Shruti

I wore a white cotton kurta with flower embroideries with a multicolour rajasthani dupatta and white palazzo pants. My ears were adorned with silver earrings as I hooked a silver bracelet on my wrist, along with my usual silver chain with diamond heart pendant dangling on my neck.

As I completed my look with a nude lipstick and some Kohl on my eyes, I heard a throat clearing.

"Shruti is looking different today, isn't it, Swetha?" Rishita nudged my other roommate as they stood and admired my look.

"Indeed." Swetha gasped.

"Guys, we are getting late." I spoke, irritated at their drama.

"What's so special today, Swetha?" I heard both of them gushing as they went a little far.

It's been two weeks since that conference.

In almost four days, three of us, Swetha, Rishita, and I, received our email of being selected into the super sixty team. Though we have completed our master's from reputed central institutes still, we never expected it, being just freshers at IISU.

We were over the moon.

The first meeting of the super sixty was to be held last week, yet, it got delayed due to some last minute miss outs. Then, our usual classes started and kept us engaged.

Well, it was happening today.

"We are so excited." Rishita and Swetha jumped on me as I was slumping on the bed, scrolling my phone.

It was just 8 AM. The meeting was at 11:30 AM. Still, I was up early and all ready to go while, my friends were jumping in their night suits.

"By the way, something is seriously wrong with you, Shruthi!" Swetha stated, sitting before me.

"That's what I've been telling you, Swetha Padmanabhan!" Rishita gave her a 'I told you' look.

"What's wrong again?" I sighed, tired.

"Seriously? Do you not realise, Shruti? The girl who never wakes up even thirty minutes before the lectures, is sitting here all dolled up for a meeting which is like more than three hours away. Why is it, girl?" Rishita asked me in a dead serious tone.

"I'm just excited. I don't want to get late." I uttered, looking into her narrow eyes.

"Is it just because you don't want to get late or you don't wish to miss out a single second with a certain someone?" She wiggled her brows at me as I playfully hit her.

"You are being too much now." I spoke, rolling my eyes at her as I moved to the balcony to study for today's evening lecture.

"Yes yes. I know, that someday will definitely come when you come running to me to say you love him." She chuckled as I fumed in anger.

"That someday won't come." I gritted out, looked out of the window.

"Never say never, girl!" She hi-fied with Swetha as they got to complete their chores for the day.

After they went, my hold on the railings of the balcony tightened as my eyes shut close. The picture of my father's cries and begging played as a broken tape, followed by my shattered sister, who lost her husband and my crying aunt, when she found out how she had been played by her husband for fifteen years. Like a nail on the coffin, my brain soon registered a frail image of my maternal uncle, hanging from the ceiling fan, wordlessly with a smile, fisting onto his wife's cotton red scarf on his right palm.

Love? That's never happening in my life.

I've known enough about how love ruins. I saw it my whole life. I saw love ruin my whole family, weaved so beautifully.

I'm not a fool to not learn from them.

I calmed myself down as I sat back to study peacefully.

My alarm buzzed as it was already 11:00 AM so, we rushed out to the canteen to have our post-breakfast elevenses. I ate a pastry while, Rishita and Swetha ordered misti doi and matka kulfi respectively.

We, three girls, soon headed to the students union hall as we saw a crowd moving there.

Rishita and Swetha took their seats, while I got up to fetch our star batches from the table. On the way, I rushed into someone, landing on my butt.

"Ugh!" As I shrieked irritated, I saw a palm extended to me. Holding it, I stood up to see that guy from the conference day.

Though I was up already, he still hasn't given me a glance as his face was turned to his right as he conversed on a call.

"Thank you." I muttered. Unknown to me, my voice came out a little giddy courtesy to our closeness, perhaps.

It was the first time, I stood so near to him or any guy, just an inch of distance keeping us apart.

Unintentionally, something fluttered in the pit of my stomach as I backed a few steps from him.

"It's fine." He spoke, curtly as I saw him placing his phone back into his pant pocket.

The moment I raised my eyes to see him clearly, his eyes met mine and he stilled. His movements froze as he turned into an immovable stone. Damn!

