Ordeals of A Hidden Genius

“Another year, huh? What a killjoy.” thought Aarav as he entered the compound gates of his college. Zodiac University was standing in full prestige in Fertilizer Nagar of Vadodara, majestic as always. The look of it from the outside was seriously awesome, but the experience after entering inside was even better. The management of the university believed in a deep connection with nature, and that was probably one of the reasons of the campus having a lot of vegetation and greenery inside. The place was basically a man-made paradise of nature, and the peace and quiet it offered inside was otherworldly (as long as the students kept their mouths shut). At the same time, the buildings inside the campus were highly modern and robust, making the campus a mix of industrial modernity and natural bliss. The people at this university believed in balance – that everything should be balanced in proper proportions, be it workload or the atmosphere around. That was probably one of the reasons of it being incredibly popular among the students as they weren’t overburdened with projects and studies like in the other universities.

Among the students rushing in to get inside the campus was Aarav Idrisi, a guy who hated studying more than anything else, even though he was something of a genius. He wasn’t any special looking kid at all – 5 foot 10 height, had a slim physique, wasn’t particularly fair, had brown eyes and had a normal hairstyle. Nothing about him said that he was special in any way. He was just a regular final year student looking to complete his M.Tech CSE course just like everyone else. You could say that he had a flair for everything, but wasn’t interested or motivated enough to pursue or improve on any of them.

As he was walking inside, a hand slapped hard on his back, making his back recoil in pain.

“OW!” he shouted and turned around, only to see a girl grinning with satisfaction seeing his agony.

“Good morning to you too.” she said in a cheerful tone.

“Good morning, my foot! That hurts, Savitri! Connect your 2 brain cells for once and understand that!” he exclaimed as his back sent flares of pain through his body. Savitri Sharma was Aarav’s best friend in the whole university. She was about 3 inches shorter than Aarav, with long, brown hair and hazel eyes. Her long hair was tied back, and she had her sling bag latched on to her. Aarav had a lot of friends, but Savitri was the closest since they were childhood friends and attended the same school.

“Come on, dude. I know what a boost this is for you.” joked Savitri.

“If hitting you back would be made legal, you won’t find your face in that pristine condition anymore.”

“Yeah, right. As if you’d be able to do that.”

Aarav smiled to himself, knowing the truth in those words. Aarav could never bring himself to harm her, and the feeling was mutual. Their friendship was too strong for that to happen.

Zodiac University had 5 buildings, and each had its own purpose. The first one was named Sentry, and this building had all the laboratories of the university, be it of electrical, chemical, physics, computer fields, etc. All the labs were in the Sentry building. Next was Inferno, which basically housed all the indoor sports courts and equipment of the university. The physical ones such as Badminton, Basketball, etc. as well as the sitting ones such as Chess, Carrom, etc. were all in Inferno. The third building was Starlight, made for the students of Engineering courses. All those courses related to engineering, including the Masters Courses, were all taught in Starlight. The fourth building was Discovery, made for the Science courses and the fifth was called Influence, made for the Management courses (BBA, MBA, B.Com, etc.). Other than this, there was a huge sports complex inside the university called Excellence which housed all the courts for outdoor sports, including a running track, a cricket ground, a tennis court and others. You could very well say that Zodiac University’s reputation of being one of the best in the whole of India wasn’t born out of thin air.

As Aarav walked with Savitri, looking to enter the Starlight building to get to his class, his breath suddenly got caught and he just stopped in his tracks, stunned for the moment. He looked as if someone had punched him square in the face. Savitri was immediately confused, though she had already predicted the reason for this.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking at where he was looking, and her prediction immediately came true. Samyukta Nehwal was standing in his line of sight, talking to her friends.

“Of course. Why else would you get so wide eyed.” Savitri said with a sigh, as if to say that he was never gonna learn. Samyukta Nehwal was not the prettiest girl in the university, not by a long shot. She wasn’t the most confident and smart girl either. She was pretty ordinary by all margins, but Aarav thought she was really pretty. Samyukta also had a quiet and calm personality, and that was something Aarav was attracted to. However, Samyukta could get really tough when challenged. There was once an incident where some guys were trying to pick on a girl, but Samyukta stepped in and insulted them in public so badly that they decided to get away from there as quickly as possible. Aarav could only find positives in her, no matter how he saw her.

“Y’know, if you really like her, you should at least make some sort of move on her. How else would she know about you?” Savitri asked.

“I know that. But when I see her, my head goes reeling. I can’t muster the courage to even greet her. How am I supposed to make a move on her?” he complained.

“I guess your stupid self is destined to stay single, then.”

Aarav’s eyes narrowed on her.

“Can’t you motivate me or anything instead?” he asked.

“I’ve been motivating you for the last 9 months or something, and yet here we are. I mean-”

She stopped short, and this time, it was Aarav who knew what had happened. From the corner of his vision, he saw Ketan Achari walk towards Starlight, accompanied by his 2 friends. He could almost immediately hear whispers erupt from the girls around him.

“Hey, isn’t that Ketan?”

“My, my. He looks so handsome.”

“I so wish to have a boyfriend like him.”

