Auntie!

One week later, the disaster began.

Aunt Lakshmi – now Mohan – stood in front of the mirror, trying to look convincingly boyish.

She’d taken a few of my T-shirts, and one of my oversized hoodies. The result was… surreal. With her buzzed hair and my old clothes, she looked like some alternative version of myself that had accidentally grown up too fast.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked for the hundredth time, watching her adjust her posture.

She turned, arching an eyebrow. “Are you seriously asking me that when you’ve been prancing around in a saree for two months?”

“Point taken,” I muttered.

Aunt Lakshmi was already in character. She slouched like I did, mimicking the way I shuffled around when I wasn’t paying attention. She even picked up some of my more annoying habits, like the way I scratch my head when I’m confused.

The worst part? She was good at it.

“You’ve been studying me,” I accused, crossing my arms below chest.

She grinned. “Well, I had to learn from the best.”

It was unsettling, to say the least. Watching her transform into me while I continued to pretend to be her. The lines between who we were and who we were pretending to be had blurred so much that sometimes, I couldn’t tell where Mohan ended and Lakshmi began.

The first day of her as “Mohan” was even weirder than when I became “Lakshmi.”

She marched into the campus, hands in pockets, looking like she owned the place. I followed a few paces behind, still in full Professor Lakshmi mode, feeling like a twisted version of a high school parent dropping off their kid. Except, you know, the kid was also me.

“Remember,” I whispered as we passed the main gate, “don’t talk too much. Teenagers don’t use big words.”

She shot me a look. “You’re underestimating how much I’ve been around students.”

I wasn’t. I just knew that Aunt Lakshmi had a tendency to sound like she was lecturing on Foucault when she was supposed to be ordering coffee.

We parted ways once we got inside. She headed toward my first-year literature class, and I went to Professor Lakshmi’s office, praying this wouldn’t turn into some bizarre comedy.

***

When the lunch break approached, it was clear: Aunt Lakshmi was absolutely nailing it.

It was not appropriate for a professor to share lunch time with their students, but the day was an exception. Maybe, people are too busy to notice us in the canteen together.

She admitted that she breezed through her classes as “Mohan,” using just enough slang to avoid suspicion. She even joined the drama club on my behalf, though it seems she spent more time critiquing the student performances than participating on the day one.

We had an unspoken agreement: don’t ask questions, don’t overthink it, and maybe, just maybe, we’d pull this off. At least until the end of the semester.

***

If you’d told me six months ago that I’d be standing in front of a college classroom, dressed in a saree, about to teach my own aunt, I would’ve laughed in your face. Actually, I’d have probably called you insane, and maybe thrown in some colorful metaphors for good measure. But here I was, on the last class for the day, staring down a room full of undergrads – including “Mohan,” the world’s most convincing 30-year-old teenage boy.

Aunt Lakshmi, seated at the back like a rebellious student, gave me a smirk so sly it made my stomach flip. She’d settled into the Mohan persona frighteningly well. She had the slouch perfected, the blank-yet-bored expression that most boys my age carry around like a badge of honor.

I turned to the blackboard, hoping the act of writing something – anything – would stop my brain from combusting under the weight of the absurdity. “Today,” I announced, my voice echoing in the room, “we’ll be covering the history of literature in the 19th century.”

Dead silence. They wonder why a professor would startle them on their very first day. Honestly, I didn’t know.

“Mohan” – I mean, Aunt Lakshmi – leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, eyes fixed on me with that signature look.

And here's the thing: I could handle 30 strangers staring at me, half of them probably wondering why “Professor Lakshmi” suddenly looked like she’d learned how to smile. What I couldn’t handle was my aunt, sitting there in my old hoodie, pretending to be me. She was enjoying this. Way too much.

