"Don't you guys feel cold below your knees?" Madhav enquired. His eyebrows scrunching in confusion as Divya along with Nandini looked down at themselves; they were dressed in a pair of jeans shorts and t-shirts which were covered with another layer of thick jacket that gave them a perfect look.

"No, I mean it's cold but it's bearable," Divya replied.

"And yes we have a blanket if ever we go cold." Nandini smiled at Divya who handed over the toothpaste to Madhav who rolled his eyes at the girls and moved towards the washroom to brush his teeth.

"Where is your toothpaste?' Divya asked after him. "It's there somewhere in the bag and I am quite lazy to search."

"You should have slept...I had warned."

"Yeah right and miss out on the way you were drinking?' Madhav peeped out of the washroom his mouth filled with the froth from the paste as he smiled at Divya teasingly. While Nandini laughed her ass off Divya couldn't help but blush and think of the mentioned time. It began with continuous persistence from Nandini, Natasha, and then even Simran to have a sip of vodka. She did and surprisingly liked it.

The bitter taste mixed with the lemon taste of sprite was something else. For time and again she had wondered how it would feel like to get wasted like that. Call her a hypocrite but she didn't like smoking however drinks and alcohol had always fascinated her. If only her parents would have allowed her. But then which brown parent gives permission? That episode wasn't the end of her drinking spirit. Once they all had got ready a few hours back and went back to the boys' room to enjoy Aman had insisted her to have a sip of the old monk. She was quite shocked at how good it tasted and wished she could have more of it.

"Nah that was Divya being bad." Nandini teased her further.

"I don't know, but one thing I know for sure this would be the last time... there is no more next time." Divya said and sat down in the chair. "we'll see." Dhawal said and high fied with Nandini as Divya shook her head. She wondered what all things were her friends going to get herself in, especially now that they had one trump card in their hand. Once Madhav was ready the group went out to take a few pictures and then were set on the jeeps that were going to take them for the Jungle safari. The moment they were a few meters away from the hotel it began raining.

"It's very cold here," Nandini complained as the girls along with Rohan sat a bit closer to each other. The tour guide then adjusted the shelter on the jeep and they drove ahead. There were a few check posts and once they were on the last one the whole group gathered together. They had 3 jeeps one in which they all sat, one in which the boys sat one in which the professors sat along with a few juniors. The girls were still arguing about how Natasha was playing Mafia the other night when Nandini received a call.

"Hello... Hello Aman, I can't hear you." She shifted a bit and then talked with a few ohh and ahhs and then hung up the call with a huf. "and Madhav was chiding us that aren't we cold."

"What happened?" the whole jeep asked at once as Nandini explained. "their jeep's shelter isn't working well hence they are going back, maybe they will be sleeping now."

"Even I want to go back, I am so sleepy," Divya stretched her hand and let out a huge yawn.

"Well, why ain't I shocked, obviously you would want to go back now that Madhav is going back." Natasha teased from the front seat.

"Ohh really, at least I ain't someone who would be so drunk that they would even forget who it was that was conducting the game...I want Dev... well news flash Dev was the god himself and Low behold if only people in there would have realized that it wasn't the game that you were referring to." The whole jeep hollered into a fit of laughter just the way they had a few hours back. It had been so hilarious that Divya remembered getting off her chair jumping around along with Madhav as they all laughed their ass off. Aman had as well gone off the heights to go up to her and folded his hands in front of her as if paying respect to her.

Natasha rolled her eyes and soon the two began bickering talking all kinds of bullshit one could even think of. Of the last night shit that they did with making a moaning voice while one would be there in the bathroom to how the things would turn out for each one of them if they were left here. At one point in time, Nandini shushed them and said, "guys we have Rohan with us."

Divya looked at him and asked, "did you hear anything?" the poor lad shook his head in negative as once again the girls began talking about how things would be for them for their wedding night, for their bachelorette party, or be it at a one night stand or something down the line going all lesbian and shit like that. Soon they returned back to their hotel and got changed. Divya was feeling so cold she couldn't afford to get dressed in anything that was a t-shirt or jeans and to add up they had about 7 hours of traveling by the traveler. The thought made her halt for a moment as she reminisced the moments that she had with Madhav. That one talk had made them come so much closer.

