A Day in the life of the Banerjees

Morning sunlight slanted through the curtains, turning the thin layer of dust in the air into slow-dancing gold. The city outside was already awake — a chorus of vendors, scooter horns, and a distant pressure cooker somewhere marking breakfast hour.

Isabella blinked into the light, unsure for a moment where she was. Then the smell of cardamom and butter told her: India. The Banerjees’ apartment.

Beside her, Estella was already sitting up, hair a mess, rubbing her eyes.
“What time is it?” she mumbled.

Isabella checked her phone. “Eight. Not bad for jet lag.”

When they padded out to the living room, they found Mrs Banerjee at the dining table, halfway through rolling dough for puris. She froze mid-press, eyebrows rising.

“You’re awake?”

The girls exchanged a glance. “Uh… yes?” Isabella said.

Mrs Banerjee blinked like she’d spotted a rare bird. “At eight?”

Estella frowned. “Is that… unusual?”

“Well,” Mrs Banerjee said, setting down the rolling pin, “the men of this house don’t believe in mornings. Your hosts won’t surface before ten-thirty, maybe eleven if I’m lucky.”

Isabella laughed. “So that’s why the apartment’s so quiet.”

“Exactly. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

The kettle whistled. A ceiling fan creaked lazily overhead. Outside, the city grew louder by the minute.

Estella leaned against the counter, watching Mrs Banerjee move between the stove and the sink with effortless rhythm. “You’ve already done so much.”

Mrs Banerjee smiled without looking up. “Habit. When you’re the only one who wakes up early, you learn to have your peace in the noise.”

The girls helped around the house to pass the time, and when it was near 10:30 am, Mr Banerjee finally woke up.

“Good morning”, Isebella and Estella gave a warm greeting.

“Ahhh….. chup ..chup… well, well, it seems we have a few early risers finally in the house, huh, honey?” Mr Banerjee was still half dazed

“Ya, happy that at least I will get some company” Mrs Banerjee gave a very condescending smile to that question.

“Well, what about the maharajas? They still asleep?” Mr Banerjee asked as if he knew the answer.

“You know it”

“Well, girls interested to learn a secret technique to wake up or bring the boys into line if they ever get out of line”, Mr Banerjee whispered to them as if concocting a malicious scheme.

The girls intrigued nodded their heads.

“Well then, follow me”, Mr Banerjee came close to the door of the boys' room, which had a poster of a graphite drawing of Messi and Ronaldo.

“Well, you dont have to be a genius to know it is their room,” Isebella gave a sarcastic comment.

“True”, Estella added

As the girls were chatting, Mr Banerjee burst the door open and shouted

“MORNING MAHARAJAS, HOW MUCH ARE YOU PLANNING TO SLEEP?”

As the girls were giggling, a sound came from one end

“5 more minutes, please” It was of Aaron, whose legs and left arm were on the bed, but the remaining on the floor.

And on the other hand, Ishaan, who was sleeping with his salivya falling out and his leg bent in a swastik shape, and his hands on his chest.

“They are quite the sleepers, aren't they?” asked Estella as she clicked their photos for blackmail.

Mr Banerjee opened the curtains and then went between the boys' beds and looked at the girls.

“Here, girls bear witness to the Banerjee special wake up”, declared Mr Banerjee, and he pressed his two fingers on the lower abdomen of the boys, and this resulted in the boys waking up like springs on a compression device.

Aaron blinked himself awake like someone rebooting after a power cut. His hair looked like it had been styled by a small cyclone, and his blanket was wrapped around him like a toga.

“Wh—what was that? An earthquake?” he croaked.

Ishaan shot up next, eyes wide and hair pointing in all four directions. “WHO DIED? WHAT’S ON FIRE?”

Mr Banerjee slapped his knees, laughing so hard he had to lean on the doorframe.

“No one’s dead, you drama queens. It’s called morning. People wake up in it.”

From the kitchen, Mrs Banerjee yelled, “And stop shouting! You’ll wake the neighbours!”

