An eye for an eye

Chapter one: Staying on line

Chapter one: Staying on line

Who likes being woken up from a cozy sleep? Not me, definitely.

So that dark day when someone switched off the fan and slapped me a couple of times, I was pissed.

 ”Holamba! Holamba!”

“Lemme sleep! Too early for your random chants Anku.”

Suddenly my world came crashing down as I finally got what he had been shouting in my ears, “Roll number, what is your boards roll number?”

In a millisecond I was standing up and opening my phone. The bright numbers flashed 28/05/2012.

“It can’t be,” I mutter out.

“Quit being dramatic and give me your roll number already. I bet you have failed.”

Ignoring my coming doom, I pulled my brother’s ear enough to make him squirm.

“Take it back!”

I glared at him until he said sorry and ran away to watch Power rangers or something equally stupid. I stared at the computer’s screen for a while. Then I suddenly remembered him. God.

I ran to the bathroom, brushing my teeth as I jumped around in anticipation, within minutes I showered and bowed down before some random God’s idol. “Bhagwaan ji! Is baar bacha lena, mai to app se kabhi kuch mangti bhi nahi.” (God, save me this time, I don’t even ask for anything much.)

Then finally after my mother adorned my forehead with a wide tika, I turned the computer on. I could have been able to check my results on my phone like my friends if my mother would have brought me a phone that supports internet. As the result page opens up, I search through my not-so-organized shelf for my boards admit card. I could hear the silence that suddenly appeared in the room. The silence that surfaces before a storm.

“How many times I have to tell you to clean your room? I want it clean today.” She shouted.

“Okay. At least let me see the result before.” I squirmed.

“When you can’t find your admit card, how will you check your result? Don’t listen to me, after all who am I to tell you anything.”

I finally found my admit card and jumped happily and then I remembered what I was searching it for. I walked towards the keyboard, my shoulders slumped. I typed in the roll number, joined my hands and prayed one more time before pressing the dreaded enter key.

Loading…

Loading…

Server is busy.

I almost cursed.

“What happened?” she asked as she leaned over me to see the screen.

“Server is busy, have to wait.”

I reloaded the page and this time, my name showed up.I closed my eyes and ran away before minimizing the window.

“Where are you going?”, my mother shrieked.

“I need to go to the toilet”

My mother raised her eyebrow, which irritated me since I have tried doing it so many times, but they always rise up together.

After I washed my hand for the nth time, I walked back slowly into the room trying to prolong the inevitable. Clearly, mom was not very happy with my one-hour long toilet session. I finally open the window.

Ignoring the marks, I just scanned the part where it is mentioned whether I had passed or failed.

55% PASS

I hugged my mother expecting the same but was shocked to see her hands lying loosely by her sides. I looked down at her face, she didn’t seemed very happy.

“Umm, mother I passed.”

“You got a 45 in maths? How is that even possible. I never got below 90 and the worse thing is you are happy. Do you have any idea what the cutoffs are for top colleges and you want economic honors. What are you going to do.”

That hadn’t gone so well.

“Well, I do have 60 marks in economics.” I tried to reason.

“India TV said that the cutoffs are going to be 99.99% in top colleges”

“Well the India TV also said that Tigers shouldn’t date other tigers.”

My mother glared at me and then walked out of the room. Running away wasn’t something I had learned from my father. I guess she was just pissed that she wouldn’t get to tell the neighbors how her daughter topped boards exam or something. I ran away out of the door.

I could hear her calling me back but I pretended to not have heard her.

~~~~

“Where are you?”  I hear mom’s voice as soon as I pick up my phone.

“No where.”

“Come right back home from the Net-cafe.”

“What?” My mouth dropped open as I hadn’t told anyone where I was.

“How do you know?” I asked curiously.

“I was worried about you so I called up your friend as your phone was unreachable, she told me you were online on facebook.”

Ahh busted.