Manjha A String of Complicated Relations

The Upcoming Journey

It had been two months since Pranjal had left IOTA and everything had been going on smoothly. Our beloved trio was doing well with the Academy classes and their training was going smashingly well.

From that day onwards, Anisha had been very shy around Advith. Anant and Shambhavi had asked her several times if anything had happened between them but she never gave an answer, so they left it alone.

Anant and Shreya were now civil towards each other, which in their case was a big development. The girls would tease Anant about it and he would actually blush.

The girls had resumed their weekend visits to Rathore's house. It was quite endearing to watch the girls interact with Sanyukta ma'am as they would talk about anything and everything.

The younger two Vyas sisters were also doing great. Mrityunjay had been sent to Gujrat for his posting and Adhya had decided to stay back for this year, so she was staying in Mumbai with her in-laws. Nitya's exams had gone well, and as always, she had topped. She finally had the time and without ever missing a day, called her Tai. If for some reason she could not call Shambhavi, she would call Aniket and talk to him.

Both the younger Vyas girls made sure that their eldest sister was taking care of herself, and for that, they depended upon Anisha and Aniket. Aniket loved talking to those two. It made him feel like he was an elder brother, which to some extent, he was.

Life was good, but then again, when had anything in Shambhavi's life been simple.

It was a day like any other. Shambhavi, Anisha, Shreya, and Anant had been called from their classes to Major Khan's cabin. That was the first red flag for Shambhavi. Anisha had told her that it must be nothing.

The next red flag was the fact that Aniket and Advith were coming out of the office when the group reached there. They had serious looks on their faces. The final red flag was Aniket bade luck when she was passing by him.

Inside the office, Major Khan was seated with Major General Rathore. The trio was positively surprised while Shreya was somewhat wary of him.

"Ah, good! All of you are here. IOTA has always been invited to IMA on several different occasions and a week from now they will be celebrating their 88th establishment day. Every year the toppers are taken to IMA, and this year we have you all as the top four," Major General Rathore said in gusto. His excitement for this invitation could be heard in his voice.

IMA was a strictly Gentlemen Cadet Academy, so obviously it was a shock for the girls. Major Khan saw this and assured the girls that lady cadets from different academies would also be present.

"You four will be accompanying Major General Rathore, Captain Rathore, and Captain Chauhan, to the function and staying there for a week as well," Major Khan informed them.

After that, they were dismissed, and they came outside to find the Captains waiting for them. Anant asked his brother if he knew about this and if their mother would be going while Anisha asked if they had been to IMA before. Shreya had also put forth her questions and Advith was busy answering all their queries.

Shambhavi had gone to stand next to Aniket and said, "You did that on purpose, didn't you? Wishing me luck like that and making me think that we were in trouble?"

Aniket smiled and looked down at her, "What if I did, Miss Vyas? What are you going to do?" he asked smirking at her, a playful glint in his eyes, eyebrows raised in challenge.

"My heart almost stopped beating for a few seconds, you know," Shambhavi said, ignoring his challenge.

"I would never let it stop beating before my heart does," he said as casually as always. Both looked at one another, gazing deep into each other's eyes intensely, forgetting where they were. They would have continued like that if Advith had not cleared his throat. They both came out of their trance and looked at the others present.

Anant and Advith were smug while Anisha and Shreya were smiling as if they knew some secret that Shambhavi did not.

"Shall we go Captain Chauhan, or do you want to stay because you can totally stay?" Advith teased, "I mean, I have no problem. It's just that we are standing in the corridor of Major Khan's office. Also, I am sure the Cadets have a problem as well," Advith said and the said cadets shook their head in yes.

Aniket looked ready to hit his best friend, "No. Let's go, Captain Rathore," he said in a strained voice.

The captains walked away and Shambhavi was left with her three idiot friends, wiggling their eyebrows. So, she asked, "What?"

They all laughed and left to go to the mess. They would be leaving in three days and they had to go to Gaya. It was almost a day's worth of travel, so they would be on a train for almost 25 hours. It was going to be a long journey.

They were all having dinner when Anant came running in to tell them that his mother would also be accompanying them but MG Rathore and Sanyukta ma'am would be taking a flight.

That would mean it would be just the girls with the boys on the road in train compartments for 25 glorious hours. Shambhavi thought, if that did not spell trouble, then nothing did.

Aniket and Advith had been shocked to hear that Snayukta had decided to take a flight. Aniket concernedly asked her, "Are you alright? You always love traveling by train and you want to go via a flight this time?"

"Yes, you see, I want to see grandchildren in my future, and for that, I need my three sons to get married, and for that they need to spend time with their girls, so I will be sacrificing my favorite form of travel. I just love my boys that much," Sanyukta had replied in a dramatic way as if traveling via flight was the worst thing in the world.

Advith had looked at his mother with his mouth slightly open and Aniket was looking at her with wide eyes. MG Rathore had been silently laughing at her. He had been with his wife for more than 45 years and was still amazed at how dramatic and over the top Sanyukta could get.

"And you ask me why I call you Mother India?" Aniket said in a daze after Sanyukta stopped rambling.