Sonal's B'day!!!

“You say it best….When you say nothing at all!!” Ronan Keating’s voice filled the room as the alarm of my phone set off exactly at midnight. As if on cue, the huge clock on the wall also let out the defeaning song of ‘Gongs’ as it struck twelve.

“HAPPY B’DAY TO UUUUUUU!” We yelled and hugged Sonal on turning seventeen. Sakshi took out two crackers from her bag and as we pulled their strings, they burst with a loud bang filling the air with colourful strings and tiny pieces of sparkling paper .  Sonal twirled and danced with glee, her smile stretching frm ear to ear!

The three of us took our respective presents out of the bags and  thrust them in the bday girl’s hands. I had bought her a teddy bear frm ‘Archies’. I smiled when she squealed with joy on opening my gift and cuddled the bear for a full ten seconds. Sakshi had bought her a very trendy and colourful t - shirt whereas Pratishtha had got her a lovely summery fragrance. As we began clearing the bed of strewn wrapping paper and messy strings, the intercom buzzed.

“Come on!” Sonal exclaimed, jumping off the bed and putting on her slippers. “Mum and Dad are calling!”

As we made our way down the stairs, we saw Uncle, Aunty and Saurabh bhaiya (Who was holding a bouquet and a huge greeting card in his hand!) waiting for us. All three of them hugged and kissed Sonal a happy b’day. A groggy eyed servant came out of the kitchen and place two square shaped cakes on the dining table. One was chocolate and the other one was of  black-forest flavor. All of us crowded around the b’day girl and sang the b’ day song as she blew out the candles and cut the first piece. We skipped our favourite line of the song- “Many many boy-friends to uuu!” in the presence of  Sonal’s beaming parents. After smearing a lot of cream on Sonal’s face and eating three pieces of cake each, we wished Uncle and Aunty  a goodnight and made our way back to the room. We spent the next couple of hours chatting and clicking our pictures in funny poses. Our favourite one turned out to be the one of Pratishtha, Sakshi and myself in various ‘Shivji’ poses. We had fondly nicknamed a junior teacher at school- ‘Shivji’ because of her unusual hairstyle and dedicated this photo to her.

At around quarter past three, we all admitted to being hungry and tip-toed out of the room to, once again, descend the stairs and go to the kitchen. The silent house was completely immersed in a coat of darkness and we had to be careful not to touch the windows and the doors lest the alarm got activated and filled the house with ear-splitting sounds of the siren. Keeping our hands on each others’ shoulders, we walked slowly down the stairs in single file. Pratishtha’s free hand was covering my mouth to block out the sound of my giggling and by the time we reached the foot of the steps, she was pinching me on the arm, out of fury.

“MAAAALUU!” she said, exasperatedly, as we finally entered the kitchen and Sonal switched on the lights. “What is so funny?”

“Nothing!” I said, grinning, “just visualising how we must be looking, walking like that!”

Shaking their heads, the three of them spread out in the kitchen. Sonal started preparing maggi, Pratishtha was already pouring chilled ‘Frooti’ in four glasses and Sakshi was raiding the huge fridge for the leftovers from  dinner. I was,as usual, sitting cross-legged on the platform, yawning.

“Maaaaalu!” Sonal hissed, pulling me upright for the second time, “if u accidently brush the window behind u and the alarm goes off, you will be the one answerable to Dad!”

“Uhh alarm-smalarm!” I replied, stretching widely, “You worry too much mumma !”

Once their arms were full of merchandise, I jumped onto the floor and started towards the door.

“Not so soon madam!” Pratishtha said, grabbing the back of my top and pulling me back.

“Whaaat?” I asked, turning to face her.

“You are so lazy Maalu! I am tired of your laziness!”  she answered, giving me a stern look.

“Heyyyy!” I said , keeping a hand on my heart and my voice full of mock pain. “I am so hurt!”

“Good!” Pratishtha said, taking everything but the tray of Maggi and Frooti out of Sonal’s and Sakshi’s hands and shoving them in mine. “From now on, you can do some work too while we enjoy stretching occasionaly. You take most of this stuff upstairs. Now come on…after you!!!!”

