4 Friends, 4 Religions, 4 Dreams (But 1 Ideology) !!!

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        I still think that I joined the college some 13 years ago just to be friends with Joseph, Atif and Ravinder. It was my first day in college and I was late. I sat for the second lecture on the last bench which was already occupied by a muscle-toned boy. I saw him and I felt ashamed of the ludicrous body I had. A teacher with damn idiotic face started telling us about how the auditing takes place in the Computing world and what are the specifications a software should carry to be user-friendly and durable. This boy whispered in my ears,"Hello!! I am Atif from Bangalore. Your name?" I was happy that he started conversing because it was hard to believe that a teacher started with the first topic without any introduction of students and any kind of interaction. It was too petulant for me. I replied,"I am Chirag from Kanpur. Isn't this teacher irritating you too?" And this is how I got my first friend Atif- the guy who loved to flirt with girls and when pointed for this cheap acts, he would say "I don't want to waste the good-looking face Allah has gifted me even after all the sins I have committed all my life." Too Interesting. 

             I told my mother that there's a Gurudwara near my college and my mother pleaded me to purchase a Kada and wear it. Kadaa is a bangle which is worn by Punjabi men. I went to the Gurudwara to purchase the kada when I saw a familiar face with handkerchief tied on the head. He came to me and said,"Hey, you are in the same college where I study. Vishwanath college, right?" I replied,"Yes" And then he helped me to buy the best kada from the stalls outside Gurudwara and this is how I became friend with Ravinder- the guy who loved his religion and loved spending time with poor kids and taught them for free whenever he got time from college. Truly Inspirational.

            I was searching for new flowers for the balcony of my new house. This is when I met Joseph. Joseph was sitting and playing guitar adjacent to the Flower shop. I asked about him and amazingly even he was from my college and pursued Bsc.IT. He was unlucky to get Computer Engineering like me and Atif. Joseph treated life as a girlfriend. He used to love it when he used to play guitar but used to fuck it when it came about studies. I loved talking to Joseph as he was from Kerala and his Hindi was funny. I introduced all of them together on my birthday party on 4th October. I clicked their picture when suddenly I realized that all of them belonged to different religions. Ravinder was Sikh, Atif was Muslim and Joseph was Christian (I am Hindu). I was very happy to see that all of us accepted each other so lovingly that we began partying till late nights, we used to complete our bloody assignments together, we used to tease girls of our college and whenever their boyfriend came cavorting towards us, we used to peel the bananas(Atif's favorite. He always kept Bananas to eat during lectures. Cheap but Funny) and throw the wastes on them. It was fun to snub the boyfriends in front of their girlfriends. 

             Finally, it was the day when our Final year's result was to be declared. We were sitting together in a cyber cafe and kept refreshing the website to see whether the result has been displayed or not. Suddenly, a new link appeared to us and we started entering our seat numbers to check our results. We started with Ravinder, then Joseph, then Atif- Unfortunately all of them failed. Now, it was my turn to enter the seat number and check whether I have made my parent proud or even I am one of the silly students who waste their parent's money in college for their materialistic fun. Fortunately or Unfortunately, I cleared all the subjects and passed with first class marks. I didn't opined any kind of crikey as all my friends failed and I was too concerned for them (more than myself). We went to Vaishali Bar in the evening as all of us were depressed. Suddenly, Atif said,"You fooled us." I asked,"Why? What happened? Why are you saying so?" He said,"When I used to ask you whether you are prepared or not, you always said that you didn't studied anything and fooled me. Now you are passed and we are failed." After some more blames on me from Atif, even Ravinder and Joseph joined him and they made me the target. They spurned me that day and our friendship ended. 

             I tried to trace them a lot but I never found them after leaving Vishwanath college. I was sad as I never wanted to lose them. After some days, even they parted their ways from each other.

             After 10 YEARS, I am a columnist in a Youth Newspaper which publishes Social awareness issues and the solutions to the different problems of youths. I am one of the favorite writer of all the youths in India. Joseph is one of the artist in MANTRA ROCK BAND where he plays guitar in the lead. He is famous amongst those high-class youths who spend 1500 a night for attending those rock band shows. Atif has turned into a model after struggling for 5 years in Mumbai. I always find him on television while watching news channels and cricket matches. Often see his pictures on Page 3 with sexy models. Ravinder has become a Socialist who enforces government time to time with his youth support to educate the poor children those who want to study and he is an inspiration for many youths. He has a Facebook page with more than 10,00,000 youths following it. 

           I am happy to see all my friends tasting the delicious food of Success and Fame. Even after failing in Graduation, they didn't lost their patience and cool. They understood that they weren't made for studies and books. All of them ran behind their passion and ended up being something they wanted to be. I, even after passing with good grades in my Bachelors and Masters, didn't go for Computers but chose to be a Writer that I always wanted to be. Four of us are still away from each other but I hope that everyone of us is happy to see each other at wonderful positions today. We all followed Joseph's highly-emphasized motivational quote- Love the life when you do something which you like and Fuck it when you do something you don't like. (Like he did. Fucked the life when he studied but loved it when he played guitar). People divide the world on the basis of religion and caste but Four of us kept our religion and caste away from us and lived life like human-beings. We never brought Religion in our Friendship and neither did we chose our paths in life keeping the religion in mind. This is what I liked about my Friends and me. Even today, I read in newspapers that youth follow Four of us because we respect all religions and worship all the holy places - Temple, Mosque, Church and Gurudwara. I am proud of me and my friends that even when we didn't do well in studies(except me), we have good thoughts and ideologies(which are rare now-a-days among youth). 

P.S.: I wrote this post after thinking about various friends of mine who belongs to different religion. All of them have some desire and passion. None of us are good in studies but we have a will to fulfill our dream and be in the heart of the young generation. I hope this Fictional story will turn out to be my Real Life story except that splitting part. ;-) I hope all of you liked it.

  Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU