Through the darkness she could see blurry images. It looked like there were atleast 5 people flitting about, talking in muted voices. She tried to turn her head but immediately felt nauseous. She was dizzy and her head was aching. What had happened? She could hear the lapping of the water outside on a boat. So they must be near the Sarasvati. But where was he? Was he around? She strained to hear his voice. What were all these people talking about? She smelt smoke and gingerly tried to sit up. "Melito", it was a harsh whisper, "Don't move, child, you need to rest". " But.." "Shhh!" someone hissed.
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"I don't see why you should talk to him like that, Gaurav. Do you want to be sent away? Look, he's just doing his job! This site's been excavated atleast five times already. You think that noone would have seen this skeleton just lying around on the ground? Use you brain, for heaven's sake, God gave it to you for a reason." Priyanka was not happy. Now they were all in trouble and she had wanted to stay in the Big P's good books for the duration of the dig. How was she ever going to get a sniff of the action if Gaurav insisted on being a jerk. "He's a pompous self-important fool", grumbled Gaurav, "I'm not saying that I can prove this is an authentic Harappan skeleton. All I said was let's do tests on it before you decide to junk it. Don't see why he should go ordering me around. They never treated students like this in the UK". " Would you stop talking about the UK as if people are perfect there? Hard luck, you're not in the UK anymore. So suck it up and stop being a baby", it was Arundathi's turn. They were both furious. Gaurav started laughing, "OK OK I'm not a match for two angry, hissing women. I'm sorry. I promise to suck up to Big P for the rest of the day and make it up to you both, OK? Friends?" Both the girls glared at him. Priyanka reluctantly smiled, "Deal", she said. "Yeah yeah, whatever", muttered Arundathi. The girls wandered off toward the Lunch tent. "I'll catch up with you guys in a second, Nature Calls", yelled Gaurav. Arundathi waved a hand in acknowledgement and the girls moved away. He could hear them discussing whether there'd be dhal or sabji for lunch. He quickly bent down and shovelled some loose dirt over the bony mass. He looked around, saw a handy bush, uprooted it and placed it on top of the sand pile he'd made. He dusted his hands off. There, this would keep it for a while. He'd be back. Much the Big P knew about anything. He sauntered behind the girls wondering whether they'd have dhal or sabji for lunch.