MANGO MILKSHAKE

Chapter 15

Buildings in Kolkata either look like massive haunted houses painted in blood red or just plain tall towers coated in lazy whites and blues. The taxi stopped infront of a building that resembles with later one. From the outside it has nothing special to notice except for NISW written in bold alphabets.

NISW was founded at least a hundred years ago by a Kolkata based south Indian man after he faced discrimination and bullying by British people.
The primary interest of this institution was to make Indian students capable enough to compete with non-native students but after the independence and death of the actual founder it turned into something else. Slow but steady modifications at last turned it into a coaching institute filled with rat races.

Yaseen got out of the taxi and held open the door for me. The game of pretention begins here. I put on a brilliant smile on display and get out of taxi as well. After paying the fare Yaseen led my way to his department. NERD is a subunit located on the 3rd floor of NISW building. As I walked forward I saw a  bunch of young boys and girls walking down the corridor wearing blue t-shirt with NISW written on it. They must be the pupils. Seeing these young people walking around, chatting, laughing kind of reminded me of my own academic life that I've left behind for nothing.

The lift opened and both of us got into it but before it could be closed, the person I wasn't anticipating to see on this fine morning just jumped into lift to stand between Yaseen and me.

"What a great day! I never thought I'll meet you so soon. How are you Ayat?" She asked with an obvious plastic smile on her lips.

"I'm certainly fine. What about you, Nisha?" I wanted to say "I've been better before seeing your face" but that won't be much helpful.

"From Nisha apa to only Nisha? Where's your manner Mrs Syed? Who's spoiling you?" Nisha nudged Yaseen playfully as she mocked me.

"Hey hey there... I've nothing to do with your senior junior honorifics" Yaseen retorted.

"Mr Syed ain't taking any blame." Nisha laughed in a way that reminded me of my top ten hated sounds and her voice being five of them.

"Nishaaa... We're not in school anymore. Real world is different. I can omit the honorifics since none is going to report me to principal's office." I half laughed to make sure it doesn't sound like a threat. Although I wanted her to know that she has no authority over me anymore. Nisha's frown tells me the brick wrapped in gold foil hit exactly where I wanted it to. The lift opened once again and three of us headed towards the room where all the celebrations taking place. Nisha's appearance has changed but her behaviour hasn't evolved a bit ever since she left high school. Her habit of clinging onto somebody else's lover is still a constant. The way she's acting towards Yaseen as if that guy isn't a man I married a month ago.

"You two get along real good" I said Yaseen after Nisha left as she had some filings to do in another room.

"Yes. She's like a little sister, always goofy." Yaseen laughed, I didn't.

"Really? Must be a very nice girl." I said.

"Ofcourse. She's good. You two went school together. Don't you know?" Yaseen arched an eyebrow.

"Nobody knows better than me" I said as Yaseen opened the door of the event room.

A trivial familiar scent gave me a sense of deja vu as the door was opened. The room was filled with twenty adults of both genders and twice as much younger boys and girls in uniforms.  The walls are decorated with balloons and paper chains. The little tricolors are hanging here and there, a big poster says "Happy republic day" in big cursive letters.

"Oh SY sir is there too, Oh look....He has brought our bhabhi ji  ( sister in law) too." A stocky man wearing leather jacket said in a cheerful voice.