Life, in Mumbai, was a deadening race against time, where I was forced to chase a quotidian routine; like a machine, I tirelessly swung between my accommodation and workplace. I would wake up feeling energized in the morning only to end up getting wholly drained out, until I could no longer function like a normal human being. I thought Mumbai would excite me, kindle a surge of joyousness to empty into my heart and force high-spirits to charge through my veins; but unfortunately, I toppled on the downside of life. I began my day only to meet its end and crash on bed, again; life wasn't exciting anymore, and that was the kind of life I dreaded living, but I couldn't believe that I was taking on every day, without complaining. Sometimes, we expect Biryani, but life serves us with plain rice and I faced the exact situation; but I couldn't exactly ungratefully whine, because some people didn't even have plain rice in Mumbai! As humans, some of us become so tolerant towards everything in an attempt of securing ourselves! By the end of the day, all of us are seeking for a space in a world we think we no longer fit in; all of us are constantly fighting for a small place in a large world that sometimes, we forget about everything and everyone around us.

On a Friday night, I sunk down on the chair in my office and lethargically double-checked the values printed on a sheet of paper against the values that flashed on my laptop screen; I still had two more sheets to cross-check and I was simply nowhere near the finish-line. Just when I scrolled the spreadsheet down, my iPhone vibrated loudly, on the wooden table; the vibration briefly echoed in the almost-empty office room and continued to vibrate, endlessly, until I fetched it from the table in curiousness. A spam of messages from The Chamber of Secret Returns filled my notifications, and as I scrolled through the length of notification, messages continued to drop in; Nash spammed all of us, single-handedly, and I wondered if something went terribly wrong in her life because she hadn't been active on the group for three long weeks. In fact, no one was active on the group anymore; we were soundless and the WhatsApp group was dead. For months, the four of us swayed between 'Good morning, lovelies' messages and would sometimes send absolutely random and positive quotes on the group. I didn't remember the last time the four of us shared an actual conversation, or even talked to each other on call; it felt like it had been an eternity since we caught up, and that was understood because life happened to us, and it was awfully wearying! Long distance friendship was hard to maintain!

Once Nash's gap-year met its end, she returned to University and I believe she hardly had time to breathe; indefatigably, she completed her assignments, kept up with her studies and worked a part-time job in a studio in Australia, as a photographer. Often, she would drop a long paragraph on the group, explaining about how jam-packed her schedule was and how guilty she felt because she couldn't talk to us. But we'd simply comfort her with the fact that all of us haven't talked to each other in a long, long time because we were faced with the same fate as hers. And then, she would vanish for four long days, without leaving a trace of her whereabouts and activities behind.

Chanchal's story was still the same – she shifted from one assignment to the next, and dosed off whenever she had time. With time, she turned out to be even more anti-social than usual; she stayed miles away from social media and would send a message, once in a blue-moon! She vindicated her disappearance and silence with the excuse of being drained out, throughout the day; she certainly had a hard time in her hostel, where her roommates were rude and problematic to the core. From time-to-time, she'd have a damaging outburst on the WhatsApp group and would vent out the anger and frustration she boiled with. When she fumed, we'd simply remind her about how she was footsteps away from fleeing out of India, to a better and peaceful country; she worked extra hard in her final year, as she readied herself to move out to Belarus for a whole year. She was beyond thrilled to move out to an outlandish nation, and she wholly deserved that bite of happiness, after all she had endured, tolerantly.

Vaish's life took an unexpected three-sixty degree turn, altogether, and the turn of events was nothing short of shocking and mind-boggling, both; she quitted working with Darshan, and it was her choice. She did not utter a word about her sudden decision to me, and I found out through Darshan, when I scrolled through his concert pictures and suggested that the cameraman should focus his lens on Vaish, too. 'Don't you know about it yet, Dia? She's not working with me anymore. She backed off three weeks ago', Darshan said and I couldn't go past gawking at him in sheer disbelief. When I confronted Vaish, she said she was going back to University, again, to fetch her degree and explained how it was mere stupidity to wander around India with Darshan. 'You say, for how long can I perform with Darshan? It makes me happy, Dityaa, it definitely does; but this is not what I came looking for. I expected a career in Bollywood, and even after having two songs to my name, I couldn't build an identity. I'll keep roaming around the country with Darshan for concerts and gigs, but one day, everything will come to an end, right? When it ends, what will I do and where will I go? I'll have to return to the hotels and coffee shops for short performances, and trust me; I do not want to return to that life. I'd rather spend two years in University than two minutes on a stage, struggling to perform in front of ignorant people who are so indulged in their own conversations! I cannot take a leap of faith, without a back-up, because if I do, I'll fall and crash hard. I don't have regrets now because I granted my dreams a chance; I tried, but not everything's everyone's cup of tea. If hard-work and dedication decided a person's success, most of us would have been on the top of our game, right now; but it doesn't work that way – destiny, luck and fate plays an important role, too, and I don't think I'm destined to live the life of my dreams. The Universe is screaming me to move on, Dia. Before I make a joke out of my life and let my family down, I need to fetch a degree. I know what I'm doing, trust me, and right now, I need this degree', she justified her decision, and I was left with nothing to say; I plainly smiled at her, sympathetically, and secretly prayed for the pieces of her life to fall into the right slots. I couldn't believe how heartrending it would have been to watch the boat of your dreams to sail away from you. I didn't want to imagine how atrocious it'd be to bury the visions that resided with you for years. She was scarred, and it was certain, but she concealed her turmoil with a smile. She worked hard, she worked so bloody hard to grasp her portions, and maybe, that was her way of diverting her mind from the thought of her broken dream.

