INDI A

SINGAPORE

M A L AY S I A

Notion Press Old No. 38, New No. 6 McNichols Road, Chetpet Chennai - 600 031 First Published by Notion Press 2018 Copyright © Nitank Agrawal 2018 All Rights Reserved. ISBN 978-1-68466-037-7 This book has been published with all efforts taken to make the material error-free after the consent of the author. However, the author and the publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Acknowledgments

D

ear reader, I wanna thank you for picking up TILL THE LAST BEAT. It’s the first book of my life and i wanna thank you for bestowing your trust upon me. As it’s my first book there are many whom I would like to thank with all my heart. First of all I’m thankful and grateful to the Almighty who provided me with the will and inspiration to write, to believe in myself. Then I’m greatly thankful to Neha Yadav, my first reader, her feedback was really valuable. My team, those who helped me with the various stages of designing, editing, researching. I’m greatly thankful to Navratan Bugalia who has helped in designing the cover for the book as well as helped in internal editing. I’m heartily thankful to Abhishekh Joseph (CEO LEVEL INFINITE) for an invaluable support he has provided me with number of steps which came on our way. My mother Krishna Agarwal and my father Virendra Agarwal.

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Acknowledgments

My friends who are always my inspiration, to name a few Karan, Dhananjay, Amit, Utkarsh, Pravi, Aditya, Preetika, Sahil, Rashmi, Snigdha, Anuj, Athar, Shitij and last but definitely not the least two gems of my life Harsh and Surbhi, there are many more left but then the list would be quite big. I would like to thank all those people i met in Chandigarh, Shimla, Nalagarh, Anandpur sahib and Naina devi. And finally Bill Gates, for Microsoft Word. This book was a dream of mine and there are a lot of people who have helped me with my dream come true. Writing is an art, it keeps you alive, and then it’s true that emotions are best expressed on paper. Keep spreading Love. With this I welcome you to the world of TILL THE LAST BEAT, the world of Nivaan and Namrata.

Prologue

“W

hat are upto Nivaan, what are you doing here, why aren’t you talking to Namrata” Shreyasi asked actually almost scolded me. I was having tea, honestly I was trying to distract myself. “Why should I talk to her!” I replied in a rude manner, with drops of tears in my eyes. “Why should you not??” what has she done, what’s her mistake” Shreyasi said in anger. “It’s not her mistake it’s mine” I replied with tears now rolling down to my cheeks. “Don’t play with words, come to the point, speak clearly” Shreyasi said. “OK fine, I just didn’t like the way Namrata talked with Rahul, I felt jealous for the first time in my life” I replied with my face down. “Seriously Nivaan is that the reason you have!!” Shreyasi said laughing and I was equally confused “Nivaan c’mon, it’s natural to be jealous, she was making you feel jealous, and you didn’t even understand that” Shreyasi said smiling.

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“But why she wants me to feel jealous, I love her Shreyasi, it’s natural I will a speck of jealously in me” I replied in retaliation. “Have you told her that you love her” Shreyasi said. “But she can understand that yaar, my behavior clearly indicates that” I replied. “No the question here is have you told her!!” she said again. “No” I replied. “That’s it so you don’t have any right to complaint, first you go and tell her that you love her, go and say now what you feel for her” Shreyasi said. “But she’s leaving now, what difference will it make” I replied with my face still down. “It’s not about what difference it will make, you just go to her and say, and leave the rest on God” she said encouraging me. “But what if she says no, what if she never talks with me again after this?” I asked with a mixed feeling of confusion and sadness. “So just because you’re afraid that she might not talk to you again you will never tell her, are you crazy Nivaan, being in love doesn’t need to have any fears, just go and express yourself, just go and tell her that you love her, just go and let the world know that you love her that she’s the one for whom your heart craves for” she said and her words were really motivating. I felt great, I was now ready to let her know that I loved her. “Nivaan what are you waiting for, c’mon go, time is running out, it’s already 6.20” Shreyasi said only 20 minutes were left for the Train to leave, I rushed towards Namrata coach.

