‘Lets have a watch night party’… That was abhinav ..my friend…from kindergarten we were together in same class same bench..So that was him expressing himself on 27th December 2003 that we should party before we all go somewhere else after the exam. We were in 10th std…which was projected to us by our parents as benchmark of our life. We always wanted to party late nit but never thought of it seriously. Plan was set. Abhinav’s parents agreed to set this party in their lawn.

It was New Year eve and we all set out to beg, borrow, steal and buy things required for the party. Along with vikram we went to Raju’s place to confirm if he’s in for the party. It was getting dark. We all parked our bicycles outside and went inside his home. We all were thrilled about the night and finally came out of his house. The plan was to go back to their respective homes and gather by 9 p.m at abhi’s place. All that excitement came to zero when we saw two of our cycles missing. Mine & Vikram’s. First we thought it’s a prank played by someone but later realized that it’s for real. Yes someone stole our bikes…we were shocked and scared…Out of anger and fear we ran to nearby places to check but we couldn’t find it. Only one thing was coming in mind and that was ……cancel the party…go back home and confess to parents what happened.

I always hear great people saying that life always gave them two choices… Like A R Rahman in his Oscar speech said his two choices were either to love or hate. He choose love and he was there standing at the Kodak theater receiving his Oscars. Life gave me a situation where my two choices were either to sit and cry for what happened or to forget it and live the moment. I decided to go with the second!

Me and vikram somehow convinced our parents to keep the party on. They were angry about our loss but some emotional drama worked there. Party went till 5 am..And it was time to leave…

Arshad,abhi ,vivek,mukesh ,bomri, vikram and me thought of giving a final shot to search the cycles. We went down crossing all lanes and colonies. By the time we realized that we came too far from our homes we saw something which even now if I think gives me Goosebumps. Our cycles were standing there at a deserted place untouched..Unharmed.. I climbed on mine and cruised all the way to my home. Parents were happy to see me back with the cycle.

This was probably the first lesson in my life which I still consider as the best. Life throws many situations at you but always with two options. Either you can sit and cry about it or you can choose to be happy and feel good about it!