Sulking and with my head high, I passed her outstretched hand and marched outside the kitchen,  making a grand show of my anger. Once inside the room, I dumped two bags of wafers, half empty bottle of Frooti, a pack of cookies and and air-tight bowl containing heated pasta onto the bed and sat with my back towards the door.

“Now that Maalu is not interested in eating or talking or ‘helping’,” I heard Sakshi’s loud  voice as the three of them entered the room, “we can sit here and enjoy ourselves!”

“Noooooo!” I shrieked,jumping onto the floor and helping them with the trays laden with food. “I’ll help!”

 They roared with laughter and I made a face at them, realising that they had anticipated my exact reaction.

We dug into the food and chatted about what to do next.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Sonal asked, twirling Maggi around her fork.

“Borrrrrring!” Sakshi replied.

“Shall we curl our hair?” Sonal offered.

“Eeuuuuww!” I groaned in reply, pretending to throw up in my glass of Frooti.

“I know!!!!” Sakshi said, rising to stand slowly and dramatically. “Lets…” she reached out behind her to slowly sieze something, “PILLOW-FIGHT!!”

The thing she had grabbed from behind  was a big white pillow and in an instant, we all were on our feet, attacking each other fiercely with pillows of our own. I had just managed to place my glasses on the side-table to keep them out of harm’s way when I was roughly pulled by a leg and next moment, I was lying on my back on the bed, being hit by all three of my friends. I quickly managed to grab Sonal’s leg and yanked it hard. As a result she heavily fell down on the bed and sitting up, I hit her everywhere with my yellow, sun-shaped pillow. “HAPPPY B’DAYY GIRLIE!” I yelled, as  she shielded her face, giggling and trying to fight back.

Meanwhile, Sakshi was chasing Pratishtha around the room hitting her hard on the back of her head with the largest pillow in the room.

At around five am, we finally collapsed on the floor and lay against each other, panting and catching our breath. What fun we had had! We even took a picture to capture the fun-filled moment!

“You know what!” Sonal said, “I can’t believe that after a few months we will leave school and…well, we will all go our different ways, right?”

“Noo!” I replied, lying  down on her outstretched legs, “Its upto us, isnt it? We will make sure that even if we go to different colleges, we will keep in touch and keep meeting for outings and nightstays just as we do now.”

“Yeah! Lets do that!” she said, holding out her hand, “ Sounds corny, but…We wont let our friendship fade out …ever! …. PROMISE????”

“PROMISE!!!!” the three of us yelled, putting our own hands on top of hers.

“Come on now!” Pratishtha said, getting up, “I am in no mood to get sentimental and besides, we have a monster called ‘Board Exams’ to defeat, before worrying about our teary-eyed moment of farewell. Tell you what! Let’s click a picture of four of us sitting in the bath-tub..it will be fun! We can laugh about it together when we get really old and lose our teeth!”

“Yeeeeeah!” Sakshi said, jumping and running towards the bathroom. “The last one to reach the bath-tub has to eat all of our cabbage covered pizzas when Captain Shekhawat serves them next!”

The food incharge at school- Captain Shekhawat, had recently invented a new dish, which consisted of small,round  cakes made of  refined flour i.e ‘maida’, covered with pieces of capsicum, tomato and lots and lots of cabbage!! When it had been served for the first time for breakfast, Aniket had asked the passing Captain Shekhawat, what the new dish was supposed to be.  The Latter had looked at him in surprise,  blinking!

“But It’s a Pizzaaaaaaa!” he finally said, bowing low and holding out his hands as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Aniket!” Avtar said,in mock outrage, “It’s a pizzaaaaaa! How could you not knowww???”

At this Captain Shekhawat had beamed at Avtar and had shaken  his head at Aniket’s lack of judgement before walking off.

 Now, we all screamed and ran towards the bathroom, grabbing each other’s arms to pull back and trying to beat the others to the bathroom. None of us wanted to eat more of those ‘Pizzas’  than we had to! 

