30 TEENAGE STORIES

Chrysalis Cheryl Rao

October 5. What does one do when you are sweet sixteen—a dreamy sixteen—you have a picture of the perfect woman before you, and the woman is your mother?

 She is everything I want to be—tall, slim and beautiful. She works for her figure, goes to the Gym thrice a week and never overeats. She is old, nearly forty, but when the two of us go out together, the admiring looks are directed at her!

 I do not know which side of the family I take after, but my looks are certainly a disappointment. To make matters worse, I seem to be permanently hungry and nibble all day. In fact, I spend most of my free time with Rukmini in the kitchen.

 Ma hates that, especially when she finds that I cannot fit into yet another set of clothes. She has installed a mirror of awesome proportions along one wall in my room in the hope that I will become figure conscious and exercise with her.

 Yet, try as I might, I cannot believe that the slob that I see reflected there is really me. That person is some mistake. The real me is beautiful. Like Ma. Younger. Even better. That thing in the mirror is just a chrysalis. Inside is the gorgeous butterfly that will one day open its wings and soar happily into the world and never be discontented again.

 Success comes easily to Ma. When she was my age, she was already studying medicine and taking part in athletics and basketball. You name it, she did it. And did it well. After she qualified, she married and practised medicine until Dad's floundering pharmaceutical company almost collapsed. Then she took over and has never looked back. Last November she was named Businesswoman of the Year, and I know she did it all alone.

 Papa, as you may have guessed by now, is no businessman. His first love is, of all things, the ancient world. He was an Archaeology student and had no interest in the family industry that was left to him to manage. After a couple of years, he was happy to let Ma take over and he returned to the study of old ruins.

 Ma and Papa make a fine pair. He admires her business-sense and her wit, and she marvels at the way he can unravel the masteries of the past by studying some old pots, bricks and stones. 

As for me, I seem to be a total misfit. I cannot understand Papa's wanderings into the past and I cannot cope with Ma's expectations from me. She was a gold medallist and Papa has had his share of laurels too. I am expected to bring credit to the two of them, but I am just a mediocre student. Something of a plodder. I even had to repeat a class way back, when I was a kid. 

Now, here I am in the tenth, still struggling and at a loss with the syllabus. What is worse, I do not know yet what I want to do after school. The only thing I am sure about is that I do not want anything that involves memorizing. But will I have the freedom to choose? Knowing Ma's managerial ways, I will probably be bulldozed into something I do not want to do and all that Papa will say is, "Your mother knows best, baby.

" So while Divya will go for Fashion Designing and Malati for Literature and then journalism, I will just slide into some choice of Ma that holds no interest for me.

  "Sunaina," called Mrs Murthy. Sunaina slammed her new diary and pushed it under the pile of books lying on her desk. Divya, her best friend, had presented the diary to her on Friendship Day, but Sunaina had not started writing in it until now. 

"Are you ready?" asked her mother putting her head round the door. 

"Yes," said Sunaina. Hastily, she picked up her books and followed Mrs Murthy out of the house. 'Boring tuitions!' she thought as she got into the car with her mother. 

When Sunaina hopped off at the coaching class, she waved carelessly to her mother and joined her friends as they went in. Between classes, she decided that she had enough for the day. "Let us go for an ice cream," she suggested to Divya. Quietly, they left the building and entered the ice cream parlour next door. They whiled away their time for an hour, then Sunaina cadged a lift home.