Academics

Aaryan Khanna

I was bent down with my hands on my shoes. I pulled the laces of the right one and then the left one, and then I straightened my back. I then fixated my right shoe beneath my left one and pulled out my right foot from the shoe. I did the same shit again with my left foot. Then, I turned backward to the front, looked at the old wooden door painted cream white and filled with dirt and shit. I pulled it close. Tap. I then turned to the front. The room was completely dark and empty, with just the curtains to the balcony on the front to light things up. There was an outline of a television hung on my left and a soft fluffy sofa right in front of it, ya see.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. My white socks turned to the left and entered the narrow living room. I went from between the outlines of the sofa and the television lightly illuminated by the streaks of sunlight coming from the shining yellow curtains on the other side. As I crossed the sofa, I turned to the right and started to walk into the middle of one of three rooms at the corner. I pushed its door with my right hand and walked in. The bed was to the left. The wall was just to the right of the door-frame. In the front was another pair of curtains in front of the window. On the right was the bed, directly connected to the right far corner of the room. The bed was lit by the faint light which escaped through the curtain. On the bed sat the figure of my mom, slender and feminine. She had her legs bent up and her face fucking drowning in the white light of the phone. She was scrolling down some social media shit in dark mode, perhaps.

As I stood on the other side of the small room which only had about a step’s distance between the bed and the wall, I asked, “Mom, I got my science test today.”

“Periodic test?” She turned up to me and asked.

“Yeah.”

“How did you score?”

“Seventeen out of forty.”

I could see it on her face—she was fucking angry. But, she had given up on me. “Even less than fifty percent,” She commented as she looked into my eyes. She then shrugged. “Marks don’t matter, right?” She then turned to her phone again.

I turned back and started to walk out.

***

The sun was setting. I was on my smartphone, my eyes on the screen. I was sitting on the wooden desk with a notebook open in front of me. I also had earphones on. There was a middle-aged man in a green t-shirt in front of a screen, explaining something. I then swiped down on the screen with my left finger and time popped up. I looked at the time. Six forty-seven. I thought, “I gotta go to that asshole, right?”

So, I stood up from the plastic chair in front of the desk, turned to my right, closed my notebook and phone, moved out the earphones, and then started to walk to the door. I opened the door, walked away, and closed it behind me. I walked through the narrow pathway between the television and the sofa set. The room was lit with white LED lights fixed right on top of the television. My mother was inside the kitchen, which was just beside the living room.

“Where are you going?” She asked.

“To a friend. Will be back in less than an hour.”

“And what about your studies?”

“I’ll continue later,” I replied as I stood in front of the shoe-rack and my shoes. I crouched down and started to wear them.

“Yeah, all this drama of studying only happens when results are out. After some days, you’re not even touching those books.”

I continued to look at my shoes as I tied the shoelaces of my right shoe. I was hurt by that sentence a little, but I didn’t react.

“Only God knows what you’ll do in the future to earn some money.”

I took a deep breath inside my chest and sighed out. I then stood up, turned to the door on my right, twisted the doorknob, and walked out. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Tap. Bang.

***

“This shit is too much, pal.”

I was sitting beside Sooraj on the metallic bench in front of the pathway of the park. The sun had set and the moon was dazzling brightly in the open dark sky. The park, because of its lack of lighting, was dark everywhere. I turned to my right to Sooraj. “She just keeps on fucking taunting me for this shit.”

“Same with me, man,” Sooraj said. The packet of drugs was on my left and Sooraj on my right. He turned toward me. “Parents legit think that studies are everything for success.”

“Yeah, pal.” I irritably said as I turned to the front. “I can… do anything to earn shit ton of money, pal. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg—all of these rich people were fucking dropouts after all, alright?”

“Legit,” He replied as he turned his head to the front. “My parents scold me too.”

“Ya are still doing fine in sports. Ya will get somewhere.”

Sooraj turned his serious face to the top. He had a muscular and slender body, and his neck showed that. “Who knows where we’ll get in the future? All I gotta fucking take care of is tomorrow’s match, man.”

“Did ya go to practice?” I asked, glaring at the front.

With his head on top, he shook his head a little for a second. “Nah, man. We had to take care of another gang in sector seventeen.”

“So what about the match tomorrow, then?”

“We’ll see. We don’t even have a plan. Playing eleven is not fixed. Got a fucking lot to do tomorrow before the match.”

I nodded. “I understand, pal.”

Both of us went silent for a couple of seconds. The wind blew softly for a couple of seconds, ya see, as some grass moved. A pair of white flowers with yellow centers beside the cemented pathway at the boundary of the park was dancing as the wind blew, and as it faded away, the flower again stood still.

I moved my back downward and shifted my weight on my back to my elbows, which I placed on top of my shoulders. I intercrossed the fingers of my hands.

“Anyway, we gotta win that match tomorrow if I wanna play in the under-nineteen state tournament next year,” Sooraj suddenly commented, his eyes still fixed on the dark sky.

