Home was never a heaven for me but still I need to live here. I was the lone child of my highly educated, conventional and too conservative parents. For my dad, what it matters for a human being to be valued was a degree from IIT! So does for my mother.This was how I was pushed into the race! Only I know how much I abhor mathematics and IIT, but is there any other thing I could do? Nothing! Right? Being helpless, I had to do it, I had to bare this IIT torture. Anyway I reached my home after the day's class and relentlessly rebuking the guy in the traffic all the way back to my home. I was already late by pretty twenty minutes. I was sure that my father would reprimand for being late and wasting twenty minutes of time. But nothing of that sort happened as my father wasn't home yet. However all my anger and anxiety had vanished the moment I walked into my room and found my cousin Nandini in the balcony.
"Nandini" I screamed in bliss and ran to her. I hugged her till she choked.
Nandini, to tell you, she's my cousin sister, rather say my soul sister. Two years elder to me. Just like me, she too was victim of forced education. Not towards engineering but towards medicine. She lives in Bangalore dealing with the same life as of mine. Being forced into medicine, Nandini had left with nothing to do what she loves. The only gift that her medical college gave her was Nirupam, her classmate. After being the classmates, then friends, then best friends, Nandini found him to be a balm for soothing her pains. They irrevocably had fallen in love with each other that Nandini was continuing her studies only to be with him all the time.
Apart from Nirupam, Nandini had given a lion's share of her heart to me. In fact I too love her a lot that I just couldn't explain my love towards her in words. Apart from my room, my balcony turned mini garden and my scooter what I love most was Nandini. We always found relief in sharing our bitter encounters, experiences with our parents. We would talk to each other for hours never feeling bored of each other.
Anyway it was really a surprise for me to see Nandini in my room. She could have called me the day before she was arriving so that I could have skipped my classes today but she didn't I know she deliberately abstained herself from intimating me so that she could surprise me. I liked it though. You know it was really love when people try to surprise you. With Nandini, I always felt loved. I missed her so much that we kept on blabbering things that were happening in our lives for the next two hours. We haven't even noticed the time that flew.
We both never realized that it was night until my mother screamed from the dining room that the dinner was ready. Well it was not exactly night but the time was 7 00 pm. Thing here to share is, it was my father's set rule that I should have the dinner early and have to study till late in the night.
"Come let's have dinner" I said to Nandini as I got to my feet and began to walk towards the dining table. Nandini followed. My father wasn't home yet. So the dinner went all chirpy and lively
Post dinner, Nandini and I sat on the swing in the balcony of my room, it was the first time that Nandini was visiting my room after I shifted here to Mumbai. She was already loving it, for I designed the interiors of my room all by myself; adorned my balcony with a swing, lawn grass and many other ornamental plants. I had turned it into a mini garden. It was my pass time, a drug to kill my agony. I spend most of my time here in this balcony just that it never failed to fill life in my mundane day.
As we sat in the balcony, on the swing, I asked Nandini, "So how's Nirupam" The mere mention of his name made Nandini blush. I being a insane romance reader, detect love everywhere and their story was my dearie.
"Jiju? You left him alone? Aww", I added pulling Nandini's legs. She tried to grab me, but I was too fast to be caught. I ran and she followed me. Her cheeks had rosiness. After the Tom and Jerry sequel, we both were hell tired that we couldn't even move an inch further. Sweat was oozing out. The whole room was just messed up, with pillows and clothes spread all around the room.
"I can't chase you more" she said, comforting herself in the swing again. I was looking at her, maintaining a decent distance, resting my palms on my knees and breathing unevenly.
"Come and sit yaar!" she added, tapping the empty space beside her on the swing. I was not sure what to do, as it might be her plan to grab me. But a part of me forced me to trust her. Going near the swing, I still suspected her but it was nothing like that. She was calm. Heaving a sigh I sat next to her while she kept looking at the moon that spread the relishing rays of love and peace to the earth.
To break the pin drop silence, I spoke up with a mischievous smile, "Jiju didn't call you today?" Her gaze all of a sudden shifted towards me.
"Wo sab chodo! How are your classes? Met any?" Nandini tried hard to change the course
"Nah!"I shook my head "I am still a cherub. No one even care to look at me" I pouted trying to sound all kid and innocent. Nandini chuckled at my antics and chirped.
"Awww...! Don't worry! Someday a charming prince will come for this beautiful princess" Nandini imitated my pout! And yeah the word charming prince had reminded me of "him" that guy with hypnotic orbs, which I met in the traffic hours ago.
"Nandu"I nearly jumped."Today I met a strange guy in the traffic" I said.
"Really!" Nandini raised her brows.
"Haan!" I chimed. "He's so strange!" I said. With that I started blabbering in the hurry to explain the whole thing that had happened to her and finally ended up pouting, boiling with anger.When I told her that he called me "aunty". Nandini who was listening to me quietly, burst out laughing at once.
"What's so funny" I made a stern face. But still Nandini couldn't stop her laughter; she just suppressed it to giggles.
"Enough! If I meet him once again! Am sure that I'll see his dead end." I gritted. "And now if you don't stop laughing, am sure about this too, that I'm going to strangle you to death." I said holding her neck squeezing it mildly, trying to threaten her and make her stop laughing at any cost.
"Okay baba! Okay!" she stopped laughing "chal! Chhod na....I don't think that he'll cross your path again" she said trying to calm me down. I said nothing. I loosened my grip letting her go "unless you both were destined to be together" she added with a wink.
"You" I said as I frowned in disgust. But it didn't bother her at all. She just laughed my words off. I didn't have any idea how that actually went. All I could remember was falling asleep in the swing itself with my head in her lap.
~~~~
Soon morning stumbled in. I opened my eyes with nonstop "wake-up-getting-late-to-class" chants of my mother. I woke up cursing my own self for my birth in this house.
"Why the hell on the earth should I attend these IIT classes? Damn!" I hit the bed with my pert fists, I felt my eyes damp. Whatever! I knew that it's inevitable. I looked aside and found Nandini sleeping peacefully in my bed, beside me. I got down the bed without disturbing her sleep but continued to curse god for giving me this life.
I got ready for my day mechanically, it was so mechanical that I lost my appetite. I didn't feel like eating so I skipped my breakfast. What hurt me more was that my mother didn't even care to ask me to eat. Had it been my grandmother, she would be running after me with the breakfast in her hands, pestering me to eat. But she's not my grandmother. She's my mother. Huh! The thought itself brought tears back to my eyes. A few tear drops trickled down my cheeks as I left home thinking about the kind of bond I was sharing with my parents.
I drove all the way desperately till I reached the same junction where I met that strange guy the previous day. As soon I reached the junction all my agony had vanished strangely.My eyes suddenly were filled with an unknown hope and anxiety to see "him" again. Of course I did hate him. I wanted to kill him, too. But it felt so strange that my eyes were searching for him. I wondered why. Anyway he was nowhere to be seen that morning. As it was the morning, the traffic was low. I got a swift drive. It took just few minutes for me to reach the institute. Once at the institute, for all the day what I did was sitting in the class and listening to the boring lectures of physics, chemistry and mathematics.
