Shrishti Reborn

Chapter 10. College Holi Party - Part II

Once they finished eating, Shrishti, Divya and Daljeet headed in search of the challenge between their class girls and third year commerce girls. They found not only the girls from their class but even the boys from their class fighting with the seniors. Apparently, the challenge had devolved from girls versus girls to the whole commerce first year versus commerce third year batch. The three girls joined in right away and Shrishti had fun going after the seniors. The girls made use of Shrishti's arm strength and gave her lots of balloons to hit and most of the time she ended up hitting the targets.

Shrishti enjoyed playing but her eye was on Arpit. They had yet to apply colour to each other and Shrishti was keen on doing it, now that she had met Daljeet and remembered her. Shrishti felt guilty since she remembered how she ruined Arpit's life. Now she wanted to be friendly with him to feel better about it. But the moment the challenge ended, which sadly the seniors won when the first years got tired and gave up, Arpit vanished. She tried to follow him but Sharad and his friends were standing in the way to the area where she saw Arpit last and she did not want to go there. So she turned and searched for her own friends.

It took Shrishti a while to spot Divya as the girl was fully drenched and coloured from head to toe. Divya and Daljeet were standing and chatting and Shrishti was about to join them when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She whirled around only for water gun to be used on her. She raised her hands to shield her face and looked away with eyes clenched as the water was sprayed on her face.

'Happy Holi!', came Arpit's voice. She opened her eyes once the spraying stopped and grinned at the person in front of her. She opened her mouth to greet back only to stall as she realised that it was not Arpit in front of her but Raghav. Arpit popped up from behind Raghav, 'Hi. I was so sure you will hit me back with something. So I hid behind Bhai.'

Shrishti chuckled, 'Don't worry. My hands are empty. I finished all my stock on the seniors just now.'

Arpit came to stand beside his brother, grinning, 'Me too. Had to go to Arts section to borrow from bro. But look what I found, an almost uncoloured Bhaiyya! I am so not happy! So I have brought him here. When I say brought him, I literally dragged him here! Put some colour on him please. Look at him! His white shirt is still white!', Arpit looked annoyed and he was pouting.

Shrishti had to agree with him. There was barely any colour on Raghav. He was wearing an old white shirt and grey pant and other than some spots of colour on him, there was no colour on him at all.

'Why is this so? Don't tell me, Arts people are this bad at playing holi!', Shrishti grimaced. She noticed that Arpit had a tight hold on Raghav's arm. Arpit was not lying when he said he had dragged the man here, it seemed.

Arpit shook his head, 'Nope. Its all my brother's fault. He glares at anyone who comes closer to colour him. So nobody dared. Not even his own classmates! His whole class looks worse than us while this guy still looks pristine!'

Shrishti shook her head in disbelief, 'And why haven't you coloured him?'

'He does not allow me either! This happens every year! He will only allow Megha as he has soft spot for her. But not me. And Megha is not here.', Arpit sighed.

'And why do you think he will allow me?', Shrishti asked, looking amused.

All this while, Raghav had his head down, trying to wrench his hand from Arpit's vice like grip. But at this comment, his head snapped up before he looked at Arpit. Something passed between the brothers' eyes and Arpit shrugged as he looked back at her, 'Because he respects your dad. He will allow you. Please do it. Please do it for me!' Arpit looked at her pleadingly.

Shrishti shook her head, 'If he is not comfortable with being coloured, lets not force him.', she felt bad for Raghav. The poor guy! It was clear he did not enjoy playing with colours and only came to show solidarity towards his classmates. She would be a bad person to torture him like this.