Prafulla Joshi
1
Aniket pressed his forehead against the bus window as the vehicle rumbled into Kota, Rajasthan, the fabled city of toppers and broken dreams. The streets seemed to throb with urgency—rows of coaching institutes with massive billboards promising “AIR 1 in IIT-JEE,” hostels stacked like pigeonholes with nervous teenagers peering out, chai stalls overflowing with students drowning themselves in caffeine and formulas. To any outsider, Kota looked like a factory assembly line where only marks mattered, and Aniket, fresh from his small hometown, felt like the newest product placed on the conveyor belt. His parents had waved him off with the heavy pride of middle-class hope: Beta, bas IIT nikal jao. Phir life set hai. The words echoed in his head, both as a blessing and a burden. For seventeen years he had lived within the quiet familiarity of home, but now he was in the city where destiny was supposedly forged in the ink of answer sheets.
The hostel room he was allotted was cramped, just big enough to fit a bed, a steel almirah, and a study desk. His roommate, already buried in a thick physics book, barely looked up to acknowledge him. The air smelled faintly of Maggi noodles and overused highlighters. From the corridor, he could hear the constant shuffle of slippers and the low hum of equations being recited aloud. The warden gave him a quick tour—mess hall timings, curfew hours, rules against mobile phones—and left him with a stark reminder: “Yahaan distractions ke liye jagah nahin hai.” That first night, lying on his thin mattress, Aniket stared at the ceiling fan whirring above him, its monotonous sound somehow resembling a countdown clock. He wasn’t homesick yet, but the silence of the room pressed on his chest. He thought of his parents, of their smiling faces as they talked about his future IIT degree, their voices brimming with borrowed confidence. He had promised them he would give his best, but even then, he knew his best didn’t belong to IIT—it belonged to something else, something he couldn’t dare say aloud.
The coaching classes began the next day, relentless and precise. The lecture halls resembled mini stadiums, packed with hundreds of students scribbling furiously as the teacher scrawled complex integrals across the board. Time in Kota wasn’t measured in hours—it was measured in mock tests, in solved problems, in revisions that seemed endless. Aniket sat among the crowd, his pen moving obediently across the page, but his mind wandered. The rhythm of equations turned into beats, the drone of the lecturer’s voice transformed into a bassline, and his restless hand, instead of solving the problem, sketched words in the margins of his notebook. They weren’t equations; they were verses. Rough, jagged lines about suffocation, about borrowed dreams, about the crushing weight of expectations. Each word carried a pulse, a rhythm only he could hear, like a song locked inside him begging to come out. He quickly tore the page out before anyone noticed, stuffing it into the back pocket of his diary.
Evenings at the hostel weren’t any lighter. After the mess dinner, students retreated into their rooms with question banks that looked thick enough to stop bullets. Conversations revolved around ranks, attempts, and cutoffs. “Aaj ka mock test kaisa gaya?” “Kal ka doubt session attend karna hai?” The language of ambition was spoken fluently by everyone around him, but Aniket remained an outsider, nodding and smiling without contributing. His roommate, a boy from Delhi, seemed like a machine, memorizing formulas with the efficiency of a printer. At times, Aniket wondered if he was the only one pretending, the only one hiding scribbled lyrics between pages of mathematics. He wanted to belong, but the more he tried, the more alien he felt. At night, after pretending to study, he would open his diary, flip to the back, and write quietly under the dim light of his table lamp. Words spilled out—about the smell of hostel food, about the never-ending lectures, about the faceless crowd of toppers who all looked the same under the pressure of expectation. His diary became the only place where he was truly honest.
But honesty was dangerous in Kota. To dream of something outside IIT or NEET was to be marked as weak, unfocused, or worse, a failure. Everyone seemed to wear masks of determination, their smiles tight, their eyes shadowed with anxiety. Aniket felt that mask tightening on his own face every time he spoke to his parents on the phone. “Haan Ma, padhai acchi chal rahi hai. Haan Papa, main top 100 mein aa jaaunga.” The lies rolled off his tongue too easily, but when he hung up, the guilt lingered. He knew he wasn’t cut from the same cloth as the others; his mind was filled not with formulas but with rhymes, rhythms, and a hunger for music that no exam could quantify. As days blurred into weeks, Kota’s suffocating routine threatened to swallow him whole. Yet, even in that suffocation, Aniket clung to the fragile spark of his secret—that one day, his verses might find a stage louder than the classrooms of Kota. For now, though, he kept his head down, solved his equations, and wrote his music in silence.
2
The mock test had been nothing short of a nightmare. Aniket sat in the vast exam hall, the white sheets of paper staring back at him like enemies he could not conquer. Formulas slipped through his mind like water through cupped hands, and the ticking clock only amplified the panic. By the time the bell rang, he had answered less than half the paper. The silence that followed was crushing, broken only by the sound of papers being collected and the whispers of toppers comparing their answers. Aniket sat frozen, his chest heavy, shame gnawing at him. That evening, when the hostel warden announced the results would be out next week, he felt his world caving in. His roommate shot him a judgmental glance, already sensing the disaster. Aniket couldn’t breathe. That night, while everyone buried themselves in their books under dim lamps, he shoved his diary into his pocket, slipped on his sandals, and walked out of the hostel, ignoring the rule of curfew. His heart thudded with both fear and relief—fear of being caught, relief at finally running away, even if for a few hours.
