Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Three : In Between Confusing Feelings

There was nothing wrong with me. I simply preferred verbal communication over physical contact. Especially after what had happened. Not that I thought of it much, but it was always lingering in the back of my mind like a nagging presence of a toddler crying for attention. Annoying the hell out of me.

It was a week before my 12th board exams and I was slouched over my mathematics textbook on Lila's queen size bed, absently chewing the end of my pencil (which I later discovered to be completely macerated) and calculating the digits. Lila lay next to me, fiddling with the calculator. The sunlight filtered in through the white shutters of her balcony, inching slowly on the bed like a crawling worm.

"Hello, hello," I heard her say and I looked up from the book. She was pressing the calculator against her ear like it was a mobile phone. She grinned triumphantly when her little game had captured my attention and continued, "This is an official announcement to let the citizens of twelfth-grade CBSE mathematics know that the answer to sum number seven is seventy."

"God, Lila." I scowled at her, not wanting to know the answer from her calculator since I had broken my back over this sum for half an hour.

"Okay, sorry, sorry. I won't disturb you," she said in a manner contrary to her apologetic words, nevertheless, she turned her back to me and lay motionless.

How different we were. I took my academic performance seriously, analysing each text of my portion and worrying about every lost mark. I did attain results for all my slogging which reinforced my obsession with academics. In contrast, Lila barely studied the ready-made answers from the various guides. She regurgitated them up a day before exams and scored below average to average marks. She was content with that and her peculiar family never bothered about her academics either. When we had won the quiz competition, she had been the happiest, regarding the victory as no less than a miracle . . . Well, that was a story for another time.

Lila didn't have any extraordinary talent either (neither did I), but she was content doing a little bit of several things. If someone gifted her a new box of paints, she would be engrossed in painting for a few weeks with the unwavering determination of a missionary trying to convert people. But then it would fade away if she came across a new baking recipe, spending the next few days harassing her mother into helping her create the perfect triple-decker sponge cake. After she achieved that, she would randomly come across a trending dance step, then spend the next few days learning it till the trend (like trends by definition do) would lose its appeal. So on and on.

For me, doing a little bit of everything amounted to nothing. So I did nothing. And I was pretty consistent in doing that.

Our contrast was like a vibrant day and dreary night. Warm oceans with fierce waves and lofty, cold, unmoving mountains. Lazy summer afternoons and chilly, eerie winter nights where one could hear the whistling wind.
(Not so much in cities where one could hear only whistling men).