Nitya rushed after she had scarfed down an omelette with her coffee, giving her best friend a quick hug, "I will return early in the evening Suro; if possible. Bye!"
Surbhi smiled at her naïvete, she knew that once the social butterfly was out of her cocoon, it was completely impossible for her to be back early. Apparently, she couldn't say no to anybody. This habit of hers had lead her to going on almost 12 dates, from which she had returned, announcing that she had handled the situation by giving out a long list of demands which she wanted in her boyfriend and that there was no term like 'dating' in her dictionary, she would marry and spend her whole life with her first love. And amazingly, she had charmed them such that all of them ended up being her friends!
Surbhi was still wondering about this when she got a call from Mukul.
"Hello love, good morning...yeah she has just left the house…okay, you inform Mehul bhaiya and I will let you know if I have any space in my bag for your stuff…no, I haven't told her about our personal trip after the college trip...but Mukul, she is a kid! Alright, it's your problem then: you are gonna ask her or tell her, do whatever you want to do- just leave me out of the scene...I am going to finish packing and I'll see you later, bye!"
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Nitya entered the college she had visited several times before with her brother, but for the first time as a student there! She pulled out her phone to call him, but he called her right then instead.
"Haa, hello…actually I am at the entrance-" she was just completing her sentence when she felt someone tap her on the head!
"What's with this behavior Dada (brother)! Have you forgotten that we are in college?"
"No, I haven't!"
"Then you must have forgotten that you are a faculty here? Is that it?"
"Oh! That I actually did forget," he replied, chuckling at how strict Nikki was being. But he had just the remedy for that. "Anyway, today is the first day of my only sister's Post Grad classes, there's no way I was going to miss it! So, I have something for you."
Nitya looked at her brother as he held out a hand towards her, in which he was holding a package. She quickly snatched it, asking him what was inside; but before she could have opened it,she heard two voices calling her name at the same time!
"Oh no! Dada, I need your help right now. They won't say anything stupid in front of you, so please ask me to come along with you; I will explain everything later."
Mehul laughed after seeing his sister panicking at the prospect of dealing with her classmates, as if he was watching his own daughter in her toddler phase, learning the basics of social interaction and yet, doing something new everyday to amaze him!
"Okay Nikki; you know, I love you a lot but you do owe me one!"
"Good morning Professor," two voices greeted him at the same time, as two people walked towards them from different directions.
"Good morning Atharv and Kanan, I am glad to see you guys here. I really hoped that all five of you would make it! But anyways, you guys will be notified about your schedule shortly. Atharv and Nitya, I hope the two of you are ready with your paper, I would appreciate to see the progress! Well Nitya, please come along with me, I need to talk to you about your passport process." Saying this, he moved forward without waiting for any reply.
"Yes sir, we will show you the paper very soon." Atharv replied, oblivious that Mehul had already started walking away.
Nitya rushed to catch up with her brother, mumbling "Yes sir" and waving the boys an awkward goodbye.
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After they had entered the research lab, Mehul sat on the teachers' booth and stared at his sister who had been following his footsteps without looking up for once. When he sat down, he knew she would notice that his footsteps had ceased and would finally look up. But to his surprise, she continued to stare at the floor after stopping a few feet away from him.
He was about to nudge her to say something, when he saw Professor Aanya coming into the lab. He knew this situation was already a blunder waiting to happen, because as much as he loved his sister, she didn't want to reveal the nature of their relationship to anyone as she hated undue attention. 'But the plum head always forgot to account for the fact that her genius mind was going to attract that attention anyway!' However that may be, he had to play along with her sister for the time being.
"Hello Professor Aanya, how can I help you?"
The professor fixed her gaze at the girl wearing a pastel green crop top with blue denim and her hair flowing down her back. She tried to jog her memory as she was getting the inkling that she had seen this pretty girl somewhere before, but couldn't recall where. She took a while but was still unsuccessful, she cursed her memory and finally turned towards Mehul with a stiff smile.
"Good Morning! I didn't know you had a guest here, otherwise I would have not bothered you this early."
It dawned on Mehul that he would have to clear this misunderstanding ASAP, otherwise Nitya would kill him, and Aanya would try to make life harder for his little one!
"Let me introduce you to her! Nitya, this is Professor Aanya and she is going to teach you ethnography this semester. And Professor Aanya, she is Nitya- one of the talented students from the college where I was called for a series of guest lectures last year, if you recall."
"Oh, so this is Nitya! It's nice to see you here," She spoke with a smile that Nitya felt seemed rather fake, but she yanked the thought out of her mind and greeted her politely.
"Good morning professor. It's nice to meet you too, and I'm really glad that I got the opportunity to be taught by you."
Mehul saw the tension arising as he also felt that something was off about Aanya's greeting, so he meddled again.
"Nitya, come here child. I have the manuscript you were looking for, take this!"
"Okay sir, thank you." Nitya said and stepped forward to receive the manuscript.
"Didn't you tell me that they were a group of five, is she the only one to get admission here?" She heard Professor Aanya asking again.
"Actually no, three of them have made it but I really wanted the other two to be here as well," he replied. Nitya felt as if the wind was knocked out of her when she heard him; 'would she ever be able to tell her brother the truth about one of his favourite students?'
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