The streets of Kota at night were a different world altogether. The coaching billboards and crowded tea stalls that looked intimidating by day now shimmered under neon lights, their colors softening the city’s harsh edges. Aniket walked aimlessly, his thoughts a whirlwind. Every step away from the hostel loosened a knot in his chest. He crossed shuttered stationery shops, food stalls closing down, and lanes where laughter spilled from groups of local boys not burdened with IIT-JEE dreams. Their freedom stung him—why did they get to live without chains while he was shackled to equations he couldn’t solve? As he drifted further into the city, he noticed faint vibrations in the air, like distant music thudding against concrete walls. Curious, he followed the sound through a narrow gully littered with half-faded posters and broken streetlights until he reached a building whose basement door was splashed with graffiti. Bold strokes of color screamed rebellion: words like Azaadi, Rhythm is Resistance, and Speak Loud, Live Free. His pulse quickened. Something about this place called to him.
He pushed the door open hesitantly, and what greeted him was nothing like he had ever seen before. The basement pulsed with energy. Dim yellow bulbs hung from the ceiling, their light bouncing off graffiti-covered walls and faces glistening with sweat and excitement. The crowd was packed tight, young people clapping, stomping, and chanting in rhythm. On a makeshift stage at the front, two rappers were locked in a fierce battle, spitting verses with machine-gun speed, their words sharp, defiant, and alive. Every punchline sent waves of cheers and laughter through the audience. The atmosphere was raw, chaotic, yet intoxicating. Aniket felt rooted to the spot, his heart pounding in time with the beat that rattled the speakers. He had only ever written his words in silence, whispering them into his pillow. Here, those same words could erupt like firecrackers, alive in the open air.
As he moved deeper into the crowd, the energy seeped into him, awakening something he didn’t know he had been starving for. The faces around him glowed with freedom—boys in hoodies, girls with streaks of color in their hair, strangers who looked like outcasts but carried themselves like kings and queens in their own world. Aniket realized this was not just music; this was rebellion. Every rhyme was a protest against suffocating rules, every beat a heartbeat of defiance. He pulled out his diary and flipped through the verses scribbled inside. Lines about suffocation, about the exam factory, about masks and lies—all of it seemed written for this room. For the first time, he wasn’t ashamed of those words. He imagined himself on that stage, spitting his truth, feeling the roar of a crowd that understood him. His palms itched, his throat burned with the need to let it all out. But fear held him back—fear of ridicule, of exposure, of being discovered as someone who didn’t belong. So he stayed in the shadows, drinking in the sound, memorizing every beat, every gesture.
The battle reached its climax with the crowd erupting into chants, fists in the air, the room alive with shared fire. Aniket felt like he had stumbled into a parallel universe where passion mattered more than marksheets, where people were celebrated for truth, not toppers’ ranks. As the crowd dispersed and the air cooled, he lingered by the graffiti-covered wall, running his fingers over the painted words: Your Voice Is Your Weapon. That night, as he made his way back to the hostel, sneaking past the warden’s office and into his room, he felt different. The mock test disaster still weighed on him, but now, there was something else—an ember of possibility glowing inside him. He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, clutching his diary tight to his chest. He knew he couldn’t go back to being just another silent student. The basement had given him a glimpse of freedom, and no matter how deep he buried it, the rhythm of rebellion was now inside him, thumping louder than any ticking clock in Kota.
3
The next time Aniket sneaked into the graffiti-streaked basement, he felt less like an intruder and more like someone chasing a secret lifeline. The crowd was just as electric as before, and the air carried that same raw pulse of rebellion. Tonight, though, something different caught his eye. In the middle of the stage stood a girl in ripped jeans and a loose black hoodie, her hair tied back in a messy bun. The microphone in her hand wasn’t used for words—it was for sound. She began with a low thump, a rhythm so crisp it sounded like a drum kit hidden in her chest. The crowd cheered instantly, clapping along as her beats rose into a frenzy—bass, snare, hi-hats, all produced from her mouth with impossible precision. Aniket froze, his jaw slightly open. He had heard beatboxing before on YouTube, but here, in this basement, watching her live, it felt like magic carved from breath. She wasn’t just performing; she was commanding the room, and everyone, including him, obeyed.
When she stepped off stage, flushed but grinning, Aniket found himself drawn toward her before his hesitation caught up. She was surrounded by a small group of admirers who congratulated her, yet her eyes scanned the room like she wasn’t looking for validation, only connection. Somehow, they landed on him. For a second, he thought he should look away, pretend he wasn’t staring, but she walked right up. “You’re new here,” she said, her voice casual but sharp, as if she had seen a hundred nervous boys like him before. Aniket stammered something about just dropping by, clutching his diary like a shield. She noticed it immediately, tilting her head. “You write?” she asked, and when he nodded reluctantly, she smiled. “Figures. You’ve got that lost-but-burning look.” The words stung and soothed all at once. He introduced himself in a low voice—Aniket, Kota, IIT coaching—and she laughed, a quick, bright sound that echoed in his head longer than it should have.
