The Moment

 Click clack click clack. Oh! I got to finish off with the story! Ding dong.. ding dong.. “for heaven’s sake NITA! open the door!” Great! Nita has gone off to aunty’s place... clambering off the bed spewing off packets of chewing gum and biscuits. i glanced at the messy bed ,ma’s gonna kill me for this! “coming!” opening the door i find nita glaring at me like i made her watch the rerun of twilight!

“You lazy creeeature! Why haven’t you got ready?!” Whaat? Ready for what?
Dang! I had forgotten about something important again! So i put up a brave act..
“Of course i know!The very very important day! just a minute i will get ready”
I put up a apologetic grin the hurried off into my room before nita starts off with her chaw-chaw again...

Staring out of the taxi window clueless about the current situation.I look around to find ways of finding out about this “day of extreme importance”. So I played around with things like so how is the plan coming.. She answered  monosyllabically .So instead i ask her about ma and baba.. She gives me the “hopeless for eternity look” tilting her head to one side and says “shouldn’t you be knowing that?!”  so i shut up and waited for the journey to the unknown to end..

“Bhainji,  80 rupees hua hai”..
I could say Nita was going to wage the battle of waterloo with the taxivala for the absurd meter. So i swiftly paid the man now cowering under Nita’s glare and dragged her out before she would blast into a volley of complaints. So, we were standing in front of a party hall.. looking side ways i saw her grinning.. with dread i concluded may be its one of those far off weddings of unknown people with plastered smile (they have my deepest sympathies)..  man! I was so much better off at home! “Are you taking revenge for that twilight rerun?” she just laughs and drags me in.. “die you bitch!”

So i put on the most blank expression altering with utter pain and disgust.. (yeah may be i should try acting) anyways being dragged in by Nita i hear a blast of noise and screams and pats and smiles and balloons and streamers... and then taking off my mobile i notice the date.. “oh its my bday”  it was a surprise party! I blinked SYSTEM OVERLOAD!Relatives I have never seen come and hug me so does ma and baba. And Nita kept hitting me for no reason.. probably because she pulled out a trick on me flawlessly..  food ,cake, music ,all was a party and i was surprised that my family was so sanguine that i did forget my bday..!

After all ended and people couldn’t move anymore either from too much dancing or too much food there were goodbyes and hugs.. As we all slopped home and i lay on bed amongst all the rubbish and the incomplete story which is possibly going to stay that way, dad comes in for the usual father-daughter banter sessions. Suddenly he asks me “so, mini... what is life?”  This is “THE MOMENT” .I am suppose to come up with real philosophical lines putting up metaphors and quotes of famous , to look like i have really grown up vision of what all it is. Alas! i fail.. i end up with  couple of uhmms and you knows, disappointed baba left .Lieing  back, recapping  today’s frenzy, seeing happy faces enjoying ,uncles stuffing  up as much food they can while it lasts i concluded .....
life is living...   (if only baba heard me then i am sure it’s the most impressive answer i have ever come up with, pitiable i know! :D)