in Part 3 of Student City, Prof. Dr. Piyush Roy explores privilege, loneliness, desire, and emotional alienation within the charged social landscape of a business school, as hidden insecurities and complicated relationships begin shaping the lives of its young students.
Recap of Part 1 & 2

In the first two parts of Student City, readers were introduced to the emotionally volatile and socially layered world of a premier business school, where friendships, class differences, attraction, and identity quietly simmer beneath youthful ambition. Through the narrator’s observant lens, we encounter a group of sharply distinct personalities negotiating desire, insecurity, loneliness, and performance in an atmosphere charged with aspiration and emotional confusion.

Part 1: Read here

Part 2: Read here

“So, you are American-born?” questioned Anisha, as though the answer was already decided.
“Yeah, but then I did my schooling in India,” Manish replied, with a hint of hidden melancholy.
“Is your mother a phirang (foreigner)? Because your dad seems very much desi (local). Just curious about this pink-ish complexion of yours,” she quizzed on.

Manish blushed, turning a shade pinker, missing the apparent sarcasm.
“No… Actually, you see… Just like that…” he decided to postpone the answer with a shrug, for the moment.
Not many knew that Mr. Dhirajlal (Shah Senior) had adopted Manish as his second son after the death of his younger brother Dhairyalal, Shah Junior’s American wife, and Manish’s mother, in a car accident on the streets of Philadelphia.

The sad demise had so completely shaken Shah Junior, and Manish’s father, away from home affairs that he sought succour in work, immersing himself full-time in extending the Shah pickle and restaurant business in the US of A.
Naturally, Manish was brought back to India, grew up in an overprotected, extra-pampered environment at Shah Senior’s home, doted upon to ‘moronic perfection’. The ‘cute’ motherless child soon became the apple of Senior Shah’s wife’s eye, and even Manubhai, their son, thereafter spoiled Manish as a forever sheltered younger brother.

Calling Manish a ‘moron’ would be unfair to him, though not a minor overstatement. He was all of that and yet simultaneously perched on the brink of a delicate psychological balance that was desirable. Not to discount his sugary sweet manners, with a gullible intellect to boast. And definitely never to forget his mastery of the guitar and a great singing voice. This was one guy who was to truly ‘grow’ through his experience at the B-School in rapid, visible leaps of personality evolution.

Anisha let go of him, though surprisingly too soon. Perhaps someone crazier had arrested her restless eye, methought, as I surveyed her every move from two tables away. She seemed a pleasant mix of being bored with life and kicked to sleep. She eventually joined the last three benches of our near-vacant classroom and went off to sleep. Until Rahul walked in, with his trademark casual saunter, pausing to move his fingers through her unkempt cascades. Slowly, surely, steadily...

Left alone, Anisha had all the makings of a spoilt brat in her. But she never cared two hoots about who thought what of her. Appearing a cosmetic beauty in casual perception, she surprisingly hardly cared for any finesse in her personal dealings. Probably, she loved rattling others the wrong way. Probably, to repeat her favourite cliché, she literally did care ‘two hoots about all!’ But then why didn’t she come down from her ivory tower or so-called circle of indifference to mix with ‘us’—Adam’s country cousins?

Not that it bothered others in any way, but yes, it always prevented me from going beyond the casual hello whenever she crossed my path. I just couldn’t strike up a conversation, and if I tried, the travails of the effort were writ large on the process. I don’t think she felt comfortable with me around, though she never let me feel that. Still, the heights of my hidden infatuation saw me join her gang for a trip to the neighbourhood disc—an adventurous option as alien to me as a cocktail is to a teetotaller.

It so happened that when Rahul proposed the idea, I too was around and Anisha, who was going through one of her regular bouts of enacting ‘Miss Goodness Gracious’, casually extended an invitation my way. Under normal circumstances, I would have refused point-blank, because the whole company—Anisha et al—was alien to me, despite my surreptitious fixation. But then, I agreed, to Rahul’s utter inconvenience, which splashed large across his disdainful confirmation of the same.

Though he might have mentally showered me with the choicest expletives for daring to share the limelight in his perfectly crafted one-man outing with the girls, his fears of a rival attention-grabber were brought to naught by my non-cooperative, shy, inhibitive, small-town refrains to all invitations to join the gang on the dance floor.
So, while Rahul dazzled the babes and Anisha, little wonder that I blew up a week’s pocket money in exchange for one of the most boring evenings of my life. And much to the chagrin of my own company, I would also have been voted the perfect party foil, had Tamanna not saved my reputation by serving up the perfect embarrassment for us all through her tearful, alcohol-influenced public tirade against Rahul.

Tamanna, or Tammy as her name became post-familiarity, a precocious child—rather child-woman—hailed from a nouveau riche Muslim business family. The youngest, born after a considerable gap following three doting elder brothers, she also had an indulgent father who prided himself on claiming that he had never, ever failed to fulfil any of her demands, however far-fetched they might have been.

Her parents had made it big in their lifetime, an achievement Tamanna had always heard about but never witnessed, unlike her elder brothers. So, for her, life was all about fast friends and a faster lifestyle that started at the beauty parlour and ended with a party. But one thing was certain: she was a fiercely independent girl with a strong and decisive mind of her own. Sadly, she directed that mind solely towards herself and others’ reactions to ‘her’-self. Glamour’s favourite daughter, she made quite a stunner, particularly when dolled up in her eclectic range of cosmetics and trademark Capri pants. And when half the college was smitten by her, could Rahul be far behind?

Rahul’s, as usual, was the first move in that game of mutually certified, publicly permissible coquettish foreplay. He had to blow the whistle for the smitten girls to gleefully play along, as he invented customised charades from there. Life had been that easy all along, until, of course, Anisha’s rebuff had happened.

He realised that the so-called babes in this new set-up weren’t dreamy-eyed teenagers from his school or college days, for whom the sight of a handsome, unattached, vulnerable-looking stud was enough to make their hearts go pit-a-patter. Not that this smart Leo didn’t enjoy it; he pampered and splurged on them in a way unique to him, a process he wholly immersed himself in, enjoying every bit of its predictably unfolding mystery.
To be continued…Look out for Part 4 on Wednesday 13th May 2026…

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