Her name was Riya, and when she spoke about herself, it wasn’t with hesitation but with the fire of conviction. “I’m going to be India’s first female beatbox champion,” she declared, and there was not a shred of doubt in her tone. It wasn’t arrogance, just certainty, like someone stating a fact about sunrise. Aniket stared at her, stunned by her unapologetic clarity. Around him, every student he knew measured themselves only in percentile ranks and exam scores, but here was someone who didn’t even acknowledge that world. “My parents think it’s a hobby,” she said with a shrug, “but I know it’s more. Music is war, and I plan to win mine.” He wanted to ask how she carried that courage so easily, but his tongue felt heavy. Instead, he just listened, each word peeling away the suffocating layers of Kota’s exam-obsessed culture. For the first time, he realized what it might look like to dream without apology.
Their conversation stretched into the night, flowing between beats and rhymes, between confessions and silences. Riya wasn’t just passionate about music—she was alive inside it. She described how she practiced for hours every day, bruising her lips until the rhythms sharpened. She spoke of late-night online battles, global communities, and her dream of performing on an international stage. “People think Kota is the capital of exams,” she said, leaning against the graffiti wall, “but I think it’s the capital of pressure. Music is how I breathe through it.” Aniket felt seen in a way he never had before. He shared a few lines from his diary, tentative and trembling, but she nodded seriously, as if he had spoken a language she understood. “That’s good,” she said softly. “Don’t let it rot in a notebook. Words want to be heard.” The sentence echoed inside him, daring him to believe his scribbles might be more than just distractions.
When the night ended and the crowd began to thin, Aniket walked back to the hostel with Riya’s voice still echoing in his ears—her beats, her laughter, her conviction. He felt both inspired and intimidated, like standing at the edge of a cliff and realizing there was a whole world below if only he had the courage to jump. Kota hadn’t changed; the hostel walls were still suffocating, the test papers still waiting to crush him. But something inside him had shifted. He had seen a mirror of courage, someone who refused to be boxed into expectations. He lay awake long after lights-out, his diary open on his chest, scribbling verses faster than ever before. The words felt alive, urgent, desperate to find air. For the first time, he wondered if his life could hold more than IIT dreams—that maybe, just maybe, he too had a stage waiting for him. And the thought both terrified and thrilled him in equal measure.
4
Morning in Kota always began the same: a rush of students in wrinkled uniforms, clutching notebooks and calculators, pouring into classrooms that smelled of ink and exhaustion. For Aniket, those mornings were performances. He sat in the front row, eyes fixed on the whiteboard, nodding at the teacher’s every word, his pen scratching across the page with manufactured diligence. Outwardly, he was the obedient student, a boy determined to crack the impossible exam. But inside, his thoughts strayed to rhythms and rhymes, to verses that drummed against the back of his skull. His diary, tucked carefully under his mattress, now bulged with lyrics about suffocation, rebellion, and the silent war every Kota student fought alone. Each solved equation was a mask, but every line he wrote at night was truth. It was a strange split existence—one half crafted for his parents and the world, the other for himself and the basement that had become his sanctuary.
The nights belonged to him. As curfew descended and the hostel went quiet, Aniket slipped into shadows. His heart raced each time he crept past the warden’s door, the thrill of secrecy mingling with the fear of being caught. The city streets welcomed him differently after dark, neon lights flickering like conspirators, auto-rickshaw horns muted by distance, the air carrying the faint hum of possibilities. In the basement, he was no longer Aniket-the-IIT-aspirant; he was Aniket-the-rapper-in-waiting. The underground circle greeted him with nods and claps, strangers who didn’t care about his marks but respected the courage of anyone who held a mic. He began sharing verses—tentative at first, his voice shaky, but gradually stronger. His words cut through the air like confessionals: about exam factories that suffocate, about failure’s sharp sting, about rebellion simmering beneath polite obedience. Each cheer, each snap of fingers in rhythm, made him feel more alive than he ever had in a classroom.
But the cost of this double life crept in slowly. His test scores began to slide, tiny drops at first but soon noticeable. Questions he once forced himself to attempt now remained blank, his mind wandering back to unfinished verses instead of unsolved equations. Teachers scolded him, warning him about distractions, while his parents’ voices over phone calls grew edged with worry. “Are you focusing, beta? Don’t waste this chance,” his father repeated. Aniket mumbled reassurances, but guilt pricked him every time. In truth, he didn’t feel like he was wasting anything—he was discovering something. Yet, the more he tasted that freedom, the harder it became to lock himself back into Kota’s rigid mould. He walked into class with heavy eyelids, his mind foggy from late nights filled with beats, and while his peers revised, he scribbled rhymes at the margins of his books. Every slip in his performance, however, added weight to the lie he lived each day.
