Again?
Again?
After five rounds of the game -
"Guruji, I hate this game. Can we go back to chess, please?" her voice was pleading and she seemed to be on the verge of crying.
In the past five attempts, she had not managed to recall more than six-seven items while Prithvi had hardly missed any. She was really upset with herself.
"Mrignayani, this time when the cover is removed, I don't want you to look at the tray. Instead, look at me. Pay attention to my demeanour. Maybe then, you will realise the reason for your abysmal performance," he told her in his usual monotone.
Though she had lost to Prithvi in chess enough number of times, she had managed to give him a tough fight during each game. But he was thrashing her out of the park in this one. It seemed that the skill required for this game was absent in her.
Nodding her head in surrender, she looked up to observe him while he reached out to uncover the contents one more time.
Though she didn't know what was she supposed to look for, she nonetheless concentrated fiercely on his face. Unfortunately, there was nothing remarkable that she found there. Infact, there was nothing there at all. He had an unchanged, neutral expression pasted on his face all through the activity.
"Wait a minute! Is that what he means? Am I being too nervous or agitated before the task and hence performing badly?" She asked herself in that moment.
Prithvi finally looked up at her and asked, "ready for the next round?"
She gave him a short nod and pulled her breath in slowly through the nose, exhaling it at the same pace through the mouth. This was the technique taught to her by Ramanujam while doing the rigorous physical activities at the ground every morning.
At the end of twelfth round -
Mriga smiled looking at her list. This time she had managed to write fifteen items on her piece of paper.
"If I were you, I wouldn't smile yet. Tomorrow night we will be looking at double the number of things. So come prepared," he warned her without even looking at her face.
Mriga's smile turned into a frown right at that instant. Did he have eyes all over his head?
"That is soooooo unfair. I had just started to find my feet in the game," she couldn't stop the wail coming out of her mouth.
Prithvi arched his brow at her childish behaviour and she shut up immediately. Bowing to him, she made her way out towards the door.
"Oh, I forgot to inform you – Shaurya has asked for you for a task at the upcoming annual zilla fair. I believe all five of you will be given different assignments that night. They will be team tasks where a mentor and a mentee would work together to complete it. Treat it like a test," he told her retreating back.
Mriga turned around and nearly clapped her hands in excitement.
"Really, Guruji? When do we have to go?" she asked quickly.
"End of the week," he replied with a small smile at her enthusiasm.
"Wha…" she stopped herself from giving away the dismayed reaction.
But apparently she hadn't done a good job at hiding it swiftly enough because he raised his eyebrow at her.
"Is there a problem?" enquired.
She shook her head vehemently in denial but then stopped.
"I, ehem, that is, my, I mean… our presence won't be required during the day, right? You said it's a night event," she braved it out and asked him.
There was an ominous silence in the room making Mriga feel that she had committed a cardinal sin by asking that question.
"The basic principal of any successful mission is the preparation which goes into it and the spy's focus. If you can't give it the due respect, you might as well not bother showing up," he said mildly.
Though his voice remained the same, the temperature in the room seemed to have dropped by many degrees, suddenly.
She folded her hands in apology and said, "I didn't mean to sound casual about it. I just had another commitment during the day and wanted to clarify whether I need to cancel it or not."
At his raised eyebrow, she continued hastily, "I will be ready and await further instructions for the mission."
He nodded and she used that as his permission for her to excuse herself from the room.
Prithvi leaned on the table to note down his observations for that night about her. The log book which he was maintaining for her, contained various columns which had different human traits written as the heading in each.
"She has made improvement in every area except in her demeanor. She needs to learn how to how to get a grip on her emotions and hide them better. The upcoming task should be a good learning," these were his thoughts.
"Oh God! That was a narrow escape. But what am I going to say to HIM, now? The minute I tell him about it, he will probably disown me," she leaned against the wall of the Admin building and wailed.