Harpinder headed back towards his dorm after the run in with his brother, Mentorship Program form in hand. He skimmed it over quickly - it seemed like a small personality test outlining various aspects of life: hobbies, religion, school, and family to name only a few. The instructions stated that he had to pass it in at tomorrow's meeting. Harpinder sighed as he read that part. The Sikh Coalition was a good group, and even if he was joining a group he was already part of the culture of for a class, this group was running him into the ground. Harpinder didn't even have the night off due to a seminar class.
Harpinder's schedule was lined up very oddly for this semester. He had the three regular classes: Cultural Studies, Bollywood Film, and Analytics, but he also had two seminars for the semester, the first of which was on Wednesday nights: Professionalism and Ethics in Finance. Harpinder was exhausted to see that he had yet another evening commitment on Thursday, but also was a bit relieved that he didn't have to try and balance commitments for two classes at the same time.
He got back to his own dorm and put the form on his desk for the time being. It wasn't a particularly urgent manner, so he could slack off for a bit. He sat at his desk and opened his laptop, which he left here as he didn't need it for Cultural Studies. He opened his homepage of Facebook, and scrolled through, seeing nothing very exciting. He tabbed open to a single player game and played for a few minutes, before realizing he was just bored and killing time. He got up and reached for his snack drawer, pulling out a prepackaged single serving bag of ladoo.
He munched away at the peanut and date dough balls with a mild displeasure. The snack was good, and it helped him slightly in dealing with his boredom, but it fell significantly short of his mother or brother's home cooking. Even his father, who rarely cooked other than helping out around festivals could do better than this. Harpinder wrote it off, that was the price of moving away from home and not being big on cooking himself. At least it was Indian food, which was sometimes hard to find around the campus for a reasonable price.
Harpinder's train of thought was interrupted by a ping on his Facebook. He tabbed back over to the website and saw a notification saying that a few people had commented on his profile photo. He clicked the notification, and was greeted by a picture of his own face, grinning at the camera in a selfie he took. He had a pair of sunglasses over his eyes which matched with his luxurious beard, and the sunny weather brought out the best in the turban he was wearing. The caption was simple: "Good morning World! :)" The timestamp said that the photo was taken a mere two hours ago. Harpinder thought about the time, that would've been right before lecture. He didn't remember taking the photo, but he chalked it down to being so tired after the past two evenings.
He looked over at the comments and saw several already on his photo. Some were in English: "Nice", "Great pic bro!", "Looking good man!". Some were in Punjabi through the roman alphabet: "Kaim sardaari", "gal baat aa veer di". Some comments were even entirely in Gurmukhi: "ਬਹੁਤ ਖੂਬਸੂਰਤ ਛੋਟੇ ਵੀਰ" and "ਸ਼ਾਨਦਾਰ ਵੀਰ ਜੀ". What Harpinder noticed, as he liked each comment and responded to most of them with some form of "thanks bro" in the same script that the comment was in, was that all of the comments were from Indian men around his age.
Harpinder stopped to think for a minute, didn't that make sense? Of course the comments would be from his peers. But wasn't his high school and university more diverse than that? His train of thought stopped in its tracks as he saw the name of the most recent commenter on his profile picture: Satvinder Singh with "nice pic bro!! lookin good!". Harpinder liked the comment and replied with a "thanks man! good to see you lately", which was promptly met with a like.
Harpinder clicked the other man's profile and saw a picture that Satvinder had recently posted, of himself and Ravdeep playing cricket on the field that Harpinder had passed on the way to his dorm. Ravdeep of course was all smiles and showing off his muscles by wearing a tank top on the beautiful day, but Satvinder was dressed smart as well. His polo shirt was bright and accentuated his toned body. For a moment, Harpinder imagined Satvinder as a weedy kid, but that didn't seem right. His brother's friend was pretty similar to his brother, a goofy Sikh jock. He looked right in place next to Ravdeep with his pearly white smile and maintained dense stubble. Harpinder left a comment, "looking good bros!" which was liked and quickly responded to: "thanks bro! you shouldve played with us today man :)"
Harpinder liked the comment and replied "i know man, too much work these days though :)" to which Satvinder just liked. Harpinder didn't mind. A public post wasn't the best place to have a full conversation, after all. There'd be plenty more opportunity to play cricket with the boys when he wasn't up to his eyeballs in work. Harpinder looked at the form on his desk. Maybe it was time to fill it out. He still didn't really feel up to working, though. There was always the option to screw around for a bit more before his long class and fill it out when he got home.