CHAPTER 1: ARMAAN
Armaan was a congenital flirt. Though he didnt realise it till he was in 11th grade. Very shy in his early college days. He used to sweat all his orifices on confronting a girl. Born in a middle class, conservatve family, he went schooling to a mediocre school. Was not very fond of studying but topped the class because of the filial obligation he usually felt he had to address. He had his own impish ways and loved to talk about everything except books. His brother was a saint,in the real sense of the word and Armaan cudnt hate his brother more till he was in 12th, since he was always compared to his brother and often derogatively. He always tried his best to be like his brother, but to no avail.
And finally in 11th grade, he gave up. He met a new set of friends, started smoking, started picking up brawls and eventually boosted his own self-confidence. He became one of the most formidable opponents in fights and a member of elite fraternity when it came to "the guys to date". He enjoyed his stature, and tried to wear a mask of masculinity all the time. He believed in "what you believe is what you see, what you pretend is what you be." he pretended to be spartan, and invariably became one.He bunked classes for days in a row to go to a nearby beach with his friends to play baseball. Loved a girl who ditched him big time. But the time moved on. He still managed to score very good marks in his board exams and ended up in a regional engineering college.
He never had a good feeling about his college. Hated the place, missed his parents and his brother being in the same college didnt help him much. He was tagged "arrogant" by his batchmates and his "devil may care" attitude didnt help change that image. His versatality worsened the situation and people were soon very jealous of him. His college life was in tantrums. He just tried to manage his life well somehow, without any good friends. But he was strong and he survived. His funda was very clear. " I will study in the college, everytime i go back home, i will meet some new girl, get her phone number and/or email id and pataofy her in the next 2 months in the college for my next visit home. Go home, have fun with her and then get a phone no. and/or email of another girl and dump the first girl. " He took pride in this system. He never kept a count on the number of girls he dated. He used to satiate his guilt by this simple explanation - " atleast i am not sleeping with them, i have not spoiled anybody's life."
In the third year of his college, he was involved in an incident in which he had no play. The real culprits never came into picture. Even armaan was oblivious of the happenings and within no time he was rusticated from the college for 2 yrs. He didnt get any time to prove his innocence and he felt like killing the real culprits but didnt know who they were. That was the first time he confronted the feeling of helplessness, but this was not the last time.He came back home. He was under severe depression for the next two months. Thought of committing suicide, but he was too weak to do that. Also, he wanted to kill the real perpetrators first before committing suicide. Neither of these events happened. With immense familly support he came out of his blues. He started searching for some jobs. Did some, left some. Got some girls, left some girls.
And within no time 2 yrs passed by. He went back to the same college. Studying with people who had a preconcieved detrimental notion about him was again a huge task. But he managed somehow. But he had learnt so much in the past 2 years that his whole personality had changed, or atleast he could change his personality depending upon the person he was dealing with. He soon made friends with almost everybody in the college. He transformed the fear for him to love for him. Those 1.5 years of college too passed in no time. He continued with his womanizing fundas. He maintained exceptionally good scores in his examinations in lieu of the hiatus. Finally, he got placed in an IT company in Bangalore.
