One More Time..

Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

It was a weekend with Riya, Sachin, Jiah only. With Riya's mother-in-law gone for a family function in her native town, the four of us went out for lunch, to a beautiful beach resort. Riya, Sachin and I spent the day at the resort playing with Jiah, clicking pictures and talking about memories from Riya-Sachin love story. The ambience of the resort made it all even more interesting and romantic. It gave me so much happiness just to watch the three of them together. Watching them grow old together, loving each other, taking decisions together, making fun of each other and others, fighting with each other only to patch up after few minutes without any egos, building a beautiful world of friends to hang out with as a family, made me wish for someone who would perfectly fit into this beautiful world without any hiccups.

It was long since I had a drink so I brought the menu and winked at Sachin to get me one. I drank occasionally when I was with friends, but with Riya and Sachin, it felt more like hanging around with friends than as a family. For I drank for happiness and fun, I can't ask for a better day to drink than that day.

Arjun called that evening to tell about the GRE test he had given that day and scraping a 310 in the test out of 340. His ambition was to do MS in the US and he was applying for the approaching Fall course.

"Not a bad score, Aju. With 4.5 years of experience and good GPA backing you up, you could get into decent universities with this score." I said with certainty.

"Are you still sure you won't come with me?" Arjun asked.

'There he goes again', I thought to myself. "Aju, I told you. As much as I would love to come to the US, I don’t think I would be able to study after such a long gap."

"Honey, it is not what you think at all. If I could do it, so could you, for you hold better academic records than me. Could you not just give a try taking the GRE test? If you didn’t get a good score, I swear I won't force you. Ajay gave his tests too. You could ask him as well if you want multiple opinions on this."

I said I would think about it and hung up. I spoke to Riya and Sachin about this and they thought it was a good idea too. I still was not convinced. I called Anusha, my closest of all friends who completed MS in Management Information System and lived in the US. She too said the same. She was so excited about me being there. Thus, the seed of pursuing MS was sown.

Next day, I told the guys about this. Ajay was excited too. I knew Karthik had no plans of higher studies with him getting married to his girl friend by next year. So, I was asking Sid to join me. He said his parents were already asking him to get married and so wouldn’t accept for this.

"But you are only 26, Sid", I said surprised.

"Believe me, I don’t want to get married. But, you know how parents talk right? I am the eldest son in the family, so they want me to get married before I turned 26, so that my younger brother's marriage won't be delayed too." There was a tone of apprehension in his voice; saying that, he left the place.

"He can't get married for all these reasons! Yes, parents talk, I know. But, end of the day, it is his life. So, it is him who has to stand up for himself" said Karthik.

"But Karthik, his parents had already given him the 2 years break he asked for himself. So, I don’t think he would be able to convince them to give another 2 years again". Ajay said speaking in no one's defense, for both ends had reasons.

I asked Ajay if he could talk to Sid's parents and convince them to send him to US with us. "You both together could make them understand that it is too early for Sid to get married, especially when he is not ready for it. In two years, he could be both mentally and practically ready for it."