Dabara Tumbler

Prologue

It should not have been more than ten in the morning when my phone started chiming, quaking against the hard clapboard nightstand next to my bed.

I rubbed my face in exasperation.

My head was weighing the earths even at the unadorned consciousness I had gained at the slightest perusal of my phone's ringing. I could sense my brain ferociously pounding inside my skull in sickening gripes, already coupling with the hefty semblance.

I have been there before –this brash headache and shaky sensation fumbling in me; maybe they'll break the spirits, when I have had a cup of coffee, or may be after a nice swarm of shower; or after a couple of Dosas for my breakfast; or after a batch of hustling hours at work –sigh, I have been there too, in the maybes.

I was still reeling from the aftereffect sleep, and my phone hadn't ceased to rattle me out by its constant ringing.

I rolled on to my right, across the well-swept chill all over the sheets to reach for the phone –it must be Rahul, because this was his conventional time to check up on me, every day, before he left for work.

He was in Singapore, with his wife, Suhasini.

Hunting for the phone and answering the call, I let it lay over my ear, slackly. "Dei, Raghav." My brother called out, his tone uptight.

"Good morning, Bruh," I growled. My brother was not very fond of being addressed as bruh –the fair reason why I said that to him. With an unmanageable hangover already making it hard to handle the morning, I was piqued at his phone call –he was the reason I had steadily, trimmed setting alarms to wake up.

"Do not call me that." He grumbled through his teeth, his voice all irked –giving me what I wanted in first place. My lips curled into a satisfied evil-grin.

And beside him was Suha, my ever so sweet sister-in-law, admonishing him at the rudeness he'd inflicted me with, "Why you being so rude to him, early in the morning, Rahul. If you have nothing nice to say, just pass the phone on, to me. Don't chide him." Headaches and hangovers apart, I had really started to revel in the conversation on the grounds that Suha had headed for my recovery.

Choking on a chuckle at what I'd heard over the phone, I managed to put myself up, placing my head back steadily, at the wall. "Good morning, Kannaa." Suha said her voice slow, soft and warm.

"Not a good morning –not after having your husband retort at me, Suha." I sulked at her in a hyperbola –that way my unmannerly brother would be heaped up on a lecture of how to speak nicely to one's baby brother, hopefully.

I could picture her eyebrows drawing together as she lingered to huddle, daintily –her voice, bluntly, a whisper. "Did you drink, last night?"

Suha was homespun in fathoming me, flat out.

And I was not keeping my drinking routine under wraps from her –that way, I was free of guilt for not fibbing, when she'd probed me if I drink as a routine.

Well, I wouldn't blame her because it also helped me to keep checks on the guilt that accused me for screening my other activities from her. Now, don't ask me, what my other activities count in –that'd make a story for later.

"Uhmm, yes, Suha." I agreed, as she had always treated me like how a boy in his worst hangover would like to be treated, when she learned about my mornings after.

I could hear a quick, acclimated exhale from her. "Brush your teeth and drink ample of water before doing anything. Hydrate yourself and feel better," she was worried, obviously. Before I could say anything to her prompts, she acquainted me. "And you have abused your quota for the month. Not happening again, in this month." It was a mellowed gush, as well.