Certainly, I had an irksome and exhausting routine that I ought to follow, without a second option, but I lived a far more sorted life than the rest; my professional life was pretty satisfying in terms of the income and my love life wasn't too bad, primarily because Darshan and I hardly had time for each other. And, I was okay with the fact that we didn't invest a lot of time in our relationship; it bothered me at times and I missed him often, but I'd simply shake the feeling off my shoulders because we were spending ourselves on building our careers, which I believed was far more important for me. I had serious ideas of fetching an MBA in The Business School of Amsterdam, and I worked day-in and day-out in my office only to save up enough to take the flight to Amsterdam and pay my University fee, which certainly was a whooping amount. Darshan was kind enough to offer to pay my fee, but that went against my values; I wasn't his responsibility yet, it wasn't his obligation to pay my bills and I wouldn't have granted him the freedom to do that, at any cost. I didn't feel it was right. My mom was unaware about my ideas of moving out, and I made up my mind to reveal the truth about it to her when I saved up enough; I was beyond convinced that she would create a scene and strive to hold me back had I told her before finalizing anything; she was one typical Indian mother, who utilized emotional blackmailing as her tool to get her work done.

I capped the highlighter in my hand and shut the file I worked on, before reading through the queue of messages Nash spammed us with; most of them were repetitive fragments, without a subject, that I began wondering if Nash was drunk-texting all of us. But she was Nash – a God-fearing child and an insane fitness-freak, who wouldn't even dare to look in the direction of an alcohol bottle.

Nash: GUYS!

Nash: WHERE ARE YOU? COME ONLINE!

Nash: GUYS, COME ON. ARE Y'ALL DEAD? I NEED TO TALK.

Nash: DIA. VAISH. CHANCH; GET YOUR ASSES RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!

Nash: LOSERS, COME ONLINE. I NEED TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING.

Nash: WHY DON'T YOU COME ONLINE WHEN I ACTUALLY NEED ALL OF YOU? COME ON!!!

'OMG, what is it, Nash? What's wrong?', I texted her, and ignored a chunk of her messages.

Nash: LORD, DIA! THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE. WHERE WERE YOU?

'1) Stop typing in caps-lock; it's annoying me; 2) I'm at work and 3) WHAT IS IT?', I replied and chewed the corner of my lower lip, as I anticipated for her reply.

Nash: I want Vaish and Chanch to come online, too. We need to do a video-conference right now.

'All of us being online at the same time?; you're joking, right? The last time that happened my cousin sister was pregnant and now she's pregnant again...with her eighth baby', I joked and stupidly smiled.

Nash: Cut the crap, Dia! You call Vaish and I'll call Chanch. NOW!

Nash: GO. GO. GO CALL VAISH.

'You can be SO annoying at times, Nash', I typed.

Nash: GO!

I exhaled loudly and dialed Vaish's number with absolutely no hopes of having the call answered anytime soon, and my gut feelings didn't let me down; the call went straight into a voicemail. I tried three times and only on the third call's gazillionth ring she answered. "God, Vaish, yaar! Why do you even have a phone when you don't have the manners of answering someone's call? Throw it on the floor and run a fucking bulldozer over it, or throw it from your building, dude! How many times do I have to call you?", I huffed in annoyance. "Um...", an awkward voice aroused from the other end, and I was certain it wasn't Vaish. "Who's this, and where's Vaish?", I questioned, monotonously. "She's studying", an answer reached me. The stranger answered me to the point, without exposing anything more; I bet she was the class-topper, who mugged up the answer-scheme of the past question papers, and nailed her exam questions to the point. "Can you call Vaish? I need to talk to her", I requested, calmly, and twirled around on my chair. "She said that she doesn't want any sort of distractions whi—", the stranger almost said and I silenced her with a loud grunt; thank God my office was empty. "Can you tell Vaish that she's not the only one in this whole goddamn Universe, who studies, and that she wouldn't fail an exam if she spent five minutes talking to human beings? You know what...just tell her that Chanch is in the hospital and Dityaa needs to talk to her about it", I cooked up a lie. "Can you at least talk to Vaish? Or is that forbidden, as well?", I sighed, utterly miffed. "One minute...", the stranger blankly uttered and kept the call on hold; until Vaish attended the call, I dumped my belongings inside my handbag and battled with the zip for a brief moment.

