“Are you sure we would be able to compete with the others around? I mean we are sole representatives from 1st year; the competitors would be our seniors “said Soumadeep.
“Dude, you are always crying about something or other. Chill, we are not here for competition; let’s just concentrate on the robot and give our best.”
“How can you be so confident Aryan?” cribbed Soumadeep again.
“I just have a gut feeling that we are gonna make it”
“I hope we don’t make a fool of ourselves there, I will come in the morning tomorrow” with these words he walked out of the room.
I was left there alone; the creepy sound of the fan ripped apart the silence. I just kept looking at the dispersed circuit components, the motor was not moving. Despite our several attempts we were unable to crack the reason behind this.
Electrical seminar was due to start in a week and we were already short of time and this negativity of Soumadeep was not helping me or our project in any respect.
I was determined to prove my worth, I knew I will not quit, no matter what. But with the little knowledge that we, as a first year college possessed, things did looked pity gloomy.
For a moment, words of Soumadeep resonated in my mind but the second later I shooed it away. My dad had taught me – a quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
And I whole heartedly believed I belonged to the latter category. But where were we getting wrong?
The circuit design was perfect; it was designed by me. I had tested and retested its feasibility before setting it on the model. But the motor was not getting the power.
I removed the solders away and adjusted the components again, this continued in for the rest of the night and I didn’t realize when my eyes closed.
The next thing I knew was that Soumadeep was trying to wake me up in the morning.
“Aryan, wake up dude, you slept on the table itself last night? “Enquired Soumadeep.
“Ya, was working on the circuit”
“And…?”
“I think I figured out something, probably I will need more time to fix it. The connection to transformer was wrong.”
“Okay, so this will make the robot run? “
“I cannot say that but we would be advancing further…”
Soumadeep spoke before I completed my words “my elder brother called few hours ago…”
I gave him a confused look as to why his brother was coming in our conversation.
“He said, never in the history of the college has a first year student submitted any project in this seminar, leave alone a robot.”
“So, whats the big deal, we will rewrite the history” I tried to crack a joke but my intentions were well focused.
“This isn’t a child’s play, Aryan” with this he rose from the bed. “If tomorrow we submit our names, we cannot back away then. And I don’t think we are making any progress, anyway.” He faced the wall as he spoke those last words.
“We will work all day today and night! We will pull out a way”
“I have to go for a movie with shruti, tonight”
“What do you mean by that? His words were blowing my mind.
“I am backing off; I don’t think this project is worth a try”
“At least give it a try….” I didn’t want to believe he was walking away from the project.
“I did Aryan, I did tried with you and you know that. But now I think it’s a waste of time. And I don’t want to argue more on this, we are just too young to participate. You will probably think I am being harsh on you but I have no intentions to work more on it, like I had done the last month. My relation with Shruti is also affecting….. ”
“So, basically it’s her, for which you are leaving me in between, for a girl whom you have known for few months. I can’t believe…..”
“You can say whatever you want, but I gotta go now.” As he walked away Aryan eye’s followed him.
“We used to be best friends, Soumadeep” his gaze unflinching.
“Not anymore I guess”. He answered without bothering to turn.
Aryan remained frozen as his figure receded away; he hoped Soumadeep will return back. But he didn’t, A tear appeared at the corner of his eyes.
He was hurt, not because he left him alone with the project but for the fact that he gave preference to that girl over their childhood friendship. He was hurt because never in the dreams he dreamed of this. He was hurt because he regarded Soumadeep as his brother and he didn’t care to value that relation for him.
To be continued.....
