Chapter 1

Its raining cats and dogs. College is off for sure. When the rains take over, even the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore can't actually do much. But, Shreyas knows for sure, that he can travel about in the city, for two reasons, one, he's been here for two long years, long enough to know the city in full, and another, the strength of friendship could take him across huge distances with considerable ease. He picked his cell phone and made a call sitting in Nessara, the official restaurant in IISc Bangalore campus.

A phone rang in another part of the city, around 50 kms away, at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore. Rahul picked the phone, with a sober 'Hi!'. He said he wanted to meet Shreyas at the Malleswaram CCD at 12. Shreyas agreed to come, and the line dropped dead. What had gone wrong with him today? Had the ghost of his past come back to haunt him??

Rahul, who was typing on a computer in the digital computing facility of his institute, shut the computer down, walked down to the library entrance, swapped his ID card at the identification portal, and the library gates opened with a beep. 'ISI Bang is all pseud', he thought!!

He went up to the bus stop to catch the 73N bus to Malleswaram. Getting into the bus, he messaged Ravi, a friend in institute to put proxy for him as he would not be coming to class in spite to institute working full day. Then, he sat next to the window. He had recieved a call from Anjali that morning, which had put him off. He saw through the window as they crossed Blossom school. Memories flooded him, like in a watershed!!

It was class 9. Rahul's father, after so many years out of the country, had finally settled in Bangalore, and so had brought his family, living in Neyveli, the lignite capital of the country, to Bangalore. All Rahul had known all his life were coal mines, charcoal fields, the power plants, power cuts, and fun. Fun, in the streets with other kids, playing cricket, hitting balls into the power plant area, sneaking into the restricted areas there to find out what actually was restricted there. He had lived a life of fun and frolic all along. Rahul was extremely scared of studying in Blossoms, a CBSE school, that too one in Bangalore. All he'd heard of Bangalore was huge IT parks, huge malls, pseud mini-skirt clad girls, and pubs, a lot of them. He had heard of a certain dirty culture prevalant in Bangalore, and so was extremely anxious about how he'll adapt to this environment.

Rahul didn't make too many friends at school because of his scared fellow attitude. Everyone thought he had a serious attitude problem. There was this guy called Vinay Rai, who was seated next to him, but not because they were great friends, but because he wasn't too popular in class. Vinay, a student from Presidency School, of ICSE board, was this ultra modern, guy with a cool type image, who looked down on the CBSE system as he would on a pariah! None of the guys liked him, and so he was isolated from the class, sent to the last desk, where the other unwanted kid of the class Rahul was seated. The duo made instant friendship, due to absence of any other friends, and due to their friendship complementing each other in various talents, they went places. But, the pivot of the the friendship was Anjali.

Anjali was a girl from Delhi Public School, R.K.Puram, Delhi. She was another of those Delhi kids who thought there was nothing in this world better than Delhi. She made friends with this duo during a quiz competition the three had attended together. They slowly became a very good quizzing team, and in the process, great friends. But little did Anjali realise that Rahul had developed feelings for her!!!