“A bit late for that, Ma,” Aaron muttered, voice thick with sleep as he stumbled towards the washroom, tripping on his own bedsheet on the way.

Ishaan groaned and collapsed backwards again. “Why do we even have mornings? We were doing fine without them.”

Mr Banerjee looked at the girls and said with mock seriousness, “Observe closely, ladies. These are rare specimens of the North Indian Homo Sleepius. Can hibernate till noon if not disturbed.”

Isabella snorted; Estella was already shaking with laughter, phone out, recording the carnage.

“Oh, these pictures are gold,” she whispered. “This is blackmail material.”

Inside the bathroom, the tap gurgled to life. Aaron began brushing his teeth like he was in a slow-motion music video — elbow moving once every ten seconds. His eyes half-closed, expression blank.

“Is he… meditating?” Estella asked, peeking through the half-open door.

Mrs Banerjee walked past with a tray of steaming chai. “That’s his idea of getting ready. Speed of a glacier, mood of a retired saint.”

Meanwhile, Ishaan — blanket still draped over his shoulders — wandered into his parents’ room, squinted at the bed, and flopped face-first onto it.

“Don’t mind me,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Just relocating.”

“Relocating to where? Sleep-land?” Mrs Banerjee asked, hands on her hips.

“Temporarily,” came the muffled reply. “Five minutes. Promise.”

“Five minutes, my foot!” she said, flicking his ear as she passed.

Isabella leaned against the doorway, grinning. “You people are unreal. Back home, my father would’ve had us running laps by now.”

“Then tell him to visit,” Mr Banerjee said. “Maybe his discipline will rub off on this lot.”

Just then, Aaron stumbled out, toothbrush still in his mouth, eyes half-shut.

“Why is everyone yelling?” he mumbled, voice distorted by toothpaste foam. “It’s too bright. It’s illegal to be this loud before ten.”

“Illegal?” Estella raised an eyebrow. “You mean normal?”

He squinted at her through sleepy eyes. “Remind me why we invited you two again?”

“To ruin your peace,” Isabella said sweetly, taking a sip of chai. “Seems to be working.”

Ishaan groaned from the bed. “Someone call me when breakfast involves food, not bullying.”

“Breakfast will only involve bullying,” Mr Banerjee declared. “And puris. Lots of puris.”

At the mention of puris, Ishaan’s eyes snapped open.

“Wait—did someone say puri?”

Aaron spat out his toothpaste in the sink, yelling from inside, “Save me at least four!”

Mrs Banerjee sighed, smiling despite herself. “Look at them — all it takes is food to bring them back from the dead.”

Isabella laughed softly. “Feels… nice, though. Like the kind of chaos that belongs to you.”

“Ah,” Mrs Banerjee said, pouring her another cup of chai, “that’s India, dear. We don’t do calm mornings. We do noisy, messy, love-filled ones.”

And with that, the kitchen filled up — with footsteps, laughter, the hiss of frying oil, and the sound of a new day properly beginning.

After a fulfilling breakfast, the brothers went to their combined study room, and as they opened the door, the faint smell of parchment and a musty old scent filled the air, accompanied by a room full of books, a messy desk, and more.

“Well, as much as it pains to say it, it feels quite refreshing to return to this?” Aaron exhaled a sigh of relief

“Well, I dont disagree with you on that one”, Ishaan placed a hand on Aaron in agreement with what he said.

Isabella stopped in the doorway. “Is this… your study room? Or the aftermath of a small explosion?”

Aaron looked faintly offended. “It’s organised chaos.”

“Organised?” Estella raised a brow. “By what logic?”

“By the logic that I know exactly where everything is,” Ishaan said, stepping over a pile of notes like a trained acrobat. “See? My history notebook is right there—under that geography one—no, wait—under that pizza box. There.”

Mrs Banerjee, who’d wandered in behind them, sighed like she’d aged a decade. “I leave you two alone for four months, and this is what you come back to. A landfill with a syllabus.”

Aaron chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “We call it academic ambience, Ma.”

