Ceasefire Of Senses (under editing)

c h a p t e r s i x

Song: Me and My Girls by Fifth Harmony

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"Why do you guys make me do this every week?"

"Because the head girl, deputy head girl and the class prefect are meant to be examples to the other students by not bunking periods. And most of all, P.E." Naina said.

"Ugh!" I whined.

"C'mon Ally, House Athena needs you." Naina said.

"I wish it was House Stark. I would probably be more interested." I said.

Our school was divided into four houses. Each student belonged to a particular house. The four houses represented four different colours along with Greek goddesses.

Red House was the House Athena. Yellow house was House Hera . Blue house was House Aphrodite and lastly Green House was House Artemis.

Similarly, the boys school had Zeus as Red, Poseidon as Blue, Apollo as Yellow and Ares as Green.

Coming back to my school life, it was absolutely Tartarus if we were supposed to speak in Greekish terms.

I hate PE and now they're making me run. Bloody Neenu. She couldn't let me drink my second cup of cold coffee in peace. She had to find me, didn't she? She knew all my hiding places in and around school. Inspite of CCTVs placed in every corner of the school, no one except Naina and Kriti di could find me in this school.
And now I need to run. I hate running. Nothing about PE is good except Yoga sessions. No effort required. Just lay back and relax.

So I ran. I came third out of the group of four. My lucky day it seems. Generally I am the last one to reach the finish line. Thank God, one of the best athletes of the school, Kainaat was standing behind me or else House Athena would've lost its track record of coming first in every race in PE class.

Just as my classmates were about to announce another round of race, I had been saved by the bell.

"Alisha, exercise a little more at home, preferably Aerobics. I assure you the little baby fat will be gone in no time." Ms. Das, our PE teacher claimed.

"Yes Ma'am. I'll try to."

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"The next time you drag me out if the classroom to do PE, I will stab you to death." I yelled at Naina as we walked towards our school bus.

"Chillax Aloo. What's wrong?" Sameer said.

"Friday. P.E. Last period." Naina and Aarav said in unison.

"Hey! That's our thing!" I said referring to the way Aarav and I shared the same thoughts and said stuff together.

"I swear to you. Ten years from now, she will still hate PE and any other activity which requires physical movement except dance." Sameer said.

"Hawa ke Jhoke, you said that in such a way as if you're an all rounder and an antar yami."

"I never said that." Sameer said.

"You meant it." I replied.

"Ten minutes. Lunch at my house." Naina said dragging Sameer by his collar.

"Chiku! Chor!" Sameer struggled his way out of her grasp.

"My phone's gonna be dead." Aarav said.

"So is mine." I said.

We started at each other for half a second and raced towards our apartment to reach the charging point first. This race, I am happy to do. Other races, never.

Well, I won. Our room had only one switch board for our phone chargers. The others were either at a height where there was no place to jeep the phone or had the AC or other appliances connected to them.

"You can have it. I'll take the portable charger." I said.

"Thanks sis... Wait! Since when do we have a portable charger?" He asked.

"We have five. Mom, Dad, Rishi you and me. Came in like a week ago from Amazon!"

"And you've been using those for a week! Where's mine?"

"Ask Ma." I said happily making my way to the bathroom.

"But Ma's at office!"

"Anything wrong?" I heard Rishi asked as I came out from the bathroom.

"Apparently, Buro never received his portable charger." I said.

Yup, that was his nick name. Buro, which means old. Together we were Buro & Choti.
That was the problem with Bengalis. They gave their children very nice names, but failed to do so when it came to nick names.

"Why so?"

"How will he notice stuff happening at home when he is glued to his WhatsApp contacts? Especially the one which says 'Naina' and has five hearts next to it." I said.

"Anyhoo, the charger is inside the Amazon box which is lying on the Coffee Table." Rishi said.

"Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool." Aarav said.

"Noice." I replied.

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"Basically, The Meghalaya Succession Act, said that the property owner would be the women of the family. But, the power of decided as to who would receive the property would lay with the men of the family. For example, Alisha, Nitin and Raghav are Naina's daughter and son respectively. And Rahul is Naina's brother. Naina will be owning the property which she will pass on to the next woman in the family, which is Alisha. Rahul, being Naina's brother will have the power to decide as to who he wants the property to be controlled by, Raghav or Nitin. The .en will not have a legal ownership, but they will have the power of decision over the property. The women cannot do anything with the property without consulting the men first. Understood?" Our tuition teacher explained.

"Yes." We replied in a chorus.

"And that concludes your second chapter in Sociology."

"Ma'am one question." I said.

"Tell me Alisha."

"Are inter caste marriages the reason behind honour killings?"

"Yes. It is very much so. Inter caste marriage is basically a crime in our country, which is why these killings take place. The killers consider it a very good deed to have killed their own sister/brother/daughter/son because the individual married in a lower caste." She replied.

"Read the chapter, solve the questions and come the next day. I won't hear any excuses." She said.

"Ok ma'am." We replied in a chorus.

"Bye." Naina and I bid adieu to out fellow tution mates as we walked towards our apartment complex.

"Did you get the text about the debate auditions for the inter house debate next week?" I asked Naina.

"Yeah. I forwarded it to the school council WhatsApp group too. And told them to announce in their respective class groups." Naina replied.

"And yeah, Mrs Sen texted me in the afternoon about Rabindra Jayanti. We need to sing." I said.

"Not again." Naina replied.

"You make me do PE, I will make you sing on Rabindra Jayanti." I said.

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