July 28th.

Some days are like that, full of fun, laughter, food and celebrations. But you never know what’s around the corner.

What if … We sang Happy B’day one more time, I laughed an extra second or two, Toji didn’t order that exact burger, the parking staff had exact change, some random auto didn’t go at that exact speed…

Would I … Not have spilled sauce on my jeans, Live in a world where Corona was still a Beer, Still have reached the hostel that exact second, Have parked at that exact spot, Caught a glimpse of her in my mirror while undoing the seatbelt, Be writing this 3 years later?

Well, all the infinite number of things that had to happen perfectly to put me there, happened.

Being in charge of the data entry not only gave us free attendance, it was the prime oppurtunity to check out all the new juniors. After 2 years of uneventful admissions, I just wanted to bunk classes and enjoy the last year of college life with my friends. First day of college admissions, a bug in the data entry software had held up all the Architecture students. After it was fixed, it had to be tested.

After calling out that first token, About a month back from that celebration day, I met her the first time, In that light blue dress, with her nerdy glasses, anxious, beautiful.

Apart from the Caterpillar that crawled under our legs whom I had to gently take out, acting all cool, and the quirky Identification mark she told, that interaction went as well as a data entry could go. I wasn’t sure if I should text her, or even if I did, what to tell her. A little encouragemet from my friends lead to me texting her an apology for making her wait that long. A confused reply and few awkward texts later, it ended. I could have texted her again, but I wasn’t “that guy” to bother her with cringey texts. We just got busy with our life.

“Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear”, read my side mirror, after that glimpse that day, that fucking glimpse. “What is a First year junior doing in the Men’s hostel along with her Mom?”, Now that’s a golden conversation starter isn’t it ?!

And thus, on July 28th 2017 started an important chapter of my life.