the group fight

"They are participating, I heard it, heard them sing" Sallu said as she bustled in. "Wat ?" I asked groggily as I stretched my hand to pick my toothbrush from the lot. It was 8.10 am and the breakfast bell was due any minute. "Oh!! you ll know.... " she replied.
I dragged myself all the way across the corridor to the washroom. Dreamily I was following my daily morning schedule, when I heard 'THEM' sing.
"WHOA!!!! wtf" I said to myself. Wasting no time, I rushed back to my room.
"you don't need to tell ..... I heard it!!!" Chits told me when I opened my mouth to speak. Smiley was still lazing off on her bed. She walked out clueless regarding the discussion that was going on around her.
After a while she walked in and announced," People!! there is a bad news!! They are participating in the competition".
"Seriously yaar.... do u even hear to our talks??" sallu asked her.
"oh so you knew bout it!!" she replied sadly.
" I cant sit here and watch them win this thing" I conceded. "No matter what, but I am not willing to sit and watch our reputation being tarnished in such a ****** way"
"Lets participate too" said Sallu, who loved to sing as much as me."lets sing and win this thing" she said exuberantly.
" Ha ha ha ha, I can imagine us winning if I sing" replied chits in her sarcastic tone.
" same here" added smiley. Ume murmured something in fast malyalam which I was unable to grasp. Then she smiled and left the room.

In the above stanza, 'They' refers to our group rivals. Back in 2004, during our HSE, my friends and I had a fight with some other co hostelers (who were also our classmates), which gave rise to groups within the hostel. The 2 respective groups showed constant antagonism to each other. So it was really important for us to beat them at every thing. Academic performance was not an issue, as chits was the top scorer. And the rest of us were equally good too.

So finally after a long discussion sallu and I managed to convince Smiley, Ume and chits. The competition was on the next day at 4.30 pm, and we had only few hours to practice, as we had practicals that very day and also the next day.

We chose to sing 'neele neele ambar pe', as it was the only song whose lyrics was available at that moment. We practiced for hours in the night. We were so tired that we couldn't get our butts off the bed the next morning. As usual we got dressed up in our regular outfit (some stupid t shirt and jeans) and left for college. The competition was at 4.30 pm , so we came to the hostel a little early from the lab; ie, 4,25 pm. To our surprise all the other teams were dressed uniformly. we were the only odd ones out. 'They' were dressed up in yellow salwars.

"WTF man!!!" I whispered into sallu's ears. "Look at those gals!! How can we ever beat them at presentation".
I had heard them practice the song in the classroom, thought it was a kannada song (and I couldn't understand it) I had enjoyed it.
"We ll just do fine man!!! dun worry" smiley said.
I could feel the tension in her voice though. Chits was conspicuously nervous and I could see her fidgeting next to me during the first teams performance. Ume was quite the whole time.
Amid this whole mess, Sallu found the time to go brag brashly about how good we were when compared to 'THEM'. War, who was the meanest girl from our rival group said something rude in her malicious tone.

I wanted this never ceasing fray to end as soon as possible.

Soon it was their turn to perform. I must admit, they were good. But there was this final year degree's group who had given a terrific performance. Also another group, out juniors who were good too.

We gave our best shot. And were hoping to secure the third place.
We were quite sure that there the 1st place would be given to the final yr degree group and the 2nd to our juniors. Any other groups weren't that great. So the compitition was for the 3rd place.

So we sat there praying for a positive result.

finally it was time. The 3rd place was secured by our juniors. We lost the little hope we had.
"its ok yaar, there is always a next time" I told sallu.

"The second place goes to ........ " we heard them announce.
"Sallu and party"......

Whoa!!! that was unexpected. but we weren't jumping in the victory mood, we wanted be sure that the first place was won by the degree gals. And yes, We were right.

There!!! That made our day, actually our year.............
We were overjoyed. Loved every minute of it. That wasn't our only victory, we surely won the group fight.