BLUE!

Based on a true story. Ask Balaji Selvam for other details.

            The human mind easily finds the ocean so attractive. The blue waves in the early morning, the moist sea breeze and the sand. We dug our feet into the sand and ran towards the sea. We gave all our bags to Monish and the rest of us ran towards the ocean. I found it difficult to run with my slippers, so I threw them near the Banyan tree. I saw Monish carefully balancing all our bags in one branch. One or more of the five bags fell down at a time. He let them as such and joined me as we jogged briskly towards the blue. Before us was a race between Mani, Lalith and Raghav. Raghav was beating them hands down but Lalith and Mani were laughing at his pants which were fine to the sane world. But we guys find fun at almost everything. We slowly joined Mani and Lalith.

                          The weather was perfect for some soccer, our new craze. We were passing the ball to each other and found it tough to run in the beach sand. Time passed so fast that we hardly noticed a few others around us. They too were playing soccer. I guess, like our case, the Euros must have triggered their craze. They were average; I guessed we could beat them in a soccer match.

                        As luck would have it, they proposed for a match, to which we duly agreed. The game went on well, we were good and suddenly I saw the clouds turn grey. The team which we were playing against looked petrified, I saw genuine fear in their eyes; they were staring at the banyan tree as we stared at them and looked among ourselves. We checked what made them look so scared, we found nothing. Mani was very confused, he wanted to continue the match as we were winning and we seldom are in such a position at half time. The rest of us were walking towards our bags for water. Mani said he’ll ask them to continue the match.

“Heyyy” I heard Mani shout and walked towards him. I saw the guys run. They were literally running; we didn’t know the reason. We did not want to, as we assumed that they were afraid of losing against us. I and Mani hi-fived and walked towards the others. They were relaxing against the banyan tree.

“Strange isn’t it?” ragav asked.

“Whatts so strange?” I asked.

“Those guys” Monish said pointing farthest away at the other team , “ wonder why they are still running, something is odd”

“Yes but why are they still running?” Lalith asked.

               We took our respective bags  as we had decided to bring separate refreshments. I sipped my water bottle thinking about the number of calories which I would have burnt during the game.

“OHHH MY GODDD” shrieked Ragav as he threw a blue bag in the middle of us. He walked away from it.

“ What’s in it, you okay? Who brought this??” Lalith asked.

“Donttt. Let’s leave “ Ragav looked terrible.

I did not obey his orders and examined the bag myself.

“OOHH MY HOLY GODDD” I exclaimed. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I HAD NEVER SEEN SO MUCH MONEY IN MY LIFE! Five bundles of cash, each might be five lakhs or more. Every single note was a thousand rupee note. I opened the cover for all to see.

“OOHH MY GODD”  they all screamed together.

“Now what do we do with it??” Lalith asked.

“We take it” I said.

“Nooo” Ragav protested “This doesn’t belong to us, we leave it right here” he said

“Are you crazy? This is bumper man, we gotta leave soon, come on let’s take it” I said to everyone.

“Is this got anything to do with the guys running away?” Monish asked. Nobody had an answer. Mani nodded. Ragav threw the bag away from us.

“Whoever wants to take this, take but I’m not taking this money, it does not belong to us” Ragav stressed his point.

“Look here, I did not steal it. This is lottery I’m taking it” I said.

“Okay then, we’ll reach a consensus” Mani proposed. I looked around and confirmed that nobody was watching our argument here. At that time, there were only a few couples going about their usual work at the beach.

“I’m okay with anything” Mani said, “What about you?” he asked Monish.

“Yeah, same here” Monish said.

Ragav tried to convince Lalith as his say was decisive. I did not want to miss this opportunity. I was eagerly waiting for lalith’s word. I hugged the blue bag and lied on the sand. I saw Lalith coming. I wanted to take it no matter what he said. I was thinking ways to convince him as the others were quite rigid in their decision. I saw indecision in his eyes. He came smilingly and he sat beside me. I was waiting for him to speak.

 He hesitantly shook me and said “Bike repair dude, can you drop me at college?”.

Whaaattttttttttttttttt??? I analysed my surroundings and found my morning coffee waiting at the side.