He stared. They stared back. Bittu offered him a piece of cold, glowing paneer.
At 2 AM, the warden, Mr. Sharma, arrived with a flashlight. He found four engineering students in a circle, holding hands, humming the Baby Shark tune in three-part harmony, with a smoking stove between them.
Mr. Sharma turned off his flashlight, turned around, and walked away. The next morning, a new rule appeared on the hostel notice board: “No luminous cooking after midnight. Warden has eyes everywhere.”
By 11 PM, the terrace looked like a crime scene. Bittu was fanning smoke away from the warden’s side using a stolen hostel chappal. Chatur, the self-appointed safety officer, had wrapped his head in a towel like a turban and was whispering, “If we die, I want it on record that I objected.”
Lucky, the mastermind, just sat cross-legged, recording everything on his cracked phone, whispering: “Original content, boys. This is pure, uncut Gang Masti.”
“The mess back door. Don’t ask,” Lucky grinned.
Lucky, in a fit of culinary madness, emptied the entire bottle of Mystery Sauce onto the paneer. A greenish-purple flame erupted—not hot, but luminescent, like a small, illegal aurora. The four of them stared in stunned silence. Then Bittu whispered, “It’s… beautiful.”