The Journey from Ms. Sharma to Mrs. Who [✓]

Chapter 1-Edited

Chinmayi's POV:

Welcome to the household of Mr. and Mrs. Sharma; a typical Indian orthodox and yet ironically modern family. Though native to Jharkhand, Mr. Sharma's grandfather, sorry-sorry, my great grandfather moved to Bengaluru to start our family business, the Sharma Consulting Services. 

Oh, even before I start explaining about my family, let me introduce myself. I'm Chinmayi Sharma, 22 years old, a one hundred percent Bengalurian, yay! 

Namma  Bengaluru...

[ Translation: Our Bengaluru]

I speak 4 languages, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and English. I live in a joint family with my father's elder and younger brother's families. Each of the Sharma brothers have two children, an older brother and a younger sister. So yes, we are six of us together and I'm the last but one sibling in my cousins list. My grandparents whom we call daada and daadi also live with us.

In total, we are 14 people living together in the Sharma Mansion. Yes, now that's a lot.

The Mansion by itself is majestic, royal, modern and yet so homely. It was designed by my great grandfather and till now, after all these years we never felt like reconstructing it. It had a beautiful lush garden grown and maintained by my mother, aunts and our Gardner Ram Bhai. Every weekend we make it a point to have a family lunch out in the garden.

Painted in white, our Mansion comprises of 3 floors. We siblings have our own rooms in the third floor. That's totally our place, as we were never treated indifferently by our parents or uncles and aunts. Unity is the first lesson taught to us, along with love, care and just being there for each other.

The mornings in the Sharma Mansion start even before the sun wakes up! I am not even kidding. My grandmother, mother and aunts wake up at 3 in the morning, take their 'holy bath' with a chalice of Ganga water added to the normal water.

Draped in crisp cotton sarees, with Red Bindi residing calmly between their eyebrows and smearing a dash of red kumkum (vermilion) on their foreheads, they dress themselves with matching bangles and chains. Taking blessings from daadi, the bahus and the mother in law, take a pilgrimage to the Pooja room. Offering their sincere prayers to Lord Krishna, our family diety, and singing to their hearts content, the divine aura jinxes the complete Mansion.

Waking to this, my father, uncles and grandfather get ready to start their day. The ladies then piously prepare the day's meal and that's when, my chaachi walks to the third floor to wake us all up.

Since yesterday was Friday, all the siblings had gathered in the Common Room of our floor ( oh yes, we're all potterheads and that's why we renamed the Living Room like that) to watch the animated rom-com, Ratatouille.

How forgetful I am!!!! I'll introduce you to my most amazing cousins....

My bade-papa, Shiv Sharma and badi-ma Shakthi's oldest son, Vivek is the first in our generation. Vivek Bhaiya is like the typical Indian brother. This translates to the fact that he is extremely possessive of all his younger siblings. He completed his MBA and is the first chote-Sharma saahab to join our family business.

[Translation: Junior Sharma Sir]

He recently got married to Diya didi, I mean, now my bhaabi and is enjoying his honeymoon in Paris. Their love story is extremely cute. Long story short, she is our family friend's only daughter and my sister Veera's best friend. She loves Harry Potter and so, I agreed happily.  

The second in our gang is my own brother, Charan. He's exactly opposite to me. Our likes and dislikes are as discrete as black and blue. We're the Tom and Jerry of the house. My mother, Radha, spends most of her time preaching peace to both of us. But, that's how we show love to each other, i.e, fighting and pulling our legs. He's now pursuing his final year MBA in IAM Bengaluru. Yeah, I have a topper bro!

* Sighs *

Next in the list is Vivek Bhaiya's own sister, Veera. She's a year older to me and is working in an MNC. My father, Krishna, asked her to join our company, however, she refused in good terms, because, she said, she wanted to gain the feel and experience of how it is to work outside. This decision really made us all respect her for she never chose the easy path. She is extra hardworking and always wants to stand by herself. She's an introvert and extremely calm. She's like a mother to me and she's my happy person. Her simplicity speaks more than her words. She's just the person to describe awesome.

Veera's followed by Ram chachu and Sita chachi's eldest son, my twin brother types, my closest friend and partner in crime, Anirudh. He is 3 months older to me. Both of us, literally went to the same school and college, studied and partied together. The only difference between us is, he's a boy and I'm a girl. Both of us now have finished our degrees in Electronics and Communication Engineering and have applied for Masters through GATE. We're waiting for our results you see...

That brings you to the last person our generation of Sharmas, my youngest sister, Anirudh's blood sister, Akhila. She's a year younger me and Anirudh.  She's our junior in BMS College of Engineering in the same branch.

The 6 of us, now including bhaabi makes it 7 are our own group of happy people. Now, since it's only the 5 of us, we thought of enjoying the Friday night, with you know, as I told you before, by watching Ratatouille. I heard the toe-ring sound of Sita Chaachi as she climbed up to wake us up. I always wished it was a dream, but the sun, which is out by now failed me. Chaachi walked into the Common Room to open the curtains. The sunrays just pricked all our eyes. I felt Akhila wriggle beside me while Anirudh pulled my blanket to cover his eyes.

"Children, Wake up, daada is awake and is waiting for you to have breakfast."

"Maa... It's Saturday" squeaked Anirudh sleepily beside me.

"Go give that explanation to bade-papa and Krishna ji ( that's how chaacha and chaachi's children call my father)" told Chaachi as she slowly raised her voice.

I felt a soft poke on my cheek. I immediately understood that Veera was trying to wake me up. She is the punctual girl. Just one wake up call was enough for her. 

As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw a tall fair person throwing a bucket of cold water on me...

I knew who that is.

Chaaaraaaaaannnnn!!!!!!!!!

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