Nearly Perfect (on hold**)

2.) The big news

Dad had come late that day so as soon as he freshened up we all sat down together to eat the delicious ‘biryani’ mom had made, going the Indian way for a change. But as expected he was taken by a surprise as he noticed Sam or rather her hair. As I told you before, she following the trend had colored her hair golden. And in her usual innocent ‘Samish’ way she asked dad how they looked. Giggling together me and Nic simultaneously looked first at sam and then at dad until very reluctantly he finally stammered “ummm……nice….r-really nice.” And he suddenly changed the topic to say “the food is delicious.” Me and Nic passing hi5s below continued to munch on the food, thinking why leave the biryani. Though we didn’t realize the actual effect of Sam’s blonde hair well until the next week.

So one fine evening like always dad came and we sat together to eat our dinner together as we always do. The topic of discussion today came up as India. The entire week dad had been silent during dinners. Sam’s blonde hair had really disturbed him and he suddenly spoke- I was thinking we’ve stayed here in America for quite a while and the ancestral property and the farmhouse there in India are abandoned. Also Nikhil it’s your 11th and Samantha and Alisha’s 10th. The studies there are better. Also I’ve talked to my boss he has allowed me to go and work for their branch in India and your mom to is ready to shift there so I have decided we are going to India. With this he ended looking quite content with the conversation. But as you know the conversation obviously was not yet over. Well you see it’s not that easy to change your real and ideal home even though your dad says you don’t belong here. And why punish all of us for Sam’s reckless hairdo. That too will be a little exaggerated. You can’t deny she looks beautiful with even that hairdo. This is so not fair dad you just can’t come home one day and tell us we are going to some random place, fine maybe not random our so called ancestral home. And such a big change come on we’ve never even gone there once. Our lives are settled here, we belong here, L.A. is a dream place and you’re talking about leaving it. Man, this is a big bad news. I’m not leaving L.A. at any cost. I obviously didn’t have the guts to say this, I had all this in my mind but I’m quite sure the same thing must have been going through my siblings’ mind as well. But no one said anything. As we finished our dinner we had our N.A.S. meeting. Something had to be done. First of all was to color Sam’s hair back to her real brown hair. If it doesn’t work we will talk, first to mom then to dad. And if even that doesn’t work a full no talk regime will be followed. Just a small problem Sam won’t color her hair brown as you know she is obsessed with style and trends. We tried our level best to convince her to do so but she just won’t. Well I guess we don’t have any other choice……… India we are coming!!!

But still one try won’t do harm. Next day I, Sam and Nic went to talk to dad. We understand you are upset with our over the top American lifestyle and that’s correct so we have decided-“give us a week and we’ll change ourselves.” But as expected it had a very little effect on him. In his answer he explained to us that we’ll return after one year if we are unable to settle down there. Great, a year without friends, Veggie grill/Skooby, or Miss Swann our math’s teacher. Clearly the discussion was over we seriously WERE leaving L.A. in a month. We left without a word.

Next two weeks were all filled with teary goodbyes, farewell party and a lot of packing. Within days most of the furniture was shipped away. Sam had silently cried most of the nights thinking about “Ryan” her true love and her best friend Cassie. I too was miserably upset about leaving Taylor (my best friend). Nic was so busy in helping dad with the shifting that we didn’t get any time to talk to him properly.