Right Here [Regular Updates]

Chapter 1

Shreya sighed. This morning she received a letter. When she saw the sender's address, her fingers shook and her heart trembled. It was from TIFR. This could be her gateway. What she wanted was to pursue a postdoctoral academic career.

She had just woken up and had yet to wash herself. Unable to go into the puja room unbathed, she squatted down in front of the puja room's door, put the letter on the ground, and smoothly pushed it into the room. The letter rested before the puja stand, exactly as she wanted. She gave herself a light smirk. She was a physicist for a reason!

Then she went about her day and was finally fresh. She went into the puja room, recited all the mantras she knew before she was finally ready to take a look inside the envelope. She knew it was regarding her fellowship with the institute, but she was very sceptical. She did not do particularly well

The next second, she backed out. God knew what she would do should she not be accepted.

She let the letter rest and went to grab her phone. She checked the horoscope. It was an unlucky day. She had to wear turquoise, but she was dressed in bright yellow.

She sighed. Because it was not urgent to know the result, she decided to open it another day.

Her phone rang and she went into her room.

Neha, her friend, was on the other side.

Shreya spoke right after picking the call up. "Don't you dare say you can't come!"

"Shreya... my sleeping beauty..."

"What!"

"The club is featuring delinquents this time! Come with me!"

"No. I'll go shopping by myself." She cut the call and sighed.

Neha was dumb at selecting clothes and she had asked her to go shopping together last week and now she ditched her.

She had met Neha during her M. Sc. and they hit it off. Both here knee deep into anime and shared how it saved their lives. The difference was that while Neha would go and mingle with every other anime fan in Mumbai, she preferred not to do that. Moreover, the genres of anime the two enjoyed were different too. For Neha , it was 'Attack on Titan.' For Shreya, it was 'I Want to Eat Your Pancreas.'

Another difference was that she had her fair share of anime crushes in her teenage years and not anymore, but Neha still crushed over them. Shreya sighed again, loudly this time. Her friend did not grow up at all given that they were 24 already.

That day, her father, Shekhar, was home as it was a holiday. She was avoidant of him and opened her books pretending to study.

Her father was very patriarchal. One day she said both genders are equal and boy, she got a lecture on why they were not, why women should be submissive and listen to men, how they were the weaker sex, and finally how she should just consider whatever was caught at college only career-wise and not apply it to the domestic sphere.

It happened when she was in college. At that time she felt very rebellious. She waited two months before she went to the parlour and asked for a boy-cut. Two months because she did not want her father to know this was her reaction, although he never cared much about her style as long as it was modest enough.

When he asked, she said it was summer then and she would fail if she washed her long hair everyday. Her hair had been 3 feet long after all. Baths were earlier with short hair and maintenance was close to none.

Now her hair was reaching her neck, only because she went for regular haircuts and maintained it that way.

"Shreya? Not going out?" her mother, Lalitha, asked her when she was trying to play with her hair. She had to tilt her neck to a painful angle to have enough length of her hair in her hand to twirl it.