Without looking toward him, I asked, “Why, pal?”

“Selectors prefer kids who have won some legit tournaments. I gotta lift something up as the captain to be selected for the team of Noida, or else those dickheads won’t even look at me.”

“Those fucking assholes,” I commented.

“Yeah.”

I then turned to him. “So, get the package safely to Vikram. Some days ago too, Akshay and his men attacked me.”

“Yeah, I’ll be safe, man.” He stood up and turned to me. “I gotta go now.”

“Alright.”

***

The next minute, I was walking down the dark street filled with dark yellowish streetlights on both sides. There were just a bunch of little assholes—all around the age of ten—playing cricket and shouting behind my back as I walked. The street was wide and silent, except for the kids which made it alive. Some women and men were walking in and out too.

My blue capris moved to and fro as I walked. My white sport-shoes patted on the ground with each step I took. I had my hands inside my pockets. My head was tilted downward toward the road. I could see the stones of tar, dust, and other pieces of pollution lying all over the city. I walked past a light green packet of potato chips, covered with dust and tattered from the top.

I then turned to the left and stopped. I looked at the narrow shitty stairway beside a narrow kirana store where a man sat deep inside, covered with the packets of biscuits, noodles, and other essential shit used at homes along with packets of chips and chocolates on display at the front of the shop. There was even a fucking refrigerator stuffed inside, ya see, where soft drinks were on display. That little shit of a shop stuffed in darkness was lighted by a LED light, but it still looked dark and gloomy.

I turned to the shop and started to walk to it. I stepped on the first step of the dark narrow stairway—which was wide enough only for me—and started to walk up the wide rectangular blocks.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. My shoes walked up the stairway slowly. I was soon in front of a white rusted door. I stood in front of it on a stairway. The circular stairway stopped at the door. I pushed open the door. Creeeeak. It was rusted. I then walked in as I closed the door behind my back. It again made the same creaking sound as it closed. It was the balcony of our house, and an alleyway to the inside of the house. I turned to my left and looked at the shoe rack at the end of the alleyway about four steps away. Then I looked at the bricked wide ceiling at the front. Its paint was coming off, which revealed the whitewash beneath it, and at some patches, even cement. I crouched down to take off my shoes.

I opened the door and stepped into the narrow living room. I turned to the left, walked from between the television and sofa set, and then turned left as I exited the living room and entered the kitchen. My mom was working there. Patting my naked feet, I walked and stood on her right, in front of the white marble shelf.

My mother was cooking something. She had the tomatoes converted into some fucking juice or some shit, pal. Onions were cut in really small pieces on the plate beside the cylindrical container with the red thick juice. She was right in front of me. I crossed my arms in front of my chest as she worked.

“What now?” She asked. She turned to the kadhai being heated on top of the stove, took up the small plate with the cut onions, and then forced each and every piece of onion inside the utensil. The heated oil inside started to sizzle loudly. “What does the king want this time?”

“Mom…” I irritably replied.

“What? Aren’t you the king here?” She asked. “You get to eat so good even though you’re not working or earning a penny.”

“I do work, mom…”

“What work do you do all day?” She asked. “Go to school? Well, that’s not work.”

“Mom…”

She turned to me as she kept the steel plate down on the white shelf. “Or do you consider this time with your friends as work?”

“No, I…”

“Then? Do you study all day?”

I guiltily turned my head down. She turned to cooking food again. “I work day and night to run this house, your dad works day and night at the office to get us money, and you… you don’t even study.” She took up a tablespoon kept beside the plate and started to rotate the contents inside the kadhai.

“Ya see, mom, I… I don’t like studying, alright?”

“I began. I tried to tell her what I felt about studies, ya see. For the first fucking time, I was telling her that I hated it and was just about to speak how I could do something else. But… But perhaps… it was not the best of decisions, ya see. I always fuck up, pal.”

“Then what else do you like?” She asked. She turned her head to me. “And how will you get money home once you’re an adult? How will you run your family? And, who will even marry you if you remain unemployed?”

“Mom, y-you don’t need to think that far ahead right now.”

“Then when?” She asked. “Next year, you’ll be choosing between the three streams, and it’s one of the biggest decisions of your life. It can’t be reversed. And, you don’t even know what you’ll be doing next.” She then turned to me again. “What have you decided to take? Science? Commerce? Arts?”

“… Nothing right now.”

“Are you even thinking about it?”

“… Kinda.”

“I know just how much you think all day, Aaryan. I’m your mother.” She then turned her head to me again as she raised the teaspoon out of the kadhai. “Listen to me. This is the time you need to get serious in life. These friends, this fun—all of it won’t help you later in life. You’re not a kid anymore. Your childhood has ended. Now, focus on your future. Focus on your career, and start working toward it. You need to earn money, earn a living, start a family. There are going to be many responsibilities on your shoulders. Remember that.”

“Hmm,” I nodded, my head still tilted down.