THE SILENCE AFTER THE STORM

THE SILENCE AFTER THE STORM

The strike had ended, yet its echoes lingered like aftershocks beneath the campus ground.

The hostels slowly filled again, luggage rolling across corridors like returning memories.

Students greeted each other with dramatic stories — exaggerations, theories, half-truths — because everyone wanted to believe they had lived through a rebellion.

But underneath all the noise, something had changed.

The atmosphere was subdued.

Hints of fear clung to conversations.

Whispers replaced slogans.

For the first years, the honeymoon was over — reality was returning.

Pankaj and I watched the hostel courtyard from our window as familiar faces trickled back in.

ME

(quietly)

Look… heroes of the strike are returning.

Pankaj smirked.

“Half of them ran home faster than WiFi speed.”

I laughed. But the truth was different: we missed the chaos, the rebellion, the adrenaline. The strike had given us a sense of identity on campus — something bigger than ragging, lectures, and attendance sheets.

Now, everything was settling back to normal.

And normal always felt… dull.

THE RETURN OF THE LEGENDS

By evening, Abhishek returned with a dramatic flair, dragging two bags and complaining loudly.

ABHISHEK

“You people enjoyed so much here? I missed everything!”

Rishi arrived an hour later from the back gate, still acting like he carried trauma from Nayak Sir’s scolding. He walked inside our room and collapsed onto the bed.

RISHI

(emotional)

“Bro… the strike changed me. I saw things… learned things…”

Pankaj threw a pillow at him.

PANKAJ

“Shut up. You only invented new ways to trouble others.”

We laughed, and the room once again felt like home — chaotic, loud, alive.

AMAR RETURNS — WITH A SCAR AND A STORY

Two days later, Amar came back from the hospital.

Those who knew him till then rushed to see him.

A thin scar ran across his forehead — a dent where fate had written a warning.

He looked pale but smiled bravely.

AMAR

“Haan bhai… skull crack ho gaya tha.

But I’m still smart.”

We surrounded him, patting his back, cracking jokes, grateful he was alive.

Strangely, his accident had become the emotional full stop to a rebellious chapter.

Amar was the kind of friend whose injury felt personal — as if the entire first-year batch had been punched by destiny.

That night, the hostel was unusually quiet. Even the seniors toned down their dominance, out of respect or maybe guilt.

THE NEW NORMAL — WITH A TWIST

Classes resumed.

Students dragged themselves reluctantly to morning lectures.

But something in us had shifted.

We no longer walked with the hesitance of newcomers.

We moved with a silent confidence — the confidence that comes from surviving something wild, unexpected, and unifying.

Our batch felt different now.

The strike had tied us together with invisible wires.

But the peace didn’t last long.

The hostel began bursting with new dramas:

Alliances formed.

Rivalries resurfaced.

A few seniors tried reasserting dominance.

Some first years grew overconfident after their “strike hero” status.

And then there were the smaller stories — the ones that become legends over time.

One such incident happened three days later.

THE DAY EVERYTHING WENT WRONG AGAIN

It began like any ordinary afternoon.

Classes were over.

Students were returning to hostels or strolling to the canteen.

We were watching a movie when someone banged on our door.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Rishi opened it — and immediately stepped back.

Three third-year seniors stood there, faces stiff, expressions unreadable.

SENIOR #1

“You three. Come with us.”

We froze.

My heart thumped like a war drum.

Pankaj muttered,

“What did we do now? Salt? Locks? Marker? What?”

Rishi gulped.

“I think… we’re dead.”

They took us to the corridor, then toward the staircase.

Dozens of seniors were gathered — serious faces, crossed arms, an atmosphere so tense it could’ve been cut with a knife.

We exchanged terrified glances.

What had we done?

Had they found the graffiti?

The salt-ruined locks?

Were they going to punish us?

But when we reached the lobby, something unexpected happened.

The seniors weren’t looking at us.

They were surrounding someone else.

A boy stood trembling, surrounded from all sides.

He was from another branch — a notorious troublemaker.

SENIOR #2

(to us, calmly)

“You three didn’t do anything. Relax.”

Our lungs  finally filled with air.

We watched silently as the seniors confronted the boy.

It wasn’t ragging.

It wasn’t violence.

It was something else — something bigger.

SENIOR LEADER

(loud, commanding)

“You disrespected a faculty member.

That’s not allowed — strike or no strike.”

The atmosphere simmered.

Suddenly, the dynamics of campus life made sense:

We weren’t soldiers.

We weren’t rebels.

We weren’t victims.

We were witnesses to the power plays, politics, alliances, egos, and emotions that shaped college life in ways we were only beginning to understand.

When the confrontation ended, the seniors dispersed.

We walked back in silence.

A new realization settled inside us:

The strike had been just the beginning.

College life wasn’t just classes and jokes and movies.

It was a warzone of personalities — and we were slowly becoming part of it.

---

THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED OUR EQUATION

Later that night, the four of us sat outside the hostel, eating biscuits and sipping tea from plastic cups.

Pankaj broke the silence.

PANKAJ

“So… now what?”

Abhishek shrugged.

ABHISHEK

“Now we live normally, I guess.”

Rishi shook his head dramatically.

RISHI

“No bro… after strike, after the accident, after everything — life won’t be normal again.”

I looked at them — these idiots who had somehow become my family.

ME

“Whatever comes next…

we’re in it together.”

They nodded.

The night breeze swept across the hostel courtyard, carrying the distant laughter of returning students.

The strike had ended.

But our story had just begun.