It wasn’t long before his hostel roommates started noticing. They weren’t blind to the way he returned late at night, sweat clinging to his forehead, eyes glowing in a way that didn’t match the stress of exams. Whispers started circulating: Was he sneaking out to meet a girl? Was he wasting time in the city’s movie halls? One boy even joked about reporting him to the warden if his antics disturbed others. Aniket laughed it off nervously, offering excuses about late study sessions and midnight tea at nearby stalls. But suspicion lingered. The hostel was a pressure cooker, and in such places, gossip spread like fire. Every time he slipped out, he felt the weight of their stares pressing into his back, and though he told himself their curiosity didn’t matter, fear of exposure gnawed at him. He knew if anyone discovered his real secret—that he wasn’t burning midnight oil over physics but pouring his soul into rap—it would be the end of both his credibility and his parents’ trust.
Yet even with the risks tightening around him, Aniket couldn’t stop. Each night on stage, each line that left his lips, stitched him closer to himself. For the first time, he didn’t feel like he was drowning in someone else’s dream. Instead, he was building his own voice, fragile but growing. The tension of his double life twisted inside him—obedient student by day, restless poet by night—but he chose to endure it. He would rather live as two people than suffocate as one. And though he sensed the storm brewing, from slipping grades to suspicious roommates, he clung to the music as if it were oxygen. Because deep down, Aniket knew one truth: once you’ve tasted freedom, there is no going back to silence.
5
The night Aniket first crossed paths with DJ Zed was one of those restless evenings when the chawl seemed too suffocating and the city outside too loud to ignore. He had wandered to a nearby basketball court, where the usual floodlight illuminated a different kind of game—one played with words, rhythm, and attitude. The moment he stepped closer, the air vibrated with beats from a portable speaker, and the crowd pulsed in unison as two boys threw verses back and forth like weapons. That was when he saw him—DJ Zed, standing at the center, his dreadlocks tied loosely, eyes glinting behind dark shades even though it was night. Zed didn’t rap; he commanded. He gestured, hyped the crowd, and declared winners like a judge at an ancient duel. For Aniket, who had only ever spilled verses into his notebook or whispered them to Riya, this was overwhelming—a stage that felt like fire, drawing him close and warning him at the same time.
Zed noticed him almost instantly, perhaps because Aniket’s eyes refused to leave the battle, or maybe because Zed had a gift for spotting raw hunger in people. After the crowd thinned, Zed strolled over with the ease of someone who belonged everywhere. “You write, don’t you?” he asked, not as a question but a statement. Aniket froze, startled at being seen so clearly, and tried to deny it, but Riya—who had joined him quietly—smirked and exposed him. “He does more than write. He burns,” she said, nudging him forward. Zed grinned, the kind of grin that promised both trouble and opportunity. He asked to hear a verse. Aniket hesitated, stammering, shaking his head. How could he rap here, under the neon light, with strangers around? It wasn’t like scribbling in secret at his desk or performing an almost-whisper to himself. His verses were born in shadows, not in open spaces like this. Yet Zed’s eyes carried a strange command, a mixture of challenge and assurance, as though saying—if you want to matter, you must be heard.
Reluctantly, Aniket let a verse spill. His voice cracked at first, but the words, once loosened, came rushing out. They weren’t polished, but they were honest—lines about crowded trains, the smell of sweat and ambition, the choking silence of expectations, the taste of freedom he never got. By the time he finished, the basketball court felt empty except for their small circle, a hush settling like after a storm. Zed clapped once, sharp and approving. “You’ve got it,” he said. “It’s raw, but it’s fire. The city needs voices like yours. Come back tomorrow night. Rap battle. You’ll spit for the crowd.” His words felt like a verdict, a sentence that Aniket hadn’t asked for but couldn’t ignore. Riya’s face lit up with pride, but Aniket’s stomach churned. A battle wasn’t just about rhymes—it was exposure, rebellion, and betrayal all at once.
That night, Aniket lay awake in his narrow bed, torn between worlds. He could almost hear his parents’ voices: “Study harder, Aniket. Focus. Your future depends on it.” The vision of their tired faces, their sacrifices, weighed heavily on him. How could he step onto a stage, chasing noise, when they prayed for silence and stability? Yet another voice echoed louder now—the memory of the court, of Zed’s commanding tone, of Riya’s insistence that the stage was where truth lived. He thought of the words that poured out of him earlier, unpolished but undeniable, and realized they had never felt so alive. The battle wasn’t just about music; it was about standing up to the invisible cage he had lived in for years. Still, fear clung to him—fear of disappointing his parents, fear of failing in front of strangers, fear of being more than just an obedient son.
