“Hello Ms. Gupta,” Mou grinned at her when they met next.

Karishma gave an exaggerated sigh and pressed her chest dramatically. Mou broke into a giggle. “What happened in the great Professor Sen’s office?”

“He is drop-dead gorgeous, Mou!”

“Ah! So, it took some personal attention from him for you to admit that?”

“Whatever that means. He said something about my assignment. And I blabbered something stupid about continuous evaluation. I bet he was laughing after I left, if those facial muscles are capable of flexing for a laugh.”

“You want to impress him, eh?”

“That would be fun, won’t it?” Karishma grinned.

“Good luck!”

—

Karishma lingered outside his office. This was the third time in the day she was doing it. The last two times she had lost courage and gone back. The same would have happened this time too, except that the door suddenly opened.  She was standing right in front of it at that moment. She startled and jumped back.

“Yes?” Siddhartha asked briskly.

“Prof. Sen… Sir!! Good morning… I mean good evening, Sir.”

He frowned and looked at her quizzically. “You wanted to meet me?” he asked.

“No… Yes Sir. But you were going somewhere. I can come later.”

“Only to the restroom. Why don’t you wait in the office for five minutes?”

“Yes Sir.”

She took a deep breath once inside the office and tried to collect her thoughts. She had spent so many hours trying to gather the courage to knock that she had forgotten the alibi she had in mind for coming there. What was it? Ah, right! The assignment. Anna Karenina as a feminist character.

“Yes. Tell me, Ms. Gupta. What did you want?” he came and sat on his chair.

She had gathered her wits together and spoke with reasonable calmness. “You had made a remark about my assignment. Anna Karenina one. That there was a lot to debate. I was wondering about that. We could probably have that debate… sometime?”

“Sure. Now?”

“Yeah. Why not?” she would be missing her philosophy class, she realized. But she might not have the courage to come back if she left now.

“What is more interesting than you not considering Anna a feminist character is that you consider Karenin one.”

“Yes. I have given reasons for thinking that way.”

“But if Anna, at best, is an accidental feminist, isn’t Karenin one too? When he doesn’t fight a duel or is permissive towards his wife, he is not thinking about her, but himself.”

“Feminism is not only about women’s welfare. It breaks the patriarchal stereotype not just for women, but men too. A man is allowed to be what would derogatorily be called being sissy or being a cuckold. He doesn’t have to be manly the way patriarchy asks him to be. And it is fine. Doesn’t make him a lesser person. Anna doesn’t assert and claim her feminist rights even when given a chance by her husband. He does. Although he doesn’t have the feminist vocabulary to justify his decisions. So, he uses politics, importance of his work and religion for it.”

Siddhartha found it pleasant to listen to her fervent speech. He was no longer as interested in having a debate as in listening to her talk.

“So, you are unforgiving to Anna,” he said suppressing a smile.

“I pity her. I don’t blame her for being what she was, for wanting to live a life she wasn’t granted. But God forbid if I were as weak as she was, if I caused so many people so much misery by my actions. Whatever be the society’s failings and hypocrisies, if I did something like what she did, I’d die much sooner than her. I’d rather fight the hypocrisies bravely than fall a victim of it weakly.”

“You would,” he could not help smiling now.

His smile mesmerized and unnerved her. “I’m… talking too much…” she averted her eyes.

“No. It’s fine. It’s interesting to see that you get so emotionally involved with characters you read about.”

“Yeah,” she chuckled at that, “Mou says I am an idiot to be doing so.”

“Mou?”

“My friend. She sits next to me in the class.”

“Ah! Anyway. I see that you have already missed a class.” She flushed on hearing that. He had known that she was missing a class! “You should not miss another.”

“Yes Sir,” she got up hurried.

“Just a minute, Ms. Gupta,” he stopped her.

“Yes Sir?”

“You were saying something about continuous evaluation the other day? You don’t like it.”

“Uh… Yeah. I know it is supposed to make us study and all. But preparing for tests all the time is not fun. You need time to read, reflect and discuss.”

“Hmm… Okay. You can leave now.”

“Good night, Sir.”

“Good night.”

—

“Choices, indeed!” Mou made a face.

“What happened?” Karishma asked. Mou had been looking at the noticeboard.

“So, apparently the academic senate has come up with a proposal to give us an alternative to continuous evaluation. Instead of tests every week, we could do semester-long projects with presentations every week, under any professor who agrees. So, which is the greater torture according to you, Karishma?”

But Karishma had gotten busy reading the noticeboard and didn’t reply.

“This is interesting,” she said at last, “I should like to go for it over the tests.”

“I’d never do that. But to each his own. Come. We are getting late.”

“Do you remember by when do we have to register if we want to take it up the next semester?” Karishma asked Mou as they walked to the class.

“I think till the end of next month. So, who are you doing it with, Ms. Gupta? With SS?” Mou winked at her. She’d call her ‘Ms. Gupta’ whenever she wanted to tease her about Siddhartha.

Karishma just grinned in reply.

—

“So, what project would you want to do?”

“One idea I had was to create a resource for lay people wanting to read classics. There are several historical and sociological reference that keep people from enjoying them even if they can get past the archaic language.”

“Hmm… Like?”

“Can I use your laptop? I will show you a website which does it for Jane Austen’s work… Here. See. For example it explains why those ladies who didn’t need to work for anything else kept sewing and mending all day. Apparently clothes were not as cheap then. This one here explains how costly the transportation was… Things like these.”

“Interesting. I think this can be taken up. But you will have to do at least one book per week for it to qualify as a valid project. Will you be up for it? It will be time-consuming.”

Ah! The demanding teacher was back. But she wasn’t going to back out now.

“Yes, Prof. Sen. I can do that. At least it saves me from weekly tests.”

“All right, then. Next semester. After the class schedule is announced, we should fix up a one-hour slot ever week to catch up on the progress. Ideally one day before the weekly presentation.”

“Yes Sir.”

“I am glad that you are using this opportunity, Ms. Gupta” he said all of sudden.

“Excuse me?”

“The opportunity of doing a project instead of taking the tests. You disliked that, didn’t you?”

“Yes Sir,” a hesitating smile formed on her lips.

—

To be continued