"THE NIGHT-STAY!"

“MAAAALUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!”

I ran to my balcony on hearing Pratishtha’s voice. I saw Sonal’s red Swift reversing , then taking a U-turn and eventually coming to a halt  right outside my Multi-story’s main gate . Pratishtha was nearly  fully leaning out of the car’s window as she shouted for me to come downstairs. Running back inside the house, I grabbed my small runsack and hugged both my mother and sister before rushing towards the front door of our house.

“I’ll be home by tomorrow afternoon Mom!” I said.

“All right beta! Enjoy yourselves and don’t create a  havoc there for Sonal’s mother!” she said, with a knowing look in her twinkling eyes.

“Don’t check her now Ma!” my sister said, rolling her eyes “Let them have fun!”

After kissing each of them goodbye, I ran down the stairs to the ground-floor  and reaching the car, yanked open the backdoor of the car. Sonal was sitting in the passenger seat at the front, with her family’s driver  behind the wheel at the driver’s seat. At the back, Sakshi and Pratishtha shifted to make room for me. They both had bags of their own on their laps and we greeted each other with loud shouts and laughter. We were super excited!

“Hey  look! There’s Aunty! And Manna Di too!” Sonal pointed towards the balcony of our first floor apartment.

 ‘Manna’ is my sister’s nickname. She is named after our paternal grandmother whose name was- ‘Manorama’. Both Sonal and Pratishtha  leaned out of their respective windows to wave at them and I had to retrieve my glasses as Sakshi incidently knocked them aside ,while leaning across me to shout her greetings as well! 

“Be good, Children!” Mom said, waving back “Enjoy your stay!”

All three thanked Mom as the driver turned the key into  ignition and the engine purred to life. We all chatted  nineteen to a dozen as the car sped towards Sonal’s house.   

Sonal belonged to a strict, business-class  ‘Jaini’ house-hold! Hers was a nuclear family consisting of her parents and an elder brother. Her dad did not allow her to spend the night outside the house so we always had night-stays at her place. She lived in a handsome, white bunglow situated in a locality named-‘Janki-Nagar’. Most of the residents living here belonged to the Jain community and the whole area was neat, green and beautiful, with magnificent mansions lining the streets!

As the car entered the main gate of Sonal’s house, her mother opened the front door and stood smiling warmly to welcome us. All three of us greeted and  hugged her as we reached the doorway, our bags slung over our shoulders.  Sonal’s mother was a thin, ever-smiling simple lady who was always dressed in a  saree .She was an excellent house-wife and their house was always buzzing with a couple of servants who kept everything sparkling clean under Aunty’s careful supervision. Sonal was also equally proficient at all the household chores and this was the reason we called her “Mumma”.

“Children!” Sonal’s mom said, leading us inside the house, “ I will send the servant with the snacks while you all put your things in Sonal’s room and make yourselves comfortable. Sonal has arranged today’s dinner keeping in mind all the special requests by her  friends.”

Both Sonal and her Mom were fabulous cooks and we usually started making special requests to her a few days prior to our slumber parties. Thanking Aunty, we started up gleaming black marble stairs, which led to the first floor, where Sonal’s room was located. As soon as we entered Sonal’s room, we immediately felt at ease. She had a huge room with countless posters of bollywood and Hollywood celebrities pasted on the cream-coloured walls and plenty of soft-toys crowding the glass shelves.  There was a small changing room accompanied by a  lavish washroom and also a huge terrace was attached to the other side of room from where Sonal had once upturned a bucketful of water on us as we had entered her house.  We had had many night-stays in this place and that was why it was home away from home.  

The stereo was already on and a soft English song by Enrique Iglesias was playing in the room. Sonal switched on the AC as we threw our bags on the floor and flopped onto her low bed.  

“AAAhhhhhhhhh!” I sighed, lying on my back and closing my eyes. Sakshi immediately kicked me hard on my knee.

