A Dilemma with Friends...

I have already introduced you people to the gang (my closest friends from college). I would like to share another incident that changed the way I used to look at relationships.
You see, a week ago we had this college fest to welcome the juniors to the campus. It’s one of the happening events on the campus with preparations lasting for weeks (funded by the money that’s literally extorted from us!!!). All lectures after the lunch break were suspended to make way for the party. The bell rang indicating that the break had begun and I hurried downstairs to the classroom where the gang was having their lunch. I did this everyday since the start of the semester, in that half an hour we had our lunch together, we caught up on the latest happenings in our respective classes, all this with lots of mazaak-masti.

I thought this arrangement was fine until that day. I sat for lunch with them; we had our share of food and fun. A few minutes after the break got over we got a call from our classmates telling us that the party had begun; we all went down on the playground to find that the party still hadn’t got into the groove and a few last minute arrangements were underway.

Hitesh suggested that we sit in the adjacent garden and so we headed in it’s direction. The garden was crowded that day (there’s not even a dog to be seen there on a regular day), students sat on the grass in large circles with their own groups of friends. Hitesh ran ahead and sat down with the students from his class; I looked at them and found no one recognizable other than the few from the gang. Right beside them were the guys from my own class. Just when Hitesh beckoned to me, one of my own classmates spotted me and called me in to join them.

That’s when it happened…that’s when I realized what a mess I was in. Now I know that this would not sound like a dilemma to some of you but for me it was! Here’s something you should understand - I had been in the dumps when I realized that I would not be with the rest of the gang for the new semester. I was trying hard to make new contacts and friends in my own class, but it wasn’t the same as the last year, it couldn’t have been and never will be. Also, I was dying to be with the gang and found the lunch-break arrangement a good excuse to be with them. - The chain of thoughts broke as they called out to me again; I looked at Hitesh, who was still beckoning, I looked back at my classmates, uttered a hurried ‘excuse me’ and went ahead and joined Hitesh’s circle. As I sat there and looked on the guys having fun, I realized that I could not relate to them or their conversation…I wasn’t fitting in. I glanced at my classmates’ circle and realized (my second big realization of the day…) that I wasn’t sure that I knew all of them well enough either. A perfect “Na ghar ka na ghat kaa” situation.

The rest of the evening was quite normal, mostly Sagar, Sourabh and me stuck together enjoying the fest, accompanied by our regular mazaak-masti.

From then on the dilemma persists. I still continue with the same lunch-break arrangement, still don’t know my classmates well enough to call them friends and try to ignore my ‘other side’ that keeps telling me to resolve my confusion as soon as possible.
But, it just seems easier to let the things go on as they are. Though I know that I need to sort things out.

P.S. I know this post turned out to be really, really long…but I just had to get it all out of my system.