"No mom, I had lunch, seriously", I spoke into the phone. Mom can be such a mom at times. She calls me up everyday at exactly 2:40 pm to know whether I had lunch or not. She's made me so independent, and yet she gets worked up even if I don't have lunch on time. I finally hear silence which means that she has believed me. "Okay", she said, and hung up.
I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the computer desktop. There really was nothing much to do today, except homework ofcourse. But I'm going to procrastinate. For now, I want to do something creative. Instantly, I grabbed hold of my mouse and hovered over the 'Sony Vegas' icon. Video Editing is something that I learnt last year during the holidays before board exams. I love editing, It really brings out the creative side of me.
I hardly watch TV, but I really enjoy watching 'Bones' and 'Hustle', that air on Star World and BBC Entertainment respectively. I had downloaded a few clips last month, and without further ado, I imported 'Hustle' clips into the project and began working my mind.
The bell rang at 9:30 pm. I walked upto the main door and opened it. Mom was home. As usual, I hugged her and fetched her a glass of water. She kept her things (Neatly - she's a cleanliness freak) in their respective places and went inside the washroom. We're going to rant and whine till 10:30 pm, I'm sure about that. We always sit down at the end of the day and whine.
As predicted, we did talk till 10:30. My mom's an entrepreneur, she has her own software company. But 'enterpreneurship' and 'women' do not go in the same sentence in India. It's been a tough ride for her, it still is. I'm trying my best to support her in every which way possible. Infact, I'm so involved with the activities in the firm that she takes my advice alot of times before venturing into something new.
We dissected every aspect of the day's activities before having dinner. There's a little financial crisis going on. Payments are delayed, and we don't have enough projects in hand to keep the cycle running smoothly. But we are the kind of people who have learnt how to live on hope. Each day begins with hope and ends with hope.
"I've mailed a few venture capitalists, let's see if they respond soon", I told her as I put the dishes in the wash basin. She nodded and said, "That's good. Forward me the mail if they reply. I'll follow it up"
"Okay, I'll do that"
At exactly 11:00 pm, My mom's eyelids start getting droopy. Her entire system has programmed itself in such a way that her body reacts to a certain function at the right time. I know I'm making her sound like a robot, but she's not. She's just a disciplined person who is dead tired by the end of the day.
Nandita is still miffed with me. I sighed and sat down next to her.
"Listen, will you just let that go ?", I asked, with a hint of impatience in my voice. She didn't reply. God, this girl can be such a pain. I shook my head and started speaking, "Nandu, you know it's not easy for me to just make friends. I'm a little anti-social and you know it, so why push me ? Ayush is nice but we're not even close to becoming -", I couldn't complete the rest of the sentence as the teacher entered.
I decided to save the talking for some other time. If we're caught by our maths teacher, then we're screwed. We opened our books and waited for her to start teaching. Our maths teacher is another item. When she speaks, it seems as though someone has attached a mike to her kurta. Her voice literally booms. Students avoid sitting on the front bench in her class. They might get deaf.
She wears those huge, old, 60's kinda glasses. You know, the type that look bigger than your face. And she's huge. Gorilla type huge.
"You all have to submit a group project to me by the end of next month. It carries 10 marks", she said as she stood infront of the class, "You can make your own groups, with 4 students in each group. We have a double period so you can decide and let me know now"
Everyone started chattering about who was going to be in whose group. It was obvious that Nandita and me would be together, but we needed 2 more people. She called one of her guy-friends named Vivek to join the group. Everyone else seemed to have formed their groups so we decided that we'll have to make do with 3 people.
"Okay, now I want each person from one group to say the names of all members of your group. I need to note it down", said our teacher.
"Ma'am, we just have 3 people in our group. Is that okay ?", enquired Nandita.
"Hmm", our teacher looked around the room and spotted a group that had 5 members, "Surbhi, you have 5 members in your group. Maybe one of you all can join Nandita's", she said.
Nandita's next line took me by surprise. No, 'shock' would be the better word as she did it deliberately. "Ayush, why don't you join us ?". My head jerked towards her, "What ?", I whispered. She simply gave me a smirk and winked at me.
Edited by scratches-head - 14 years ago
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