“You are so  lazy Maalu!” she said, lying next to me flat on her stomach,  with annoying expression on her face “if you fall asleep early today and spoil the fun, then I am going to strangle you with my bare hands!”

“Don’t you worry,  Missy!” I said, yawning widely and stretching “I haven’t forgotten the kind remarks you all showered upon me when I fell asleep ‘early’, pardon me… at 4:30 am during our last nite-stay. Today, I will be the last one to hit the sack. We will chat and chat and chat!” I promised, crossing my heart.

The knock on the door immediately made us sit upright with sensible expressions on our faces. Pratishtha who was closest to the door, opened it. The servant, a young boy of seventeen or eighteen entered , carrying a tray laden with four bowls of steaming, hot soup and mini pizzas, all crowned with melted grilled cheese. Setting down the tray carefully on the side-table, he left, asking Sonal to summon him using the inter-com  if we would need anything else.  We all began to devour the delicious lemon coriander soup and pizzas which Sonal had  prepared herself.

“Sonal you are so lucky!” Sakshi said, taking a bite of the pizza “you won’t have to learn anything before you get married. You are already fully trained!”

“So are your Sakshi!” Pratishtha said, keeping a straight face “Didn’t we congratulate you last month when you finally succeeded in lightning the gas stove with a lighter without any mishaps?”

We roared with laughter as Sakshi threw Sonal’s bulky teddy bear (which we had christened ‘Salma’ , a couple of years back, after seeing a commercial of a flop B-grade bollywood movie- ‘Salma pe dil aa gaya’!)  at Pratishtha.

 Sakshi’s family consisted of her parents, a brother who was ten years older to her and a bubbly and chirpy bhabhi, whom we called ‘Dolly didi’. Sakshi was the baby of the family and had never made as much as a cup of tea in her home, about which we constantly teased her. 

As the evening proceeded, the four of us lazed around and chatted about school, board exams and our favourite topic- Boys!  We went downstairs for dinner at around eight pm and greeted Sonal’s father and brother, both of whom had just arrived home from their office. Her dad was a shy and a polite person who always asked all of us about our families, studies and health. Sonal’s brother ,Saurabh Bhaiya was also an introvert person to whom we usually just said ‘Hello Bhaiya!’ to which he warmly responded with a smile.   

Sonal’s family was strictly vegetarian but as always, the supper was delicious! There was Pasta  in red sauce, Chilly paneer with just the right amount of gravy, Fried rice, a typical ‘Jaini Sabzi’ consisting of various veggies like cauliflower, potatoes,beans, peas and egg-plant ( which to our surprise, we all loved!) accompanied with ghee-smeared Rotis and for dessert- Custard with both ice-cream and home-made strawberry jelly! The three of us enjoyed the dinner immensely which having a pleasant conversation with Uncle and Aunty (Saurabh bhaiya was having dinner in his room). We shyly nodded and allowed the servant to serve the second helping of everything on our plates but grinned  at each other knowingly as we refused, one after the other, for the third helpings, knowing well that each of us longed for more. Pratishtha  leaned towards me on the pretext of reaching out for water jug and whispered in my ear- “The Mid-Night Feast! Don’t Worry!”

After having our Dinner, we returned to the room and changed into our night-wears. I was wearing a brand new night-suit which consisted of a long white t-shirt with a picture of an apple on it, paired with half pajamas also printed with red apples all over. My new purchase fetched me many compliments today from my friends! Sonal was dressed in an elegant,full navy blue satin night-suit which suited her to perfection  whereas Pratishtha, in her tom-boyish manner, had opted for a white-collared dark- blue  t-shirt and full, light-blue and pink printed lowers. Sakshi, as usual had decided to stand out. She announced that she would be sleeping in her jeans  as “she didn’t look good in pajamas” but switched her sleeveless red top with a comfortable and a loose haldi-yellow coloured one instead.

“So whatdo we do next??” Sonal asked, smirking and wiggling her eyes-brows.

“FORTUNE!!” the three of us yelled ,jumping onto the bed.

