“Binod, man, it’s our last night in college. About time you told us why you broke up with Sukanya.”

“She broke up. I didn’t.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Tell us now. We got all night and I don’t think power’s gonna be back anytime soon.”

“You guys pulling an all-nighter?”

“Sure we are. Go on now. Here, grab a beer.”

“Okay. So you guys know she was into me from the beginning?”

“That’s what you said.”

“She totally was. That night she texted me twice. I said, see I don’t want to come into a relationship with you due to my flirtatious nature, because I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t think this should affect our friendship in any way.”

“If only you had the balls to speak this much at that interview you botched today—”

“You guys sleeping? Son of a bitch! Who am I telling the story to?”

“Fuckers are listening to granny’s lullaby. Show some respect, bitches! Binod’s pouring his heart out. Shivam, Vivek, Shrikanth, Dharmesh? Y’all asleep?”

“Vivek’s chatting with his Irene Adler. Shivam’s talking to his girlfriend.”

“Shivam’s on a call? His voice ain’t coming out of—”

“Out of where?”

“Binod’s voice comes out of his butthole.”

“Fucker!”

“Guys, c’mon! Binod, you carry on mate.”

“Will Binod ever move on from December 2012?”

“The world didn’t end in 2012, but reason surely left his body when he fell for that girl.”

“Shrikanth once asked Dharmesh how he met his girlfriend. Motherfucker went on and on till the cock roosted at dawn.”

“Binod’s has stopped roosting since 2012.”

“We’re lucky Binod’s already at the end of 2012. One more year to cover.”

“No problem, guys. I’ll give you the gist only.”

“Yeah.”

So then I told her it won’t be possible for me. Hey, Anubhav, what you doin’ with that phone, you fucker?”

“Nothing, bro. Just Facebook.”

“Show me your phone. You’re recording, you bitch!”

“Swear I’m not!”

“Yeah? I’m gonna make you run around college naked with that phone up your ass if I catch you with the recorder on!”

“The story, will you?”

“‘Course. Then I said no at that time. Time passed. She asked again in January. No, I think it was February. Propose Day. She asked me to propose. I said no, my answer’s still no.”

“You pick ‘No’ for every MCQ?”

“He’s the NOTA guy in elections.”

“Then god knows what came over me on the 14th. I wished her Happy Valentine’s Day and said okay, I’ll accept your proposal but I’d still say I’m not quite sure about this, I need more time, don’t think of it as serious yet. She said alright—”

“Not serious? You like it casual? Like for every ‘action,’ there’s no reaction? Newton would be turning—”

“Motherfucker!”

“Chill! What else did she say?”

“She said alright, I can give you two years max, can wait for two years only.”

“Two bloody years?”

“That day I realised this one’s different. A girl who can wait for two years—”

“A girl who can spend her 731 nights waiting…”

“731?”

“2012 was a leap year, bro.”

“Son of an accountant!”

“He ain’t the college fest’s registration head for nothing!”

“Yeah, fucker fooled the college big time. No wonder his wallet never runs out of cash.”

“The story, for god’s sake!”

“Yes, bro, my eyes are droopy. See?”

“Bloody actor! So, the night before the engineering entrance test, I was in deep shit. Totally blanked out. Bloody brain not working. 2 plus 2 looked 22. So I called her at around 11:30. Said I can’t study, my brain’s fried, exam’s fucked now. She kept her books aside and comforted me till 2 in the morning. Said don’t worry, the test will be just fine.”

“Just fine my ass! How’d it be ‘just fine’ if you’re doing babu shona at 2 in the morning?”

“For fuck’s sake man! Could you let me finish one bloody sentence?”

“Sure, moron. Go on.”

“I scored 150 that year. Cut-off was 180, so I didn’t qualify.”

“180 my ass! That year’s cut-off was 229.”

“I’m talkin’ about 2013, not 2012. I repeated a year.”

“I got 186 that year.”

“I got 6 in 2012.”

“Topped from the bottom!”

“Next year I got 199.”

“Holy shit! What did you eat?”

“Took classes at Shiksha Mandir. They have branches all over India.”

“So this Shiksha Mandir was selling groceries the year you scored 6?”

“Let him tell the story, guys! Binod, you go on mate.”

“Then I realised how this girl had sacrificed so much for me, and I too started having feelings for her.”

“Anubhav?”

“Yup.”

“Sleepin’?”

“Nah.”

“I’m gonna crash. Wake me up when The Book of Binod ends.”

“Yeah, bitch. You must be tired from the pounding I gave you from behind all night.”

“Leave him be, man. Binod, tell us what happened next.”

“March came to an end. Results were out. In May I planned a birthday surprise for her. We were still in a long-distance relationship at that time. Then something happened in between.”

“In between?”

“I mean in April. We hadn’t met at that time.”

“Then how did it happen in between?”

“You fuckers!”

“Okay, okay, pray tell.”

“What happened is that… there’s this friend of mine—”

“The in-between thing happened with your girlfriend and your friend? He must be a close friend.”

“It was a girl, for god’s sake! My friend was a she. So, a little bit here and there happened with her and me.”

“You fuckin’ player!”

“I didn’t have sex, guys!”

“What’s a little bit here and there, then? Felt her over her clothes?”

