Maths class was progressing as dully as it ever could. Vishal had been listening half-heartedly, his focus on the strategy for the cricket match next week against the team from their adjacent classroom. The rivalry between his class and the adjacent one had been going on for a while and his classmates were hoping Vishal would help them turn the tide by gaining a sufficient lead against them.
Their teacher gave them a problem to solve and monitored the class as they worked.
Mitra solved it in no time and spent her free moments silently checking out who else had solved it faster than her. Across her on the other side of the aisle, Vishal was half-heartedly trying to work on the problem. Before he could catch her eye, their teacher called out to Vishal, noticing his focus wasn't on math problem.
"I will give you two minutes. You will have to solve the problem here on the blackboard," she threw out the challenge to him.
Mitra snapped her head sideways to see Vishal sweating; she knew math wasn't his forte, and that he didn't know how to solve it. She was devising the ways in which she could help him understand the solution in the scant two minutes available without the teacher noticing their coalition, when a saviour appeared at the class door in the form of an admin staff bearing a school circular regarding the change in sports hour schedule.
Vishal turned to look at Mitra just in time for aid, as she pulled out her notebook and displayed the solution she came up with for the problem to him. He didn't just copy it, neither did she ask him to.
As the teacher spent a sweet five-minute time on reading the circular to the class, explaining the details and signing it carefully, Mitra jabbed her pencil at the series of algebraic equations on her notebook, underlining and marking arrows at necessary places and mouthing the explanations to the steps in the flow to make Vishal understand how the final answer came to be.
By the time they resumed the class and their teacher called Vishal to the blackboard, he was well-equipped. He solved the problem and explained the steps in detail. Mitra watched him with an anxious smile, ready to pipe in a hint in case he turned to her for help in between.
When he finished the challenge triumphantly and turned to face the class, his eyes found her, and she grinned at him splendidly. He mouthed a 'thanks' to her with a smile as he stepped back to his seat.
The class ended and the students started dispersing for lunch.
"You were brilliant!" Vishal exclaimed. "From now on you are going to teach me maths. I understood the lesson much better when you explained than when our teacher did."
Mitra chuckled. "Fine by me. But be prepared, I can be quite strict."
"I can handle that," he laughed. "Come on, my treat, pick a chocolate you want. I will get it for you."
He took her arm, pulled her to her feet and headed for the only confectionary store in their school. When Mitra tried to play it down saying she did her part as his friend, he refused to accept it saying he wanted to celebrate hiring her as his tutor.
There was one girl in the class, sitting in the row behind Mitra, observing the whole exchange with a tinge of jealousy escalating slowly in her.
Lekha had wanted to be the friend whom Vishal would turn to and smile at in the middle of the class, for whom he would buy treats and walk home with. Yet, he never even spoke to her.
Mitra was always his priority.
Okay, maybe it was because they joined the school together, or associated with each other a lot for being outsiders in a class of closely knit children. But that didn't explain why he let her even join the class boys in some of their cricket matches, when they were short of a player or two.
It angered Lekha that Mitra was being too brazen by pretending to be game enough to play cricket with the boys when none of the other girls even went near the cricket field.
To Lekha and the other girls in the class, Mitra was like a big pebble in the shoes. A flirt who was being coy around the blue-eyed boy of the class.
"We need a fielder," Gaurav, one of their classmates, jogged up to Vishal and Mitra as they munched on ice-creams at the confectionary store and informed them. "Sridhar's absent today."
"Who are we playing against?" Mitra asked.
"Section B folks," Vishal answered. He turned to Gaurav and said, "It's okay, Mitra will fill in."
Mitra nodded at Gaurav and added after a moment's thought, "You know I have always wondered. If you guys think I am not good enough just tell me. You are not obligated to let me play in your team."
"Nah, you do fielding well. Else we wouldn't have let you anywhere near the grounds," Gaurav assured.
Mitra grinned widely as she gushed, "I have never liked a compliment so much."
"Be there at the pitch as soon as classes end, no loitering and turning up late," Gaurav urged. "I will remind you, Mitra, in case you are lost in your books again," he added before he left.
That evening, around six-thirty, as Vishal and Mitra left the ground after a wonderfully won match, Vishal asked, "So, when is the maths tuition starting?"
"This weekend. Three days a week, at my home."
"Can I bring snacks?"
"The more the better."
They giggled mischievously. As they chatted random things, Vishal posed, "What were you reading today?"
"'Island of Fear'. It is a thriller," Mitra answered.
"Narrate me the story," Vishal asked.
"Till the part I've read?"
"Yes. The rest you can narrate tomorrow when we go home."
"The day after that?" Mitra prodded playfully.
"A new story maybe?" Vishal suggested.
Mitra chuckled. "Is it going to be like the Arabian Nights?"
"Yeah, except you don't have to fear getting killed at the end."
Thus started their evenings of artistic exchanges. Vishal, who inherently wasn't much inclined towards reading, got his fill of the literary world by listening to Mitra's recitals.
It wasn't a simple recounting of the stories Mitra read. At the end of every account, they both discussed the nuances in the stories and the character arcs. If it was a creative essay, they would try to apply the points of discussion in the essay to the world around them.
At times when Mitra wouldn't have the time or new books to read, they would discuss the type of songs Vishal wanted to write, drawing inspiration from the various artists he grew up listening to.
Their after school tutoring sessions were stricter per Mitra's standards, but they were always spoiled by the delicious savouries Mitra's grandmother served them during their study hours.