Aarav’s eyes narrowed in jealousy as he eyed Ketan menacingly, as did all the other boys around. Ketan Achari was one of those ‘Perfect Guys’ that every university/school has. He was handsome, was an athletic beast, scored great grades and was prominent in extra-curricular activities. Guys like him basically killed the joy of being in a university from normal boys like Aarav. The thing that infuriated Aarav was that he didn’t know whether Samyukta also liked Ketan the same way other girls did. He had seen the two of them have lively conversations before, and that sort of threw his confidence off.

“Oh my. Ketan is soooo handsome!” Savitri exclaimed, not taking her eyes off him.

“Why don’t you ask him out then?” Aarav asked.

“What?! I’d be rejected in the face. There’s no way he’d like a simpleton like me.”

“If you know the reality, why chase after him?”

This time, it was Savitri who narrowed her eyes at him.

“Can’t you say something positive in times like this?” she asked.

“Look who’s talking. Anyway, aren’t we getting late? You can save your staring for later.”

“You’re the reason we stopped in the first place.”

Together, they both started out for their class, dreaming about how life would’ve been had their love been accepted.

“This is my final year here. There’s no point if I don’t act now.” they both thought to themselves as they marched forward, uncertain of the future but ready for their final year.

“Okay, you idiots. This year is going to be different compared to the normal years, okay? We’ve already taught you all the theory part, so now its time for you fools to put them to practise! That’s what the last year’s all about.” shouted Sagar Dave, the head teacher of Class M-301, the class of Aarav and Savitri. He basically had almost no respect for the students as most of them were really messed up delinquents. That included Ketan and his 2 friends too.

“What’s different this time?” Aarav thought to himself.

“This year, there would be no teaching. We’ll assign you all into teams of 2, and you have to work together for the rest of the year. You guys will be assigned projects based on the things you’ve learned so far in the classes. Each team has to work together to solve those projects, and you also have to enlist the amount of work each member did.”

This sparked a wave of excitement among the students as each of them started to pick their friends to team up with.

“By the way, the teams have already been chosen, and there would be no member changing.” Sagar said, and that launched a series of protests and wails from all the students. While most of them were sincere protests, Aarav and his friends were shouting random things just to make the people around them laugh.

“Sir, that’s not fair!”

“Let us decide the teams, sir!”

“Sir, your hairstyle is so cool! Who was the barber?!” (This was said by Aarav, with full knowledge of the fact that Sagar is bald - of course he didn’t hear it).

“SHUT UP AND DO AS I SAY IF YOU WANT TO PASS!!!” screamed Sagar, and all the students shut their mouths, the value of life suddenly returning to them.

“As I was saying,-” he continued, “the teams have been decided beforehand, and there would be no member changing. You’ll be assigned projects, and fulfilling them would earn you grades. Of course, the quality and functioning of the work plays a major part in the grades, not to mention the presentation of your projects as well. Individual grades will be based on the questions asked on your work, the amount of contribution you’ve done to each project, and other factors. Do your best, and you won’t fail. Got it, you fools?”

None of the students were in any mood to answer his question – not because of his insults (the students had gotten used to those), but because of the team situation.

“Whatever. Not that I care. Just keep yourself from embarrassing me. I’ll now announce the teams.” he said and started announcing the teams. Surprisingly, most of the people were getting paired up with their friends or lovers, and the students were loving it.

“Hey, do you think I’d be paired up with Ketan?” Savitri asked Aarav, who was trying to finish a fight on his mobile game.

“Who knows? Maybe.” Aarav replied nonchalantly.

“Could you be a bit more optimistic or something?”

At that time, Aarav casually said something that made no sense to her. In fact, it even sort of made her mad.

“After this team, the 4th team that will be called will have your name, and your partner won’t be Ketan.” he said, only to receive an immediate punch on his face from her.

“Be optimistic!” she exclaimed.

“That hurt!”

“Some well deserved hurt.”

However, what he said turned out to be perfectly true. The 4th team called out after Aarav’s statement had Savitri’s name, but didn’t have Ketan’s name as her partner. Instead...

“Savitri Sharma... with Bakir Joshi!” Sagar announced, widening Savitri’s eyes.

“How did you know that?” she asked Aarav.

“Just a guess. I never knew it. Anyway, he’s one of Ketan’s friends, right? You could-”

Aarav couldn’t find words to follow up his statement, as the next team had his name. But that wasn’t what choked his words.

“Aarav Idrisi... with Samyukta Nehwal!” Sagar announced, and that blew the senses of both Aarav and Savitri. Wide eyed, he shot a glance at Savitri, who had a huge smile on her face. He then glanced at Samyukta, who turned back to look at him. Aarav made a Thumbs Up at her, smiling to show approval. Samyukta though, just nodded at him, shrugged, and then turned around to talk with her friends. Aarav was literally trembling with excitement and joy, and Savitri could clearly feel it.

“Now that’s what I’d call a blessing from the gods. You better start right away, man.” Savitri encouraged.

“No way am I not starting now. I’m gonna go for broke.” he replied. The final year of his M.Tech had begun in the best way possible for him, and he wasn’t gonna let his chance go to waste.

“Gods, this is gonna be great!” thought Aarav as he struggled to keep his hands from shaking in excitement, adrenaline coursing through his veins.