“Motherfuckers! We just kissed. That’s all!”

“You kissed her friend?”

“My friend!”

“You did?”

“Who else, you morons?”

“You mean you fooled around with another girl, right?”

“Yes!”

“Why is it that all stupid girls fall for you?”

“Son of a—”

“Okay, do one thing. You have had about half a dozen flings. Show us the girls’ photos.”

“I don’t have the first one’s. The second one I knew from high school.”

“Show us. Not those photos, of course.”

“I swear I don’t have any photos. The second one, she was my official girlfriend.”

“What’s an official girlfriend?”

“We had formally proposed to each other, had met each other’s parents.”

“So you signed a MoU.”

“Bitch please! Let him continue.”

“I felt really bad that day. Burning with guilt and shame and all. I called her in the evening, told her I’d failed her.”

“You told her you did a little bit here and there with the other girl?”

“I did. She cried a lot.”

“How did it happen all of a sudden with this friend of yours?”

“She had had a break-up.”

“And you dragged your ass over to be her shoulder.”

“I was just trying to console her.”

“Some consoling you did.”

“It happened after May. She had had a break-up in April. No, June comes after May. Yes, she had dumped her boyfriend in June. She was home for summer break, alone that day. Her parents were at work. I was consoling her when it just… kinda… happened.”

“Our brother here won the sweetest consolation prize, guys!”

“I did tell her I was in a relationship. Then she gave me—”

“She gave it to you? Wow, man!”

“A piece of her mind! That’s what she gave me, fuckers! Her face fell when she heard I’m seeing someone. She told me that after her boyfriend, it was I she thought of as her closest confidant.”

“Close you were, sure. Sitting in her lap doing a little bit here and there.”

“She said she couldn’t share me with other women.”

“Didn’t have Bluetooth?”

“Fuck you guys! Be serious. It’s a girl’s feelings we’re talking about.”

“Feelings you consoled?”

“I said what the hell, if she had feelings for me she could have told me earlier. I was chewing Happydent Spearmint Sugarfree when it happened.”

“Tasted sugar nevertheless.”

“A cold kiss it must’ve been.”

“‘Colder than an ex-wife’s kiss.’ Ian Rankin begins one of his stories—”

“Fuck Ian Fleming! So I told her, my girlfriend that is, that I had crossed a line.”

“What exactly happened between you and that girl?”

“Told you guys! Just a kiss.”

“Paint a picture.”

“What picture?”

“A blue picture.”

“Bitch please!”

“Fine, just tell us what you remember.”

“I don’t remember it well, but it happened all of a sudden. I told my girlfriend. She cried for 48 hours.”

“You had a stopwatch?”

“You want to listen or not?”

“Okay, sorry. Pray tell. Must be a keeper. Cried for two business days only.”

“She said the same old stuff—all men are pigs and how she’d never imagined I’d turn out just like the others. Hurt me a lot.”

“Motherfucker, it was you who kissed the other girl, and you got hurt?”

“She cried all night. I too was upset. So I also cried. I tried to talk to her, asked a friend of mine to calm her.”

“Outsourced the job. Smooth.”

“She calmed down after a lot of effort.”

“Why are you scratching your balls?”

“You’re into my story or my balls?”

“It’s a cock and ball story.”

“C’mon, guys! Binod, tell us what happened next.”

“Yeah, so there came a huge problem in between.”

“Whose in between? Her or your? Or the other girl’s?”

“She talked me into giving her my Facebook password.”

“Rest in peace, brother.”

“Then she read my chats.”

“Binod was a loving son—”

“I hadn’t fooled around with any girl—”

“… friendly neighbour—”

“I just skipped the part where you tell someone you have a girlfriend.”

“… and a good friend.”

“I had no bad intentions, I swear!”

“He loved kitties. God’s favourite child—Binod.”

“She couldn’t understand.”

“You should have consoled her into understanding you.”

“I have this habit of generally being nice to women. ‘Darling’ and ‘Sweetheart’ are on the tip of my tongue. She made a big deal out of my Facebook chats. Said what’s this hanky-panky you’re up to? Why do you say love you to girls not me? I said they’re just friends, what’s the big deal?”

“You say I love you to your female friends?”

“Platonic love, man. What’s the problem?”

“Sure, opposite of tectonic love, where you grind bases with your loved one.”

“So things were slowly getting better. Then another problem came in between.”

“Why do all of your problems occur in between? Sure you don’t wanna see a doctor?”

“Things got better. Then came the ego clashes. She had an attitude, man.”

“You gave her the Attitude Adjustment?”

“I tried a lot to adjust. She was too straightforward. I wasn’t. She’d say things in front of my friends. Embarrassing things. Then my friends would call me her Pokémon. Once I promised to take her out for ice skating. I couldn’t. I had exams. Then she wouldn’t take my calls. So I called her friend.”

“A female friend, I suppose?”

“Yes, I told her friend how I missed my girl.”

“She consoled you? The friend?”

“Told her friend how I was gonna take my girl to the skating rink, but exams came in between.”

“Bloody hell, man! There’s some real funny business going on with your in between. No wonder she dumped your ass.”

“Nah. Why she broke up with me, that I don’t know. I’ve been trying to think about it for years. Still don’t know why she dumped me.”