Papa’s Number One – Family Short Story
Photo Credit: www.cepolina.com
“See I got a pink one!!”
Running from the backdoor to inside,Little Astha proudly hands over the pink piece of hard paper to her father which she considered the fruit of her merit,apparently her report card.’Snap’ and as her delicate cheeks turned red ,a yelling mother came out of the kitchen,grasping her child away,
“What’s the matter?” .
“Nothing,I am just annoyed of her B grades”,replied the annoyed father.”The card clearly states that Pink means a B grade performance in the Annual term.Why can’t she just get a green card,an A grade?Is this why we work so hard and burn ourselves throughout the day?”
“Hello Ashu!What are you thinking beta? I have been calling your name from last ten minutes”.
Astha’s mother just intervened into her thoughts with a cup of coffee.”Oh,I was just finishing my IIT practice test,mummy”.
“Yes dear,Your next aim is to crack the IIT mains,in another week or so your Board results will be out too and I am sure you are going to come out with flying colors!”said mummy gently patting her head! Astha’s face sunk with sadness.
Astha was one of the brightest students in the school,and had just appeared for 12th board exams.Everyone including her parents had high expectations from her and her excelling marksheets always made an impression that not only she was extraordinary but had a scintillating future ahead .
But since past few months,Astha was not able to concentrate on her academics,the burden of expectations was getting too much to carry for her delicate mind. It probably was the change of hormones,attainment of puberty,or the fatigue from pre- IIT preps, but she couldn’t figure out the lack of concentration she was dealing with lately.Apparently,she had screwed one of the papers so bad that she trembled with fear the day she got back from school,when ‘papa’ asked her to solve some of the questions again. This fear was even haunting in her dreams now and she couldn’t imagine what would happen if she flunked in the exam..
“No one has ever made it to the IIT in our family,Nishaji!Astha is going to be the first one and the whole world will see how a Headclerk’s daughter makes her entire family proud”,snapping the finger in air Astha’s father Sohu Prakash made a proud remark.
“Yes,tumhare muh mai ghee shakkar.Jai Ganpatti Bappa,please make our wishes true!”Nishaji bent her head over to the Ganesh’s murthi over their small mandir on the wall.
As Astha turned over the pages of her book,she again sunk into the thoughts of past.In the sixth grade she had tried to commit suicide by eating a mosquito repellant ,though she hardly swallowed it then and kept it over her tongue just to scare others.She had stood third in class and was petrified over how ‘papa’ would beat her once she got home as he always wanted her to be number one,not number two or three.So she resorted to this drama to get some sympathy from him and it worked too .
A week passed by,and the excitement soared in Astha’s family as newspaper came in the morning.Nishaji came rubbing her eyes and looked at the nervous husband who was already awake and probing the paper for Astha’s roll number.After looking up several times and tallying the roll number again and again,an angry Sohu Prakash shouted ”I cant see her number anywhere”.
”What are you saying ji?This cant be possible,this cant be possible.There must be some problem with our newspaper,I will go check our padosi’s newspaper”.
Sohu prakash picked up his chhadi in anger ”This girl has failed??I cant believe it,she has cheated all of us!I knew it the day she came home after the Physics exam!I am not going to spare her today!!”.
”Please don’t ,there must be a fault.Our daughter is a genius she can’t fail”Nishaji fell on her knees crying aloud.
With chhadi in his hand,Sohu prakash brisked towards Astha’s room.
”Get up you failure !“he screamed.
But his steps stopped inadvertently as he entered the room,lips sealed into a never-breaking silence,and body shook in cold.. His world had just turned upside down!
Astha hung on the ceiling fan with the school tie cordened around her neck. Her face was pale and she looked as innocent as she was born in the small ward of Dr Gangaram hospital..
An open diary on her bed said “Sorry ‘papa’, I wasn’t your number one”
The sun soared high and by afternoon Sohu Prakash’s home was filled with a crowd of flabbergasted neighbor’s and Astha’s friends.
Someone whispered in the back ”Gosh,this is so unfortunate, it was a printing mistake, she has again topped the school.”
__END__
