Delhi University

"Ladies and Gentlemen I would like to invite Mr. Abhimanyu Awasthi on stage now."

Fixing buttons of his expensive. Dolce & Gabbana suit Abhimanyu stood up from his chair and walked towards the stage. The silent audience started clapping and the young generation looked at the man being mesmerized. Even at the age of 30, his charm was enough to make butterflies dance in those teenage girls' stomachs. Most of the girls were looking at him with wide eyes. As he stepped on the stage the host gave a short introduction about him. Mostly that had covered his million-dollar business and his new industrial ventures. Being a top-notch businessman he was invited to the convocation ceremony of Delhi University. For the past two years, his company started hiring interns from the different departments of the university.

After his marriage, he took over Excellent Motors which led him to open their branches in different areas. Following this their company needed a good amount of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers. Being one of the topmost universities they approached his company. On the other hand, after discussing with their business analysts and all, their recruitment department decided to hire interns from the engineering departments. Later on, they decided to join the campus hiring procedure too. For the past two years, he had to visit once at the graduation ceremony to give some motivational speeches. In this second year, he was asked to be the chief guest as usual and also he was specially requested to take part in the medal ceremony.

For a person like him, it was not easy to have spare time to attend to such things. If it was not for the growth of his business he would never give it a thought. But this time request had specially come from the Dean and he shared a good bond with him too. Looking at the young generation he stood in front of the speaker on the podium. The fresh faces with lots of dreams in their eyes were waiting eagerly to listen to his words. He noticed some young girls gawking at him. Seeing such a situation he mentally laughed a little. Even being in his 30 his charm and charisma were creating magic. Clearing his throat he had introduced his assistant to give a short brief about his new ventures and what they were expecting from the current generation. As his assistant finished talking and the presentation he took the charge to speak a few words. 

He was never a man of many words. His cold behavior was enough to portray that. But being the big business tycoon he had to make public appearances too. 

"Hello Everyone....." His one sentence and the whole auditorium just hooted with "Hi Sir", and "Hello Sir" words. 

"Calm down my young generation. I know you have a large amount of enthusiasm packed inside you. Use it to grow yourself along with the world. Join hands to make a better world."

He paused and the crowd shouted again with a huge clap, numerous thank you, and unlimited assurances. 

"Thank you, everyone. That's all from my side."

He knew they wanted to listen to him. They were waiting for him to speak more. But he didn't like such things. His few words were always enough for everyone. He never thought to speak more than one single sentence because he knew that would be enough. 

The crowd replied and he moved towards the chair labeled as chief guest for the upcoming event. Another 20 minutes or so and he would be leaving. He had already mentioned to the event organizers that he could afford hardly an hour. 

As the speaker was thanking him, his assistant whispered near his ears.

"Nice speech sir. Emily did a great job by writing such an impressive note for you."

"Hmmm."

That's all he could answer at that time. Because in the back of his mind only he knew from where he got those lines.

It was Radhica's words. One day he was passing by her room while she was talking to one of her relative's daughters over a Skype call. Usually, he didn't eavesdrop but the call was on speaker so he heard the conversation due through the open door. She was fussing about her studies and she was completely messed up with her board exam syllabus. Radhica was trying hard to help her through the call. During that time he heard her saying the same thing. Somewhere the words got registered in his mind. Emily was assigned to write a speech for him for this convocation ceremony. But in a hurry, he forgot to bring that. He could have asked her to send it via email too and easily he could read that from his tablet. But God knows why he had found himself speaking her lines in the first place. One day Radhica missed her college and was roaming around in the mansion. That day he abruptly came back during lunchtime for some work and found her loitering around. He never bothered about her but casually he asked that day about not attending her classes. She told him that she didn't like the new professor because of his reading habit from books during class instead of explaining the subject matter. 

Those two things promptly flashed into his eyes. Radhica was also a young one and the generation sitting in front of him was the same. They might not like long boring lectures or speeches. Rather they would prefer the small interactive session and it is always said that unspoken words speak more. His speech was short but meaningful. Those words had depth and students would be more attracted towards the fact of making a better world. At this age, the blood always boils in them and they try to find a way to do something for society. So, on the one hand, they would admire him and on the other hand, his image would gain more publicity.

But since when did he start thinking so much? Since when did he start remembering Radhica that much? How could he even read the upcoming generation? Is this the effect of living with Radhica for three years? Abhimanyu mentally scoffed. What the hell was happening with him? He never wanted to spend a happily married life with Radhica. Due to certain unpleasant circumstances, he had to marry her. But the girl barely asked for anything. Yes, she had begged a few times when she was unable to bear him or his humiliation or his actions. But she had never asked him for something big. With time she understood that he won't be a nice person and she eventually detached herself from him. But why her thoughts were bothering him till then?

