Aditi stood trembling outside the grand oak door of Dean Vikram Rao's sprawling bungalow on the outskirts of the city. The evening air was thick with the scent of jasmine from the manicured garden, but it did little to calm her racing heart. At 19, she was a scholarship student in her second year of college, the first in her modest middle-class family to even dream of higher education. Her parents had sacrificed everything—selling their small plot of land, skipping meals—so she could study here. One failed subject, a single *F* in Advanced Economics, and it all threatened to crumble.

"Bas ek baar maaf kar do, Dean sahab," she whispered to herself, practicing. *(Just forgive me once, Dean sir.)* Her hands clutched the strap of her worn backpack, knuckles white. She had no choice. The scholarship renewal deadline was tomorrow, and without it, she would be expelled. Blacklisted, her dreams shattered.