–1–

“N

ivaan are you sure you want to leave by bus?’ Rahul texted on our wats app group which consisted of Shreyasi, Rehan, Kajal, Rahul and me. We all were leaving next morning towards Nalagarh for our industrial training. I Nivaan Agarwal lived in a small town ‘tundla’ which was situated just 27 kms away from the City of Taj ‘Agra.’ Tundla is small town which is known just for its railway station, almost all foreginers who visited Agra usually boarded the train from the town. Though it’s a small town, but still one will get all the things required for a daily life. I did my schooling from Christ the King Inter College the best in our town. Although there were many institutions but no one was a match to ours. I’m pursuing my 3rd year of B.PHARM from Anand College of Pharmacy a part of SHARDA Group Of Institutions which is situated in Agra. I joined college soon after my twelfth, having no idea what this course was all about and also no speck of clue about the college. There

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were few reasons which made me join this course and a million reasons I never wanted to join it. Speaking of which the reasons why I joined this course were, First, I never wanted to go for MBBS(which every Indian parents thinks is the only option after taking biology in 12th) because I was never good in studies, Second my mom is an incharge of Govt hospital in firozabad and one of her collegues suggested her this course for me, and also his son was a lecturer in the college, so she without a second thought asked me to join the course. Now coming to reasons why I never wanted to go for this course were, First and Foremost I had no idea what the course was all about, I had never heard about this course in my whole life apart from the day my mom mentioned me about this, Second were my hobbies and my passions which used to be nothing less than a life for me (a story which is relevant to most of the children in India) including my craze for singing, writing poems(though I always dreamed of writing a novel) and few more, Third and I guess the major one was I always wanted to go for Mass Communication as I felt it was the perfect field for me, but no one has ever been able to control his/her destiny so how could I and so I had to choose this college along with the course. Coming to college, my wing was a part of Anand Technical Campus, which itself was a part of Sharda Group Of Institutions, which they claimed to be the largest educational group of northern India. It was a pretty decent college and boasted of an amazing cricket stadium and a properly maintained activity center, consisting of

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a gymnasium, tennis court, squash court, table tennis rooms, badminton halls and many more. There were few other wings in my college like Architecture(which I believed was not a part of our campus because there rules and regulations were all different) engineering (which nowdays is a part of every college), Biotech, BBA, BCA, MBA, BCOM. I still remember the first day of my college, having no idea what I was doing and what I was up to (story of every individual who attend’s the first day of college). Within few days I made some great friends in my class Rahul, Rehan, Shreyasi, and Kajal and in few months they became my besties on whom I could always rely upon, my partners in breaking rules, bunking classes making notes and in everything. Though that doesn’t means that I didn’t talk with anyone else, I talked with each and everyone in my class and also had great links with my seniors. Eventually the days passed, converting into weeks then months and finally two years of my college were over. My passion of writing was still there inside me though it was confined just to poems. Those two years in college were amongst the greatest I had but still I had no idea why I was still doing this course, if it was not these four guys I would have left the course. Though I was not so good in studies still I was a consistent topper of my batch and I even performed well in extra curricular activities including singing, debates (in which I won the state level trophy defeating all the zonal level winners). Yes there were few things in which I was never good at,

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they were sports and honestly I used to be the worst dancer of this world. My two years of this college were great only just because of these four people. They made me happy, everything seemed to be perfect with them. They always saw me smiling, laughing, full of life however even they didn’t know how much lost and aimless I was. My cell vibrated again with Rahul’s message “Nivaan you there??” “Yeah buddy we will leave by bus as it the most reliable way for reaching New Delhi station on time” I replied. We planned actually I planned that we will leave from agra by bus for new delhi, where we will deboard the bus at golf course and catch a metro from their to Kalka ji and from their to violet line which would take us to Central Secretariat and then yellow line which would take us to New Delhi Railway station from where we will board a Jan Shatabdi which departs at 2:30 pm for chandigarh and from there we will catch a bus which will take us to our final destination Nalagarh. “Nivaan can we leave at 8 in morning” Shreyasi asked on group. “Yeah sure Shreya if only you want to reach chandigarh by bus” I replied. “Shreya the sooner we leave it will be better for us, else we might miss the train” kajal texted. “First time I must say Kajal is right:-p” Rahul replied “So it’s final we leave tomorrow at 6am everyone please be on time” I texted to reconfirm.

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Everyone gave their final nod along with good night texts. I was lying on bed still wondering what I was doing with my life and wishing of something, an inspiration which could show me a correct path. “Dreams are always present in everyone’s heart, however not ever finds the courage to accomplish them.”