Fortune was a silly card game for which the boys of our class would have rather opted to jump in a lake than to agreeing to play it with us, but we absolutely  loved it!

 This game is played with two deck of cards. One deck is distributed equally amongst the players while the other is kept in a heap in the middle of the players’ ring. As the game starts, the first player asks a question for example- “Who will score maximum marks in tomorrow’s  Math test?”.  He/She then picks up a card from the deck kept in the middle. Who ever amongst the players  has the same matching card from the other deck which was distributed, wins the question! Then the game proceeds in a clockwise manner with each player posing a question before picking up a card. We knew this game was childish and foolish but we always ended up having a ball while playing it. Our today’s chosen topic for ‘Fortune’ was- ‘Our Future Husbands!’ .

“Okay, I’ll start!  Whose husband would be the most romantic of all?  ” Sakshi said, having distributed the cards amongst us and the second deck kept carefully in the middle of the bed,around which we sat in a ring.

Picking up the topmost card and looking at it, she said- “Ace of Diamonds!”

We all scanned our respective cards eagerly till…..

“Meeeeeeeeee!” Sonal gushed, taking a bow.

We threw envious glances at her as this game was really going to decide our fate.

“Okay, my turn!” I said, hardly able to supress the laughter thinking about my coming question, “Whose husband would beat his wife up?” I reached out and picked up a card from the middle- “Three of clubs!”

“UUUrrrgghh!” Pratishtha moaned as she extracted the card from her set and threw it aside “Disgusting person!”

We laughted as Pratishtha herself asked the next question.

“Whose husband would be most jolly natured one amongst all?” she said “Eight of Spades”.

“That would be meeeee!” I said, grinning.

“If he’ll be as jolly as you,” Sakshi said “then the world will come to an end before your honeymoon!”

I stuck out my tongue at her as Sonal asked “Who, amongst us ,will get the most dominating husband? ….Two of spades!”  

“Noooooooo!” I said , grimacing and throwing aside my offending card.

“Whose husband would shower his wife with presents?...Queen of hearts!” Sakshi said.

“Yaaaaaaaaay!! Finally my kinda guy!” Sakshi squealed herself, jiggling her hands in a funny dance.

“Most charming husband”- Sonal

“Most miser husband”- Pratishtha

“Mosr daring husband”- Sakshi

“Most Shy”- Pratishtha

“Most snobbish”- Pratishtha

“Most short-tempered”- Pratishtha

“WHAT THE HELL!” Pratishtha bellowed, as we howled with laughter at Pratishtha’s bad luck tonight, “THIS GAME IS HELL BENT ON GIVING ME A LOSER FOR A HUSBAND! STUPID GAME!”

As usual, we had a great time playing ‘Fortune’ for the next three hours. Our questions proceeded to get naughty and then to being downright sleazy, which would have given our respective mothers, a mild stroke each in the  least. We finally wound up the game and went to the terrace to get some fresh air and to stretch our limbs, which had gotten stiff because of our sitting for such a long time. I glanced at my watch to see the time- 11:46 PM. It was almost midnight! Sonal would be turning seventeen in just another fourteen minutes!

                                               

                         

"Mrs. Bhan's Birthday!"

The next day, 9th of August was Mrs. Bhan’s birthday. As I had witnessed in my first year at P.E, this day was a joyous occasion, each year, for all of us!  Everyone, be it teachers, students, helpers or maids, hovered around the foyer waiting for Mrs. Bhan’s car to arrive. Back in Eighth standard, I had prepared a small card for Mrs. Bhan on her b’day. It was a picture of a bouquet of flowers which I had  painted in water-colours. I remember how I had coyly handed it to her and wished her a happy b’day as I fiercely blushed - the colour of a beetroot. I had been over the moon the next day when my mom, on returning from school, had told me that Mrs. Bhan had told her how she greatly appreciated my card. This she did  while on her daily rounds of the junior school. She had asked my mother whether I had drawn and coloured the card myself as she complimented me to my mother and said it was a beautiful card. I still remember wondering  to myself in awe,  how  anybody could specially remember a tiny card, amongst hundreds of huge ones. But such was Mrs. Bhan! She was not just our headmistress; but she was also our fairy god-mother who instantly put a smile on our faces with her magic wand that was her love and affection .  She was our mother-hen who noticed and appreciated us for every tiny little thing and also checked us whenever we put a toe out of line. Today four years later, I smiled to myself at the sweet memory and looked down at the different greeting card which I now held in my hand. It had taken me three days to prepare it and I knew that Mrs. Bhan would go over each of her cards separately and would appreciate our efforts. So I had worked as hard as everybody else had , each of us wanting our respective cards to be the best for our head-mistress.

