Eastern Zilla
Midnight, Forest
"I got to know that you had quite an adventure this morning," Ramanujam said to Mriga.
She was the first one to return after the warm up exercises and was still panting. Upon hearing his words, her face sank. She had been trying to overcome the incident since the afternoon. How was it that Ramanujam had heard about it already? Even though his tone was mild, she wasn't fooled. This was the one thing which was repeatedly told to her and still she managed to muck it up.
"I am sorry to bring disgrace to the Admin department and you. I have failed you and Prithvi guruji," she said with guilt in her voice.
To her consternation, hot tears threatened to slip out of her eyes.
Ramanujam laughed and said, "For such a tiny girl, you do use big words. What disgrace? In fact, your mentor may secretly be proud of you. In true sense, you are a follower of that scoundrel."
At his confusing words, Mriga went closer to him, tears and guilt forgotten instantly.
"You mean Shau… senior Shaurya? Why would he be proud of me?" curiosity had filled her voice upto the brim.
"Considering that he did something eerily similar, I would say that he would be happy to see someone follow his footsteps. Unless… did he instruct you to do this?" Ramanujam asked sharply as the thought occurred to him.
"Noooo, I swear. It was all my idea. But you mean to say that Sha… senior also did this in the past? Did he intern at the Eastern zilla as well?" she asked.
By now, the others had come back as well. They all knew about her getting reprimanded during the day and had decided to go easy on her. The task at the border had turned out to be a dud, with some rich kids trying to cross over the zilla with a little pouch of 'happiness' with them. There had been nothing for Abhirath and Vandit to do except tour the place and come back.
As for the code crackers, Nirbhay and Chiranjeev had been given a long already established set of code strings and the deciphers. They were supposed to learn it all before leaving from the Eastern zilla.
All in all, neither of the pairs had had an adventure like Mriga, or rather a misadventure. A black mark on the report card so early on was not desirable. Ever since she came out of Amrapali's office, she had been low on spirits. So, it was a shock to see her grinning widely enough to cause a crack in her lips at this moment.
Ramanujam lowered his voice conspiringly and said, "I will tell you but if any of this goes back to your senior, I will pull the hide of each of you."
The boys had no idea about what was being discussed but the slightest hint of gossip had all of them edging closer. Even though Abhirath and Chiranjeev pretended to remain aloof, their ears were straining to catch Guruji's softly uttered words.
"Shauryaveer was a smart child and managed to get into internship in his twelfth year, itself. Amrapali was his superior at the time and had given him the slip deliberately on the first assignment itself," Ramanujam started.
"Wait a second. You mean to say that the senior did that deliberately today? Hide from me in the market?" Mriga's voice held indignation.
Ramanujam's eyebrow cocked as if to ask that she still hadn't figured it out?
"You mean the assignment was a test as well? There were no infiltrators to be followed?" she asked in a small voice.
He shook his head and replied, "No no, that part was true but you are too green to be sent on a mission like that. Do you not remember that we had told all of you that such assignments would be given to people who are interning with the Suraksha Chakra? You all are still in the Gurukul's internship and were sent here only to observe the path of a spy in Suraksha Chakra."
"Uh, can we continue with brother Shaurya's story?" an impatient Vandit spoke up.
Ramanujam looked at him and chuckled.
"Where was I? Hmm... so Shaurya stood there wondering what to do and the next minute he had the same idea as you. I think this was the time when he first discovered his penchant for disguise. He didn't want to walk into the brothel as a student but like a ruffian. If I remember correctly, he went and picked a fight with someone deliberately to look authentic. After a good roll in the mud and a bruise near the eye, he had done something similar to what you did today," Ramanujam had a small smile on his face as he reminisced about the incident.
"And Amrapali Guruji must have been really furious with him at the time as she was with me today," Mriga was suddenly feeling extremely proud of herself.
She knew that what she had done was wrong and had far reaching consequences. But the fact that Shaurya did it too and turned out well enough, gave her a sense of reassurance about her own self.
But the next minute, her happy bubble burst.
"One time was enough, though. Don't you dare think that this gives you the license to behave in this manner in the future. I understand the reason behind your actions today but you need to know that unless you are not equipped to handle the consequences, you can't take that action because it would hurt people and things besides you. Do you understand?" Ramanujam said in a stern voice.