Rohini and Vanessa were the closest friends!
From an idea by Dalhia57
Dalhia is a mine of story plots. Some may be quite at odds with my own feelings but others are completely in tune. I just hope that the first ones don't give too bad stories while the second will really be enjoyed by the readers. At least, they are a real pleasure to write when I feel really in tune with the plot like here.
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Rohini and Vanessa were students in a Grande Ecole in Paris. Many of the best scientific students in France don't go to University but continue their studies in an almost completely separate scholar system, almost unknown elsewhere in the world : the Grandes Ecoles (literally High Schools) where they begin with two or three years of high level Maths and Physics courses with maddening work hours, then a selection through an examination with a very limited number of accepted students. Ingénieurs have nothing to do with engines or the management of industrial plants as some people occasionally think in the rest of the world. Some of the French engineers may be physicists, chemists or specialists of any branch of science while other ones build bridges, planes, cars or roads.
If the two or three first years were devoted to hard work with very little time for any distraction, flirt or binge drinking (if the student wants to be in the happy few accepted in a school); the rest of the studies afterward is in comparison just like vacations but the accepted students had proved that they could work under maximal pressure and deliver good results in such extreme conditions. Such students often become assets in International companies looking for high potential people.
Rohini was an Indian girl. Her father lived in New Delhi but he came from Chandernagor, one of the former cities of the French colonies in India. He had worked with French military engineers when he lived there and he knew the value of such studies. In the school she had been selected into, Rohini had become the close friend of a French girl named Vanessa. Rohini and Vanessa had never wondered about the reasons that had made them become close friends. Both were tall and lithe, with voluptuous curves that had made them the wet dreams of most of their male colleagues. Both were shy with boys even if they were quite interested by them! They had just a common peculiarity that divided them from their other female class mates ; they had a rather dark or olive skin that was extremely visible in comparison with the white or the black skin of most of the other students...
None of them suffered from that special appearance : their fellow students were too highly educated to harbor any idea of racism. The few who had such ideas had been pretty soon black listed by the other students and had chosen to return to other more conventioal universities. Rohini had tried her best to comfort Vanessa when her mother had suddenly died, just one year before the end of their studies. They had been in the middle of their examinations at that moment and Vanessa hadn't even been able to attend the funerals that took place abroad. Rohini was too much engrossed by their exams to inquire.
At the end of June, it was Rohini's turn to receive very bad news from home : she received a telegram telling her that her father had fallen ill and her uncle had added that the doctor prognostic wasn't very good. She had better to come home fast if she wanted to see him in his last moments. Of course, she took a ticket on the first plane to New Delhi. She just left a letter to Vanessa, telling her how sad she was not to give her an appropriate good bye! Rohini was pretty sure she would never see Vanessa again, especially if she found a job in India...
When her plane landed at Indira Gandhi airport, Rohini relished the hot and dry weather of her home country. It changed her from the rain she had endured for weeks in France. It wasn't the rain itself that had bothered her but the lack of sun : the weather had been cloudy for weeks with just a few hours of sun and blue sky! She went to her father's flat and she dropped her wallets there before phoning to her uncle in order to have the latest news about her father. Her uncle seemed relieved that she had been able to arrive so fast. Rohini took a taxi to the hospital where her father had been transported. It was a shock to the young girl to discover her father she had left looking strong and healthy. He was so pale, his skin had turned gray and there were several monitors on a rack and an automatic pump that poured some medicine in his veins...
Rohini's father, Vidhan, greeted her with a weak voice, expressing his sorrow not to have been able to pick her up at the airport. He made a wide apologetic gesture to show the syringes and the pipes that maintained him in life. There was another man sitting on a chair near her father's bed. Rohini didn't know him but she made a formal Namaste (salute with hands joined and a deep bow of the head) just to be polite. The man returned the salute and presented himself.
- Hello, Rohini! My name is Mukherjee Rao and I'm your father's boss. Perhaps he had talked to you about me?
Rohini had never met Mr Rao but her father Vidhan had often spoken of him in his letters and mails. Wages in India were far lower than in Europe and her father would have been unable to support her without the help of his boss. He had promoted her father, allowing him to work extra hours to get a higher pay, offering him a company car to reduce his expenses and plenty of other financial gestures. Rohini perfectly knew what she herself owed to Mr Rao!
As they chatted, Rohini watched closely her father's boss : he was taller than her father, about 6 feet, a wide chest and bulging muscles on his arms. From what he told her, Mr Rao was a sportsman, practicing bicycle, tennis, golf, horse riding and sailing. No wonder he looked that young despite his fifty years. Mr Rao would have certainly beaten most of her fellow students in any competition, even though he was twenty five years older than them. Most of them were couch potatoes and never practiced any physical activities...
Mr Rao excused himself and returned to his office, telling Vidhan that he would come back later... As soon as Mr Rao had left, Vidhan called for Rohini to come nearer him.
- Rohini, my darling daughter, I'll be frank with you : the doctors don't give me more than a month or two before I die. Apart for my brothers, who have their own family to manage, you won't have any support in life. I'm not rich and I couldn't offer you a rich dowry.
- It's not important, Daddy. Now I could find a good job in Europe and dowries don't exist there. Most European girls marry guys they love and build up their couple on their own.
- I know it but I'm Indian and YOU are Indian, if I must make you remind it. In our country, most marriages are arranged by family. Love is just secondary. It will come as you get accustomed to live with your husband! I would die in peace if I knew my daughter is conveniently settled. I would have loved to know my grand children but I'm afraid I won't have that pleasure! Will you obey to the last wills of you dying father, Rohini?
Rohini had to make the strongest effort to calm herself and keep a steady voice. She had thought that she had gotten free of the overpowering but outdated customs of her home country. She felt a free woman like most of the students she had known in Paris and these custom suddenly jumped at her throat, trying to force her to accept a marriage with someone she didn't even know, probably much older than she was! Maybe he would want her to be a stay at home wife, just taking care of his household and his children while she had expected she would become someday a very important executive in a big international company, a respected woman but respected for her intelligence and her own professional skills and not for the cleanliness of her home or the wealth of her husband!
Vidhan pressed the question : he was anxious to have an answer, a positive one, of course!
- Rohi, my dear daughter, please, tell me you agree to meet the man I chose for you!
