The Northern Hemisphere Sky

I look up at the cloudless sky. Beautiful pinpricks of light are shining down on us. It seems like the stars have put up on their best outfits to bid us farewell. I look around at the bunch of misfits that we are and smirk, yeah, our friendship deserves this ostentatious show.

We are sitting in a circle, or as much of a circle that can be formed with a person sprawled on the ground, two sharing a jacket, two playing catch the ball, one playing guitar, and the last one, me, looking around vividly, capturing these moments. These are the people I spent my graduation years with.

A dog starts barking in the vicinity. We all look towards Shreyas, who is no longer sprawled on the ground. It’s amazing how even after spending so much time with him, his terrified face after hearing a dog’s bark still makes us laugh. I am going to miss this idiot so much. He looks over at our mocking faces and rolls his eyes and mutters something along the lines of us not finding it funny if we would have been the ones that were chased and bitten by a dog.

“It was ages ago,” Ansh comments. Vidya takes advantage of this lapse of concentration from him and throws the ball which hits him right on his forehead.

 “You are so dead,” Ansh shouts at her and stands up from his place and walks to where Vidya is sitting unfazed by the threat.

“Watch me cower before you! My Lord!”, Vidya mocks Ansh and even bows down her head to him.

He glares at her for a moment before suddenly starting tickling her. Vidya who had had a sandwich in her hand flays around her hands for a bit before dropping the sandwich on the ground and then it is the start of a tickling war. These two adorable lovable idiots. Neither can they survive in each other’s company nor could they survive without each other. Both of them are joining the same company after graduation. Even though there are numerous rumors about them dating, its obvious to anyone close to them that their love is platonic.

Now, as to the actual couple present amongst us, I see them lost in their bubble. When I look at the awe and admiration in their eyes for each other, I wonder, how people can find reasons to hate something so pure. Even if the Supreme Court has legalized the relationship, the many segments of society are still homophobic. Hitesh has his jacket wrapped around both him and Rishi and are sharing an Ice-cream cup. And to think that these two got into a fistfight over a girl in their first semester at college. They have come so far since then.

 The delicacy of their situation is not lost upon them. The subtle touches that they share in public to the kisses that they share in an isolated classroom to the silent good-byes that they share when Rishi drops Hitesh at his parent’s place. They always have to keep an eye open to the threats around them. Tina was the one who once actually walked upon them. The dramatic enactment of the day is one of those things that lightens our mood even in the darkest of situations.

After Tina apologized for walking on them, Hitesh came up with an explanation of how he had fallen lips forward on Rishi. Tina just laughed at them and gave them her contact number and told them how she would love to have them at her table at the canteen.

 Tina is the head of the student council of our batch and me, well I am the director’s daughter. She and I have been best friends since our primary school days. Her father is the most renowned pediatricians in the state. Our parents once took us to an anti-bullying seminar. We had always lived a very sheltered and protected life, the seminar made us aware of how lucky and privileged we were.

As I look at her strumming her guitar, I wonder how different my life and perception would have been if I didn’t have her as a constant in my life. She is the calm before my storm, she is the heart to my head, she is the spring to my winter. She is the glue that keeps us, misfits, together.

Nobody wants to be friends with the director’s daughter. They all fear how I am going to rat out their plans for mass bunks and cheating ideas to my father. As if my father needs a spy. He has been in the teaching sector for almost thirty years now. He is well versed in all the ways students try to fool him. Still, being the director’s daughter made me an outcast.

I look around at other outcasts amongst us, well except for Tina. She is the most sought after person in the college. Shreyas was already married when he came to college. The girls around would strut to him and tried to sexually provoke him. The boys in the college would promote infidelity to him. Until Tina asked him to share a table with us.

Vidya had lost an eye in an accident. She was either blatantly ignored by the college population or smothered with pity. Ansh, well, his mother had died of a drug overdose and he never knew his father. The closeted couple looked like a pair outcast amongst us outcasts to everyone outside our little circle of friends.

We have our convocation ceremony tomorrow. It will be a new beginning for all of us. Shreyas will be joining his family business. Vidya and Ansh will be working for a tech giant. Tina is going to Germany to do her Masters. Hitesh will be working for an investing firm. Rishi will begin teaching soon, and I will be opening my firm.

The tickling war has stopped between Vidya and Ansh. They are instead looking at something on her phone and giggling together. Hitesh pokes me to get my attention. Rishi has moved away from his shared jacket to play catch with Shreyas.

I still remember the first conversation I had with Hitesh. It was way before him and Rishi had started joining us at our table. It was the first week of our college life. I was walking to my next class when out of sudden I was hit by a Frisbee. I had picked up the Frisbee and shouted at the bunch of boys that I could see were staring at me guiltily.

“Who do you think you are? Throwing a Frisbee like that?”

“Captain America”, Hitesh had replied without missing a beat. I was wearing a Captain America T-shirt that day. Everyone around him looked freaked out at his response but he wore a smug smile on his face. Although he did apologize to me for hitting me with the Frisbee.

“Who are you day-dreaming about at this point in night?”, he asks me in the present. I scoff at him.

 “Is it the long eyelashes guy? The one you partnered with in the inter-college fest?”, he smirks at me. I glare at him.

 “Oh, come on! Text him, you coward!” Almost shouting the last word.

Ansh looks up then. “What are you guys talking about?”

 Tina replies, “Her crush on a student from our rival college.”

“You were eavesdropping?” I hiss at Tina, while everyone else laughs. Apparently, my love life is a topic which no matter what the situation is never untouchable.

I try to divert the attention on to Ansh, about his latest crush. But the rest of the idiots, whom I call my friends, call me out on it. I then decide to take all the taunts that they throw on me. This might be the last time that all of us gather together.

Vidya then says, “Hey remember that time she was wearing kohl and forgot about it and rubbed her eyes?”

Everyone starts laughing, even me. I had spent the whole day looking like a panda with Kohl smeared all over my eyes.

“Still better than the time when Ansh tried flirting with a new student only for her to be introduced as our new English teacher?” I ask.

Everyone roars at that. Ansh shrugs his shoulders as if unbothered but says, “I will one-up you. Remember the time when Tina was backstage at the cultural fest. Forgot to turn off her mic, and swore? The whole auditorium heard that.”

“That was not funny. Pretty sure principal ma’am was going to kill me. It would have been tragic. I am telling you.” Tina says.

“Don’t worry, I would have written a fantastic obituary for you,” Shreyas says, patting her on the back.

We all laugh at him as Tina rolls his eyes. We reminisce about many such incidents until we have tears of laughter in our eyes.

Rishi is the one who breaches the topic. “Hey, we will stay in touch? Right?”

This is not the first time the question has come up in the last semester. But today there seems to be a finality to it. Nobody answers. Instead, all of us pull each other into a group hug.

We are on our campus ground. This particular spot has always been ours. We might meet again, but it will never be at this spot.

Shreyas takes out his phone to take a group selfie. We give several poses. None of the photos manages to satisfy all of us. We then take a photo, where we keep the phone on the ground, and all of us form a circle around it. The timer is set to 10 seconds, and thus we have our best group photo.

The photograph has all of us looking down towards the camera and in the smaller empty circle bordered by our heads is the endless sky, sprinkled with beautiful glitters.

“Hey! No matter where we go, we can always look up at the stars and the northern hemisphere sky. This Northern Hemishpere Sky will always be looking down on us.” Tina tries to cheer us up.

We all look up at the stars in agreement.

It's true. No matter where we will all be, we will always remember the wonderful memories that we created, whenever we will look up at the stars.