Head held high, baton swinging like a child about to launch into orbit, Anuragi strides across the courtyard, under the peepal tree with its rustling gossiping leaves, and skips upstairs. The cognitive science department is on the top floor, and it’s May, but dense canopy keeps the sun from baking the IIT’s roofs. If you were a drone, peering into campus, your unblinking eye would see only over-nourished birds patrolling fat green territories, guys and gals walking arm-in-arm at midnight from one subsidized café to another, brains effervescing in cutting-edge labs 24/7, and the hum of the recycling center.

The stairs are polished slippery-smooth. Anuragi clutches the banister. At the landing she pauses to pant. The noticeboard announces talks given at conferences, papers in press, awards won, grants received. It’s a big department but every second announcement bears the name of the department head, nicknamed Stinky, half-affectionately. Maybe it’s fury making her heart race; maybe it’s her meds. It’s normal, she tells herself, to love-hate the person who has so much power over you. She hears paper crackling and looks down at the baton she’s clutching, the rolled-up resignation letter addressed to her PhD supervisor.

“Hey, how are you? Long time no see.”

Anuragi looks up and sees Devashish leaning outside his Virtual Reality lab. He’s blowing on his chipped World’s-Best-Big-Brother coffee mug, eyes twinkling behind grandpa glasses.

Anuragi stammers, blushes, says, “I’ll be better soon,” and asks Dev how he’s doing.

“Just the same.” Dev’s always just the same: international research studies underway, papers published, his PhD students attending conferences in Europe. At 37, Dev’s already on the cusp of fame. But he’s still the shaggy-haired, shy-smiling, pleasantly plump t-shirted guy Anuragi knew as a super-senior during her Masters’. When her therapist asked this January where she saw herself in ten years, Anuragi said, ‘Dev.’

“We were worried,” says Dev. “Sir, especially.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” says Anuragi. It’s Dev she rang, on the brink of losing consciousness, after she overdosed the first time. It’s Dev who rang her that other time, when she wasn’t trying to die, when she just wanted to sleep for a week. It’s Dev who sat with her in hospital, cracking dad jokes, bringing her coffee. But it’s also Dev who’s told everyone about Anuragi’s adventures during PhD. These are not the adventures she saw herself having ten years ago. “I’m fine now.” Maybe this is Dev’s secret, maybe this is how you survive: do everything you need to, but take nothing seriously except your own work.

A student calls Dev away. “I’ll see you later,” Dev tells Anuragi, glancing at her baton.

Anuragi walks on, careful not to peep into labs or cabins, not to inhale too deeply. Hiding in hostel, missing deadlines, ducking phone calls, head hazy with pills, she’d forgotten how this place smells. Bleach and lemon room freshener, hot printer ink and rancid Nescafe.

Suddenly, casually, batchmates and seniors appear in doorways, and juniors and R.A.s too. Anuragi pretends to be daydreaming, studying the floors. Glaring reflections from overhead lights obscure the softer reflections from the windows, which are few and far apart. Anuragi glances up and flashes smiles back at her spectators. Her shoulders hunch; her stride becomes a creep. She readjusts the shawl she’s swathed herself in to hide her weight gain and crosses her arms. Her therapist warned her about this, warned her how easily a smirk could shake your deepest conviction.

How do all these others manage it? Scurrying in and out of labs, cafes, break rooms, libraries, and club rooms. They rant, backbite, and gossip – about boyfriends, supervisors, best friends, and faculty – always everyone in this tiny world each other. Maybe that’s the secret: rant and move on. Anuragi was always top of her class. What do these people have that she doesn’t?

She clutches her baton, breaking its spine. ‘You’ve got two choices,’ her therapist told her, ‘quit or die.’ But how could her therapist know for sure?

None of these people staring and whispering knows anything yet. Only this letter stands between her and a bright future: alumna of the country’s top institute, pursuing groundbreaking research on a handsome stipend. Last week she nodded along vehemently with her therapist. Now her hands are clammy. If she leaves this place, maybe she’ll live, but what good is a life of failure? She’s got to give it one last try. She stops to wipe her hands on her jeans legs and someone almost bumps into her for she’s stopped in a doorway.

“Oh, hey, uh, hi.” Rakesh retreats halfway across the lab. “So good to see you.”

Anuragi steps into the lab out of the public glare. Rakesh works alone here. On his workstation, in the old precise formation, stand his beaten-up old laptop, notebook, and pencase, inside a semicircular honor guard of sanitizer: sanitizer sprays, gels, and wipes. A half-liter bottle of Dettol and a liter bottle of ethanol have now joined Rakesh’s honor guard.

Anuragi looks up, wanting to hug Rakesh, to pass her baton on to him first. But he’s retreated now all the way across the lab, arms across gaunt chest, hands fisted and tucked out of sight, faded black t-shirt so big it’s like a gown.

“How’ve you been, Rakesh?” Her eyes fill. She drops them.

“Uh, yeah, not bad, you know, same. Making progress.”

Rakesh won’t see a therapist. Standup comic Bo Burnham is his therapist, his pills, his friend. There’s Bo now, frozen on Rakesh’s laptop screen, mouth open against maroon stage curtains.

Anuragi doesn’t wipe away her tears, doesn’t repeat her suggestion about a therapist. Rakesh looks up. His hands dart from under his elbows and he takes a step towards her. Then he clutches himself again, thumbs digging into ribs, hollow eyes scrutinizing his whiteboard covered in notes in shorthand multi-color micro print, never a note erased.

“You take care,” says Anuragi. “I’ll call you when I’m home.”

She unrolls her letter and smooths it out on the corridor wall, not caring who’s looking, and knocks at the last door. She walks into Stinky’s office, holding aloft her baton of truth won, and lost, and won again.