As the past four years had passed and we had all entered adoloscence, Mrs. Bhan had become more of a friend to us than our principal. We could share each and every worry with her and she often took sessions for us senior girls consisting of sex-education and woes of teenagers!!. But today we were as excited as eleven year olds to wish her a happy b’day.  Around me, Sonal,Sakshi, Khushboo and Pratishtha were holding flowers and cards in their hands . We all shared a moment thinking that this would be the last year we would be celebrating Mrs. Bhan’s bday as students at P.E. We promised  ourselves that we would come to wish her the following year too. We suddenly stopped speaking on hearing the sound of a car screeching to a halt. We stepped down the couple of stairs at the entrance of the main building just as  Mrs. Bhan stepped out of her silver Ford Icon. Today she was dressed in  a maroon cotton saree and a slightly different jewellery from what she wore everyday, but that too was of silver.  Her arms were laden with numerous greeting cards and flowers which she must have received at Dhar Kothi. She smiled lovingly as everybody surrounded her at once. She thanked each and every person carefully, specially the bunch of little fifth-graders who were jumping around the crowd to give her the flowers they had brought. They blushed deeply as Mrs. Bhan addressed each of them by their names, accepting their flowers. I patiently waited for my turn and finally presented my greeting card to her. “Wish you a very happy bday Mrs. Bhan!” I said. She was smiling radiantly at everyone and as usual her eyes were sparkling with emotion. “Thank you Mallika!” she replied, hugging me, “That’s a lovely one” she added, looking over the greeting card.

“Mrs. Bhan gets cards from everyone!” a voice said from behind my back. Dr. Bhan was striding towards us. “No-one makes me any card. Not even you Harry!” he said. He had started addressing  me by this name ever since he had come to know about my craze for the Harry Potter books. When we were younger, we had been terrified of Dr. Bhan but today he joked around with us and particularly liked to pull my leg.

 “I’ll make you one this year Dr. Bhan.” I  promised, smiling at him. He frowned and asked “You will? Tell me when’s my b’day.”

 I looked at Mrs. Bhan for help as Dr. bhan’s face remained impassive. Mrs. Bhan looked at her husband and said “Dr. Bhan is just feeling a bit jealous today, aren’t you? Okaay bye byee Dr. Bhan. See youuu!”

 Dr. bhan gave me one of his mock glares, with a frown and his lips pursed, and took off in another direction. Mrs Bhan laughed and went into her office. Both of them always teased each other and made us laugh. I set off towards my class just as Gopal bhaiya went into Mrs Bhan’s office with a single rose in his hand, his warm and respectful smile intact .

Mr. Gajendra too shared his b’day with Mrs Bhan and he shyly bowed and accepted everyone’s wishes as we all headed outside for the assembly. After the hymn, we all sang the b’day song “Happy B’day To You!” for Mrs. Bhan and Mr. Gajendra while both of them pointed to each other with their hands at “Yoouuu!” which made the children laugh in delight. That day snacks were accompanied with a slab of vanilla  ice-cream and a  “Cadbury Chocki”,the recently launched liquid chocolaty candy, for each student. The  last class of the day,our  library period , saw the Four of us huddled in the corner of the room as Ms. Sanghi kept a careful eye on us from behind her thick book! We were deciding what we were going to do during the slumber-party we had planned for the weekend. Three days to go!! We knew it was going to be an amazing night!