The Last Goodbye

chapter 11

It was a Sunday evening, with Divya's whole family at home, it was a complete buzz. Her mother called her in the kitchen to take the bowls and other utensils required to begin their dinner. In the living room where they mostly sat to have their dinner, her dad and brother both sat on the sofa where 2 days ago she was laying resting her leg that was now in a process of healing. Divya kept the utensils there and then once again went inside to get the water bottles. It was already 8:30pm and as per their schedule it was time for dinner. On the other side The TV was showing the news for an hour with the continuous increase of the Coronavirus in China and how the situation was getting out of hand.

"It's good that many people are being brought back."  Her dad commented. The whole Chavan family slowly began gathering  in the living room, the utensils and the bowls filled with food were kept in the centre as they all sat down, with Divya taking the lead to serve them while her mother made fresh rotis. Serving out the vegetables and rotis, she directed her brother to fill in the water glasses while Priya took it upon herself to serve the pickle to her father and grandmother as their mother called out from the kitchen warning her not to serve herself too much of it.

Steadily the plates were filled as Divya passed her dad's plate to him and soon the dinner started with a series of conversations flowing around. Her dadi would time and again stop them, scold them at times when the topic would go out to such an extent that there could be seen traces of arguments beginning to flow in. It might have been about fourth or fifth topic of the night when Divya's dad finally asked her,

"So Divya... now that you are finally done with Annual day I think it's high time you get back to life. I have sent you a few links for Government examinations, fill in the forms. One of the exams is in March, the others are in August and September." An eerie silence filled around the room as only the sound of the news reporter could be heard. Divya felt her mom walking into the living room as she shifted a bit, her eyes going up to her brother who sat right opposite to her, nodding his head as if to tell her that he was there with her.

"But dad, her exams are yet to be done and ..."

"Dhruv, I know her exams are yet to be done, but is it bad to just give an attempt?" her Dad retorted. Divya could clearly see an argument brewing up with the way her brother was looking at her dad, the tone in which her dad spoke. The two of them got along quite well, until the topic of their carriers came along.

"Dad, I have certain plans." Divya said. Her voice sounded so unsure to herself but she could feel her heart beating so wildly in her ribcage. She felt an acute pain at the amount of anxiety that she felt at that moment.

"Divya I have been hearing of these plans of yours for the last three years, now hardly three months are left for college to get over I want you to now focus on your studies, you have to score an O grade, if not that then its okay....but just to check in your eligibility you have to give these competitive exams...remember our main goal is UPSC."

The old man being surrounded by government officials all his life had been quite fascinated with their lifestyle. Surely it was a great dream to vouch for one's kids, but there had to be an extent to it. When Dhruv had been in Divya's step even he was led onto this path...and that was his reason to take up science, and then Mechanical engineering and then later on having cleared his mechanical now working towards NDA. For him it was quite convenient for that was what he had wanted to do, however for Divya things had been different. Though at one point of time even she saw herself walking onto the path what her dad had sewed for her but now things had changed. She saw herself in a different light. For these three years she made herself acquainted with the lifestyle of these so called government officials, getting internship in government institutes, talking and hanging out around the officials learning and seeing how things worked there and did she realized, nor was she ready for this risky life, or the desk job that her dad looked her up to. And if ever she had to do that, she realized she couldn't give in more than 15 years of her life to it, she had her own plans, she wanted to go around the world, make her name in the field of literature and storytelling, at the later age open a book café of her own and stay around the world of books.