ExpectationZahi scanned the list again to make sure, but she knew she hadn’t made a mistake the first time. One didn’t make mistakes about things like this. She read it a third time, more slowly.
Behroze Sethna
Priya Pawar
Zahi Deshpande
Rahul Joshi
No ranks were allotted, but the marks said it all. It didn’t take Zahi long to calculate the merit list. The first three were within five marks of each other, then Rahul’s name came next, lagging ten marks behind Zahi. Only ten marks behind, thought Zahi, a trifle bitterly. She knew how much he had studied. Or to put it more correctly, how much he hadn’t studied. It didn’t seem fair at all. And yet, he was her friend, and she didn’t like feeling the way she was feeling about the whole thing.
She responded mechanically to the congratulatio
