“Gentleman is this you call-forget a neat diagram- is this what a diagram looks like?” Prof Samuel repelled after seeing Aryan’s diagram in his ‘Mechanics Practical’ journal. Aryan had presented his journal for the very first time for correction, that
too during the last practical turn. Prof Samuel was bound to be furious at him.
“I tried my best sir.”Aryan gave an honest reply.
“My humble apologies to you, but if this is the best you can draw, it is beyond my engineered imagination to think of a drawing worse than this. God save you in the next semester child.” Professor Samuel’s voice, expressions and hands spoke in awe coordination, always.
“Uh...Why so sir?” asked a confused Aryan.
“Well there is a subject ‘Engineering Drawing’ in your syllabus in next semester. As the name suggests, you’ve got to draw different views of engineering tools with ‘geometrical’ perfection,” he stressed a lot on the word geometrical, rest all 20 students in the lab were drawn to this ‘prof-stu’ talk. “Hmm. I’m afraid you’ll score disappointingly. Drawing is not your good cup of tea.”
“But sir, if I am not wrong, Engineering Drawing is a subject of Mechanical engineering... Then, why....we...?”
“Tell me...uh, what’s your name?”
“Aryan.”
“AARYA! .....Tell me Aarya, why did you study History and Geography and Literature in school, when you just knew you were going to study Science in future.”
“I had no choice sir.”
“Oh poor Aarya,” he paused and framed the sentence, “The school and university curriculums includes these subjects for your holistic development. And in the next 3 years you’ll understand how these ‘sided’ subjects will help you. Just so that you all know,” he addressed to the class now, “Telecom industry is really down and you all would be surely placed in IT or Instrumentation or electrical sector. There, all these
engineering basics will be required. Convinced Aarya?”
“I’m sorry sir. And. I’ll improve.”
“Well, try. You have all my well wishes.”Prof Samuel went about correcting his experiments, giving him a low BB grade in most of them.
“Tell him, to increase your grade.”Navya hissed; she was standing just behind Aryan to get her journal corrected.
“But sir, atleast give me AB grade. You can ask me any post lab question, I’ll answer it. ”Aryan urged him.
“Knowledge is power Aarya, but what is the real power worth if it is not showcased properly? I know you've scored 30 on 30 in Midterms, your professor told me. I saw your answer sheet too. Even though all the answers were correct, oh it was thoroughly shabby and creepily written... Next time I’m going to assess the papers, and I am a stringent believer of perfection and neatness. So my child, better improve as early as you can.”
“Yes sir.” Aryan could not argue, not because he did not wish to, but simply because he did not know how to.
“These idiot professors, do they want us to become architects or engineers!?”
“Calm down Navya, I have this handwriting problem since I was a child.” Aryan said to her after she strode angrily and sat next to him once her journal got graded.
“Well nobody is perfect.”She shrugged.
“But I don’t even try to improve them.”Aryan was feeling low, because his handwriting was bad; because he did not know how to argue.
“Why?”
“Because I hate to do the things that I don’t like.”Aryan faked his half curled smile.
Does that mean he loves the things that he likes ? Navya thought. “ I think so”. She bit her tongue for saying her thoughts aloud.
“What?”
“Nothing... I think so you should’ve told him that you are the original writer of all the SPA codes for journals and how every SPA professor loves you and gives you AA grade for your knowledge. ” Navya made it up.
“Yea, but Prof Samuel is one of his kinds. What else, I’ll try to improve.” Aryan genuinely smiled now.
After the Practical....
“AARYA!!! How are you doing, my child?” Hari said mockingly. Miraya laughed. They were walking back to their class O104.
“Shut up Hari... I mean this is pathetic. We are studying shit subjects like Chemistry and Engg Drawing that won’t be of any use to us in future!?”
“Finally, welcome to engineering Aarya.” Miraya winked at him and teased. “You know my brother always warned me against pursuing engineering and specially our field, saying that ‘Nothing you study here will work out for you and that all your efforts will be wasted.’ ” She said mimicking in Sanjeet’s voice. “But I want to badly prove bhai wrong. And I will. Huh...So just... ”
“Just cheer up baby!” Rudra completed Miraya’s statement. She frowned back. He put a hand on Aryan’s shoulder and walked ahead speedily leaving Miraya and Hari behind. Rudra turned back and winked at Miraya; she frowned harder and looked away.
“Aarya, I will never like that word, no matter what.”, she laughed and said.
“Oh why?” Hari asked.
“Because my dad works for Arya Tech.”
“You don’t like your dad?” Hari asked innocently.
“Haha, no Hari. I love my dad! It is Arya Tech that don’t like. My dad is always busy with its work. He sort of is out for company’s business tours most of the times. When I was younger, he worked hard to become the company’s MD. And now he says he is the next predicted CEO, and so he is bound to work harder.”
“Woww! You should be happy then.” Hari’s face was happier than Miraya’s.
“Yes I am, it’s just that I wanted him to be more like other dads. When I was small, I used to see my friends play with their fathers in gardens. Oh how I envied them.”
Miraya was distant, she continued, “When my grandfather died in village, I was in class 3 then. Dad dropped me, mom and bhai at Bandra Terminus. But I refused to leave the car. I quarreled shouting that I wanted to stay with daddy, because I was thinking that he would give me all his time then, he’ll be forced to take care of me. My stubbornness won, I stayed back with him. But the purpose was lost. Dad did not take leaves. So I refused to stay alone at home after school, a car would take me to his office and I used to sit in the reception late till evening until dad would drive us back home. He was not even allowed to cancel his business tour; I was left to sleep alone at home with tai, our maid, for 3 nights. So...that is why I hate Arya Tech and the word Arya.”
“I... It’s okay Miraya... chill. We won’t call Aryan Aarya from now on.”
She nodded her head and smiled.
Later in the evening....
“Ma is calling for dinner, come fast now!”
Eeshwar Subramanium was startled to find his sister in their room. He closed his Google Chrome tab hurriedly and flipped close his laptop.
“When did you return home Saraswati?” Eeshwar smiled sheepishly.
“Just now. What are you doing, anna?”Saraswati eyed him suspiciously.
“Ohh, no, just nothing...Some research on internet.”
“Really? What kind of research? Let me see.” She walked to him, never leaving his tensed and guilty look. She just knew that she had caught him red handed. Finally, I’ll be able to blackmail him now. Though Saraswati was only in 10th class, she dominated her brother like nobody else.
“It’s my personal research, you cannot interfere Saraswati.” Eeshwar pulled the laptop close to his chest.
“Oh I definitely can and I will.”
She snatched the laptop from him with both her hands and sat on her bed, flipped it open and waited for the screen to come to life. All she found was the desktop screen with not a single file or application open. She still looked at him with narrowed eyes and saw a bead of sweat roll down his forehead, “Let’s go fast, mom dad are waiting.”, she said, “Or else she will kill me.”
As soon as Eeshwar Subramanium stepped out of their room, Saraswati, who was standing just behind him, closed the door and locked it. Eeshwar started banging it from the other side.
She ran to her bed again, switched on the laptop, and went to Google Chrome History. “Let me in!” She could hear her brother’s shouts along with his banging.
Her eyes popped out when she saw the History. It was much more than anything she had expected. She scrolled it down and down and down and down and down and down and then up again. After spending 5 minutes analyzing all the links, she found that the era of those similar searches had begun a month ago. And a smile lit her face, an evil one.
‘So... you’re learning HACKING Anna...’
(To Be Continued...)
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