It was probably odd to sketch a random boy in the dead of the night but I was. I glared at the little pencil sketch on the paper before me. I don't know if anyone would recognize that the cool warrior version of the person I had drawn was Kabir but I'd tried my best to imitate his bright cognac eyes and the lopsided smile. I attempted to sharpen his jawline with the pencil and inspected my work, chewing at the end of the stem.
My sister was sleeping on her stomach and snoring softly. I was sitting up in my bed and smiling to myself like a goof. Satisfied with my stupid drawing.
For the first time in my life, my dream felt absolutely surreal.I could feel every inclination of my body.
I couldn't recall anything about the hazy roads and the vegetation that flashed past me in a blur.
It was as if I was on a journey, alone. On a hilly terrain that winded upwards like a screw, until I realised that it was growing dark and cold. Then it was all silent. The whip of the wind and the rush of the wheels faded away. A figure was looming above me and I'd squinted in the inky blackness.
"Get on, we're getting late," The familiar voice sounded, perched on an equally familiar sports bike. I flinched and awoke into consciousness.
That damn bike now even starred in my dream now, really impressive.
My sister's wrist came up and swatted a mosquito on her face and she mumbled something and turned over.
I let out out a huge sigh.
Arranging my pillows, I rested down on the bed and turned over to the side, trying to fall asleep.
But I was wide awake for the next thirty minutes, mulling over things that were over and done.
And in the morning, I was woken up with a painful whack.
I squinted my eyes open.
Siya was standing with a pillow.
"Wha... Why are you waking me this early?" I lamented and threw my leg over the bed.
"Avuna? It's nine o'clock madam."
I gave a displeased grunt until the words hit my ears and I sat up. "Nine? School, school, I'm late!"
I jumped off the bed.
My hands quickly grabbed the neatly folded uniform off my cupboard and the socks.
"You're not taking bath?" Siya called after me.
"Who's taking ba..." I stopped short when I saw my parents who looked up from the TV screen.
My mother looked at the uniform perched on my shoulder.
"Only today you'll feel sincere. It's a local holiday, they announced yesterday night." My mother said.
I whirled around to face my sister with vengeance on my face.
"Surprise, surprise!" She said and
I threw myself at her.
She managed an apology between laughs.
"Behave like the elder one once in a while otherwise people will forget," I said, straddling her on the bed.
"Oh. You be nice to me. I teach tuitions for your boyfriend." She reminded from under me.
"Boyfriend?"
"Then what is he? Your Dhobiwala?"
I threw a nearby pillow at her before exiting the room that satisfactorily hit her head.
"Eat those idlis quick and go study." My mother instructed from the kitchen. I could hear her bangles clinking together.
"She just woke up. Don't pester the child." My father said and I offered a deceivingly innocent smile in his direction.
"How was your business trip?" I plopped into the seat beside him.
"Yes, it was all okay. You tell me, how is school?"
"Board exams, no? Teachers are drilling us!" I wiped an imaginary bead of sweat from my forehead.
He patted my head. "Don't stress too much, okay?"
I nodded eagerly because this advice was in my favour.
I ate four fluffy idlis with deliberate slowness, dipping it in creamy groundnut chutney.
My father spent time in my room after breakfast, doing some work on the computer while I sat behind him on my bed with four pillows around me and a Social Science book in my hand.
With a mission to allow a wisp of something in that book to be absorbed into my brain while I tried to focus on the sentences, drilling my eyes into the book.
My concentration.
Something I haven't been able to brag much about nowadays.Except for when I watch a movie or engross myself in some literary fiction. Gone were the days when my disciplinarian mother made me get straight A's until middle school.
I lay over my stomach and dangled my legs in the air.
My father was now playing Solitaire.
After three hours of mugging, I was allotted a non-indulgent break for 20 minutes inside the room to refresh everything I studied and 'solve some sudokus to stimulate my brain' as quoted by my father.
As it always happened, right when I was cosying up with my history book, piqued by the Renaissance, the timely power cut hit us, right in the peak of the sultry midday. I turned over in bed and watched the blades of the fan rotating slower and slower by the minute. I sat by the window to admire nature, hopefully, but I could only see a few buildings.
The boys in the hostel, unavoidably under my line of sight were brushing their teeth, late in the afternoon.
Well, in their defence, it was a holiday.
One well-built man looked oddly familiar.
Was that the guy who suggested an intimate night with my sister? Wasthatwasthat?
I could recognize that weirdo two planets away, of course, it was.
As if sensing my gaze, he whirled around with a foamy mouth.
My head disappeared from the window.
During lunch, my mother announced that Mrs Jha invited us for an informal dinner and I momentarily looked up at her face and then at my plate of rasam rice. This plan was in my favour because my studies would wind up by evening and well, there was someone special in their house. I disguised my smile with a cough and plucked a vada off the bowl.
The Jhas were in B block, belonging to the same residence while ours was at the back of the building, behind some tall coconut trees ganging up in our parking area.