I started scribbling on the board, something about Victorian literature, my hand shaking just slightly. “The 19th century was a period of massive literary production – authors like Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aunt Lakshmi yawn. Yawning. My aunt, a tenured professor who had probably memorized the complete works of Thomas Hardy, was yawning in my class. I wanted to throttle her. Instead, I kept going. “This period marked a shift towards realism in literature…”

Aunt Lakshmi leaned forward, her hand lazily going up. “Professor?” Her voice was low, mocking. It dripped with challenge.

“Yes? You’re Mohan, right?” I bit back a smile, trying to stay professional. Don’t engage. Don’t feed the troll.

“Could you clarify how Victorian realism differs from Romanticism?” She asked it in a way that sounded almost sincere, but I knew better. This was her poking the bear. I knew for a fact that Lakshmi could deliver a two-hour lecture on this exact topic, complete with quotes and probably some obscure French theorist thrown in for fun. This was her screwing with me.

And, her stunt drew attentions from all corners of the class.

I turned to face the class, trying to ignore her smug expression. “Of course,” I said, launching into an explanation that was halfway decent, if I do say so myself. I’d been doing this for two months now – I wasn’t about to let her throw me off my game.

***

The next few days were an ongoing battle of wits.

Every time I turned around, there was Aunt Lakshmi, smirking at me like she was one bad grade away from rebellion. She’d make snide comments under her breath, ask unnecessary questions in the middle of lectures, and once even dared to doodle on her notebook while I was explaining the difference between literary realism and naturalism.

That was the day I snapped.

It started out as a normal class, me droning on about 19th-century American literature, the students nodding off like usual. But then I glanced at Lakshmi, and there she was, doodling something completely unrecognizable in her notebook, her head cocked to one side as if she were sketching the next Mona Lisa.

I slammed my book down on the desk. Hard.

“Mohan,” I said, my voice cutting through the classroom. “Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?”

Mohan – no, – Aunt Lakshmi looked up at me with the most exaggeratedly innocent expression I’d ever seen. “No, Professor,” she said sweetly, tucking her notebook under her arm as if she hadn’t just been daydreaming in front of me.

I paused for a second, eyes narrowing. Screw it, I thought. If she wants to play this game, I’m going to play it better.

“Very well,” I said, pacing slowly in front of the class. “Since you don’t seem to be paying attention, I think a bit of punishment is in order.”

The class collectively sucked in their breath. I don’t usually do the whole “punishment” thing. That’s not Professor Lakshmi’s style – or at least, it wasn’t my style while pretending to be her. But this was personal.

Aunt Lakshmi raised an eyebrow, and I could see the challenge glittering in her eyes.

“Write a 500-word essay,” I said, my voice dripping with authority, “on the influence of Gothic fiction in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Due tomorrow.”

The class went silent. Lakshmi stared at me, half-shocked, half-amused, and then she nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, voice syrupy sweet.

The irony of giving my aunt, a seasoned professor, an easy punishment essay wasn’t lost on me. But hey, she’d started it.

The next day, Aunt Lakshmi handed me the essay.

I scanned it quickly, noting the unnecessarily neat handwriting, the way she’d written “Influence of Gothic Fiction” in bold at the top like she was submitting it to a journal. She hadn’t even phoned it in – no, she’d written a better essay than half the students in the class could dream of.

I shot her a look. She winked.

I think the punishment had been a wake-up call, a reminder that even though we were playing a game, I was still the teacher in this twisted reality. And you know what? That was kind of liberating.

There’s a strange power in having authority over someone you used to look up to. It’s unsettling, sure, but also… thrilling? Every time I called on her in class, every time I caught her slacking off, I could remind her that I was in charge. Not in a mean way – just in a “you’re not getting away with this” way.

As I settled into my role as Professor Lakshmi, the weirdness never fully went away. Every time I stood in front of that blackboard, teaching literature to a bunch of students who had no idea who I really was, there was Aunt Lakshmi – my mentor, my student – sitting at the back of the class, challenging me with her every move.

And the craziest part? I kind of loved it.