By the time dawn cracked through the chawl’s grimy windowpanes, Aniket knew that the city had offered him a test through Zed. Riya found him later that morning, restless but resolute, and asked whether he was ready. He didn’t answer directly, but the look in his eyes betrayed a decision forming, fragile yet firm. DJ Zed had opened a door, but stepping through meant leaving behind the life mapped out for him by others. “The stage is where truth lives,” Riya whispered again, her hand brushing against his arm. Aniket closed his notebook and, for the first time, didn’t hide it under his pillow. He wasn’t sure whether he was ready to rap in front of the crowd, but he knew one thing—the stage was calling, and his verses could no longer remain in the dark. That realization was both terrifying and liberating, like stepping into fire and discovering it could also warm.
6
Aniket had always been careful—meticulous even—in balancing the two halves of his existence. To his parents and teachers, he was the bright boy from a respectable family, sent to the city hostel to study hard and carve out a better future. To the boys in the shadows, the ones who gathered in forgotten basements and dimly lit warehouses, he was a rising fighter who could take blows without flinching and strike with surprising precision. But now the carefully drawn lines between these two versions of himself began to blur. The first crack appeared when his parents received a call from the school about his slipping grades. His father’s heavy silence on the phone, and his mother’s voice cracking with worry, echoed in his mind long after the conversation ended. For the first time, Aniket felt the weight of his lies pressing down on him, heavier than the bruises on his arms and ribs.
The hostel warden, a man with sharp eyes that seemed to miss nothing, cornered him the following evening. “Discipline is the only thing keeping you boys from going astray,” the warden said, his voice low but laced with warning. Aniket nodded, staring at the floor, his pulse quickening. He could almost smell the smoke and sweat of the underground arena clinging to his skin, threatening to expose him. He promised to focus, to return to routine, but the words felt empty even as he spoke them. Because deep down, he knew that the arena had already taken root in him. It was more than just a distraction—it was a hunger, a thrill, a dangerous form of belonging that the hostel’s grey corridors could never offer. Each night, when he should have been revising equations or memorizing historical dates, he found his mind replaying the movements of his last fight, the way the crowd roared when his fist connected, the intoxicating rush of being cheered for, not scolded.
That rush became real again when Aniket stepped into the ring for his first official underground battle. The warehouse smelled of rust and damp, lit by a few flickering bulbs that cast long shadows across the cheering crowd. Faces he didn’t recognize leaned in close, chanting his name—his fight name, not the one his teachers called during roll call. His opponent was taller, stronger, with a grin that suggested he had crushed boys like Aniket before. But the moment the fight began, instincts he didn’t know he had took over. He dodged, absorbed hits, and then retaliated with a precision that startled even himself. When his opponent finally dropped to the ground, silence hung in the air for a fraction of a second before exploding into thunderous applause. Aniket stood there, chest heaving, sweat dripping, but inside he felt strangely calm. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t being measured by grades or scolded for mistakes. He was being celebrated.
But as he walked back to the hostel that night, still carrying the echoes of that applause, another sound intruded—the memory of his father’s silence and his mother’s worried voice. He glanced at his bruised knuckles, raw and throbbing, and wondered how long he could hide them. Already, he had caught his roommate staring at the marks on his arms. Already, teachers had begun asking him to stay back after class to talk about his sudden drop in focus. Each lie felt harder to spin, each excuse more fragile than the last. It was as though he was juggling glass, each piece reflecting a part of his life, and one slip would shatter them all. The arena gave him identity, but the hostel demanded order, and Aniket was being stretched thin between the two.
In the days that followed, his double life spiraled into a dangerous dance. His parents sent letters reminding him of sacrifices they were making, and the hostel tightened its rules, leaving him little room to breathe. Yet the underground fights called to him with a pull he couldn’t resist. The cheers from strangers felt more real than the quiet nods of approval from teachers. The sting of fists on his skin felt more grounding than the words written in textbooks. He began to realize that he wasn’t just fighting opponents—he was fighting himself, trying to decide who he wanted to be. Each punch he threw in the arena echoed as a crack in the mask he wore outside it, a mask that was quickly beginning to crumble. By the time Aniket looked in the mirror, he no longer recognized which face was the disguise and which was the truth.
7
Zed had been waiting for the right opportunity, the one that would push Aniket and Riya beyond Kota’s suffocating walls and into a space where their music could breathe. That chance arrived in the form of a city-wide music competition, an event buzzing with college bands, underground rappers, and classical fusion groups, all vying for a single prize: the winner would earn a slot at a national-level music fest in Delhi, one that would be streamed live and attended by thousands. Zed announced it with his usual flair, tossing the flyer dramatically onto the café table where they sat after practice. Riya’s eyes widened instantly, lit with the spark of possibility, while Aniket felt a mix of excitement and dread twist inside him. His parents would never approve—such things were distractions, poison to IIT preparation. But as Zed explained how this was their chance to tell their story to a wider audience, something in Aniket hardened. He decided he would go, but under the cover of yet another “IIT crash course weekend.” The irony wasn’t lost on him: he would lie about studying to rap about the lie that studying had become.
