Some friendships begin with a plan. Ours began with three rooms, a lot of free time, and absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
I was in 308. Roy in 309. Sukla in 310. That was our first year.
At the time, we were just three guys living in rooms next to each other. Nothing special. But slowly something clicked.
Thoughts matched. Sense of humour matched. And somehow, even our definition of masti matched. Before we knew it, we were roaming around together, getting into trouble together and, most importantly, making mistakes—or, as we like to call them, doing bak__odi together.
And whenever I made some particularly stupid mistake, these two already had the same reaction: “Vokal toh gya aaj.” And then came the most important question: “Koi bhi aadmi itna bada wala chu_tya kaise ho sakta hai?”
Honestly, there were enough incidents to keep them entertained for years. Roy’s 309 eventually became our unofficial common room.
Baithne ke liye. Masti karne ke liye. Random discussions ke liye. Plans banane ke liye. Aur kabhi-kabhi… ek doosre ki mazaak udaane ke liye.
Then came the second year.
The room numbers changed. I and Sukla were in 310 While Roy in 302. But the distance between the rooms never really mattered. By then our friendship had already become a routine.
And then came the one thing that almost messed it all up. Me and Sukla had a terrible fight. Of course, there was a girl involved. But what exactly happened? Let’s leave that chapter unread. Some stories have certain pages that are better left closed. The fight became serious enough that we stopped talking to each other.
And Roy? Roy got trapped right in the middle. We turned him into our personal mailbox. If I had something to tell Sukla, I told Roy. Roy would go and tell Sukla. If Sukla had something to say to me, he told Roy. Roy would bring the message back. We wouldn’t talk to each other directly… but somehow, everything still reached the other person. Roy had officially become the middleman of a friendship that had stopped talking to itself. And while all this drama was happening, our college life was already going downhill. Attendance ka percentage dekh ke hasi aata hai. Teachers kya padha rahe the, kya bol rahe the…kuch samajh hi nahi aa raha tha.
Looking back now, I sometimes wonder: “Kya mast time tha yaar.”
But that’s the strange thing about college. You don’t realize you’re living the days you’ll miss later. At that time, we were just living.
Roaming. Fighting. Laughing. Getting into trouble. Doing bak__odi.
And somehow…always ending up together. Then came one incident that I still remember clearly.
After one particularly terrible fight with Sukla, I walked towards Roy’s room, abusing Sukla almost the entire way. Everyone nearby knew that something had happened. Eventually, I slept in Roy’s room. The next morning, I went back to my room to freshen up. Sukla was still sleeping. I took my things and went to the bathroom.Nothing seemed unusual.
But by afternoon, everything changed. I was back in 302. Roy told me to stay there. He said, and I quote: “Room mein koi kaam hai toh karo… ya phir yahin raho. Main aata hoon kuch der mein.” I had no idea what he was planning. Honestly, I don’t think Sukla knew either. But Roy knew exactly what he wanted.
He wanted the three of us in the same room again. He wanted us to talk. He wanted the friendship back.
So he went and brought Sukla into 302.
And suddenly… all three of us were there. Sukla, me and Roy. None of us had planned it. None of us expected it. It was simply Roy’s little plan.
For a moment nothing happened. Me and Sukla looked at each other. Neither of us wanted to talk.
But eventually, Roy said something.And once we started talking… the previous night’s anger came right back.
The argument started again. Except this time, Roy was sitting right there. And I have a feeling he was already regretting every decision that had brought him to that moment.
Roy started cutting fruits.And me and Sukla? We started throwing abuses at each other. One after another. Some old ones. Some new ones. And probably a few that had never existed before that day and couldn’t even be logically explained.
Roy kept cutting the fruit. We kept fighting. Until finally… Roy couldn’t take it anymore. He looked at both of us and exploded:
“Sala tumlog ke chalte mera zindagi kharab ho gaya hai! Vokal subah pagalata hai aur Sukla raat mein. Hum soye toh kab soye?” There were a few more words after that. Words which are probably better left inside 302.
Then came the moment none of us expected.
Roy took the knife he had been using to cut the fruit, placed it on the bench between us and said:
“Ye lo. Maar do sala. Khatam karo. Isi mein ek waqt toh sone milega humko.”
For a few seconds…silence. Nobody said anything.
Then one of us laughed.Then another.And suddenly...All three of us were laughing.Not a small laugh.Not a forced laugh.The kind of laughter where you completely forget what you were fighting about.The anger disappeared.The argument disappeared.Everything that had seemed so serious suddenly seemed completely ridiculous.
And somehow…Roy’s stupid little plan had worked. We started talking normally again.
No dramatic apology.No big speech.Nothing cinematic.Just three idiots sitting together and laughing.
And maybe that’s how some friendships are repaired. Not with perfect words. Not with some grand emotional moment. But sometimes… With one stupid moment that makes you realize the fight wasn’t worth losing the friendship over.
After that day, things became normal again. Me and Sukla started talking. The three of us were together again. And somehow, our friendship became even deeper. Because the truth is… Fights happen. Especially between people who are close. The difference is what you do after the fight.
You can hold on to your ego. You can stop talking. You can let one stupid argument become the end of something that took years to build. Or… You can sit together again, laugh about the stupidity of it all, and move forward.
We chose the second one.
And, of course, we eventually blamed the fourth party for everything. The same mysterious fourth party who had somehow managed to become the reason behind all this drama.
What exactly happened there? Maybe someday I’ll tell that story. Or maybe not. Some mysteries are better left as they are.
Whenever I remember those days now, I don’t remember the fight. I remember 308, 309, 310… and later 302. I remember Roy’s 309 becoming our common room. I remember:
“Re Vokal kiske saath ghum raha aaj?”
I remember Roy becoming the middleman of our friendship. I remember two people refusing to talk to each other while sending messages through the third.
I remember Roy trying to bring us back together. And most of all… I remember the three of us sitting in 302, arguing over absolutely nothing, while Roy was probably just trying to get some sleep.
That’s what our friendship was.
Messy.Stupid.Loud.Full of fights, curses, mistakes, masti and memories.But real.
And maybe that’s why those days still feel special. Because we weren’t trying to create memories. We were just living.
We didn’t know that one day, the rooms we complained about, the fights we thought were so serious, the stupid jokes we couldn’t stop laughing about, and the endless bak__odi… would become the stories we would miss the most.
Three rooms. Three idiots. One friendship. Me. Sukla. Roy. And a lifetime of stories.