Reborn to love

A New Friendship

Thank you guys, for the lovely response on the prologue. Here is the first part. It will be a long FF if the response is good, so the parts may be short as I have 2 more FFs going on. Keep loving and supporting.

Part 1

It was the first day of her Master's course in Arts stream. Her major subjects were Ancient Languages, and World History. She aspired to become an Archeologist. She walked timidly in the corridors and reached the student's notice board and checked her name. The classes were bifurcated according to subjects and chronological surnames. As usual, she was mostly in the top list coz she was Agrawal Naina Rakesh. But not only coz of her surname, her achievements also placed her in the top position. She was a school topper, college topper, badminton topper, science project topper and there was none in the city of Bombay who could solve a Mathematics problem, irrespective of Calculus, Trignometry or Algebra faster than her. She could have easily secured an admission in the science stream, but the 21-year old had decided her career as an Archeologist, long ago when she was only 6 years old.

Although a topper, she had no friends except her cousin Preeti who was also her best friend. Naina was very plain in looks and wore dark-rimmed thick glasses that other students usually teased her to be soda glasses or double battery. She used to hate her nerdiness initially and feel left-out until her aunt, Bela had once caught her weeping her heart out in the dark corner of their 1-room kitchen house. She had explained to her that she need not worry about her looks coz she was much more capable than anyone in the world and she only had to realize about it and it would happen at the right time; little did she know that her fate had already come knocking but neither of them acknowledged, especially Naina. Till then, she had to prepare for her life as it held a special purpose. Thus, she was declared God's special child. Bela also made sure that she was dressed very inconspicuously with a liter of oil in her hair, two braids pulled tight away from her face without any stray strands.

She continued to dress similarly in college, with plain salwar suits or large flower-print tops and skirts, thick glasses, and a liter of oil; only the two braids were replaced with one. She found her class and took her place on the last bench. The specialised course was a small class of 20 students only, and hence, the last bench didn't put her much out of notice. She was one those rare last benchers, who took that place to be out of limelight and hide away their intellect. More so, she was rather trying to hide away her psyche that had earned her the tag of weirdo in school. Since then, she had kept her abilities to herself, trying to forget about them and subdue all indications.

It had happened early morning today when she was just about to wake up. She felt a presence in her mind, as if someone was in a lot of pain and was trying to reach out to her for soothing it. She could see a fuzzy image but when she tried to reach it or touch it with her hand, it vanished usually. But today it lingered for a while longer as if trying to sense her and seek her presence. As if someone was trying to communicate with her but she had no idea who was that and how could someone faraway talk to her without a phone.

This phenomenon had prevailed as far as she could remember, but clearly since she was 5, but now increased in intensity and frequency. On previous occassions, she had tried to discuss it with Bela Chachi but she hadn't paid heed to it and said that it was only a early morning dream and to forget about it.

She was lost in her own thoughts, when someone dressed in skinny blue jeans and white crop top with a tight ponytail plonked next to her in a huff and sighed, "Mummy bhi na, pehle hi din late ho jaati". The girl turned to her and smiled, "hi, main Swati! Aur tum?" She put out her hand.

Naina thought for a minute coz she always sat alone and never touched a stranger, irrespective of the gender. But giving in to the friendly smile and crinkled brows coz she was taking too long to respond, for once, Naina went against her own rule and softly placed her fingers in her hand to say "hello" but withdrew immediately coz of the instant flashes she got. "Main Naina", was all she could manage meekly.

"Naina...hmmm...Naina Agrawal! Topper! Oh wow yaar! List mein tumhara naam dekh tha! 99%!" Swati exclaimed having been blessed to be able to sit next to someone like Naina.

Naina just nodded slightly and smiled half to assert her speculation.
"Wow yaar! Par ek baat batao, tum itni badi topper hokar yeh kya padh rahi ho? Matlab tum toh koi badi doctor ya rocket scientist ban sakti ho, fir yeh purane zamane ki cheezein dhoondhne aur mare hue logon ke baare mein padhne mein apna time aur life kyon waste kar rahi ho?" It was unfathomable to Swati why would anyone on the face of earth would want to waste their time with History.

Naina smiled sightly and answered philosophically, "mujhe history padhna bahut acha lagta hai. Hamare beete kal mein hi hamare aaj aur aanewale kal ke raaz hote hai. Agar beete kal ko samajh liya toh aanewale kal ki ek mazbut buniyad rakhi ja sakti hai. Aur haan maut jaisa kuch mahi hota, buss energy hoti hai jo universe ko balance karti hai issliye ek jagah se dusri jagah ek samay se dusre samay mein travel karti hai. Aur iska rahasya bhi beete kal mein hi milega."

Swati's eyes were wide rounded and she blinked several times. "Woah! Yaar tu na bilkul mere Papa ki tarah baatein karti hai! Tujhse milke bahut khush honge".

"Tum batao, jab tumhe history mein interest nahi toh fir padh kyon rahi ho?" Naina asked as it was plain obvious that Swati didn't much like the subjects.

"Haan...mujhe jyaada interest nahi. Par Papa ko hai, abhi World's National Museum Association ki taraf se unki Cairo museum mein curator ki posting hui hai. Unhe bhi tumhari tarah History ka bahut shauk hai. Par unke paas padhne ke paise nahi the, issliye aisi job le li. Par chahte hai ki main padhu aur unka adhura sapna pura karu, Archeologist bankar. Dekhte hai!" Swati summarised her life story in a gist.

"Par tum topper hokar last bench pe baithi ho! Kyon?" Swati continued with her questions.

Naina couldn't give away the real reason, so she said "buss aise hi, shanti se class mein dhyan lagakar padh saku issliye. Par log mujhe thoda ajeeb bhi kehte hai, aur tum?"

"Main? Main toh shanti se so saku issliye," Swati raised her brows and gave a crooked smile. "Waise, fikar not, ajeeb toh main bhi hoon. Lagta hai hamari khoob jamegi!" Swati declared.

Both girls smiled at each other before the teacher entered. Swati gazed straight ahead and Naina looked on at her, thinking that may be she had found a new friend.