"Now I would request Mr. Awasthi to do the honor by presenting graduation certificates to the next batch of students."

The host of the event asked Abhimanyu to stand up to present the certificates and medals for academic excellence. He slowly stood up to walk towards the center of the podium under the big floodlight. His chain of thoughts already broke with the speaker's announcement. Reluctantly he plastered a smile on his face and took the certificates to pass on to the students one after. As the host was mentioning the names fresh graduates were coming up on stage. He was neither listening to their score nor their names. He was barely looking at their faces. After four such students when the host announced the name of the fifth student Abhimanyu flinched at his place. He looked straight at the nearby rows of the podium. Did he hear it right? He couldn't wait for more to have a glance at the girl whose name he had just heard. To make it clear he looked at the name section of the certificate placed on his hand again. Damn, he was about to fall if the surname would not be printed as Chowdhury.

He heard it right then. The host announced the name while he was presenting the certificate.

"Radhika Chowdhury."

It was slow close to his wife. But she used to write "Radhica" instead of "Radhika". Abhimanyu looked at the 22 years old girl. She was having a big smile as she scored 95 percentile in her department.

"Thank you." She spoke in her soft voice and waited for the photographer to take the picture. After two or more Abhimanyu felt enough exhausted and suffocated. He came down from the podium by excusing himself. His assistant informed the hosts about his lined-up meetings and the Dean personally escorted him towards the exit gate of the auditorium. After that, he told the Dean to join the ceremony and two clerks came along with a professor to escort him towards the main exit door of the university.

As they were all moving through a big hall his eyes roamed around its corner. The wall of the hall was covered with different pictures of the students. Just to divert his mind he was going through them. But he didn't know that in the process of diverting his mind from Radhica, he would end up again in the pool of her memories. As the professor was taking different students' names with their respective years along with their achievements, all of a sudden Abhimanyu's eyes fell on a familiar picture. The photo with those honey-brown eyes and the same perfect smile he had seen earlier was kept in the hall of fame. He stopped on his track immediately and walked closer to the picture.

"Radhica Singhania, Department of Chemistry, 2016-2019."

"Oh sir, she was the gold medallist of Delhi University with 99 percentile. That is the highest mark someone had ever got till now."

The professor was blabbering those facts when another voice came to his notice. Abhimanyu had never tried to know about Radhica or her life. He didn’t even bother to attend her convocation.

"Professor Mehta. He doesn’t need an introduction to her. Radhica is his ex-wife."

Abhimanyu snapped his head towards the owner of the voice who was standing with a hard expression on his face. As the person had already put excess stress over the word ex-wife he took a few predatory steps towards the man.

"And your good name Mr.?”

"I am Professor Sameer Bhardwaj. Radhica was one of my favorite students."

"I know how much favorite student was she of yours."

Abhimanyu gritted his teeth but maintained a decent smile on his face. There was no point in punching a professor inside a university. But he remembered his name very clearly. The day he heard his name from Radhica's mouth he lost his temper and his sanity. He didn't dig up much about the professor or tried to know more. Without a single piece of evidence, he doubted Radhica and misbehaved with her. His extreme behavior was so ruthless that Radhica was completely silent for a week. He never heard about him from her anymore after his barbaric actions. Later on, he got to know that the professor was already married and had a daughter, and was quite old. Though his ego at that time didn't allow him to say sorry today when he finally saw the man with his own eyes, he understood how grave his mistake was. But what would he do now? Neither Radhica nor her words or pleading are with him now. She left without uttering anything. 

"Nice to meet you." Saying that Abhimanyu left the hall and walked toward his car. If he had to spend a single second there, he would end up getting collapsed. Professor Mehta's stare was biting him badly. The way Sameer stretched the word "Ex", simply mentioned how lucky Radhica is after being divorced. Professor Mehta might have joined recently and thus he didn't know about Radhica's personal life. How could even someone know by looking at her details? Abhimanyu had never given her permission to use his surname Awasthi. Even after marriage, on her every official document she used the same Singhania surname. The news of their marriage was covered by every leading newspaper. But in reality, she lived a life of an unmarried girl even after being married. She was never accepted by Abhimanyu. 

"It shouldn't be like this Radhica. You are still spoiling my life, my peace."