Chapter - 22 (The Scary Secret Puts Akanksha In A Spot! ) 

Akanksha stepped out of the CPS gate. She  and Anu, not her sister but the other Anu, that is Anurima, were supposed to go to Sana's. Sana made a special dish of fried chicken and she invited her besties for tasting the special item for their frank opinions. But then Jishnu before leaving the residence of The Banerjees the night before, told Akanksha that he had something to tell her and would share the secret on the following day. Akanksha never expected him to turn up outside the school gate like the way he did! 

Akanksha could make out the reason why he was waiting outside. The school had lots of fond memories for him. Besides, he was one of the most popular students of CPS.

He was inside one of those grocery shops on the left, which was not really frequented by either the students or their parents during the breaks. As Akanksha was hurryng towards the rickshaw stand at the turning, she heard him calling out to her:

"Hi, Akanksha. Wait a sec."

Akanksha stopped to see who it was calling her when she saw him coming out of the shop. He was in his favourite black, torn jeans with a chocolate colored shirt loosely tucked inside. His Nike shoes spoke of his taste and class. Jishnu also had dark goggles on probably to protect his eyes from the glaring, summer sun. 

He was putting something in his shirt pocket, having taken it from the shopkeeper. 

"Want to have a cold drink?" He asked Akanksha. She shook her head and followed him to the Honda perked behind the auto stand. Jishnu started the engine with his right foot as Akanksha came up, looking quite lost, not knowing what Jishnu wanted to tell her and why he was acting like one of those kidnappers one would find in most of the episodes of The Best of Crime and Patrol. 

"Akanksha, I am on my way back home. Care for a ride? "

Akanksha had always detested the very idea of sitting behind someone's back on a bike. Not that she hated bike rides. In fact, she had always craved for a scooty from her childhood on. Unfortunately, her parents were against the idea. Driving a scooty in a populated city like Kolkata was like taking one's life in one's own hands, they felt. So, she had to selve that craving. One day, she would own a Bajaj or something else, she always reminded herself. 

The other reason why she hated rides on a bike was the close proximity, the close physical contact between the driver and the one sitting behind him. The picture never appealed to her feminine side. 

She was about to refuse Jishnu's offer politely when he looked up at her. There was something in those hypnotic, dark eyes that she found difficult to resist. 

"This is the first and most probably, last time, I am offering you a ride on my bike, I'm leaving the day after. Whether something I wanna share, might interest you or not.. " He stopped before concluding, "The choice is yours."

She made a call to Sana regretting her non-availibility for the special dish, accepted the helmet from Jishnu's outstretched hands and put it on while he helped her adjust it. It was nearly 5.30 in the afternoon as the golden sun on the Western horizon did not seem to be so hot after all.

She sat on the seat while lifting up the other foot. Once she had her right hand lightly on his right shoulder, she lifted her right foot over the left on one of those side footholds. Jishnu shouted back from beneath the helmet :

"Are you comfy, Akanksha?" He asked her for a second time before lifting his left foot up, and the next moment, the Honda was moving towards the Marble Palace. 

Akanksha saw Hrittika, a classmate of Anushka, walking across the main road towards the bus stand on the left as they turned to the right. It being the evening time, traffic was light on the bypass. Once Jishnu drove past The Science City, he accelerated his speed and soon they were racing towards Topsia.

They turned right leaving the Number 4 Bridge behind, along the Darga road towards CIT Road. As the Honda sped on past The Bank of India, Akanksha found it hard to control her curiosity. When Jishnu stopped near the popular restaurant, CIT Cafe, and parked his bike in front, Akansha couldn't help asking him, getting off the bike, what he thought he was doing. 

"I could have reached you home, Akanksha, but in the comforts of your home, in the presence of Aunt and Anushka, I would have found it difficult to share the secret. I felt having a bite at one of the local eateries might not be such a bad idea after all, for the purpose."

Akanksha always found his honesty and difference from others admirable from the day he had come up to congratulate her on The PD Day. She felt no different this time as well when Jishnu smiled back at the smiling guard outside. It was clear that he was a regular at the local, popular restaurant. Akanksha had a quick look around before getting inside and climbing up the staircase leading to the enclosed space upstairs.

Jishnu walked up the carpeted floor, past the young, bulky waiter on the right, and turned right to the table for four at the corner. Soon the amicable waiter came up with the menu card. 

"What would you have, Akanksha?" Jishnu asked her, taking out a hankie and rubbing the beads of sweat off his forehead with it.

"Are you mad, Jishnuda? My home is not even two hundreds meter away from here! Why waste money like this?" Akanksha asked him. 

Jishnu let out a throaty laugh. He was right about Akanksha, unlike the other girls in his life, she was a homey girl. 

"I don't feel hungry at all. You can have what you want and share your secret, if that's what you want." She sounded quite blunt even to herself. 

"You seem nervous for some reasons. Should I call Aunt?" Jishnu asked with the most damonic charm on his face. Over the past one year or so, since he started teaching Anu, she had seen this look on his face a number of times. To someone not famiar with him, he looked just the most desirable man on the world at such times, but to those close to him, the look warned them to be on their guards. 

"There's no need. Ma doesn't expect me back in the next half hour. Everyone's not lucky to have a bike, you know?" The edge in her voice did not escape Jishnu. Even then he pushed the Menu Card across to her. 

"Have something. How do you expect me to open my heart to you if I'm the only one eating out here while you sit on the chair opposite and watch me eat? "

That thick-set voice could have easily charmed anyone into doing things he wanted them to, Akanksha thought to herself. While Jishnu was ordering, Akanksha turned her eyes away from him to a family of five sitting at the table meant for eight opposite theirs. The kid at that table was sipping something with a straw in his mouth from a crystal glass, The young lady sitting next to him, probably his mother, was admonishing him, whispering something into his ear. Akanksha could catch up the last few words:

"You're supposed to behave yourself at a place like this, Neil. "

Akanksha stopped herself from saying something rudely to Jishnu just in time. Instead she heard herself reply:

"Ok, I'll have a cold coffee."

As the waiter came back carrying the tray up on one hand and put the can and plate of popcorn on the table, Jishnu looked across at Akanksha 

and began :

I's there on the dias when I heard Ma'am Roy call out a name. I was shocked, to say the least, when I looked at the bespectacled topper of IX, making her way up, past the rows of tables in the auditorium. Wasn't she Meghna? Then I heard Mrs Roy announce her name as her Class Teacher handed her the prize:

Put your hands together for the topper of IX, Ms. Akanksha Banerjee… 

It took me a full minute or two to be out of the shock! She was not Meghna, she was one Akanksha! How could two persons look so alike?"

Jishnu put the spoon of popcorn in his mouth, then turning to Akanksha, he asked, "Ever wonder why that day, when there were all of us toppers of XII and XI standing in two rows on the dias, I walked up to congratulate you?"

Jishnu fixed his dark eyes back on Akanksha again as Akansha slowly shook her head as the scene of Jishnu coming up to congratulate her flashed through her mind. She collected herself quickly to ask him, " Who was Meghna? "

Jishnu played with the popcorn on his plate with the spoon before replying with the most painful look on his face:

"Meghna was my next door neighbour. The girl I grew up with." He stopped and spoke in a choking voice next, " I thought we were destined to  be together."