The week leading up to the competition was intense. They rehearsed until their voices cracked and their rhythms stumbled, only to start again. Aniket spent nights scribbling verses on scraps of paper and the backs of old test sheets, words pouring out like confessions he had been too afraid to speak aloud. This time, the rap wasn’t just clever rhymes and Kota references—it was a raw, fiery outpouring of anger and truth. He wrote about the factory-like hostels, about students reduced to rank numbers, about teachers who cared more about results than people, about dreams shriveled under fluorescent lights and pressure cookers of expectation. Riya worked her magic around his words, creating a melody that felt both haunting and hopeful, her voice rising like a counterpoint to his rage. Zed pushed them harder, insisting they bring not just skill but conviction, reminding them that music wasn’t about impressing—it was about striking a nerve. For the first time, Aniket felt like he was preparing for something that mattered to him, something bigger than any exam.
The day of the competition, Kota’s usually predictable air seemed charged. The auditorium was packed with students, teachers, and local musicians, the walls vibrating with bass lines and drum beats from earlier acts. Aniket stood backstage, hoodie pulled up, heart hammering. He told his parents he’d be gone for “extra revision classes,” and he wondered how much longer he could keep living two lives. Riya was calmer, her hands folded tightly but her voice steady as she whispered encouragement. Zed, ever the hype man, slapped both of them on the back and told them to own the stage. When their names were announced, a spotlight cut through the darkness, and Aniket felt an unfamiliar rush. The crowd was a blur, but the microphone in his hand was real, grounding him. Riya strummed the opening chords, soft and deliberate, and then he began to rap. His voice, shaky for the first few lines, soon grew stronger, fuelled by the rhythm and the weight of everything he’d held back.
The rap was not polished in the way competition pieces usually were—it was messy, urgent, pulsing with frustration and vulnerability. He called out Kota’s “coaching factories” by name, painted pictures of hostel corridors lined with exhausted faces, described how success was measured only in ranks while individuality was strangled. He rapped about lost friends, about classmates who crumbled under pressure, about how the city treated failure as if it were a crime. Every word burned, and every line struck with the force of a confession too long silenced. Riya’s voice wove in between his verses like a lifeline, sometimes echoing his anger, sometimes lifting it into something more tender. The audience, which had cheered noisily for other acts, grew quieter and quieter, caught in the gravity of what they were hearing. By the time he ended with a stark line—“Are we chasing IIT, or just running from ourselves?”—the silence was thunderous, followed by an eruption of applause that felt less like claps and more like an acknowledgment, an exhale of collective truth.
When they walked off the stage, drenched in sweat and adrenaline, Aniket knew something inside him had shifted. This wasn’t just about winning anymore. He had said aloud what so many around him felt but never dared to admit, and that act alone had set him free in a way. Riya hugged him tightly, her smile shining with pride, while Zed strutted like a king who had seen his plan unfold perfectly. They didn’t yet know if they had won the competition, but for Aniket, that seemed secondary. In those few minutes on stage, he had felt alive in a way textbooks and formulas never could offer. Yet, as he checked his phone later and saw a string of missed calls from home, his stomach twisted with dread. The double life he was leading was fragile, built on lies, and it wouldn’t hold forever. But tonight, with the echoes of applause still ringing in his ears, Aniket allowed himself to believe that maybe, just maybe, music could give him the courage to face whatever storm came next.
8
The morning of the competition arrived like the crest of a long-awaited wave. For weeks, Aniket had been pouring his heart and soul into preparing, rehearsing late into the night with Riya’s gentle encouragement. The auditorium in Kota buzzed with an energy unlike anything he had experienced before—students tuning guitars, adjusting microphones, rehearsing lines, the faint smell of incense mixed with dust in the air. For Aniket, it wasn’t just a performance; it was the first time he was about to show the world—and more importantly, himself—that his passion for music had meaning. He stood backstage, gripping the worn neck of his guitar, his palms sweaty, his breath shallow, the stage lights spilling onto the curtain like the promise of another life. He whispered to himself, “Just once. Let me play just once without fear.” Riya, who had been by his side all along, offered him a smile that seemed to hold the weight of a thousand reassurances. For a fleeting moment, Aniket believed he was ready to fly.
But fate had its own cruel timing. Just as his name was about to be announced, Aniket caught sight of two familiar figures making their way down the aisle of the auditorium. His heart sank instantly, the guitar strap suddenly feeling like a noose around his neck. It was his parents. They had come unannounced, beaming with pride at the thought of surprising their son before his big exam season, expecting to find him buried in books and preparation. Instead, they walked straight into the world Aniket had been hiding—the stage lights, the guitar, the posters announcing the inter-college music competition. Their faces froze in disbelief, the pride melting into shock, then hardening into rage. His father’s eyes blazed with the unmistakable fury of betrayal, while his mother’s face carried the silent ache of disappointment. Aniket’s fingers trembled against the strings, his dream colliding head-on with reality.
