A Human Story

The Parent-Teachers Meeting

"Look out! NO!" screamed Deeraj's mother from the corner of their street. 15 year old Deeraj turned to his right to the sight of a fast oncoming bus.

Wait. Back it up, who is this Deeraj and why would I care if he lived or died, is what might be going through your mind, mostly, probably... So, LET'S back it up a while and then meet back here.

Deeraj, a boy of Class XI was a normal school-going kid, like ANYONE else his age. That's actually it. There's no noteworthy trait of his for me to tell you.

He lived in a cycle of waking up, getting ready, going to school, surviving school, coming back from school, playing(On his computer; not outside. NEVER outside!), doing his homework, and sleeping. Rinse and repeat. He had ideas for books but never wrote them down anywhere, he had 5 alarms in 5 minute intervals just to wake him up (which still were unsuccessful most of the time), he couldn't pass a dog without attempting to pet it... You know, such things that a personal friend of mine, Eleanor Shellstrop, calls BASIC stuff.

His middle-class family consisted of 4 people - himself, a 12 year old sister named Aahna, his aforementioned mother (a homemaker) and his father (an engineer with a moderate income) - who all lived in a cozy 2-BHK house on Gandhi Street. And yes, named after the same Gandhi you would think of when one mentions India outside of India or utters the word 'nonviolence'.

It was 11th of October, two days before his birthday that the trouble began. It was parent-teacher meeting day at his school, to discuss the students' half yearly exam's results. He knew the results, his parents didn't.

He had to accompany them to Aahna's class to check her marks first. The teacher gave them a warm smile and handed them the papers and continued to talk to another parent, the kid standing between them with his hands crossed and head bent down.

The parents settled themselves in the second bench while the two siblings sat two rows behind them, out of their audible range.

"Oh crap, Aahna. This is bad. Wait till they see my papers. Feel my heartbeat!" whispered Deeraj to his sister, and took her arm and placed it on his chest.

"That is fast. You haven't even seen your papers. Have patience, Deeraj. That is literally what your name means, patience." she said.

"What's in a name? Yours means 'worldly', you haven't been anywhere but the streets between our home and this school!" he loudly whispered. 'Deeraj' was the one thing he lacked.

"Hey! That's not true. I've been... To places." she said, disappointed in herself.

"Also, I do know my marks. Of course I do, you fell for it, too? Sad." he said.

"What? You LIED?" her eyebrows were twice as high than they usually were.

"Yeah! Why are you so surprised? I do that quite often!"

"What! Like when?"

"Aahna," their father interrupted, with the most disappointed look on his face, which would retain its top position for about 10 minutes, probably. "Let's go talk to your teacher, huh?" he spoke through his thick black mustache. Aahna got up and walked over to the teacher's table already getting in position, with her head down.

20 minutes later, they were heading home. His father had gone completely silent and no one dared to break that silence. His mother was too scared of his father's reaction to look disappointed herself.