The Typical Indian Girl

Chapter-4

Debby finished with her ‘Project Anaida’, and at sharp 1:30 Anaida was standing at the entrance gate of her college. She waited for five minutes, all the while thinking that she was a fool big enough to have accepted a date invitation that through via a card. It could be a prank, she thought, to make her look like a fool in front of the whole college by making her wait for a ‘date’ that never really was there.

She thought that she wouldn’t let them make a fool out of her and so she started out of her college gate. She was on the last step down when a hand grabbed her arm. Startled, she turned suddenly, almost losing her balance when a strong arm quickly came down her waist to help her. Taking a deep breath, as if she’s successfully survived a huge accident, she turned to face her rescuer. Ankush’s face was grinning down at her with naughtiness filled eyes.

“I’m so sorry for that. I thought you were walking away so I hurriedly came down to catch up with you”.

“You could have called out my name”. She said freeing herself from him and taking a step down.

“Yeah, I probably should have. Hey look I’m really sorry”. He said with a sheepish grin while brushing the back of his head with one of his hands. It was then that Anaida finally looked at his appearance. He looked no less than a hero in a blue jeans, white shirt and black jacket. His clothes were simple but still his appearance screamed elegance and style. “Should we go then?”

His question snapped her out of her thoughts and she blushed a little as she thought that he had caught her checking him out. “Yeah, sure. Where to?” She asked as they started walking towards the parking lot.

“I was thinking about grabbing some lunch out of campus and then we can go for a movie and then……”

“Wait wait wait, what? Lunch out of campus? Movie? And then more? I’m sorry to interrupt your big plan but I actually have a really important class at 3, that I can’t miss and so, we only have an hour and 15 minutes, exactly, to maybe eat some lunch, that too in campus. Or maybe we can cancel today’s meet and we can reschedule it to some other time.” He opened his mouth, about to start his protest but her final sentence made him stop.

“No, it’s fine. We can continue today’s plan as you like and then we can go out again some other day according to my plans.” He said, emphasizing the last two words with a smirk. “So, shall we start our date ma’am?” He asked with a cheeky grin, showing off his dimples. She was too amazed to hear word ‘date’ from his mouth too. She didn’t deny and told him that it wasn’t a date, like she was doing till now, but rather smiled and walked off with him by her side.

***

Her date went pleasantly well, way better than she had expected it to be. They ate spicy food, talked about their past education, what expectations did they have from studying here and much more. After being a little shy at first, Anaida had opened up really well with him. By the end of her date, she almost regretted that she had a class that day.

She was quite late and had exactly 2 minutes to get to her English class on time. She took a deep breath when she looked at her classroom from across the hall and found that the teacher hadn’t come yet. Still, she started walking really fast towards the room, almost running towards it and just at the entrance she harshly bumped into someone, who also maybe was trying to get into the class on time. The bump was quite bad, as she felt a harsh pain on her left side and all her books went flying on the floor. She closed her eyes, stroked her left arm and let out a groan, not in pain but feeling irritated.

“And we meet again and in exactly the same way.” The voice made her eyes snap open quite wide as looked down at a guy, who was picking his books up along with hers. This was the same guy she had bumped into, on her first day of college. “I think you were trying to take a payback.” He said smiling widely at her, as he stood up and handed over her books. He saw that she was still holding on to her left arm, into which he had unintentionally bumped. “I’m so sorry for that, is it hurting? Let me take you to your seat, come.” He said seriously, smile gone from his face as he moved forward to help her.

“No, I’m fine.” She said a bit more harshly then she had intended it to be and took a step back from him.

“Okay then at least let me take your books to your seat.”

“You really don’t need to. I’m fine and I can carry them too.” She felt harsh pain on her left arm but she didn’t want to show it away. She pulled her books from his hand and quickly went inside the classroom to grab a front seat for herself.

He followed her in and sat on the seat just behind her. He looked around the classroom and quickly said his hellos to everyone he knew, which was basically everyone, except the rude and arrogant girl sitting in front of him.

She heard him exchange his pleasantries with everyone in the class and waited that he would say something to her too but maybe because of her excessively rude behavior, he had decided otherwise, or rather that was what she thought. She thought of turning back and apologize for her rude behavior but on exactly that moment the teacher entered the class.

Nobody could have guessed that this guy is their teacher as the person standing in front of them was extremely young, maybe a few years older to his students, and was really handsome.

“Hey people, wassup? I’m Roy and I’ll be teaching you this course this time.” He said making the whole class quite. Not just Anaida, but everyone was equally shocked to see such a young person there.

“Hey bro, how come you teaching this course?” The guy from just behind her seat asked Roy, too casually as if he knew him too well and well, he did.

“Haha. Hello to you too bro. I didn’t knew you’ll be here too. And yes I’ll be teaching this course as I’m working under the professor, who is actually assigned for this course and he has asked me to take control of you guys.” He finished off with a smirk on his face.

“Hell! This couldn’t have gone any better.” The bumping guy exclaimed harshly.

“Shushhh you now. I might be your brother at home, but here I’m your teacher.”

Anaida heard a groan from her back but was too stunned to look back in midst of all the drama around her. She just took a deep breath and waited for what would come next.