The confrontation that followed was swift and brutal. Dragging him aside, his father’s voice rose like thunder within the hushed corridors. “What is this nonsense, Aniket? We sent you here to study, to make a future for yourself, and you’re wasting time strumming guitars like some roadside singer?” His words were sharp, slicing through the fragile confidence Aniket had built. He tried to speak, to explain how music was not just a pastime but a calling, how it gave him strength in a way equations and formulas never could. But his father refused to listen. “Music is a waste,” he declared, his voice trembling with the finality of judgment. “It won’t feed you, it won’t build you a future. It will destroy everything we’ve worked for.” Riya tried to intervene, her voice steady yet pleading, “Uncle, please, you don’t understand—he’s talented, he deserves this chance.” But her words only made things worse. His father turned on her, his glare cold and cutting. “Stay away from my son. You’ve filled his head with nonsense.” In that moment, Aniket felt not just scolded but stripped of dignity, as if everything he had worked toward in secret had been reduced to dust.
Back in the hostel, the silence was deafening. His father had dragged him there, each step echoing with authority and anger, forbidding him from stepping near Riya again, forbidding him from touching the guitar, forbidding him from anything that deviated from the singular path of exams and engineering. His mother, though softer, remained complicit in silence, her eyes downcast but her presence reinforcing the cage around him. Aniket sat on the bed, the guitar case shoved into the corner like a discarded dream. His chest felt hollow, the fire in him smothered under the heavy weight of disappointment. He wanted to scream, to tell them they were wrong, that life couldn’t be measured in ranks and paychecks alone, but his voice refused to rise. He could only listen as his father’s parting words echoed in his mind: “From today, you’ll study. No more distractions. Forget that girl. Forget this madness.”
That night, lying awake in the darkness of his hostel room, Aniket felt more crushed than ever before. The competition, the stage, the applause he had dreamed of—all of it had slipped away like sand between his fingers. He thought of Riya, of the way her eyes had shone with belief when no one else trusted him, and the ache in his chest grew unbearable. He longed to see her, to hear her voice, but he knew his father’s warning wasn’t idle—it was a wall he dared not cross. For the first time, music, once his escape, felt like a forbidden sin, and he wondered if he had been foolish all along to think he could balance dreams with duty. In that moment, the breaking point had come. Aniket was no longer simply torn between two worlds—he was trapped in one and exiled from the other. And in that exile, a part of him quietly began to wither.
9
The morning of the IIT-JEE dawned with a heaviness that pressed down on Aniket’s chest like a weight he could not shrug off. The sunlight filtered through the curtains of his small room, warming the desk piled high with notes, scribbled formulas, and question papers that had defined his last two years. He had spent countless nights under a dim lamp, cramming equations into his mind like bricks into a wall, but now, sitting at his desk with the admission card in hand, he felt nothing but hollowness. His parents’ voices echoed in his memory—every reminder of “a secure future,” every conversation about IIT being the ticket to respectability. Yet beneath all that noise, another rhythm pulsed steadily, the beat of verses he had scribbled in margins and whispered to himself in the quiet of dawn. Today was supposed to be the test of his intellect, but it felt more like the test of his soul, a battle between duty and desire. With his throat dry and palms damp, he left home with the admission slip tucked in his pocket, aware that this day would not pass like any other.
The exam hall was cold, sterile, and buzzing with the nervous energy of hundreds of aspirants. Aniket found his seat, placed his pen and admit card neatly on the desk, and looked around at faces buried in last-minute revision. The invigilator’s voice broke the silence, announcing the rules and distributing the thick booklet of questions. For a few minutes, Aniket tried to anchor himself—eyes skimming over the physics section, fingers tapping lightly on the desk in an unconscious rhythm. But the formulas blurred, numbers dissolved into meaningless symbols, and the paper felt less like an opportunity and more like a prison. He clenched his jaw, the thought pounding through him: This isn’t me. This isn’t my life. His ears rang with an invisible beat, lines of his own rap verses rising in rebellion. The ticking clock reminded him of time slipping away, but another voice whispered louder inside—Riya’s words about authenticity, Zed’s push to own the stage, and his own late-night confessions about music being his truth. His hand froze mid-scribble, and he suddenly knew with a clarity that both terrified and liberated him: he couldn’t keep living someone else’s dream.
Halfway into the exam, Aniket stood up, the sudden scrape of his chair startling the boy beside him. Eyes darted toward him as he walked past rows of students, his heart racing but his steps steady. The invigilator called after him, reminding him that once he left, he could not return, but Aniket didn’t pause. The weight of expectations slipped from his shoulders with every step toward the exit, replaced by a trembling lightness. Outside, the world looked different—the sky broader, the breeze sharper, the streets alive in a way the exam hall could never be. He hailed a rickshaw and urged the driver to rush, adrenaline fueling his urgency. He was not heading toward a future that others had scripted for him, but toward the stage where his own voice could finally matter. As the buildings blurred past, he thought of his parents and the disappointment that would soon shadow their faces, but he also felt an undercurrent of peace. For the first time, his choices were his own.