"Divya are you going for the bath?" Nandini asked.

"NO, I will be just changing as it is we had taken a bath before going for the safari."

"so what are you wearing now?" Divya looked into her bag and smiled brightly as she took out her white-colored Kurti along with black leggings. "I am wearing this."

"Are you wearing Kurti for a 6 hours journey?" the girls enquired.

"I love Kurtis, these are my comfort clothes...see you soon." A few minutes later when she walked out of the washroom the door was being knocked loudly and none of the girls had it in them to go ahead and open the door. She threw the wet towel on Simran's face as she stuffed it with the aloo paratha and opened the door. Much to her shock, it was Rishi.

"what's up?"

"Why are you wearing a Kurti, we are going to Mussoorie now, not Hrishikesh." He explained as he walked inside and made himself comfortable with a paratha in his hand which he had already taken a bite of even before she could explain. But Nandini was there to speak on her behalf as she explained.

"She is more comfortable in that than jeans." Rishi looked at her and then shrugged his shoulders and sat on the bed as Divya looked at Nandini then at Simran who as well shrugged their shoulders. It seemed this trip was going to give them a lot of surprises as Rishi sat there chilling around, talking about family and even getting cozy and fighting over food.

It was around 12:30 when they were asked to vacate the rooms as hurriedly everyone went on to do that. A few minutes later when they all were out in the shade surrounded by bags Divya couldn't help but hear a few people talking.

"were these the same girls who were roaming around in shorts early in the morning...surely they are from Bombay." The group of boys looked at the girls and the moment they shared eye contact they turned their face around.

"Whats wrong?" Aman asked as he handed Nandini his bag and stood right in front of the girls.

"Nothing, where are the others?' Divya enquired. For she knew if Aman was to know about the illicit behavior of the boys a ruckus would have happened right here.

"they are coming...damn it's cold," Aman said and now that he mentioned it did Divya and Nandini realized it as well. They were still shivering and adjusting the bags around when Madhav came and wrapped his muffler around Nandini and then took the bag that Divya was lifting and kept it where she was keeping it. Once that was done Diya thanked him and turned around to talk with Natasha about something when she saw Madhav walking towards one of their juniors and smiling about and talking away too sweetly for her liking.

"Don't be that jealous, from what I know she has a boyfriend," Natasha said.

"Do you think that it bothers me or that I am jealous?"

"I know that you are... look at your face it seems as if you would kill that poor girl right this moment ain't I right Simran?" Both Diya and Natasha turned around and were about to ask her about it when a gush of cold wind blew around them. The girls shivered and covered themselves with their hands. The long-sleeved kurta along with the jacket and the leggings... it seemed this wasn't enough as the biting cold wind which made her shiver, almost made her bend down and hug herself to safeguard her body from the wind when she felt a warmth surrounding her. Scared she was about to scream, however as she turned around she was rather wrapped completely in a shawl as Madhav looked at her with a blank face and said,

"Please carry this I will be taking it back later on."

"Thank you I was so cold." Diya smiled at him and sniffed her nose a bit and snuggled into the warmth of the shawl, and watched as Madhav walked off to the dining area, whereas her heart was beating at a very different notch. She tried to remind herself that he had just asked her to keep it with her for some more time till he would be back and that there was nothing to be happy about, this wasn't something like that of those kdrama which she watched or scenes from the romcoms that she read, where the lead would give their jackets to the girl for she would be feeling cold. She really didn't have anything to have her heart going that haywaya...but then she touched her heart and turned around and one glace at her friends and the way her heart was beating...she knew no matter how much she explained it to herself...surely there was a whole lot of things going around in her mind in her friend's mind and whatnot.

****

"Take some cucumber and those tomatoes..." Divya dished a few in her plate and was about to take a few onions when Madhav stopped her. "No, don't take onions."

