Rupali entered the coffee shop and found Paritosh already there, occupying a corner table. Two cups of cappuccino were already placed on the table.

“I ordered for you. I hope you don’t mind,” he said as she slipped into the chair opposite his.

“Thanks,” she replied, fully aware the neither of them were likely to finish their coffee.

“Firstly, I am sorry for the way my brother behaved.”

“I am sorry for triggering it in the first place.”

“It isn’t as much about you as it is about me. So, don’t blame yourself.”

It was at the last monthly get-together he had organized for his students at his home that Aniket had spilled the secret of his heart to Paritosh. That Rupali was the mystery woman he was in love with all along. And that he intended to ask her out soon.

“Rupali? Really?” Paritosh’ first reaction was of disbelief. Thankfully Aniket was too excited to notice it or take offence.

“Is she expecting it?” Paritosh had asked more carefully next.

“I am sure she is.”

It wasn’t just his conflicting emotion that made Paritosh wary of Aniket’s confidence. He genuinely could not imagine Rupali and his brother together. The two were totally different. Aniket, to Paritosh’ eternal regret, was a spoiled brat. Rupali, on the other hand, knew what she wanted from life and would do whatever it took to achieve it. Her maturity belied her age, without which Paritosh would never have fallen for her.

Now Aniket and Rupali! Strange as it sounded, he realized that he had no business interfering. If Rupali could indeed love someone like Aniket, perhaps she knew what for.

Presently Rupali was objecting, “But you aren’t–”

“Rupali. He has found out something about me that I would never have told you. At least not while you work under me. But it is better that you don’t find out about it in the same bombastic way that I found out about you.”

She went rigid. It couldn’t be what it sounded like. Or could it?

“But you and I, right now,” he continued, “We are both adults, right? We understand the consequences of our actions. We know how to control them to avoid unpleasant consequences. Do you agree?”

He paused and looked at her. His question was not rhetorical. He was expecting an answer.

“Yes,” she managed to hiss.

“So here is the truth about me. I am–” here he paused and drew in a breath, “I am attracted to you. And that I suppose makes it two of us.”

She averted her eyes.

“But we both know we can’t act on it.”

She nodded, “We can’t act on it.”

“I am at a good place in my career; you are at the beginning of what I foresee to be a wonderful career. Even a whiff of a scandal and both will be destroyed. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Good. So now we can leave this behind us and get back to work as usual.”

Despite herself, that hurt her. She understood everything he said. She had known them herself all along. University rules didn’t look kindly at a professor-student relationship, especially when it was between a Ph. D. student and her supervisor – a direct hierarchical relationship.  And yet – how could it be work as usual after knowing that her feelings were reciprocated?

Outwardly, she held her composure and told him, “Your mother called me.”

He looked puzzled, “Who?”

“Your mother. She wanted to meet me and talk about Aniket.”

“Meena ji?”

It was Rupali’s turn to look puzzled.

He rubbed his temple, and looked completely out of wits.

Assuming that the idea of Rupali meeting her had troubled him, she clarified to comfort him, “I haven’t met her. I told her that I will speak to you first.”

“Yes. You don’t have to. I’m sorry. I will talk to her not to do something like that again. Meena ji wants to bring the world into her son’s laps if he desires and this time she has crossed a line. Oh right! You are confused. She is not my– I mean she is my step-mother.”

“Oh!” That put the relationship between the brothers in a different light. “I’m really sorry, Dr. Khanna that I have strained your relationship with your family. Is there anything I can do to fix it? I have been trying to talk to Aniket since leaving your office, but he won’t pick up my phone–”

“Don’t! This is not your fault, Rupali. This is not your problem to fix. You must not worry about it. The only thing you need to worry about is,” here he smiled, “Doing well in your research and getting your Ph. D. And of course, living your life without being affected by all this.”

She nodded, non-committal.

“Promise me that you would do that, Rupali,” he insisted.

“I promise that I will give my all to my research and one day – hopefully soon enough – I will have defended my thesis. And then we will not be in this fix. We will be free to make our own decisions.”

He fell speechless for a moment, then spoke slowly and deliberately, “No. You can’t go there, Rupali. We don’t know when that will be, what kind of people we would be by then and what other questions we may have to ask at that point. Please. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t do this to me.”

“Fair enough.” She was seething from inside, but he had been nothing if not rational.

“I will repeat this. Live your life. You will meet people. Including, I must say, my brother. He may not have behaved his best today. But know that if you ever got together, I will be very happy!”

“No! Dr. Khanna. You can’t do this. Yes – I know where we stand. What we can or can’t do. But I am not a doll that you can sacrifice me to your brother.”

Damn! In Rupali’s eyes he had made the same mistake that he had warned Meena ji against.

“I’m sorry,” he quickly acquiesced, “You are right. It wasn’t my intention. But I was way out of line there. I didn’t mean to set you up or anything. I was just saying… Anyway. None of my business. Never again.”

Despite winning the argument, she felt utterly defeated. The situation was set up for her defeat. There was no way she could win. This wasn’t what she had come for. When she had received her Ph. D. offer and had learned that she had been accepted by one of most renowned professor in her field of choice, she had been on the top of her world. She hadn’t landed in the US expecting to fall in love with this professor in her very first meeting with him. She hadn’t thought that she would not call him by his first name – like all his students did – despite him having requested so in that very first meeting because she would become afraid of any intimacy between them.

And she was definitely not prepared for the eventuality that her supervisor’s brother, who had been her batchmate during undergraduate days, would fall in love with her, react badly to her refusal and goad her into blurting out the name of the person she was really in love with.

Paritosh, then, made her promise that if she was ever troubled by Aniket or his mother, she must come to him immediately.

—

To be continued