Shrishti Reborn

Chapter 09. College Holi Party - Part I

'HAPPY HOLI!'

Someone shouted as the classes for the day ended.

Shrishti cheered with other students. Students started to grab their colours and balloons and water guns as in pichkari and ran off. College bags were either taken with them or stuffed in the student's individual lockers to be taken with them when they were heading home. Some students were taking it with them to leave it in their cars. Shrishti was one of them. She even encouraged Divya to keep her bag in Shrishti's car so that they would not have to go the whole way to college to get her bag back after the party finished. Divya's home had one car that her father took to work, so she tended to come to college in taxi daily.

As Shrishti and Divya paid for their tickets and entered the ground, holding bags filled with holi paraphernalia in their hands, Shrishti, for a second, was transported back to her first life mentally. Because everything around her looked the same. She remembered that day clearly. Apparently, all the good memories were a little fuzzy but all the bad memories were clear and stark in her mind. Guess, people were right when they say humans remember bad more than good!

In her first life, Shrishti had boldly gone to Sharad and applied colour to his cheeks, leaving everyone gasping around her. Sharad for the first time looked enraged at her. He was furious and he had grasped his cheeks as if she had slapped him. His reaction had left her reeling and when he shouted at her, tears had welled in her eyes and she had run off. That was the day, Shrishti had decided to love Sharad from far off and not trouble him by coming close to him. But the day did not end with that. Later, Shrishti found herself surrounded by some of the girls from her class, all furious and annoyed. They were fed up of her harassing Sharad and had ganged up to scold her about it and they were a lot harsher than Sharad. It had destroyed Shrishti totally that day and she spent more than a week, holed up in her room, crying and sobbing. It was one disastrous day for Shrishti.

Shrishti came out of her thoughts when Divya nudged her, 'Where are you lost? Come on! Lets go in.'

Shrishti nodded and giddily followed her friend. This time, her first holi as an eighteen year old was going to be different, Shrishti swore to herself. They entered the grounds and right away were drenched when couple of seniors came with buckets and threw the water on them. Shrishti and Divya right away retaliated by grabbing handful of colours from nearby area and throwing it on those seniors. That kick started the game for Shrishti and Divya as many seniors started to target them. The seniors were all girls. Next thing Shrishti knew, some of her classmates joined in on their side. Most were girls but soon the boys joined too.

Before Shrishti knew it, it was war between seniors and juniors. On one side was Shrishti, Divya and many girls and three boys from their class and on the other side were second year commerce students, all girls. The boys of their classes took over filling balloons, once they realised that the other side had only girls. They did not want to harm them with their strength. So they took over filling buckets and mixing colours in them and then filling the balloons with it. They stationed themselves a bit away from the fighting girls and Shrishti and her female classmates came to them and got their refills. Other side had their own refilling station but clearly they were not as fast as the boys of Shrishti's class. Shrishti learned that day that she was really good at aiming balloons at people. Almost every throw was a hit and the three boys doing the refilling were clapping and cheering for her.

Shrishti was having the time of her life. She never knew holi could be this fun! Every holi in both lives during her college years, she had spent it being a loner and this was the first time she was able to play with others during a college holi party. Who knew there was so much fun in teaming up and throwing balloons and spraying with pichkaris and applying colours to people's faces and arms!