"Nandu eats onion with everything." Divya explained as Madhav adjusted the shawl on her shoulders and said, " please dish a few more cucumbers and tomatoes." Divya glared at him and then went ahead to take the rest of the lunch. The way Madha was showing tantrums she wished she wouldn't have agreed to eat with him and Nandini on the same plate. However they had had their breakfast just about an hour ago and she was nowhere close to being hungry, whereas there was a dilemma as well. They had a long journey ahead and surely they wouldn't stop to eat something sensible and nor could she survive over the chips and snacks that they were carrying.

"A bit of daal." Madhav pointed towards the daal like a kid and smiled at her. Divya finally with a plate filled with loads of cucumber onion, tomatoes, 4 chapatis, lots of rice, and yes daal in a bowl came back to their seat and seated between Nandini and Madhav so that the two wouldn't get into their regular shit of banter.

As each morsel of food went inside her stomach she felt a bit hungry. It was weird how the warmth of jeera rice, paneer, and roti returned her appetite.

"Get me some rice please." She asked Madhav who nodded his head and went to refill their plate. Once again as the three began eating Ms. Jain walked up to their table and asked.

"Why are the three of you eating on the same plate?"

"Ma'am this is the same thing we have been trying to understand since the day before yesterday... nor have we understood till now and I am sure we will never," Natasha said as she eyed Divya.

"Maam it's just that we are never in the mood to eat food before we sit to eat and then we start eating and then we want to stuff a bit more... it's better we are saving the money, you can treat us later on with a cup of tea and coffee for Divya," Madhav said.

"Naa I will prefer tea till we go back." The whole table fell into a fit of laughter as the professor asked them to get on the bus as they were ready to leave. The seating arrangements this time changed a bit, as Dev sat with Nandini, and Diya took the last seat between Madhav and Atharva. The moment they all got settled in Divya plugged in her earphones and began listening to music. The whole bus had gone silent as Dhawal wasn't feeling well, the girls had slept off.

The next time Diya opened her eyes was when she heard a ruckus and someone shaking her shoulder, opening her eyes she looked up to see Madhav waking her up his eyes right in the front. "what's wrong?" she asked. She noticed how parched her throat was and wondered for how long was she sleeping like this?

"We have taken a halt. If you want to go for the washroom then get down." Madhav informed and waited for Divya to get back into her senses. She took her own sweet time to get into the motion and finally got down taking hold of Nandini's hand. For quite some reason she found herself to be very silent. She didn't really want to talk to anyone, just be there wrapped in a blanket. Somewhere she was as well missing out on her parents, her brother, and Parth.

She thought, how if she would have been home right now Parth would have made it so impossible for her to take a breath of relief. The whole building would now be buzzed around with the celebration of Holi.

"Divya pass me your sanitizer!" Dev's voice brought her out of her thoughts as she nodded her head at him and handed the sanitizer bottle. She then saw Madhav walking towards her and called out to him. "Madhav, we have to look for some sanitizer and masks."

"Alright I will ask him." Madhav pointed towards the tour operator and walked ahead. A few minutes later when they all were settled once again, the sky had begun to turn dark and within no time it was pitch black, the conversation was flowing around the bus. Divya rested her head by the window sill. The cool surface made her feel good. She wondered why she was feeling so emotional all of a sudden when Manav's words fell on her ears.

"Dude CBSE was even more hectic. We had these huge textbooks for accounts and man that business studies..." Divya chuckled and sat straight facing them and said, "dude economics was no less... accounts which books did you guys referred to?"

" T.s Grewal." Both Madhav and Manav exclaimed as Divya smiled brightly and said, "same, I was glad I was able to do that only... My teacher back then was like first finishing the NCERT, then T.S Grewal, and then to some other book, I never got my hands on the other book. I was fine with that NCERT and Grewal."

"you are from CBSE?" Madhav asked, looking at her. For a moment Divya wondered how come he didn't remember this, whilst she remembered their conversation quite clearly till date. Those clusters, those debate competitions on which they had had a conversation right outside the principal's office

"Yeah, I am," Divya said and smiled at him. She thought this would now get awkward and that the conversation would end here but Madhav surprised her. "Damn, you know we had those Cbse textbooks oh god that subject the one with a whole lot of theory."

