"Tum dono pagal ho kya.." abeer started completely baffled."Ya humein pagal bana rahe ho?" meher completed thinking about walking away.
Sanyukta frowned, they knew this wouldn't be easy.
"Please trust us" sanyukta requested the both of them, almost pleading.
"But how do you know this even works?" meher
"I am the topper of FITE. I made this machine, of course it works." Randhir said with as much pride as there could be.
Meher was not liking this guy by the minute, he looked like too much of a chauvinist, she was about to retaliate when abeer spoke up.
"Yes so what? Even I am a rockstar and very famous, doesn't mean I can complete beethoven's symphonies or make songs like R.D.Burman saab, if you are a genius doesn't mean you can do anything"
"We have tested the machine" hesistantly sanyukta added "but there are some minor technical issues"
"What issues?" meher asked worried.
"Nothing you should worry about. You just decide and let us know in an hour. We will get everything ready till then. " Randhir answered before sanyukta could speak up and quickly dragged her out of the room.
-------
"You will ruin our entire plan" he shot at her angrily as they reached the library.
"But randhir they ought to know about the risk they are taking na" Sanyukta was very worried by now lying was not part of her plan.
"That is why we are going with them to make sure nothing of that sort happens." Randhir said as sure of himself as always.
"And what about him? What if he follows us?" sanyukta threw her hands up in frustration. Randhir was having none of it, because he thought he was einstein's re-incarnation.
"He cant work this machine without me. Now stop behaving like a scared little girl and lets get ready. We need to leave ASAP before the condition here worsens." Randhir directed a chauvinistic jibe at her knowing this would get her fired up and calm her down and it worked.
--------
"So what did you decide?" sanyukta asked the both of them eagerly.
"I need to talk to you alone." Both of them spoke together, and then glared at the other for stealing their line.
"Thik hai pehle meri biwi se baat karlo, biwi first" abeer winked at meher and walked out, meher was too busy with her thoughts to care.
"I will accept only if you both promise me that if this doesn't work out you will leave him in the past, so that I can come back to a peaceful future."
Randhir and sanyukta looked at each other in confusion, they hadn't evaluated this in their equation.
"Ok" sanyukta replied hesitantly already doubting their decision.
"Aji sunti ho" abeer knocked the door from outside . "baby tumhara ho gaya ho to mai andar aa jao" abeer walked in smiling at having embarressed her in front of strangers he wanted to make the most of this before everything changed.
"I cant wait to get rid of you" she gave him a "if looks could kill kind of stare" while leaving the room, while abeer just smirked at her and replied.
"same here baby"
"I will pay you whatever you want, just mera meri boss se peecha chudwa do, if this doesn't work out can we just leave her in a jungle or something, we have alot of those near our college."
"sure" randhir replied before sanyukta had a chance to get more sceptical about the plan.
------
All the arrangements were made, the date, time and place were set to the time before meher and abeers first meet. They wanted to remove the problem from the root they had said. Randhir and sanyukta started the count-down to start the machine, while meher and abeer stood opposite to each other throwing dirty stares towards one other.
3
"I don't know what I saw in you that first day." Abeer made a face evaluating meher from top to bottom.
2
"I wish I had never met you" meher said putting her hand on her head " bekar mei life ruin karli pyaar karke"
1
The machine started shaking and everything started blurring in the surroundings.
Meher jumped to the opposite side of the machine and held on to abeer's hand closing her eyes as the machine started spinning. Abeer closed his eyes and caught hold of her hand re-assuring her, and taking comfort in her closeness against his claustrophobia, somehow her being there made him feel safe.
Randhir and sanyukta crossed their fingers and looked into each other's eyes comforting each other saying it will be alright. The four of them landed with a silent bang at the gate of the college meher and abeer studied in, the root of all evil, as they had stated. Colors were flying around everywhere, the faint smell of bhang and different sweets filled the air.The students couldnt be distinguished one from another, everyones faces were smudged with colors, It was the day of 'holi'.
Abeer covered his face with a hoodie while meher covered hers with a dupatta, sanyukta had warned them that no one should see them here while their past selfs were there because it could lead to unknown consequences.
Abeer pointed to randhir his past self and told him that no matter what rd shouldn't let his past self dunk the past meher in the water pool.
"Isi moment se mera shani shuru hua tha" abeer said dramatically making an animated expression.
"How dare you" meher shouted while sanyu made her calm down lest someone hears them. "Shuruwat tumne ki thi. You dumped me into the pool. I want that rectified now" She tried to strangle abeer from a distance but sanyu restrained her.
Just then an auto pulled over and a girl stepped out, shy timid, yet the smile on her face could put sun's shine to shame.
"Wo tum ho" both sandhir asked in union, with their jaws dropped, pointing towards the old meher.
