“I will get an auto for IIAM from the station, right? … Yeah, yeah… Don’t worry… I have to stay here now… I, of course, have to find my way around…” Subrato assured his cousin on phone.

“Going to join IIAM?” Paridhi asked her co-passenger on the train. The train was about to reach Lucknow from Delhi. She had boarded it in Allahabad. She was coming back after summer vacation to start her second year of MBA programme at Indian Institute of Administration and Management.

“Yes,” Subrato nodded with a smile.

“PGP1?” she asked. “I mean first year?” she added when she felt that he didn’t understand what she meant as she had used a term from campus-specific vocabulary.

“No…”

“All right,” Paridhi interrupted him saucily, “Don’t try to pass yourself off as a senior. I know everyone in my batch.”

“I am not doing anything of that sort,” Subrato replied patiently. But she interrupted before he could explain.

“Don’t tell me you are joining Ph. D.?” she raised her eyebrows. He looked too young for that.

“I am not. In fact…”

She interrupted with a loud laughter this time, “Then what? You are a Prof there or something?”

Instead of replying Subrato also joined her in the laughter convincing her that he was a first year student trying to pass off as a senior to avoid ragging.

“Were you lying to avoid ragging?”

“Uh… Umm… Yeah… I tried…”

“You would do well to learn, then, that you can’t escape me,” she replied with attitude, “Remember my face.”

“I will,” Subrato nodded in compliance.

“You shouldn’t worry about ragging though. Nobody in MBA programme has time for all that really. If anything happens at all, it would really be joke of a ragging. Especially after engineering college… Are you an engineer though?”

“I am not. I am an Economist.”

She laughed again, “No offense. But which BA programme in this country makes anyone an Economist?”

“None taken. No BA programme does.”

“But apart from engineering and Mathematics, Economics is one of the best subjects to study before MBA. You won’t have problem in quant subjects.”

“That’s… really good to know…”

“Do you have work experience?”

“Yeah…”

“That makes things tough you know… You lose the touch with student life. Classes, studies, mugging up for exams and all that… People with work experience may have better understanding of subjects like HR. But they find difficult to adjust to the study pressure.”

“I will keep that in mind. You are very helpful.”

“That I am. So, I will give you a ride to the institute. Even though you tried to lie to me. I have called a taxi. The way auto-wallahs try to loot you this early in the morning, booking a taxi is actually cheaper.”

“That’d be very helpful.”

Subrato listened to Paridhi’s chatter and endless advises about how to settle and do well at the institute during the rest of their train journey and the ride to the institute.

“This is my hostel. Can you see that building? That’s the administrative building. You should ask for the office of Dean of Student Affairs. You need to report there. Do you want me to take you there?”

“No. Don’t trouble yourself anymore. I will find the place. Thanks a lot.”

“You are welcome. And just because I gave you a ride, don’t think you can escape ragging.”

“I won’t dare!”

“Good. The taxi will drop you there. It’s pre-paid. No need to pay. Bye!”

“Bye! Have a good day. And thanks a lot for the ride.”

Subrato got down from the taxi in front of the administrative building and asked someone passing by, “Excuse me. Where is the office of Dean of Faculty Affairs?”

—

The next day was the first day of classes for the new trimester. Paridhi was walking towards the academic area with a group of her friends.

“I have decided that in this trimester my strategy will be to not miss a single class until I have my 85% compulsory attendance. Then towards the end, I will chill out completely.” she informed everyone decisively.

“You are going to attend each and every class till then?” her friend was incredulous.

“Of course.”

“You missing 85% attendance is the only chance of anyone else getting better grade than you, because you will have a grade drop. If that isn’t happening, Sudhanshu can forget about his rivalry with you.”

Paridhi Chauhan was the batch topper after first year and Sudhanshu Mishra was her closest competitor.

“Who cares about grades, yaar? It’s just fun to game the system.”

One of the guys in the group sighed as he replied, “Those who get the grades easily don’t care.”

“Whatever!” Paridhi dismissed his point and started talking about something else.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you,” she whispered to Catherine as they made to their seats, “I met this fresher on the train yesterday…” Catherine was her best friend in the college.

“You were going around the train scouting for the freshers?”

“Shut up, Cathy. His seat was next to mine. This guy is really cute-looking. But he was trying to act over-smart. He tried to pass himself off as a second year student…”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And…”

Suddenly everyone in the class fell silent, a sign of the professor entering. She looked up to see who the new Economics professor was. Her eyes widened in surprise. She stared at him agape as he introduced himself.

“Hi. My name is Subrato Sen. I have joined the Economics department just now. And I will be taking your advanced Econometrics class. That you can, of course, guess,” he joked, “Else I won’t be standing before you in this classroom at this ungodly hour. Disturbing your as well as my own sleep,” It drew a laughter from everyone except Paridhi.

Subrato scanned the faces of people sitting in the class and Paridhi cringed as she felt his eyes linger at her for a couple of seconds. She even discerned a scorning smile on his face for a split second.

“What has happened to you?” Catherine asked her after the class, “You didn’t speak a single word in the class.”

“Umm… Nothing. I just didn’t feel like. There wasn’t anything interesting going on,” she cooked up an alibi.

“He asked so many questions, which nobody knew the answer to. I am sure you did… By the way, doesn’t the new Prof look too young to be a Prof?”

“I think so…” Of course, she did!

“And very, very cute. I hope he is unmarried. Time for the next class. Let’s go…”

—

To be continued