Chapter 31: Ruthless Retribution
The faculty lounge was usually a sanctuary. Soft lamplight, the murmur of half-finished arguments, the smell of old paper and cardamom. Tonight, it felt like a bunker.
Priya sat in her usual armchair, a folder on her lap. Inside were three copies of her formal complaint, drafted with a lawyer’s cold precision. Names, dates, witness details—the cafeteria server’s startled expression, the two students at the adjacent table who’d suddenly found their phones very interesting. It was dry, clinical, and utterly damning.
Dr. Iyer stirred his chai slowly across from her, his face grim. “He called the Head of Department. Suggested the ‘Narratives of Resistance’ seminar was fostering an… anti-administration sentiment. That it was politically charged.”
“It is politically charged,” Priya said, not looking up from her paragraphs. “That is the point of resistance literature.”
“You know what he means.” Iyer sighed. “He didn’t threaten. He just… wondered aloud about the ‘suitability’ of the curriculum. And the instructor.”
The door to the lounge swung open. A group of younger lecturers entered, their conversation loud and bright. It died the moment they saw her. Averted eyes, a too-quick move to the far coffee urn. A deliberate silence. Pawar’s reach was long, and his message had been received: she was contagious.
Priya simply clicked her pen closed. The sound was sharp in the quiet.
“You still intend to file this with the ICC tomorrow?” Iyer asked, his voice low.
“First thing.”
“They are not independent. The chairperson plays golf with Prakash Pawar.”
“Then the court will see it after.” Priya looked up, her expression serene. “Due process is a labyrinth. I have time to walk it.”
Two days later, the labyrinth sprouted new walls.
She was in the college library, pulling references for her next seminar, when her phone buzzed. Rohan.
“Mom.” His voice was thin, stretched tight. “My job. The offer from the engineering firm.”
A cold trickle started at the base of her spine. “What about it?”
“They just called. The position has been… put on hold. Budget reallocation. They were very apologetic.”
The silence on the line was filled with the echo of Netaji’s voice: A mistake.
“I see,” Priya said, her fingers tightening on the spine of a book.
“It’s him, isn’t it? He’s not just coming at you. He’s coming at me.” Rohan’s anger was raw, laced with a fear he tried to mask. “What do we do?”
“We have dinner,” she said, her voice miraculously steady. “We have dinner, and we do not let him dictate the flavor of our food. Come home. We’ll talk.”
But the attack wasn’t finished. It wanted spectacle.
She was crossing the central courtyard at noon, a sheaf of student papers under her arm, when Arnav found her. He wasn’t alone. He had his usual entourage, but also a smattering of other students, those drawn to the spectacle of power. He cut her off under the shade of a large banyan tree.
“Professor Sharma!” His voice was loud, performative. “Just the person. We were having a debate. About your famous seminar.”
She stopped. The sun was hot. The papers felt heavy.
“See, I was telling my friends here,” he continued, smiling broadly at his audience, “that you teach all this stuff about speaking truth to power. Very brave. Very dramatic.” He took a step closer. His cologne was expensive and overpowering. “But I was wondering. Does that truth include your own family history? Or do you only resist other people’s power?”
The courtyard seemed to grow quieter. Priya stood perfectly still.
“My family is not a subject for your debate,” she said, her voice clear and carrying.
“But it’s fascinating!” Arnav spread his hands, playing to the crowd. “See, my father did some digging. After your rude visit. A widowed professor, so brave, so independent. But your father-in-law… wasn’t he Satish Sharma? The Satish Sharma? Three-term MP, union minister. Big man. Very powerful.” He let the title hang in the air, watching her face for a crack. “So all this… this performance of being some outsider fighting the system… it’s a bit rich, no? You’re not some nobody. You’re political royalty who’s fallen on hard times. You’re not resisting power. You’re just bitter you lost it.”
The accusation, a twisted knife of half-truths, was designed to gut her publicly. To recast her dignity as sour grapes, her principle as personal grievance. She saw the calculation in his eyes. He thought he had unmasked her.
Rohan, who had come to meet her for lunch, was frozen at the edge of the courtyard, his face pale.
Priya looked at Arnav, then slowly at the gathering students. She smiled. It was a small, chilling thing.
“You are correct,” she said, her tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. “Satish Sharma was my father-in-law. A formidable man. He believed in the rule of law. He also believed that men who leveraged their father’s influence to harass women were spineless stains on their family’s name. He had a word for them. Nikamma. Useless.”
Arnav’s smirk faltered.
“He is also,” Priya continued, her voice dropping to a dry, confidential murmur that somehow carried further than a shout, “currently in Delhi. As a senior advisor to the Home Ministry. He plays golf, too. But with different people than your father does.” She tilted her head. “Should I call him? Now? I can tell him Prakash Pawar’s son is curious about our family history. He loves a chat. And he hates bullies.”
The color drained from Arnav’s face. The bluff was monumental. Her relationship with her late husband’s powerful father was cordial but distant, a connection of respect, not of active patronage. She had never once used it. But the threat, voiced so coolly, so specifically, carried the weight of a much larger, darker system he suddenly realized he might have unwittingly provoked. His father’s power was local, monetary. The power she just invoked was national, political, and utterly opaque.
His friends had stopped smirking. The gathered students held their breath.
Arnav took an involuntary step back. The bravado vanished, replaced by the first genuine fear she’d ever seen in him. It was the fear of a boy who’d just realized the toy he’d been breaking might be connected to a circuit he couldn’t control.
Without another word, he turned and walked away, his retreat quick, his shoulders hunched. His followers scattered after him.
The courtyard exhaled.
Rohan walked to her, his steps slow. He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time—not just as his mother, but as a person who carried layers of history and quiet, formidable weapons he’d never fathomed. There was awe there, but also a tremor of shock.
“You never told me…” he started, his voice hushed.
“There was nothing to tell,” she said, adjusting the papers under her arm. Her hand didn’t shake. “A name is not a shield. It can be a target. Today, it was a mirror. He wanted to shame me with my past. I just showed him a reflection of his future that scared him.” She began walking again. “Come. My chai will get cold.”
As they walked, the stunned silence of the courtyard broke into urgent, buzzing whispers. The story was already mutating, growing—the professor who had faced down the spoiled prince and whispered of political dragons.
In her quiet, Priya knew the real cost. The bluff was now public. The next move wouldn’t come from the son. It would come from the father, who had just been indirectly challenged on a much larger, more dangerous board. The chill Rohan had seen in Arnav’s spine was now theirs to share. The game had deepened, and the shadows where it was played had grown infinitely darker.