"Is khunkhaar ladki ko dekhke aisa lagta nahi na ke ye kabhi aisi shaant si bhi ho sakti thi" abeer feigned shock.
"Kya karti mai bhi, is jaise namune ko jhelne ke liye mujhe bhi strong hona pada" meher acted like a typical abla nari, but no one bought it. Abeer smirked.
"Tum dono ka ho gaya ho to mai jake kuch karu" rd said exasperated these two were going to make this experiment very tough.
Stepping out of their hiding spot randhir walked into the college and went to old abeer, to distract him so that he doesn't spot meher. In a little while they were all playing holi.
Meher was going towards her hostel room when a guy who was clearly drunk on bhang or whatever it was caught hold of her hand. She tried to wriggle out of his hold but he was too strong.
"Bura na mano holi hai" he smirked as he was about to pull her towards him while meher resisted with all her might.
Even from their hiding spot abeer could see her cringe, she was on the verge of tears. He was almost about to go out of their hiding spot when meher caught hold of his hand and stopped him.
Sanyukta ran to mehers rescue, the guy was bending towards meher, giving her a sly smile and was about to put color on mehers cheek by rubbing his cheek on hers, when sanyu reached them. Removing mehers hand from the guys hand she pushed meher behind her.
"Pehle ladkiyo ki respect karna seekhlo, holi baad mei khelna" and she delivered a tight slap to his cheek which he had extended forward.
Suddenly everyone stopped playing holi and turned to the source of the sound. The guy was about to hit sanyukta when randhir and abeer reached them. Randhir immediately shielded sanyukta, catching the guys collar raised his hand to punch him.
Abeer instinctively stood before meher, shielding her, because the moment his eyes fell on meher who was slightly shivering, he just couldnt help feeling protective towards this helpless girl.
"Apni bhalai chahta hai to abhi yaha se chala ja" randhir said stressing every word and the guy scrambled away looking at the rage in randhirs eyes.
"I could have protected myself" sanyukta said with fake pride as he turned towards her, but internally feeling glad randhir came in the nick of time.
"Yeah right" randhir said sarcastically. "You cant do anything right without me farzi"
"Hey are you ok?" Abeer turned around and asked her, while maintaining a safe distance so as not to scare her further.
So much drama on the first day was too much for meher, this was not how she pictured her first day of college.
"Are you new? Mai tumhe tumhare hostel tak chod deta hun chalo." Concern was etched on his face, she looked so fragile in her scared state, he just wanted to do something to make her feel ok.
"Hmmm" was all she could muster up before silently following him just to be safe from more drunk guys.
Randhir and sanyukta were left alone to watch their retreating backs, they could see the chemistry of mehbeer from the word go, it was beyond them why these two wanted to forget each other and never fall in love. But since they needed these two for their experiment they kept quite and followed the instructions given to them.
Meher and abeer watched their past selves walk together towards the hostel stunned.
"Ye sab tumhare stupid idea ki wajah se hua. Atleast pool mei dunk karte toh we would be fighting, now you've made us friends" she pointed her finger at his chest and scolded him in irritated whispers.
"Agar tum bina koi problem create kiye hostel room tak nahi ja sakti to isme mujhe blame mat karo ok" he huffed mimicking her irritation. " Ek toh tumhe bachaya meine, aur tumhe hostel safely leke ja raha hun upar se taane suno, bhalai ka to sach mei zamana nahi raha"
"Itne bade nautanki ho na tum abeer" she exclaimed frustrated with his antics."Now what?"
Randhir and sanyukta had reached them by now.
"Now we re-group. Tum logo ko koi hotel pata hai yaha nazdeek mei?. Lets rent a room and think of our next plan of action." Randhir spoke.
"Hotel kyun..we can stay in my house" Abeer offered.
"And what happens when the hostel wall breaks and everyone comes to live in the house? Or someone spots us there? " meher questioned him.
"Meher tum humesha se hi gumnaam types thi but everyone knows me, especially here. Someone is bound to recognise me in a hotel. I even have the keys to my house with me in my wallet. Baad ki baad mei sochenge"
"He is right. His house is the safest bet. We can do something about your past selves hostel situation later." randhir said after giving abeers words a thought.
"I think abeer has a point its safer" sanyukta cringed at agreeing with guys desperate times call for desperate measures she thought'
"Whatever" meher sighed at being outnumbered and followed them to abeers house.
------
The house was a gift from abeers mom on his last birthday, before he was sent off to college so that he was comfortable. But abeer had always loved being around people and thus the house lay empty near the college campus, while abeer and nisaar stayed on campus in the hostel. He hadnt even bothered to appoint guards to the house.
Sneaking in so that no one noticed them, the four of them entered the house.