But, in a flash of second, his eyes masked his emotions and his body movements eased as if he never stilled. Maybe, I was the one, who mistook his gestures. I shrugged.

Sighing at my newfound features, I mentally cursed myself as I subtly turned to take our star batches and reach my friends, who sat with a smug look plastered on their face.

"Don't open your mouth. I am already irritated." I warned as they gestured of a zipped mouth. Still, that smug look never left!

"Hello juniors." We heard a voice boom through the room as I saw Sidharth Sir with a mic on his hand near the podium.

"Congratulations on being selected into super sixty." He uttered as a thunder of claps emerged out of the crowds.

"I know, it will be tough to manage lectures, experiments, this semester-end exams along with a full-fledged dedicated research. Especially, for the freshers. But, we, all of your seniors assure you that we will be there at each step to help you out through this journey." He spoke softly with a small smile tugged on his lips.

"Let's make these four months memorable with our best efforts." He declared with determination and we all agreed with a loud 'yes'.

"Now, we are going to segregate all of you sixty people into four groups of fifteen to make the research process easier. The four team leads are Kunal Srivastav, Kavya Raul, Sanchari Dev Nair along with me. Sidharth Singh." He narrated and we kind of nodded in the mass.

"We will allocate teams shortly. Yes, it's not necessary to work with team lead of your own major. You can choose freely because at the end of the day, we all are going to work together. Hope you got it. Let's start without any delay as we are already running short on time because we have to wrap it up anyhow before the end of the three months." He informed us and all of us cheered for this new yet significant beginning.

Sidharth sir came down the stage. He sat on the front row besides his friends, who were laughing at a random topic. We were informed to make ourselves into four groups as per which team leader we wish to work under.

As both Swetha and Rishita stood in the group forming to work under Sidharth Sir, I tagged along. The crowd for him was huge as expected.

"Let's start with the team allocation." He conversed with us as he discussed with his friends. In between, his eyes met mine for once.

"Ffteen from that right corner are in my team." We heard Sidharth sir declare as I saw three of us were on his side. Swetha and Rishita had big smiles now.

As we said members stood a little away from the huge crowd, he walked towards us and inquired, "Two of you. Which major are you from?"

"We both are biology majors along with computer science minors, sir." Swetha answered, meekly.

"Join Kunal's team, both of you." He proposed as he propelled two other candidates to join his team.

"Sir, we are also from the same major as them." A girl from our department, who he called to join his team raised her voice.

"It's alright. Join." He dismissed as he strolled away.

"Sir, did we do anything wrong? Why them but, not us?" Swetha asked, softly. I knew, she was overthinking just like me.

"I don't like it when someone questions my decisions, Miss. Do as I said." He uttered a little rigidly.

"Sorry sir." Swetha replied, a little hurt with humiliation.

Maybe, perceiving her tone, Sidharth Sir replied gently, "Listen, whichever team you are in, doesn't matter. It's just made for the sake of organised functioning of our team. So, it should be least of your worries. Coming to being in my team, it won't make any difference because I am quite impartial. I will be treating each one of you alike, irrespective of the fact you are in my team or not. And, at any point, you feel like you need clarity in any topic of research, come to me without a second thought."

Swetha smiled nodding her head, which was promptly returned by the former.

"Whatever I said now is not just for her, it's for everyone." He asserted again, his eyes meeting mine as he strolled away.

"Everyone, Do write your name and the sub-units of your major, you are more interested in." Sir's bestfriend, Kunal sir piped in to inform us.

Rishita was beaming as she got to work with Sidharth Sir in his team as she sat more to the right. While, both Swetha and I, got to Kunal sir's team. He seemed sweet too.

I filled in 'astrobiology' and 'terraforming' in the space of my interests after I wrote my name.

As the meeting ended, I had a smile on my face.

Indeed, it's a good day!

°°°

Hey People,

The fourth chapter is out now. Ahh, The leads have officially met.

But, do you also feel the tension surrounding them? Well, let's see ahead what's in store for them?

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Comment more to make me happier. Lol.

See y'all. Thank you for reading. Have a great day/night ahead.

Love,
B ❤️