A hand is chasing other in 60 clicks/hour in an old classic leather strapped dial to reach 10 A.M., oops!!! What's on the dial? Some dirt? He rubbed the dial on his pants hardly but its not disappearing, showing steadily it’s a scratch L .
The day is sunny n bright consider to be very perfect by others but sri felt it very strange & unpleasant , not only for today for the past three days since its officially announced that the results may be announced anytime online. He is anxiously waiting for something on television kept on the right top corner of a television shop’s large display, cursing his neighbors for giving his parents the idea of selling television even before his public exam is 18months away. And now his parents can’t find space to fit a new television in their budgets they are restricting themselves to limited food. Sri is still trying hard to find what made his family’s financial position worse after last summer vacation
Till then sri’s family was a happy middle class family with only three members consists of him, his father Mr. Rajagopalan a bank staff in a private bank and his mother who was recently joined a jewelry shop as a sales woman but well she prefers to be a housewife always. Sri is a normal student in a matriculation school’ he got no good friends as he can’t afford to spend like them or to give parties in his small rented house yet he never felt bad for this, as he always loved to be alone. He had no enemies in his class any friends either – though many hate him for his knowledge they never showed it to him directly. What if they showed it now??? Cause sri completed his 17 years of struggling school days.
Sri never attend any tuition classes instead his father use to teach him in old fashioned way (with a long stick in his hands, which he never used for long time), sri shivers on seeing his father, keeps his mouth glued when papa’s home. He still remembered the day when his 10th grade results came, a glance of his father made his pants wet because he just managed to get 80% which is just nearly enough to get a seat in high school.
His mother a peculiar Indian mother , her main job is to cook delicious food with what her husband can bring home followed by the secondary job of watching T.V.serials. yes for what else she has come to this beautiful world? Its was her who cursed that neighbor for giving her husband the idea of selling TV. more than our hero sir. But what else she can do? Of course she is a 70’s born Indian girl in a very poor family, for her it’s a crime to even cross her husband’s words by any means. Even if she does it will have no effect.
Oh deep in to the history coming to present...
With sweat all over his face sri concentrated on the T.V‘s flash news, oh no the results are out already, flash news said ‘’just like always this year also girls managed to beat the boys in total pass ratio…“& the news moved on but sri was in no way to read the rest ‘he started pedaling to the internet café where he already paid in advance. Cafe was full of students, some how sri managed to get into the crowd and said his id as he had paid already they gave him the card contains his marks, on seeing the staff holding the card, his hear beat increased heavily. Hastily he got the card from the café staff n looked at it’ his eyes straight away moved to the total and he fell down there itself. Oh no he fainted. Thank god there was some one who knows him, a girl along with his father moved towards him shouting his name. Both of them wakes him up, slowly sri came to his sense, his eyes started to water automatically, he can’t help it stop. Without a word he arises and walked straight towards the exit.
Others started their chat after a moment of silence, a voice heard from out side, “oh no…! “ Kalpana recognized that voice and moved towards the exit and her father followed her. There stood our hero in deep sadness killing him with tears spreading all over his face, she asked what happened? But no words came out from sri’s mouth but kalpana could understand his gesture (He looked at his hands clutching the mark card then the empty space where he parked his cycle which is empty now) she forcefully plucked the card from sri’s hand and looked at it.
Number: 403786
English: 128
Tamil: 142
Maths : 82
Physics: 91
Chemistry: 87
Computer science: 143.
On reading computer science’ kalpana asked,” oye, but your major is biology rite??? Sri came to his sense and fiercely got the card back and shouted this is not my number at all, some strange happiness make him feel the butterflies fluttering in his stomach..
With out wasting ne second he ran in to the cafe again n complained the staff about the number, he took the old card n got his number clearly n went inside.
To be continued...