A smile immediately adorned both meher and abeers face as they remembered all the moments they had spent in this house together- happier times, simpler times.
"Cool place yaar" randhir patted abeers shoulder as abeer beamed with pride.
"It was a gift from my mom"
Randhirs face immediately fell and he retreated away from the group to a silent corner.
"Forgive him,he has mommy issues" Sanyu said trying to lighten the atmoshphere" she didn't treat him right" sanyukta defended randhir and went to him to console him leaving meher and abeer alone.
They went around the house in a daze setting the furniture right.
"My music room" abeer smiled as he stepped into his bedroom and looked at his music intruments.
"Kitne ghanto tak padhai karti thi mai yaha" meher exclaimed to her-self, going into her bedroom remembering her studious ways before abeer.
Neither of them dared to go to the terrace where they had spent many days and nights in each others bliss-full company after they had got together. It held special memories for them, memories which still had the power to break their facade of hatred.
Finally after an hour of walking down memory lane, and showing randhir and sanyukta around the house, they decided the girls would stay in one room while the guys would stay in another.
"Bohot bhuk lagi hai" sanyukta interrupted abeer who was telling them the details of how abeer, meher, nisaar, sasha and sneha had ended up living in this house. They were trying to decide how best to prevent that, since staying together in this house had led to the closeness between meher and abeer.
"These girls i tell you, so delicate" randhir rolled his eyes
"Hey time travel is hard on the stomach. Its not our fault that you guys have the macho-man syndrome." meher chipped in to sanyu's defence
Randhir decided it was futile to argue and got up the next moment, to go out and get some food.
"Get some groceries as well."
"And something to drink too"
"And some clean clothes too"
"Mujhe pizza khana hai"
He heard 10 more order from the three of them before he had even reached the hall. He turned around in a sudden movement, hitting his foot to the ground
"Jo launga chup chap kha lena, tumhara delivery boy nahi hun mai, neither am i ramu kaka, jo mujhe orders de rahe ho.!! " and he left leaving the trio speechless.
As soon as he banged the door shut they started laughing.
"Ye humesha se aisa tha ya recently kuch hua hai iske saath?" Meher asked in between giggles.
"Usko bachpan mei bohot baar gira diya tha, On his head. Poor chap it messed with his head. He thinks he is gods gift to mankind. " sanyukta joined meher in giggling.
Abeer sat silently and stared at the laughing meher, with a smile on his face, it was innocent moments like these when he failed to understand what went wrong with them and why.
------
The guards of the laboratory of FITE were beaten unconscious. All papers and different spare parts of machines lay scrambled on the floor.
He then headed towards their rooms hiding his face so that no one recognises him. But he had no luck in either of their rooms.
Something strikes him.
"Of-course.! The Library.!" He rushes to the library with a evil smirk.
They think they are smarter than me. So obviously they would have hid it in the most unusual spot.
He opened the fattest book of the Spanish section only to have 10-20 sheets of papers with delicate designs and complicated calculations fall down.
"Aha. I have found you at last." He kissed the papers in glee. "Not long before i find you both as well randhir and sanyukta. I hope you are prepared. I am coming. "
----------
Abeer malhotra lay in his hostel bed with a smile adorned on his face remembering the new girls smile as he had dropped her off to her room in the hostel.
"Thank you" was all she had said but such a sweet voice she had that those two words kept ringing in his ears. She would make an amazing singer for his band. Vowing to find out her name the next day he went to sleep.
----------
Meher settled into her hostel room and unpacked her stuff and started studying not wanting to waste any time. All thoughts of the earlier incident forgotten.
But when she closed her eyes to fall asleep, the same incident kept recurring in her nightmares, the guy got closer and closer, and then suddenly there was him he was standing before her, almost shielding her from the bad guy's visions, he turned around, his chocolate brown eyes met her hazel orbs and she relaxed immediately feeling safe, she then fell asleep without any nightmare with a smile to her face.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Get ready to thank us" sanyukta shouted excited as she and randhir entered the house grinning. Meher and abeer were sitting in two different corners of the room clearly the after-effects of some ridiculous, pointless fight sanyu and rd mentally noted.
It had been a week since they had arrived in the past and all of them were getting to know each other pretty well, and also not to interrupt each others cold wars and fight sessions. They had developed a kind of understanding and bonding between themselves and there were moments when sanyu and rd wanted to put their entire mission aside and just help these two crazy love birds realize how crazy they were for each other. But then they kicked themselves mentally realising their mission was much more important and proceeded according to their plan.
"What did you do?" meher looked almost scared.
"The last time you tried to help, you do remember what happened right?"