I skipped two steps at a time and then realised that I left my nuclear family behind and waited at the top of the stairs. I didn't want to be the one who rang the doorbell with an awkward greeting.
I shielded myself behind my family and roved my eyes over the familiar living room.
Target not found.
Mr.Jha was watching me curiously.
With a manufactured smile, I asked him where my long lost friend, Saloni was.
"They went to a friend's party, I think."
They.
What do you know, Hansel and Gretel have something common after all. I have never seen them even talk to each other in whole sentences nowadays and they apparently partied together.
"Make yourselves comfortable," Mrs.Jha said and I obediently relaxed more into my armchair.
Then she disappeared into the kitchen.
Kaun Banega Crorepati was running on the television. Mr Jha reduced the volume to converse with my parents.
He even offered the remote to us.
I would've grabbed it in any other case but I just gave a feminine hand gesture to indicate that I was a well-behaved guest.
So, we watched a man hesitate to simple questions while Lalitha auntie set the table.
I sat in a wooden chair by the balcony and looked at the items before me.
The presentation was appreciable. She even placed some carrots, coconut and beans in immediate succession with each other to evoke those hidden nationalistic feelings.
I wasn't so sure, but I felt as if my father was bonding unusually well with Mr.Jha.
They even spoke in hushed voices intermittently.
The female host served some Upma on my plate.
"What are you planning to do after?"
It was a very usual question so I had an answer. "I think I might take up Commerce next year."
Her reaction made me repeat the words in my head.
"Why not become a doctor?"
A very skillfully irrelevant question to a girl with no particular ambition.
"I think I will like Arts better," I replied.
"Join Kabir's Junior College. Nice coaching. Not very strict."
Mr Jha intervened from the head of the table.
They discussed colleges in the city on behalf of me, while I indulged in the bowl of vanilla ice cream assigned to me.
"You're not coming home nowadays?" Mrs Jha spoke again tilting her head with a glum expression.
Ah. She actually liked me.
I smiled. "I'll come sometime."
I helped the lady clear the table while she shared some general gossip.
Their banter lasted for some time and I heard the sound of shoes.
I turned away from the doorway too abruptly and casually picked a newspaper.
The familiar deep voice. I looked up in what I assumed was a mundane, uninterested glance. I was a bad actor.
Kabir spoke with my parents and I looked at his shoulder and then at the wall hanging behind him.
I almost fell off my chair when Saloni gave me a big hug.
I had a last decent conversation with the girl months ago. I wrapped my arms hesitantly around her for a moment and let go, showing her that's how long a hug should last.
She released me and smiled. "When did you come? I saw you yesterday, you know?"
She was too close so I pushed my chair backwards.
"Oh, where did you see me?"
"On the road. You were walking. I saw."
This was hardly something I could continue the conversation with. What would I ask?
Was I doing a good job?
I nodded and noticed her brother behind her who greeted myself and Siya before disappearing into the room.
Saloni claimed my attention. "I'll show you some childhood pictures of me?"
"Yeah, okay."
That was one activity I could do with her.
"Come inside."
Inside the room where your brother just went into? Hell, yes.
I tested my acting ability."Do you want me to?" A pinch of hesitation. Much better.
I let her hold my hand and take me inside. I spied a glance at the elders.
They didn't even notice.
My sister was reading the day's paper.
Saloni's room looked like it was hit by a tornado.
But she knew exactly where things were.
She plopped down on the bed full of clothes and patted a seat next to her. While I reluctantly sat down on a pile of laundry, she rummaged through some scattered books under the bed to retrieve some albums.
At this moment, Kabir appeared from the bathroom in a vest. And those familiar khaki shorts.
I looked down at the album to immediately because I couldn't manipulate my facial expressions as much as him and I heard the bed dip near me.
"Looking at old photos?"
He folded his legs under him. I flipped through the leaves and gave him a glance.
Saloni replied for me and continued to name all the unknown faces in the photo.
"Didn't you show her the Manali photos?" Kabir asked and Saloni snaked under the bed to uncover other albums.
"You didn't tell me you were coming for dinner and all?" He said quietly, relaxing his pose by resting his palms on the bed.
"You didn't tell me you were going to a party."
"It was a last-minute plan."
I gave him another look of acknowledgement and turned back to the book.
"Hey, your hair has grown." He fixed his eyes at the back of my head. "You look prettier with longer hair."
I pointed at a picture in the album. "Thanks, you look pretty in a frock too,actually."
He was quiet for a beat and then his eyebrows furrowed. He came forward and clasped the side of the book, observing.
"That was an um, experiment by my female relatives." He replied grabbing the book.
"I didn't finish seeing that!" I said.
"You see the other one there."
I laughed and reached for the book in his hand. "No, I want this!"
His sister emerged from under the bed victoriously. "Found it!"
I shuffled away from her brother as subtly as possible."Oh, great."