3) First Encounter

Author's POV:

"What luck have you had, Niyati? Oh God, please save me from this devil Sir. I will offer Laddu to you. Also, Don't forget that I'm your favorite child So please save me", She said in her mind while looking up and then reluctantly looked at him with innocent expressions on her face.

"Y...yes sir", she stuttered unknowingly while standing up.

'What is your name?", Smaran asked in a serious tone. 

"Niyati", This time she responded with a little confidence as she did not want him to feel that she was afraid of him.

"Okay, tell me which chapter you haven't read yet. I'll start that", He didn't ask so seriously this time, just casually.

"Ok sir", She replied, picked up the book, and started looking at the index.  After a few seconds, she was about to answer but was interrupted by his voice.

"Leave it, you sit down. I start a chapter on my own", He looked at the book's index and said. Niyati got angry.

"What a strange person this is? First, he asks the question himself and asks for its answer from me and when I start answering him, he finds the answer himself", Niyati spoke thinking in her mind and sat quietly.

"Okay Students, I'm going to start you a Chemistry chapter whose name is  "Carbon Compounds" but before that, I want to know how many students in your class know the names of the first 20 chemical elements in sequence?", He asked in a normal tone.

After listening to this question, almost the whole class started looking here and there. It seemed as if all the students were ignoring making the contact with Smaran and were wishing that he should not even speak their name by mistake but throughout the class, some students knew names such as Niyati, her friends, and Samar.

"Sir, can I answer you this question?", Samar asked respectfully while raising her hand. 

"Sure", Smaran answered.

"Hydrogen, helium, lithium, ....", Samar told the names of the element until 19, but he forgot the name of the 20th element and started thinking and while thinking, he looked at Niyati from the corner of his eyes and gestured her to tell him the name of that 20th element.

She tried to tell him by speaking in her mouth but he did not understand and then in a hurry she angrily spoke the name of that element a little higher, "Calcium yarr, Don't you understand that much?". She exasperated and said in a slightly high voice as if she had forgotten who is standing in front of her?

"Ohh Noo", when she realized, she shrank her eyes as if she was complaining about her mistake to herself.

"Did someone ask you to speak in between?", She heard a harsh as well as angry voice.

"Look at me", She again heard the same angry voice and reluctantly looked at Smaran whose eyes were showing rage.

"I asked you something whether you were allowed to speak in the middle or someone asked you to speak?", This time he asked in a loud voice with double anger.

"Nooo Sir", She replied in a slightly trembling voice while looking down.

"So why did you interrupt?", He asked with a raised brow.

"Because he forgot the last element so I just tried to help him by telling him", She replied while lifting her eyes up in his direction.

"O God, pick me up from here today or him, you got this teacher only to torture innocent children like us", She spoke in her mind.

"If he forgets something then I'm here to tell him and when I'm not here, you will help him and if I ask any question to any student then no other student in between will interrupt us. All children remember this thing", He ordered while looking at her.

"Okay sir", All class replied in unison.

"Sorry sir, I will not make such a mistake again", Niyati said while making an innocent face.

"It will be good for you only", He replied and then gestured Samar and Niyati to settle in their seats and start teaching the chapter.

"Today will be the worst day of my life, don't know whose face I had seen after getting up in the morning", She said to Mitali while expressing anger.

"Leave it to yarr, now let it go. Anyway,

Today, you have encountered this teacher twice so this is enough for today. Don't do anything so that now anything is bad with you for the third time", Mitali tried to make her understand and also tried to cool her down.

"You are right, I will be the only one to get mad while getting angry at this person unnecessarily. If the time comes, I will teach this teacher a good lesson", She replied showing fire in her eyes.

Niyati is a girl who never fights needlessly with someone and if someone messes with her then she doesn't leave him/her either.

The lecture ends on a good note without the third encountered between Niyati and Smaran. At the same time lunchtime begins. School is given 20 minutes for lunch. 

In 10 minutes Niyati,Mitali, Ridhi, and Divya finish lunch together. As soon as the Niyati is canned the lunch box and put in the bag, Samar immediately jumps in front of her.

"Ahh!", She screams as she gets scared due to Samar coming straight ahead. 

"Are you crazy?", She asks in a slightly shivering voice. 

"Yes, and should I tell you why I'm crazy?", He asks in a loving voice raising her brow.

