Chapter 6th ("Are you here to usurp our house? ")

"Take a little more" Chachu grabbed and shoved more of those butter-baked cookies with rainbow cherries from the bakery that was relocated a few blocks away towards the west of this heightened house of grey heap, over my already cookie-flooding dish, one-shaped and golden glittering-like Sudarshan chakra (Disk shaped) of Vishnu.

"It's enough seriously, Chachu--"

"Just should have it... Look how skinny you have become"?

Excuse me?

Out of all the blues in that merry moment, the archaic woman, commented with a very agreement in a grimace of mass disagreement that arose in that dusky hall however, no one tends to show any of both.

Although, if we were in America she might have been charged for 'body shaming' me but wouldn't that be cruel... I guess not on her, just the point is the charges must be switched to committing a third-degree murder.

"Mummy, your tea" and a steel glass, that of almost my palm length were placed in her front by her young daughter-in-law, on the table with the wood warping from edges.

"... I wanted half a cup."

But the answer to that query was all those irritant gazes touching through the pinna of that young spotless nose, her fist gripping to the tightest and murmuring something inside herself, but her lips waved without words like- 'Murder is a punishable crime...murder is a punishable crime! ' 

And turned away bare-handed, acting like she had heard no such words however, this won't be the case for the one who did say those unheard words. 

My grandmother was baffled for a second but then frowned, refocusing on me with a subtle smile sitting on her lips as if bouncing all those things at once,

However, I too veer my skull away refocusing on the cup filled with foggy thin milk that I held within my clutches blowing the smoke through a gush of breath that I pushed from the bottom of my lungs believing all words were just fiction. Yeah, denying the existence,

isn't this the best of the options I learned and understood for so long?

"Well...what's up with the bag, Guddu?" finally, Chachi let out her overflooding urge, while sitting in the next chair to Chachu's, on the alternate to my position.

"Um...I am going to stay for...a little longer here." 

doesn't this sound like I have been kicked out by my (own) parents?!

cause... their perplexed faces with open mouths and narrow gazes said more than that, that continued-

"Papa said that I haven't been here for some time, so his idea was that why not I will be spending some quality time with you all?"

The awkward grimace lightened with laughter but, there was awkwardness still swirling through the couple to and fro- all in the gazes. 

"Right, it's your house, you have all right." Grandmother declared expressing her vote of confidence but to the vote of confidence, I just touched the cup to my dried torn lips sipping the milk which has turned cold and clumsy already. 

However, two of the people next to my left were boiling somehow without any exchange of visible words, and on the other hand, I was doing my most practiced skill, the skill of beating a retreat on reality through a void to the word of imagination. this can be considered as that shatterproof armor of mine, but how long does a ship stay unsinkable? 

until' a day a little iceberg hit the gigantic ship's prideful echo.

"Mummy...Mummy....see he has chewed my gum!" the rustling front doors flew open, with a battle cry. 

"No, I didn't, he is baffling!" with his thin tear-filled gaze, the thin-figured boy who had an oversized head rubbed his skull that was deprived of any dense growth and pointed his finger at the older boy walking beside him with pouted lips and a hunched posture. the one who was as if already expecting to be flamed up so that it could just blast out.

"Then what are you chewing, you rodent!" 

yeah... these were some of my many lil' brothers and the only ones who stayed closest to my living resident. though our relationship was quite messed up.

especially since the last Diwali, since the last crackle of smiles we shared and the last of blasts we had.

"Viru..."

but the blast didn't last long enough because... abruptly, everything halts with an encounter, an encounter with those eyes narrowing at them, with killer instincts.

"Ahem...Jai Viru, see who is here" Chachi exclaimed clapping her hands together and brushing the discomfiture away, although...one in a thousand she, or any of us would have ever expected what one of those two little boys would say with his brown-blackish eyes diving cold straight into my eyes.

"Are you here to usurp our house?" 

what the---?! Was I still floating in my imagination or...did I just mishear everything prominently from a 10-year-old, that sounds odd right?! 

(Hey reader, 

how have you been doing I am great but not so great especially with his hinged feeling like I am some worker at a call center, picking calls like 7 hours a day, that ain't a joke right?

and for studies...I am falling from a rocky hill, that's all I did say...tho, hope you will have a marvelous day ahead of you.

yours, 

author)