Lost in the Music

Home, School and there goes the Piano

Esha wakes up feeling tickly, and opens her eyes to her twin brother on her bed, his face a mere inch from hers and his eyes blurring into one big eye and screams silently in shock. She smacks him upside the head for the scare, all hints of sleepiness gone from her eyes. He laughs in delight,"I missed you too. You'd think that a little sister would be nicer to her brother when she sees him after a week." She smacks him yet again."I'm NOT your little sister," She signs, infuriated. "You're literally 10 minutes older than I am you moron," her brother, the ass, just grins playfully and takes off at a sprint, only just missing the pillow she throws at his head. She chuckles unwillingly at her chaotic brother. It's as though her brother feels the need to balance out her silence with his loudness. As annoying as he is, he never fails to cheer her up during her bouts of depression, always makes her laugh with some dumb prank or dad joke.

She sees, or rather hears her mum, singing softly to herself as she folds up laundry. Esha wants to go up to her and apologise for the way she acted yesterday, but something holds her back, and she ducks into the washroom to freshen up.

Her father smiles gently when she trudges unwillingly into the kitchen, still drowsy with unbrushed hair, followed by her twin, looking perfectly put together, beaming at anybody with a brilliance that should be banned this early in the morning. "Goodmorning, Esh. I take it you slept well?", he remarks, noticing her distinct lack of enthusiasm at having to roll out of bed at ungodly hours of the morning, for something she hates nonetheless. "Not nearly enough", she signs half-heartedly, laying her head against the counter to catch a few more minutes of blissful sleep as her dad gets up to fix them breakfast.

Her mum shakes her awake with a smile, seeming to have forgiven her for her rudeness the previous night, which is surprising, but she figures that there would be some sort of punishment waiting for her when she gets back from school. Her family has always been hell bent on being respectful- not just to elders, but to everybody, regardless of age. It is something that has been enforced in their household from her infancy, and the fact that she was rude to her mother yesterday attests to just how frustrated she had been by the conversation.

Her brother is already scarfing down idly-vada, along with sambar and her favourite tomato chutney. It is pretty rare for them to have Tamilian cuisine. Her mother loves to travel back to her Tamilian roots, and the best way, and also the least violent way, was through food that she grew up eating. It has been nearly twenty years since her mother defied her family's wishes to start a life with her Sindhi lover, but despite multiple efforts from her side, the family remains uncooperative, almost childish in their refusal to forgive something that happened so long back. Esha knows that nobody mentions it around her, but the few relatives her mother had kept in touch with had said that Esha's silence was because of all the bad karma her mother had accummulated by eloping, the curse of her parents. She finds it ridiculous, but her mother has had her fair share of sleepless nights from the thought. She savours the soft idly and crispy vada, loves the explosion of spice on her tongue from the sambar, the tangy spice from the chutney, before getting up almost reluctantly to pack for school.

School would be intolerable if not for her friends and twin. The students other than them don't really know what to make of her, not accustomed to her entirely silent yet remarkably strong presence, even after all her years at the school. Mostly they avoid her, even the bullies (after an incident in which a kid hell bent on making her day miserable had turned up to class with two of his front teeth missing), which she is just fine with. Her friends are the best, not that she would ever admit to them. Her friends learned ASL for her, even though it wasn't really necessary, just so that they could bitch about other people in a language nobody else understood. She's read somewhere that true friends don't judge each other, they judge other people together. They make life a lot easier for her, and she doesn't think that she would ever be able to pay them back.

She is broken out of her musings by Jay. "-right, Esha?" Esha raises a brow in question, silently asking her to repeat whatever she had been saying, eliciting a groan from Jay, who looks close to pulling her hair out. 'Sorry', she mouthes at Jay, a little scared of the energetic and rather intimidating nerd. Jay rolls her eyes and starts explaining some random equation from their Physics book, and Esha tunes her out, this time on purpose. She loves her and all but sometines , Jay scares her with her weird ass love for anything physics related.

Lunch hour is her favourite of the day. Besides the fact that it is the time for them to relax and fool around, it signifies that one half of the day is already over and only the other half remains.

School lags on until it is finally over, and she sighs in relief. Just a few more hours until her favourite time of the day. She can hold on until then.

She is late, once again, for her coaching lessons, although the professor, a kind woman with a cheery attitude, says nothing, just waves her in with an easy smile.

When she finally reaches the music shop, panting and shouldering her heavy back pack, she is stopped short by the sight of the shop actually being occupied by people. Wow. That's definitely something that happens once in a blue moon. Walking in, she sees the owner of the shop, a man around fifty, roasting the heck out of the superviser. Although the rebuke is well deserved, she can't help but feel bad for the woman, who looks scared out of her mind. She notices that the owner is accompanied by two other people, a man with greying hair and a sturdy frame, and a boy with hair dip dyed an outrageous shade of neon green that has her eyes burning. She quickly walks into the back of the shop, not too keen on playing victim to the owner's ire, though it is unlikely. The boy turns his head at the sound of her footsteps, eyes widening for a brief moment before they go back to their original size, and he looks elsewhere, ears flaming.

She is done sweeping the floor and is about to start wiping down the counters when she hears sounds in the basement, where the Piano is kept, and dread pools in her belly. She hands the cleaning rag to an unsuspecting coworker, and walks downstairs at the pretence of mopping the floor, eavesdropping on the conversation going on between the owner and the sturdy man from before. "Of course, the Piano is in tip top condition right now. Not a key out of place, or tune. This beauty used to belong to an old Englishman before my grandfather bought it. Cost him a lot of money, but it did end up his at the end, so no one's complaining. I'm not particularly keen on letting this one go, but I'll give it to you at the price I name, nothing less" Mr. Sturdy guy replies, "Money's not an issue. If he likes it, we'll buy it. What do you think, Chikku?" The green kid looks a little doubtful of the quality of it, and speaks up, his voice thin and reedy,"If I could play a little and then decide?" He looks at the owner for permission, which is given easily enough and walks to sit at the seat in front of it. Esha looks on from the corner where she mops the same tile for the umpteenth time, praying with all her will that the kid doesn't like the piano. A soft melody starts to play,and she vaguely recognises the beginning nots of Hall of fame begin to play. The rhythm is a little off, and the rendition seems very jittery, either from nerves or from lack of practice but it is clear that the guy is gifted. He grows more confident as the song progresses, and she listens, enraptured. When the the song ends, she can't help but clap alongside the two men and other workers gathered in the basement. The boy blushes at the attention but gives a small bow anyway, beaming like Christmas has come early. "We're definitely buying this one". Shit. 'What am I gonna play from now onwards?' She feels almost dizzy. She's probably over reacting, but her anxiety hasn't acted up in almost a year, ever since she started playing it. It's like the piano can do for her what no amount of counselling could. And now, it's going to be over, just like that. She needs to salvage the piano, somehow.