“Call it what you want,” she said, “but clean it up. The girls shouldn’t catch diseases just by breathing near this desk.”

The girls exchanged an amused glance. They were beginning to get used to it — the noise, the teasing, the heat, the dust, the life. Slowly, it was starting to feel less foreign and more… real.

A little later, as the afternoon sun slipped through the curtains, the boys finally settled into their work. Ishaan was hunched over his maths notebook, scribbling furiously, while on speakerphone, his friend Bhavesh dictated answers between mouthfuls of chips.

“Bro, question 4b — coefficient of x is 3, write that down.”

“I am writing!” Ishaan snapped. “Don’t shout, my handwriting gets nervous!”

From across the table, Aaron groaned, flipping through a pile of accountancy ledgers. “If I have to see one more balance sheet, I’ll start balancing myself off the balcony.”

Mrs Banerjee peeked in, amused. “Good. You can take your sister’s foreign friends with you; they’ll need practice once they start school tomorrow.”

Aaron froze mid-scribble. “Wait… what?”

Ishaan looked up. “Tomorrow? What do you mean by school?”

“Oh, didn’t we tell you?” Mr Banerjee called from the living room, voice far too casual for the chaos it caused. “The girls will be joining your school. Starting tomorrow. Papers are done.”

Both boys stared like someone had just cancelled summer.

“You’re joking,” Aaron said flatly.

“Why would I joke about free education?” Mr Banerjee replied. “Be grateful. You’ll finally reach school on time now — royal company and all.”

Ishaan let out a dramatic groan and dropped his pencil. “Great. Not only am I drowning in homework, but now I’ll have to play tour guide, too.”

Estella smirked. “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll make sure to tell everyone you were thrilled about it.”

Aaron rubbed his temples. “I need another puri.”

By late afternoon, the house was a symphony of papers flipping, pens scratching, and occasional muttered curses. Even the girls, armed with new textbooks and borrowed notebooks, had joined the study marathon.

At some point, Mrs Banerjee appeared with lemonade and biscuits. “You’re all too quiet. It’s suspicious.”

“It’s called studying, Ma,” Aaron muttered without looking up.

She smiled knowingly. “Ah, yes. The annual miracle.”

When lunch ended and the plates were cleared, the day began to turn — a rumble in the sky, a whisper of wind through the windows. Then came the first fat drop on the balcony railing.

“Rain!” Ishaan yelled, jumping up. “Finally!”

Before anyone could stop him, he was out the door, barefoot, shirt half-buttoned, sprinting down to the courtyard. Aaron followed, yelling something about not slipping.

Within minutes, they were both soaked, playing football with their colony friends — laughter echoing through the wet air, mud splattering everywhere.

From the balcony, Isabella and Estella watched, umbrellas forgotten in their hands.

The rain came down in thick sheets, drenching everything — the mango tree, the cars, the stray dog dozing under a scooter. The air smelled of wet earth and something old and comforting.

“Back home, rain was quiet,” Isabella said softly. “Here, it’s… alive.”

Estella nodded, her eyes following the boys kicking the ball through puddles, shouting in Hindi and English and whatever else came in between. “It’s wild,” she said. “Messy. But beautiful.”

Below, Ishaan slipped and fell straight into a puddle. Aaron’s laughter rang out loud enough to echo.

“Beautiful,” Isabella repeated, smiling.

That night, the house smelled of wet clothes and ginger tea. The city outside had quieted to a low hum.

The girls lay side by side, half under the same blanket, whispering into the dark.

“Do you think we’ll fit in?” Estella asked.

Isabella stared at the ceiling fan turning slowly overhead. “I don’t know. But for the first time since we left Alzaras… it doesn’t feel like we don’t belong.”

A pause. Then Estella smiled faintly. “Tomorrow’s our first day of school.”

“Yeah,” Isabella whispered, eyes closing. “A whole new kind of adventure.”

Outside, the rain had stopped, but the streets still shimmered under the lamplight — like the city itself was wide awake, waiting to see what the morning would bring.