my inital attempt was unsuccessful since I hadn't fully understood the way loop() works. But after a couple of new approaches the code is working flawlessly. Initially I had trouble with my counter variables being flushed each time loop() looped itself. Now I coded it in a way so that loop() runs just once. The code is surely lengthy but it works like a charm.
Now to devise a switch button that is GND (instead of being open/floating) and goes high when the button is pressed.