Coloured Me Grey (Book Two)

Chapter 14

It was the following Sunday night and I was up late in order to complete the History of Art paper I needed to submit the next day. This would be the final internal assignment for his course with only another week left for our first semester exams to begin. Yash had been studying harder than usual, and I was determined to not let either of us score poorly in the exams.

Maity Sir expected 1000 words essays on each of the following topics - Ajanta-Ellora Cave Art and Development of Innovative Art Styles in the Gupta Period. For this semester, we were concentrating mainly upon Indian art history for his class. I was done with one of the essays. And since Maity Sir had been a helpful teacher to me right from Day 1, I wanted my assignment to be the absolute best in our class. An assignment like nothing Maity Sir has ever seen in his whole life. Best assignment ever by the one and only Riyaaz Gupta.

Maity Sir was an old guy. He had probably seen enough assignments to last him a lifetime. There was absolutely nothing that could surprise him anymore.

In any case, the gist was that, I was giving it my best shot.

The book assigned from college had little information that could make my assignment stand out from the rest. I was looking up research articles on the topic from the internet like I had done for the first essay.

If I had had the foresight of such a likely urgency, I would not have spent more than half of my net pack WhatsApping Yash and Divya the last night.

Best ever fuck up by the one and only Riyaaz Gupta.

I would never find a data recharge store open at 12 o'clock in the night. Since no other alternative presented itself to me, I turned on the wi-fi settings on my phone.

Of course he changed the fucking password. So now I have to go and ask him in person. Why Riyaaz, why are your fuck ups on such a royal level where you have to ask for help from the one person you cannot stand?

"Did you change the wi-fi password?" I stood at the door of his study.

Of course he will say something sarcastic.

He turned to look at me from his desk. "Well, well, well. So now  you want to sit and spend my wi-fi data too?"

"Can I please get the wi-fi password so that I can finish my assignment for tomorrow?" I tried not to show my irritation in my voice for the sake of my assignment. "

"Why didn't you finish it off beforehand? Keeping it due for the last night while you were hanging out with that girlfriend of yours?"

"For the hundredth time, Baba, she's NOT my girlfriend. And I'm sorry I didn't finish my assignment beforehand. Only a little is left. I'll turn off the wi-fi settings on my phone as soon as I I'm done. "

He mulled over my forced politeness for a few moments before starting to rattle off a long password with curious combinations of alphabets, numbers and special characters. Even a bomb-diffusing squad would not be able to guess our wi-fi password. Once the password worked, I padded across the living room, careful not to disturb Zara and her mother sleeping in the next room.

I had already disconnected the wi-fi and was revising the document when I heard the doorknob turn. In came my father. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he sat down on my bed and looked over at the essay I had written.

"Art in Gupta Period." He sighed. "That sounds like a class 6 short note topic to me."

I shrugged and tried not to pay him any attention.

But of course, he was itching to get on my nerves.

"Do you remember my colleague Abinash? The one I had-"