An-EXIT

CHAPTER 17 (LAST POETRY)

AHAANA

2014 (2 YEARS BACK)

"One more tape and it's done!" I said to myself while pasting the last side of the brown wooden textured sheet on the outside of the box.

While arranging the gifts to place inside the box, suddenly I realized that I forgot one thing. "Ahaana, how can you forget to bring those mango toffees? You wrote that damn thing in your list-" I made a face and softly hit my forehead.

I was sitting on my desk, quite involved in completing the surprise I planned for my mother. It was a surprise box which I planned to give to her as a gift for mother's day.

I caressed the box and slowly started keeping the items inside one by one. A handmade card, her favorite three shades of pastel nail polish-pink, blue and beige; sky blue phone case and a mother's day poem written on a handmade sheet. I remember, one day when mom was teaching me my course literature poem for the test - 'Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments' by Shakespeare- she said that it would be so amazing if someone would write a poem for her, like Shakespeare wrote for his lover.

Being a poet myself, I decided to surprise her by a handwritten poem. I know the 'lover' thing should have been done by my father, but yeah.... So why not take this opportunity and show some mother-daughter love and I think mother's day would be a great occasion to do that.

'Hope she likes it!' I smiled to myself, while placing the handmade sheet on which the poem was written inside the box.

I know, I should have surprised her and given this box to her when the clock struck 12 in the morning. But c'mon, the surprise was not ready at that time and though it is still not. Ugh... I accidentally forgot to bring those mango toffees and now it is annoying me like hell. 'One thing, only one thing you decided to do by yourself and that even you can't achieve simply.'

I sighed deeply, practically blaming myself for being so careless and suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps, climbing up the stairs. "Oh, it must be maa, I should hide this before she comes in!" I huffed and kept a cloth over it.

Maa barged in the room and her eyes caught me like a deer in the headlight and she said, "Ahaana, we need to talk!" Her voice boomed in my room giving me goosebumps.

"Happ-" I was about to wish her, but she cut my sentence and said,

"What's this?" She showed me the mail which was opened on her phone. I was confused as I had no idea what she was talking about. I squinted my eyes to focus on the phone's screen. In anger, she kept her phone on my desk with great force. What's wrong? She never acts like this with me.

Subject: Streams for class 11th

"Why didn't you tell me that you received an email to choose your subjects for your new class almost like a month ago?" It was so clear that she was trying to control her temper.

"I was going to-"

"You know what Ahaana, I got a call from your class teacher regarding the response of the email. She said that she has even called you like 4-5 times, so that you could submit your response. If your teacher would have not called me, then you won't even tell me about it, right?" She looked straight at my tensed figure, but I avoided eye contact, moving my eyes to look here and there.

"I wanted to talk to you about it, but there is something more important than this. I don't have words to express it but.......What should I say now?" She gulped the lump and inhaled through her mouth to speak further. I was looking at her with confused eyes, my brows about to collide with each other.

"Your class teacher and I had a talk for like an hour, and as I missed attending your PTM, she helped me cover everything I missed that day." She took a pause.