"No, there is no need for that", She gives quick answers as if she already knows the answer to this question.

"You leave all this and tell me what you are doing here? Didn't you go to flirt with your junior girls today?", Niyati asked in a slightly joking tone.

Ridhi and Divya had gone to their other friends after having lunch and Mitali was listening quietly to them.  Listening to Niyati's last point, She gets an answer to her question which asks her in the Punjabi lecture that she used to like Samar earlier and why doesn't she like him anymore?

"No, I'm not in the mood today and I have told you so many times that girls flirt with me Not me, she gives up her life on me Not me", He responded by raising the collar of his shirt in pride.

"Oh Mr. Confident", Niyati said turning her collar back and added, "there is no need to fly in the air and if the girls were flirting with you, then why do you go to meet them in their class, they too can come to meet you?", She asked the question.

"Yes, you are right, but I have a perfect answer to your question, and that too with Logic. Look, Now if a girl was interested in me, she would come here to meet me.  But here, more than half of the girls of both the eighth and ninth classes have lost their heart on me and if they come to meet me then one will get very crowded in this class and the other is that some pretty girls of my class are jealous of them. They will start to feel and quarrel with them or it may be that they start ragging those junior girls and I can never let this happen so I come back after spending the first 5 minutes in eighth grade and the second 5 minutes in the ninth grade and he was about to say something else that she cut him off in the middle and say, "Stop sharing your knowledge Sir. I don't need any such extra knowledge from you. If you want to talk about any work, then say otherwise go ahead", She said in a little serious tone while joining her hands.

"Yes", He quickly answered. 

"Say soon", She replied.

"I wanted to tell you something", He spoke with a little nervousness.

"What, Speak?", She replied.

"I wanted to tell you that .....", He stops speaking this much and starts looking at Mitali who is sitting with Niyati who only understands what he wants to say by looking at his face and encourages him in gestures for completing her talk. 

"Will you say anything further?", She speaks while drawing his attention back to her.

"I want to tell you that...", He then stops again thinking something and says it right away," Yes, I wanted to ask you, what date has been fixed for our math and science quiz this time?", As he says this, he takes a long breath of peace but Mitali angrily hit her hand on her forehead in disappointment.

Every month there is a quiz for Math and Science for children from class VI to X, which aims to enhance the knowledge of Students.

"What was the need to do so much drama to ask such a thing? Its date is the day after tomorrow", As soon as she answered, the bell at the end of lunchtime rings and he goes back to his place saying thank you to her. As he goes Mithali starts talking to her.

"I think he wanted to tell you something else", Mitali, looking towards Niyati, said as if she wanted her to understand the untold things of him without saying it.

"I know that he came here to talk to me about something else and went away saying something else", She replied without looking at Mitali as if she doesn't want to make eye contact with Mitali.

"How do you know?", Mitali asked in surprise.

"Because I had already seen him asking Charan sir about the date of quiz in the morning", She replied with no emotion.

"Then why did you not say this at that time", Mitali asked Surprisingly.

"Because the thing which makes anyone feel bad, it would be better if not talked about", This time she responded by looking in her eyes.

"What you mean to say is that if today Samar puts his heart in front of you and asked you for permission to build a relationship above friendship, would you refuse it?", Mitali asks to turn her talk to Faith.

"Yes", She replied in an emotionless voice.

"And you had to refuse him just because he goes to meet other girls and they flirts with him", Mitali again asked.

"Yes", She replied in the same voice without showing any emotion on her face.

"You have seen all this but why did you not see that no matter how many girls he talks to or how many girls flirt with him, but he only likes you and will", Mitali spoke in a little anger.

"The first thing is that girls flirt with him only when he allows them to do it with himself and secondly I have known her for almost 9 years. even if I say yes to him. Still, he won't stop going to those girls because it is his behavior. If I had the slightest hope that he could change, then I would have said yes to him because if the person who is mine is a bit of someone else, then I  don't want that person", She finished her talk.

"But it is also possible that ...", She cut Mitali's talk in middle and said..., "that's it! I don't want to talk about it anymore and I don't want to talk anything else on this matter. I hope you understand me too", She asked looking towards Mitali with hopeful eyes and she nodded yes.

At this point, their mathematics teacher enters the class and when they come, they make such announcement that the whole class becomes sad and he speaks another such thing, due to which Niyati's senses are blown away.