"OMG, Dia! What happened to Chanch?", Vaish breathlessly interrogated, and gasped for breath, as though she had to run a 5,000 kilometer marathon and cross four oceans to reach the phone. "You fell for it, Dumbo!", I snorted. "Oh fuck you!", she cursed and I laughed. "That was one pathetic prank. I almost died", Vaish scolded. "There's no other way to catch you, sweetheart. You're studying so much; it looks like you're working towards creating a new branch in Science with your ideologies", I told her, casually, chewing the tip of my pen. "I cannot even learn the existing branches, and you're talking about creating a new one", she murmured, audibly. "I miss you, though!", Vaish nagged. "Keep missing me for the rest of your life, okay? Don't come and meet me. Are you waiting for me to die, so that you could attend and meet me in my funeral, straightaway?", I grouched. "Dude, I'm trying so hard to keep up with the portions. I'm so fucked up and I feel so lost", she complained. "You're taking too much stress, Vaish, and that's probably why you feel this way. I know how important your studies are, and how important it is for you to do well in University, but that does not mean you'll lock yourself up in a room, shut the world down and cram information; you're driving yourself insane! And quit putting a lot of pressure on yourself; stop treating your degree as if it is the only thing in the world that can give you a good life now and go on a walk for a breath of fresh air. You better find balance in life, before everything becomes unbalanced and out-of-control", I lectured her, with a frown. "Chuck all that! Do you know Ayaan's taken?", Vaish whispered, loudly. "Ayaan's taken, and how come you're not crying about it, bitch?", I teased.

Vaish crushed hard and drooled over Ayaan, a boy she met in a pub, who later went on to being a good friend of hers; while Vaish chanted praises about how gentlemanly and good-looking Ayaan was, Nash could never cease the curses that left her mouth for him, only God knew why! 'I don't know what's wrong with him, but he radiates such negative vibes; I mean, look at him, he looks like a playboy! I don't have a good feeling about him, and you know my gut feeling never fails me. Vaish is too precious for that asshole!', she once said, when I questioned her about her hatred towards Ayaan; her hatred was simply unreasoned. FYI, Nash was someone who trusted her gut feelings and intuitions way more than my mom ever trusted me; an expert could point at Mumbai on the map, but if Nash's so-called gut feeling says that it's Pune, she'll point at Mumbai and argue that it is Pune!

"Nash is going to break dance and declare a national holiday in Australia if she finds out that you don't stand a chance with Ayaan anymore!", I bugged, with a playful smile, and Vaish giggled. "He wasn't the one, I guess; he walked in, made me feel special and left", her voice toned down. "How often do we run into such people, Vaish? There's no point in being sad about it anymore; it's normal and natural. So, now, just cherish the goodness they gift you with and let them go when you have to; holding onto people and things that don't belong to you won't make it yours. Some people enter our lives to walk out of it", I sighed. "No, no, Dityaa", she protested. "Some people walk into our lives, make us feel wanted, show us how wonderful it feels to be loved, paints our world in colours of happiness and then, they walk out. They take us around the world, before stranding us alone, and sometimes, they don't even know they're doing it. I bet Ayaan didn't intentionally do things to make me feel special; maybe, I was the stupid one who took him way too seriously. I was just another friend...one of the thousand friends he had", Vaish breathed. "He left because he wasn't the one, yaar; how difficult is it for you to simply digest it as it is? Stop taking the blame on yourself for everything that goes wrong in your life, Vaish. He didn't deserve you; I'm with Nash, in this matter", I said. "I don't deserve anyone. Or rather, no one deserves me", she muttered under her breath, uninterestedly. "You'll find your special one and you'll have the most beautiful love story, ever, trust me!", I assured with a smile. "I'm turning twenty-three in four months and I still haven't walked into a relationship; let alone a proper and stable relationship, I haven't even had a silly relationship yet. Do you think a miracle will happen in the days to come?", she scoffed. "Vaish, you deserve something better than silly relationships. You deserve a relationship that lasts for a lifetime and a man who knows how to keep your heart safe; you deserve that, and nothing less, understand? And miracles...miracles are a real thing", I smiled. "And oh, I know a pro-tip that'll help you fall in love!", I exclaimed. "I'm listening...", she prompted. "I read on the internet – I don't remember where, but it said; to fall in love you need to walk outside and let the world know that you fucking exist!", I stated and Vaish burst out laughing. "If you're going to romance with your textbook all day, you'll die single and virgin, trust me, babe!", I rolled my eyes and that was exactly when I remembered why I called her up in the first place! "Shit. Shit. Shit!", I hollered, all of a sudden, and kept my hand on my head. "Nash ordered me to tell you to come online right now because she wants to talk about something, I don't know what, and the two of us spent fifteen minutes on call. Dude, come online right now! She wants to do a video-call with all of us!", I announced, in one breath. "Suddenly? Is everything okay? What could it be?", Vaish thoughtfully uttered. "Sure, we'll spend another twenty minutes guessing what it could be! You dumbass, just come online, otherwise, we're doomed!", I scolded and cut the call.