Dr Piyush Roy chronicles Episode 3 of Season 2 of Student City, where Biki’s fearless bohemian charm, shifting loyalties, campus gossip and unexpected leadership reshape friendships, rivalries and power equations inside an unforgettable classroom.

Recap: The City Keeps Changing Its Heroes

In the first two episodes of Season 3 of Student City, the classroom emerged as a living city—its streets lined with unlikely friendships, emotional upheavals, secret ambitions and the fragile politics of belonging. As alliances formed and identities slowly surfaced, every newcomer altered the rhythm of the batch. Episode 3 introduces the enigmatic Biki, whose effortless charisma and unpredictable loyalties quietly transform the social map of the class.

“Do you know anybody else who has a similar sexy pen?” she started, pointing at my gold-coated Parker.

“Why?”

“I want to steal it,” she said simply.

“Oh really! Do you mean that? I mean would you actually steal!”

“I’m a soul-shaker, heart-breaker and a trouble-maker!”

Not at all the type to bother about etiquette, it was her bohemian in-your-face approach, even in rank first-time interactions, that weaved an uncommon endearing appeal around Biki, converting every occasional meeting with her into an event to remember. Pam even tried an abortive go at an affair with her, which became the joke of the batch. Pam loved the glow of self-indulgence, which in his case meant that literally every girl in the class had, at least once, fallen for his charms. Till we discovered their real clandestine associations with others, which would then be rubbished by Pam as a helpless consequence of his outgrowing them. Needless to add, all these confessions were strictly restricted to a male-only audience.

An Unlikely Friendship Finds Fire

Not of the sublime varieties, a momentary camaraderie and a few potshots down the line, Biki and Anisha got along like, well… once again, a house on fire. There was a veritable list of astounding dissimilarities between the two, which would make anyone turn turtle at their loud friendship. Like me, Biki had also joined a little, rather triflingly late, a month to be precise. She seemed quite happy with herself in her corner of the class, and none really hassled this untested beauty.

While Pam, in a fit of intellectual profanity, termed her dumb, for she seemed to talk less, Ita had a meltdown and offered to balm her unknown musings or sufferings as per her own interpretations. Whatever the cause, Ita found in Biki a silent listener to her faraway moorings, her psychedelic views on everything and anything under the sun, which till then had been craving for a consistent listener. For, though Ita shared her apartment with Anisha, they were yet to establish that sustaining connect.

Roommates, Rumours and Reinvention

Belonging to the tranquil species of the lost types, Anisha’s loud companions naturally pissed Ita off. Add to that, the mounting costs of their lavish style had made her scout for another partner, as there was no dearth of space at home. Reasoned Ita, a third roommate would at least enliven her loneliness in the long periods of Anisha’s frequent absences. In Biki, she visualized that soulful companion, and went all out of her way to get her settled in their place. Anisha, after a brief initial concern guided by unaccounted fears of a possible crouching of space, eventually gave that affirmative go-ahead.

Biki had calmly bided her time before shocking us all when she was unanimously voted Ms. Fresher, narrowly pipping Anisha to the top slot, where surprisingly Priya didn’t even figure. Though a week prior to the final results, Priya had started blowing her own trumpet of her steep climb up the nominees’ countdown, with liberal anecdotes of how she was being complimented by this one senior for her looks, while another praised her fine sartorial sense, and a third feted her collection of perfumes and so on. Deducting that slight discount from her claims, we had still expected her to make it to the finals, at least.

Gossip, Glory and the Making of a Leader

So, her shock combined with our surprise made quite a visible combo, that none, including Biki, could miss. Priya faced her expectations through an accusatory logic, going riotously on explaining how Biki had actually charmed her way to the honour by acting the perfect ready-and-coy girlfriend to any senior who was single and looking for a girl to complete that couple picture for entry to city discs. Her conviction in the tale and the sense of purpose made some of us even literally believe the same, as she reasoned, “Or why else is she not present for any of the class functions, and never around after the last lecture?”

And then she would be at it again, as to how she had even caught Biki in a compromising position, stretching her vicious mood a bit far. So, I excused myself from her rancorous panchayat, though her list of curious listeners just wouldn’t dwindle. Nothing sells like sex, and sex-laced gossip is celebration time for cocky ears. Also, Priya’s accounts were the only first-hand information the class ever had about their new celebrity classmate.

To define the situation minus ambiguity, our shock knew no definition, neither pleasant nor otherwise, because you need to know someone to make an opinion. However, unknown to us while we were busy in our own class full of joys and woes, lost in sentimentality’s frivolous throes, Biki had managed another coup, quietly negotiating her way through the minds of the seniors to be nominated the Class Representative by the Program Director.

Priya was the first to congratulate her and pass the good news, along with a statement of what a fine orator and a born leader Biki was. Quite surprising, for not long ago Priya had made some real uncharitable comments about Biki, but then she was intelligent enough not to ruffle the powerful, and at the moment Biki’s star was rising.

As regards the fear of facing the consequences at an exposé on any of her turncoat views, her expertise in the art of excusing herself through that grey zone of misquotes was excellent enough to even put the most seasoned politician to shame. That way, she was a hell of an asset for her friends, and definitely the most abrasive foe.

As far as the reactions of the rest of us to the rising star were concerned, immersed in our by-now dominantly passive internal groupings and fumbling segmentations roaring to run each other’s nominees down, we just gave in for an untested devil vis-à-vis the known biases.

Loyalties Under the Same Roof

Meanwhile, in the Anisha household, the warming-up of the settling days over, it was time for stating the likes and dislikes and arguments of the my-friends-versus-your-friends types to emerge. For instance, Biki didn’t like Rahul straying all over the place. He had this innocent, though irritatingly poking habit of venturing everywhere, though no offences meant. Rahul’s frequent, rather now daily, trips were coincident with an evolving involvement with Ita, the niceties of which we will save for the moment.

As regards Anisha, she just couldn’t stand or understand Biki’s warming up to Priya of all people, what with Biki even starting to take up cudgels for Priya in her fights against her roommate Manisha.

Manisha had started seeing a senior, Mukesh, something the still-single Priya couldn’t digest. Though at first she had happily played Cupid, once his demanding visits increased in frequency, starting from early morning walks to late-night dinners, she started getting worked up. What with so much gossip fodder lying in her own house, she decided to cash in on it, thus sparing the others at the college. But her lying low on the gossip front wasn’t taken well by Biki, whose feigned closeness to her was just to elicit the masala brewing against her in the class, keeping her informed of who was into what and how well received, vis-à-vis her precarious rank.

Fed up with the Manisha-Mukesh stories, Biki finally asked Priya to chill for a while and started avoiding her, much to Anisha’s joy. Obviously, then they bonded like there was no tomorrow!

Priya took recourse, bouncing back to her anti-Biki tirades, aired maximum in my silent company, managing, in the sly, to even cool some of my neutral perceptions of Biki.