–2–

“I

’m standing right at starting the Yamuna Expressway” I told Shreyasi. It was 6.30 shreyasi and the others were in the bus they boarded from water works, Agra. It was nothing less than a surprise that they all came on time, I really thought one of them would be surely late especially Shreya, but they disheartened my expectation by being on time, though it was good because none of us wanted to miss the train. “OK, we will we there within 10 minutes” shreyasi replied before hanging up the phone. Minutes seem like hours when you are alone though the bus arrived within 10 minutes it seemed to be a very long wait for me. I entered the bus as Rahul helped me with my luggage. And with that finally our journey began. Our journey to industrial training (or I can Industrial Trip) in Nalagarh. I sat beside Rahul. Rahul was one of my closest friend. He was one of the most delightful person I have ever known. He was 5’4’’ which was not that good (however pretty average for an Indian guy) and a properly built physic and a not so fair

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look. He was a mediocre in studies and made very few friends (I was lucky to be in his friend zone and that to be in best friend zone). He was quite average in cultural activities (he rarely took part in any one of them) however he had some great hand in various sports. He was a quite a good cricketer and was a part of our B.Pharma’s team, he was fabulous badminton player (in which he was trained by National level badminton player) and I still the remember the day when we both played a team match, I told him that I played really well (whereas I didn’t even know the ‘B’ of badminton) and we lost the game by a very wide margin, he was frustrated it was a college event and he invested his sum on it. And yes not to forget he was good in football too and all these sports activities were the reason for his good physic. Had God gave him some more of that height he could have been easily in the list of the most charming guys of our college. At one time kajal was in deep love with Rahul, and they were even committed, however Rahul ditched her or honestly situations made him ditch her and since then kajal started liking me, a bit complicated story I was never interested in. It usually takes around 2–3 hours for the bus to reach Noida from Agra however due to fog it took us about 4–5 hours to reach there. We all started to talk, crack jokes, sometimes one or two of us plugged in their headphones and in no time we reached Noida. As decided we deboarded the bus at Golf Course. “Abey yar itne sare bag lane ki kya zarrorat thi,1 mahine ke lie jar rhe ho ya fir basne hi ja rhe ho wahan.” I said to

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all of them after seeing each one having at least 3 bags of their own. “Tu khud to itna saman le ja rha h kamine aur hamse bol rha hai” Rehan replied seeing two bags in my hands. “Ye to hai hi aisa” Kajak chirped in between. “OK so if that’s the case everyone will lift their own bags” I said “No problem guys everyone will hold their own luggage” Shreyasi said after seeing that she had the least as well as the most lightest of bags. Though I had only two bags with me but they were the most heavy of them all. “Yeah right shreya everyone will hold their own luggage” Rahul jumped in between as he knew about this. Somehow I climbed and brought my bags on the platform. My words backfired on me and I was the only who suffered with the decision that everyone will carry their own luggage. We boarded the magenta line metro which dropped us at Kalka ji from where we switched to violet line and then to yellow one. As usual the yellow line was flooded with people. “Yar the metro seems like the fully stuffed parantha, there is no place even to stand.” Shreyasi said seeing the rush. “Sahi keh rahi hai yar” Rahul followed her. “Guys lets split up then so we could go easily” I said and they all nodded. And so Rahul, Rehan and Kajal left first while Shreyasi and me followed them in next metro. After so much of hardwork of carrying our bags switching metros, splitting up we finally reached New Delhi station at 1:20 pm. The train we were going to board had it’s scheduled

TILL THE LAST BEAT “Till the Last Beat” story is of Nivaan and Namrata – the two broken souls who are tired of life. Nivaan, a boy from a small town Tundla was living without an inspiration. Having completed almost 3 years in college, he still has no idea what he actually wanted in life. While on the other hand, Namrata a girl from Chandigarh was residing with a burden of her father’s death, broken and without a hope to live. Nivaan sees Namrata and falls for her. It was what we say “love at first sight”. Destiny brings the two broken souls together! They start loving each other to such depths that no one can ever imagine. They live, they laugh, they cry, they do the craziest things together, cherish moments together unaware of what destiny had planned for them! Unaware of what that night had planned for them. It’s not just a simple story of love. It’s a story of an undying love which a boy and girl can have for one another. It’s a story of all beautiful emotions which are born in people who are madly in love with one another! It’s a story of their friends who were always with them, and as they both say it’s not just a story. It’s OUR STORY. Nitank Agarwal is a normal person born in Ghaziabad and brought up in a small town ‘Tundla.’ He did his schooling from Christ, the king inter-college and was average in studies. However, the only thing he was fond of was writing poems and he wrote a few of them to keep it to himself and always dreamed of writing a book of his own. After school, he joined Anand college of pharmacy and entered the race to build a career but the dream of the book always remained inside until one day he found inspiration to write. He has completed his B.Pharm and now pursues a job in the respective field. This is his first book and not to forget the Dream of his life. Price 249