eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 14

13

STORIES

My endless questions which threatened to
interrupt her express-train flow of thought
when she wanted to finish her self-laid
quota of completing fifteen pages for every
class. I usually never let her go beyond
page five – on the rare days when I was not
thrown out of class, that is.

Class eight, class nine, class ten. My elder
sister got heaps of medals from the school
and warm, beaming smiles from Mrs.
Globe. I joined the debating society and the
quiz club and got heaps of jibes from Mrs.
Globe. My sister knew the jibes I faced.
“Don’t let it get to you,” she would say.

The day I drew a cartoon on the Map of
England. The Queen was still a royal figure
for her.

My sister’s path was clear. A love for biology,
a childhood love for dreaming up imaginary diseases for me and a quest for healing
mankind; all meant that she would soon
don the white coat and cure me of my real,
future illnesses.

The day I got caught mimicking her –
“Makes sense girls? This is really impotent.” My friends and I couldn’t pronounce
“important” normally for a week after that.
The day I wrote a poem on the last page of
her favourite atlas.
She had no dearth of reasons to send me
out of class. I had no reason to say in her
class after she finished her usual dose of
ridiculing me. Maybe that was part of her
morning ritual – brush her teeth, eat her
buttery paratha, all six of them, in her usual
jet-engine speed, bash me up, verbally at
least. All in a morning’s work. She never
hit me, which I have to admit. The mind
was her weapon and her victim.
So she reminded unfailingly almost every
class before politely showing me out of the
door:
“How can you be Sujatha’s sister? She is
so focused, and you – look at you, completely clueless.”
“Why are you always just asking questions?”
“No more questions, just copy that map
like I said.”

I had no such grand plans. I just wanted
to roam the world till my questions were
answered.
My school-leaving prank on Mrs. Globe?
Well, that’s a story for another time. My
sadness at leaving school and my friends
was tempered in no mean measure with the
happiness of leaving the memories of Globe
behind forever; and hopes of forgetting the
jibes that would haunt me for years.
And I had had enough of Geography for
my life. Or, so I thought.
***
Till I started college, miles away from
home, in a completely different geography
and till I started actually questioning what
was my real dream.
New country, new friends, new journey.
Faces and voices all around me.
“What’s up, bud?”
“Up for drinks tonight?”

“You’ll never do anything good. And never
even dream of studying geography.”

“Joining for the Linkin Park gig this
Saturday?”

Did I say I hated geography? Of course, you
know that. My notebook was always ready
in my hand, at the start of every Geography
class, in anticipation of the hour I would
have to spend alone in the corri ܋