When he reached the auditorium, the music competition was already underway, and the air buzzed with energy far more electric than the exam hall’s silence. Backstage, Riya spotted him, her eyes widening in disbelief before softening with relief. “You made it,” she whispered, squeezing his arm as if to steady him. Zed gave him a firm nod, the kind that said more than words: Now’s your moment, don’t waste it. Aniket’s nerves twisted in his stomach, but the beat of the music pounding through the speakers steadied him. He could hear the crowd cheering for the act before him, feel the thrum of anticipation that always precedes performance. As his name was announced, he stepped into the glare of the stage lights, the roar of applause greeting him like a storm. His chest tightened, his throat dry, but as the beat dropped and the first words left his mouth, something within him broke free.
Aniket rapped with a fire that had been waiting years to be unleashed. Every verse carried the weight of his struggle, every rhyme a defiance of the path he had abandoned that very morning. His voice rose and fell like waves, raw and unapologetic, pulling the audience into his truth. He spoke of pressure, of dreams borrowed and dreams lost, of cages made of expectations and the courage it took to walk away. The crowd responded with shouts and applause, their energy feeding his own, until the final line landed like a thunderclap. When he finished, the silence that followed was charged—an instant of breathless recognition—before erupting into cheers that shook the hall. Standing there, chest heaving, sweat glistening, Aniket felt lighter than he ever had. He had not solved a physics problem, not cracked an IIT paper, but he had broken free of a prison and stepped into his own identity. This was more than a performance; it was a declaration. And in that moment, under the stage lights, Aniket knew that this was the exam that truly changed everything.
10
The final chapter opens in the aftermath of Aniket and Riya’s bold performance, which has now exploded far beyond the walls of Kota’s coaching institutes. What had begun as a rebellious, uncertain attempt to express themselves suddenly transforms into a nationwide conversation. Clips of their rap-and-beatbox performance are shared endlessly on social media, accompanied by hashtags questioning the suffocating pressure of competitive exams and the narrow definition of success that Kota has come to represent. News channels, bloggers, and even education reformists begin to discuss it, framing the performance as both protest and art. For Aniket, the sudden attention is disorienting but liberating, a validation that his words, once scribbled in margins between physics notes, have power in the real world. For Riya, the recognition feels long overdue—a celebration of rhythm and talent in a city where everything is judged in ranks and test scores. Together, they find themselves at the center of a storm, both exhilarating and frightening.
Yet, the applause outside does not immediately translate into acceptance at home. Aniket’s parents are devastated when they discover what their son has been doing. For years, they had sacrificed comfort and stability in the hope that he would secure a top IIT seat, believing this was the only path to dignity and success. To them, his defiance feels like betrayal—how could he waste his future chasing something as uncertain as music? Heated arguments break out at home, his father accusing him of weakness, his mother crying into the night. But beneath their anger lies a quieter fear: that their son might drift into obscurity, a cautionary tale among neighbors who measure worth by engineering ranks. The confrontation is painful, raw, and at times cruel, but Aniket does not back down. He explains—haltingly at first, then with growing conviction—that music is not a distraction but his lifeline, his way of breathing in a city that suffocates so many. Slowly, with time and with the unexpected support pouring in from teachers, peers, and strangers online, his parents begin to see that passion can be a different kind of brilliance.
Meanwhile, Riya achieves what she has long dreamed of: she wins the city’s beatboxing championship, her name echoing across stages that once dismissed her as just another student. Her victory is not merely personal—it becomes symbolic, proof that art can exist and thrive even in the most rigid environments. For the first time, her family, too, acknowledges her gift with pride rather than tolerating it as a phase. Yet even in victory, Riya understands the road ahead will not be smooth. Opportunities in music are fragile, fleeting, and never guaranteed. But for her, the risk feels worthwhile compared to the quiet death of conforming to a life she never wanted. With Aniket by her side—his raw, unfiltered verses finding rhythm against her beats—they begin to dream not of toppers’ lists but of albums, open mics, and stages where their voices might belong.
The city of Kota itself becomes a backdrop to their transformation. Where once the lanes seemed haunted by coaching centers, billboards promising IIT success, and hostels echoing with exhaustion, they now see glimpses of change. Their performance, their refusal to be silent, has sparked whispers among other students. Some begin writing, some sketching, others daring to confess that they, too, feel trapped. While the machine of Kota continues to churn relentlessly, for a moment at least, cracks appear in its armor. Aniket and Riya realize that even if they leave, their act of defiance will linger as inspiration for those who come after them. The city that once felt like a prison begins to look different: not less oppressive, but no longer invincible.
The chapter closes not with certainty but with choice. Aniket and Riya, standing side by side on a small stage at a Delhi café months later, perform to a crowd that actually listens, not for marks but for meaning. Their lives ahead remain unpredictable—filled with risks, rejections, and the possibility of failure. But unlike the exam halls they once dreaded, these futures are their own, carved from rhythm instead of ranks. Aniket glances at Riya as her beats pulse under his words, and for the first time in years, he feels the weight lift. Together, they have stepped beyond Kota, beyond its rigid walls, into a future uncertain but chosen—a life not handed down by expectations but crafted by courage. And that, for them, is the real victory.
End
