“Rupali. It’s time for some future planning.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your course work gets over next semester, right?”

“Yes.”

“With the amount of research output you have already produced, after that within four to five months you should be ready to defend your Ph. D. thesis.”

Rupali stared at him, astonished, while he continued, “That means you would have finished your Ph. D. in one year from now. You should start looking up the places you would want to do a post-doc at and start applying.”

“This is so sudden!” she said, not quite knowing how to react.

“Not really. I am planning for next one year. But yes, in the time frame of research world, it’s fairly short.”

“I have been here for barely eighteen months.”

“Yes. So, you will get a Ph. D. in record time. That isn’t surprising. If you had joined after an MS or M. Tech. your course work requirement would have been lesser and you would have finished even earlier.”

“Right,” Rupali mumbled. It was all she could do to not burst out with everything she had been keeping buried inside her. So, this was his plan for “not for long”. He was preparing to throw her out of his life. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. But she did not want to cry before him again. “Excuse me,” she said and got up.

As she left, Paritosh was engulfed with a suffocating sense of wretchedness. His face distorted in pain as he looked at her receding form. He had pushed his luck here. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy. He  had expected her to be furious. He  had expected her to fight back, and fight hard. And then he had hoped that she would agree to his plan like she always did. Giving up, despite disagreeing. But none of that happened. He felt that he had killed something vital inside her. He had broken her. Of all the people in the world, he shouldn’t have been the one to break her like that.

And yet! What else could he have done? He had to do what was ultimately right for her.They couldn’t be living near an active volcano for long.

—

Rupali worked like a maniac for next eight months. She often spent entire nights in the lab, going back to the hostel only to shower and change, then coming back to the lab again. Dark circles were evident around her eyes.

Paritosh grew worried. “You will fall ill at this rate, Rupali,” he tried to bring her to her senses, “Slow down. You are not running out of time.”

“I’m fine.”

“Research is a long-distance race, Rupali. You can’t burn yourself out like this.”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

He had once believed that Rupali ultimately gave in to him despite fighting him. As if it was something she couldn’t help. But now he realized that she gave in only when she wanted to. In the beginning, he had been unable to change her mind about going to the US for Ph. D. or about writing GATE. Now again, he could do nothing to rein her in. She refused to take care of herself, to observe any limits for her health and well-being. So he started doing whatever he could to take care of her. One day she found her drawer filled with energy bars. At other times, he would summon her to his office and force her to have milk, tea or food. She resisted even that initially, but afterwards started obliging him by eating whatever he offered. While that made the situation slightly better, it was by no means healthy. But she did not let Paritosh change her mind about anything else at all.

—

“Sir,” Vineeta, a final year undergraduate student doing her B. Tech. Project with him, was at the door.

“Yes, Vineeta. Come in.”

“Sir. Day after is our hostel day. If Rupali has not already invited you, I would like to invite you and your family for it.” Paritosh was taken aback. It had been a year already? Why did Rupali not invite him? It was not the Diwali week and he wasn’t going anywhere else either.

“Thanks, Vineeta. Rupali had asked me. But I am not sure I will be able to make it. If I can, I will definitely meet you there. But don’t get coupons for me. Rupali would have it. Thanks a lot for the invitation and sorry.”

“No problem, Sir. But I hope you are able to make it. The celebrations are going to be really good this time. Our batch is organizing it.”

“I am sure,” he smiled.

He kept waiting for next two days. Rupali did not invite him. He realized, finally, that she wasn’t even aware of the hostel day this time. The evening when her hostel-mates were celebrating, she was in the lab. Most of her experiments and simulations were already over. She was now working on writing her thesis.

He walked into the lab, which was deserted, except for Rupali. “Rupali. You–”

“Dr. Khanna,” she said excitedly, “I think I am done. I only have to proof-read it. Otherwise my thesis is ready. And I can defend any time.”

“That’s great,” he tried hard, but could not match the enthusiasm she showed.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t have to keep up any pretenses around me now, Dr. Khanna. Nor do you have to worry about me. I am going to leave you alone very soon.”

“And that’s what you have been overworking yourself for all these days, rather months?”

“You wanted me to finish quickly, didn’t you?”

“I did, didn’t I? But I wanted it because I knew you were capable of it. That didn’t mean I wanted you to torture yourself like this. Why would you not listen to me, Rupali? I did not want any harm to come to you. I have always wanted the best for you. And I always will.”

“I know. I just–,” she averted her eyes and she choked on her words for a moment. She spoke again after clearing her throat, “I did not want to be the reason behind any troubles in your life.”

“I will miss you, Rupali,” Paritosh finally let his guards down and spoke his heart out, “I will miss you terribly. In fact, I have already been missing you for last so many months. The Rupali I knew has been lost to me, already. But at least you were around. There was a hope that one fine morning you will change back to your usual self. And then you will come to my office excited about a new paper you stumbled upon, fight with me over something trivial, invite me for the hostel day, get upset with me if I missed it. You had stopped doing all of that. But there was still a hope. Now that will be gone too. I will miss you.”

Both their eyes were moist.

“But you will not stop me?” she asked after a pause.

“No. Not for the life of mine.”

They stood in silence, their eyes locked on each other, for once not trying to stop them from revealing the raw emotions of their hearts.

Finally, Paritosh broke the trance by asking, “Where have you decided to take up the post-doc?”

“JHU. A great machine learning and NLP group.” Rupali played her part by answering.

“Good choice.”

“Dr. Khanna?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you keep in touch? Or is that also–”

“When did I say I won’t? I’m hoping to collaborate with you.”

“Why do you want to send me away, then?”

“One, it’s not good for you career to be staying here all your life. Two, us being in proximity is like an active volcano. If it erupts, too many people will be hurt. I can’t take that on my conscience. Nor can you.”

Rupali looked away. She couldn’t argue with that.

“If possible, Rupali, don’t be mad at me. I could have done better by you. I am letting you down. But I am torn between responsibilities. And I am not rebellious enough to–”

“Even in this,” she interrupted, “You are my role-model. I will miss you, but I will always admire how you thought about others before yourself. Not just your family, you also prioritized my career, my future and my well-being over your feelings.”

Paritosh closed his eyes and took a few moment to gain control of himself and of the situation he was in. Then he said, “Take some rest tonight. You look ill. Let’s discuss your defense tomorrow morning.”

He walked out before he could do something stupid and damaging. Rupali sank down in her chair and cried her heart out.

—

To be continued