----
2 days back
"Meher it doesn't work that way, you can get a 100% on your academics but still you need extra curriculars. No company these days gives jobs to nerds. They want all rounders, who are good in different fields" a frustrated sanyukta tried to reason with meher as they sat in the college canteen. Sanyukta had gotten overtly protective about meher since the holi incident and came by to check up on her once in a day.
"But I AM all rounder" meher spoke matter of factedly. "I am good at all my subjects"
Sanyukta sighed in frustration hitting her head with her hand.
"Sanyu" meher looked at her helplessly "You know i can't waste my time in these stupid extra curriculars. I will lose my focus and time"
"Then do something less time consuming. Maybe music? There are so many good musicians in your college. Like Abeer"
Mehers face lit up.
"He IS good" she spoke involuntarily as she recalled walking upon their bands practice sessions. His voice and music had mesmerised her. She had just stood there with her eyes closed smiling as she let his music transport her to a better place. A happier place without any worries.
'Uh oh' Sanyukta thought as she realised what she had done.
-----
Randhir stepped into the hostel dorm finding abeer talking on the phone. After the holi party a silent effortless friendship was formed between them, when randhir had to get away from the house and the madness of his fights with sanyu and the ridiculous fights meher and abeer had he escaped to the college hostel to hang out with abeer.
Abeer slammed the phone on to the bed in frustration as randhir took his place beside abeer.
"Tumhe kya hua?" randhir asked amused because it was so unusual to see abeer upset.
"The only time he calls is to curse me" abeer sighed.
"Atleast he calls for something" randhir said being transported to some other time but brought himself back. "what is it this time?"
"What else? My exam scores.! I don't get how a bunch of numbers decide my worth" abeer made a face at the absurdity of the idea.
"I can help you" rd offered.
"Thanks bro but i don't think engineering and business have much in common except for money."
"Yes, unfortunately I am not that good with business economics stuff like meher..." rd bit his tongue realising his blunder.
"Hey, that could work" abeer said smiling. "And maybe i could convince her to join my band"
-----------
"Hey it is not our fault that the past you keeps finding reasons to get close to each other." randhir spoke defensively as he and sanyukta came out of the reverie of what had happened 2 days back. They really had screwed up big time. Though he would never admit it.
"Ask us what we did. Ask us what we did" sanyukta was almost jumping up and down in excitement.
"We took a job at the college, using our FITE credentials" randhir spoke before sanyukta had more chance to get hyper.
"Hello, you aren't even engineers yet in this time. Is technology so critical here that they need engineers from the future to fix it? And I am sure the only business knowledge you have is buying mechanical parts from a vendor. And thats not something they really teach at our college." meher mocked. She loved teasing randhir, who unlike abeer didn't react back but pouted and got all worked up. She and sanyukta loved irritating him, it had become their favourite pass time.
"We might have tweaked our engineering degrees a bit" sanyukta said with a smug smile.
And the girls burst out laughing.
"What exactly are you planning to do in our college?" abeer asked a little more worried. They couldn't afford past them getting any more closer than they already were.
"Basically we took up the job for maintainence of all the technical things in the college. But actually we are going to make sure you two keep your hands off of each other." Randhir gave meher a smirk and she blushed.
"And secretly we are going to do maintenance of your hostel and make sure that damned hostel wall which started all this" sanyukta waved her hands at both meher and abeer "doesn't fall. We can't lose our house to past you" sanyukta winked at abeer and he smiled back finally a little at ease. What was the worst that could happen?
---------
Just as abeer asked that question the universe replied back to him saying THIS. As his past self ran towards mehers past self.
"Hi there" abeer smiled as he ran to catch up to meher who was going towards the library.
"Hi" meher smiled back. Abeer had gone out of his way to make sure she was comfortable in the college. She hadn't seen the guy who had teased her on holi since that day, and she had a feeling abeer had something to with it. He made her feel safe even though she barely even knew him.
"Humesha library, bore nahi ho jati yaar tum." Abeer laughed at his own joke.
"Do you get bored with your music and guitar?" meher replied defensively.
"Fair point, Well made." Abeer gave her a thumbs up before continuing. "So what say we exchange some of talents? You can teach me to be a book worm, and I can maybe help you get some music in your soul." His eyes twinkled and sparkled as he talked about music. She could clearly see how much it meant to him.
"And what do I get out of this? Apart from music in my soul that is? " Meher giggled quoting him.
Abeer looked appalled.
"When you have music you have everything." Placing his hand on his heart"trust me, music will become your best friend and then you will thank me for the gift of your life."
"You make a good case mr.malhotra" she extended her hand forward. "Deal."
He caught her hand with his own.
"Done deal" he said holding on to her hand a little longer than he should've, while she just silently admired how kicked he got about music.
Does it really make you that happy? Forget all your worries? She surely could use that. Meher smiled looking forward to this 'exchange of talents'
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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