she was Indian, but it was hard to tell whether she was nerdy or girly or tomboyish. I could deal with nerdy but definitely not girly! Girly girls make my eye twitch. I was 75% tomboyish so I could live with another tomboy. We'd be best buddies.

"Yo! I'm Viha. Viha Joshi" she said,"B.E Comp science. You?"

Viha? Wow that's a very nice name. Very rare, I guess.

She stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. She had a round-ish oval face, it was hard to tell because the shape kept changing. Wide dark brown eyes and a huge nose. Some would call it a 'Jamaican' type of nose, as opposed to my straight 'Roman' nose. I could never really understand nose euphemisms. Are they described that way because Romans and Jaimaicans have typical noses or because whoever made them up was a meanie? I hadn't seen any Romans or Jamaicans in real life, much less compared their noses.

"Ana. Ana Desai", I said, James Bond style."Ditto", I continued,"B.E Comp science."

We shook hands. The classic engineer to engineer acknowledgement. It was our way of sizing each other up. We also did the girl-to-girl sizing up. The casual-look-her-up-and-down-to-ensure-she-isn't-a-psychopath.

At least that's what I did.

"So you're from?", she asked, apparently satisfied by her inspection of me. "Bangalore", I replied smiling.

My inspection results- I was 80% sure she wasn't a psychopath. Hey! She had a slight glint in her eyes! Besides, she may actually be a psychopath, or a serial killer, or a mobster, or CIA, or RAW, or MI6, or .... ok shut it, Ana. Assume she's normal for now.

One side of her lips lifted as she said,"Hey same here!" Wow! Another Bangalorean! This place was littered with Bangaloreans! I looked at her curiously and asked,"Joshi?" She nodded,"Born and brought up in Bangalore. My Hindi sucks. I prefer Kannada." I grinned. I suppose I won't miss Kannada (my mothertongue) too much.

She seemed like a cool person, actually, she seemed more like me. A tomboy. Though her bedspread said otherwise.

Suddenly she spoke,"I hate pink. My mom buys it for me. She stuffed that pink one in my bag saying I should use it because otherwise it would go to waste." I simply nodded.

Yes, we were misers. Yes, we folded our toothpaste tubes and squeezed the life out of them before we gave up and threw them away. But look at it from our point of view, one US dollar is equal to around sixty Indian rupees! Now tell me you wouldn't want to save up *smug look*.

And so it began. Whining and comparing colleges, sharing anecdotes, complaining about relatives, cursing random shit because we wanted to, comparing life stories and so on.

Yep, another blossoming friendship.

Right up until she asked,"Sooo, why were you looking at Aryan Daniels like a sex-deprived lunatic?"

Goddamnit. I thought the corridor was deserted! On the bright side (oh, who am I kidding. There is no 'bright' side), I got the description right.

"It wasn't", she said.

I looked at her questioningly.

"The corridor", she clarified,"it wasn't deserted. Well, it almost was. I couldn't help it. You looked so funny!"

Great. Now she can read minds too.

She grinned and shook her head. "Are you sure?", I asked. "Yes, I am. Or else I'd know exactly what you were thinking when you were staring at him", she smirked smugly.

Smug little bitch.

Her smirk broadened like she knew exactly what swear words were going on in my head. She probably did too, what with that creepy mind reading thing she could do.

"You were just biding your time, weren't you?" I asked suspiciously.

She turned away at that. Mostly to hide her grin.

I'll take that as a yes.

She's cunning, I'll give her that.

And so I explained what had happened on the corridor. And like the great friend she is, she pointed her index finger in my face and laughed like a hyena.

"i don't .... blame ..... you", she said, taking deep breaths in between the sentence. She looked up at me and tried to keep a straight face. But failed.

And so I had to bear it when my already ripped up dignity was lit on fire and made to rain on my head as black confetti.

I hate you, Aryan Daniels. I will take revenge on behalf of my precioussss, my throbbing knee and my presently non-existent dignity.

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- Mad_Hatter29 :-P