"Business studies!" Divya exclaimed. She could feel the brightness in her eyes, the excitement that she felt. " Yes Business studies, you know Divya I was so good at mugging up answers, I had legit mugged up the whole book. I can still remember a few chapters."

"ohhh yess same, that marketing mix, product mix and that delegation, and other concepts..."

"I swear, I had just studied for about a month but trust me my sir had been behind me like anything. 6 hours of school and then after that 2 hours of extra class, after that I used to come back to my hostel room and again visit all the answers before sleeping. My whole room was filled with pointers on the wall." Madhav said as Divya listened to him. It was as if she was memorizing what he was saying she could actually recite this whole conversation to someone years later on. She smiled at him and then said, "you know that one concept of communication barrier...how we were taught that..."

"how?" the curiosity and interest with which Madhav asked her made her even more excited to tell him about it. Divya pulled up the red-colored blanket as the two wrapped themselves in it, the conversation that Madhav and the rest of them were having had now got sidelined. " We played games, Chinese whispers, message messages, and through that ma'am had told us the uses, needs, advantages, etc of that topic."

"Wow, dude the school was cool." Divya shook her head and said, " the teacher was. We would always start our lectures with meditation. She would always say, 'Always be engaged into something good, read something or the other, I don't want my students to be aunties, gossiping around."

"so that was where you started reading and writing?" Madhav asked.

"naa not really, I used to read a lot since I was a kid, but I began writing after 12, earlier I was crazy for photography, but that's not really me."

"You are into creating stories." The two of them smiled at each other as Divya rested her head on the window, her eyes on Manav, and then moving on to Madhav as he said in a low voice, " I wanted to do psychology. I wanted to take arts. But in my family Arts is not accepted. Boys aren't allowed to do that. I am supposed to handle my family business so Arts isn't for me...commerce is." Divya listened to him as he kept on speaking.

"I never had the chance to speak about it to my family, But I had always wished I had a chance, I have this connection with the opposite person while I am talking with them... I can understand them, I always wanted to learn the fundamentals." Divya could feel that big smile on her face as she looked at him.

"I can understand you. I never knew I wasn't d to this thing, that psychology was my interest until I took a year gap, but then you know how our parents are, once we give them a decision we can't change it, we have to move onto it. I had somehow made them agree for BMM, psychology, the very moment I would talk about it they would end the discussion there...but college never gave me admission I had a few percent out of place..."

"Isn't that the pain of everyone's ass?'' The two laughed and kept on talking about so many things. That night, as they traveled towards Mussoorie, Divya met a new Madhav, one who adored his nephew, who was childish, one who had lost all his battles of societal pressure and had adhered to the expectations of his family killing away and burying all that he wanted.

She wondered what kind of a person Madhav would have been if he had, had a chance to do all that he wanted... the answer was unknown though. Divya looked at him wide-eyed as he said, "I was selected in Christ university." This had the attention of everyone there as Divya and Madhav cursed him, calling him foolish to let go of his opportunity and coming here to Bombay.

The next time when Divya woke up once again they all had reached Mussoorie. The temperature here had dropped down to single-digit and her leggings and Kurti and jacket were of no help. As the lot waited for their bags to be unloaded, Divya's eyes wandered around in search of Madhav. The moment she saw him and their eyes met the two of them smiled as Madhav went and stood below a shop's shed to help himself from cold, the burning fire at a farther end seemed to be providing some warmth as Divya admired him and remembered how wonderfully the two of them had slept off all the while talking to each other.

She realized this was the first time she had let her head rest on someone's shoulder to sleep, and let someone other than her siblings and Nandini rest their head on hers and sleep, to make sure that they were comfortable. It was as if Madhav wasn't just important to her but as well someone very precious...and all she hoped that this would stay for a long while, a little longer than all the birthdays that she had celebrated till. Now.