The Old Lady and her flowers

CHAPTER TWO

It was an indication when my mother would retrieve my trunk from its hiding place under the bed and start packing my things one by one with surgical precision and utmost care that the time was up and the holidays were nearing an end. I always had mixed feelings about the end of the holidays- a bit sad because I would be gone again for a year to the boarding school away from my family- a very funny dad, nagging, yet, sweet Mom and my cool and bossy brother, Anirudh. But looking at the bright sides, one of them was that I was going forward to a fresh new year of learning and tons of fun.

                Needless to say, Mom didn’t let me even touch the packing and reminded in a very straight forward manner that she had no energy to double check and triple check if I had every thing for the next year in the bags, so I should stay out of her way and let her follow her algorithm of packing in complete solitude. I can hardly say I was disappointed by it and whiled away the last day in the courtyard, lying on the grass and breathing in fresh, pure air if the town that I would soon be missing in the smoke of the city traffic.

                Few moments later, Anirudh ambled into the courtyard, whistling. He was to go to college this year and he was gloating about it in excitement all summer. So much so that I got sick of his very long discussions and anticipations of new term complimented with Dad’s ‘advices’ and threw a tantrum one evening at dinner to stop them talking about it at least while we were eating. Therefore, lately, he had taken to quietly musing about it to himself or on long calls to friends. He stretched out besides me, his hands folded beneath his head as we both gazed at the blue sky.

“I am going to miss home and friends a lot,” he said after sometime, “Aren’t you?”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, “Hmm.” I didn’t elaborate.

“Nevertheless, you are going back to the same place where you have got people whom you know very well. As for me, it’s going to be a totally different place and sadly, none of my friends have enrolled there. I don’t know how the people there will be.” He sighed.

I sat up and frowned, “For the hundredth time, Anirudh. Your college is not on Mars, is it? So relax. Everyone will be new to everyone there. And I am sure no one’s having their guns ready to shoot you as soon as you set a foot on the campus.”

He scowled at me, “You won’t understand, Maya. Not now. It’s hard to part ways with friends whom you have known for years and then try to make new ones right from the scratch. Wait till you have to say goodbye to Sanika and Bhagyashree.”

“Well, then that’s not going to happen for at least 5 years. So, let’s worry of crossing the bridge when we reach it. I am sure till then we’ll have made some plans.”

The tense look didn’t leave his usually happy face. “Well, you are not going to lose all contact with friends altogether. You can treat it as a long vacation and write letters to them like I do to my friends.” I said knowingly.

He yawned and said, “I wonder why you write letters when we have phones….? When you can actually talk to the person, why write to them and send letters that take a day to reach.”

“ I do not expect you to understand, anyway. It’s a –a friend thing between us. Everyone has something like that with one’s best friends.”

“Yes, no, whatever.” He yawned again. “It all comes back to the same thing. I’ll miss my old friends’ company; talking with them over phone won’t have the same feel. I hope I can make new friends quickly.”

He droned on and on. I sighed, slightly bored.

“I know. I just keep saying this over and over again. Must be the nerves.” He smiled. And then he abruptly sat up and said, “By the way, I forgot to tell you. You have got one letter from Sanika, I think, yesterday-”