The Rules Of Pursuit

5. Auli

After a prolonged teary good bye I managed to board the train to Dehradun. Even though Anwar had already emailed me an A/C two tier ticket, I allowed my father to purchase me a first class coupe. According to Indian Railway rules you could only travel with your dog if you had a first class coupe or cabin all to yourself.

Brute, my five months old black lab, whom I received as a gift for apparently fulfilling my parents' dream, was not yet toilet trained properly. I wondered how many times I would have to wake up to clean his pee at night.

It took Anwar a whole lot of convincing, for Brute to be allowed to the College of Espionage with me.

"You are not going on a vacation kid," he had fumed during our outing to the mall "the College of Espionage doesn't allow pet dogs."

He had taken me out to get me the gears that he felt I would need for the college. I had purchased two pair of sneakers and three pair of converse, a pair sport shorts, a pair of ear muffs, swimming goggles, swimming trunk, elbow and knee guards and a smart watch. He even begrudgingly treated me to a double sundae cone.

From what he told me, Chakraborty had to pull a few strings to accommodate Brute.

"I don't know what he sees in you," Anwar had grunted "but your mutt too got through."

I settled down in the small coupe of the train and Brute sprang on the lower berth. This was the first time I was travelling without my parents. The cemented buildings of the city zoomed past the long glass window of my coupe, soon transitioning into tiled mud houses. Before long the view changed to never ending paddy fields with farmers tending to their crops.

Brute and I appreciated the view outside till it grew dark and all we could see were specks of lights from the village houses, flashing by like fireflies in a night sky. Few times other trains rambled past us, making Brute prick up his floppy ears from the strange sound. He was shit scared when our train hurled along a bridge over a river.

"I am here with you big boy," I assured him soothingly. I took Brute down to relieve himself at a station in Bihar. My stupid mutt took a hell lot of time sniffing around the pillars of the station, to find the perfect place to pee. I was scared that the train would leave without us, if Brute didn't hurry up. Finally he lifted his legs and marked his territory on the outer wall of the very coach we were travelling in.

Once back in our coupe, I logged into my Instagram account and scrolled down the newsfeed. Most of my friends or should I say, schoolmates were updating pictures at some house party or pub, clinging to their boyfriends.

I was never really popular in school, though my promising grades made me a favorite of my teachers. Since it was an all girls' school, I never had many options to choose a boyfriend.

The only few young boys I interacted with were in the coaching center my parents had me enrolled for the medical entrance examination. However those boys too were only interested in borrowing my notes and neither of them ever considered me as a romantic option. I wish this wasn't the case in college.

Even though I was partially a nerd, yet it wasn't like I didn't want a little male attention. I checked my pending friend requests, it only had few distant relatives or cousins waiting for me to click the confirm option. I didn't want to admit it aloud, but I was not really fond of retaining my virginity for long. Not desperate enough to lose it to any random bloke though.

I had dozed off, my phone still clutched in my hand with the Instagram window open, when a light knock on the door woke me up. I slid the coupe door open to find an elderly woman smiling pleasantly, clutching the meals' trolley.

"Ms. Banerjee, there has been a meal booked for you, would you prefer vegetarian or non vegetarian." The lady asked.

"What is there in the non vegetarian spread?" I asked greedily. My father had really gone all out for this journey.