Thanks Nahi, Vartika, Ripal, Ridz, Shobi and Pinks...you guys are my dream reviewers, do you know that? I love how much effort you guys put in not just reading what I've written but commenting and giving me encouragement 🤗❤️ A big BIG hug to all of you for bringing it up to 200 posts...it may not be much compared to a lot of other FF threads, but I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am to you guys.
Anyway...here's an OS I've been wanting to write for quite some time...mostly because I'm
also a fan of Rajat lol...
P.S. I always wondered why Robi was an R, after having two kids with the letter A, and how he became such a brat afterwards, even though Shekhar seemed to lose track of him so much in the beginning...so I came up with this.
Aurobindo Ganguly
About six months ago, during a time when Asha Aunty was still stable and allowed to move around despite her illness, the gang had decided to share with each other a few pictures of their families. Mrinalini's comprised of just the three 'women' in the household, and was taken a few months after Gigi was born; in the photograph her face was red and screwed up from crying, and Mrinal was holding her. Mrinal must have lost her first milk teeth by then: there was a visible gap where her incisors should have been. Most of all...she looked like she was looking forward to her life ahead.
Jeremy's was taken when he'd won some interstate spelling bee, flanked by his parents. His mother was blonde and seemed to be holding on to the last vestiges of her beauty, and David Newman looked so cheerful Onu couldn't believe the same man looked down on other communities in America with the same condescension that his wife Aurora did. Jerry seemed almost dwarfed in the picture, as if he'd want nothing more than to disappear: it looked like his parents were enjoying his win more than he did.
Onu felt a slight twinge in his chest when he took out the photo he'd had: it was a family photo in more ways than one, taken as it was after Ananya Di's wedding, with both his and Taani's families surrounding the terrifically relieved newlyweds. Taani was standing close to him, dazzling in all her finery, but scowling because he'd not talked to her even after getting his laughing Buddha. Robi was right behind her, but his eyes were hardly on the camera. He was too busy eyeing Onu's new watch.
"That's your brother?" Mrinal asked, even while she was smiling at the look on Taani's face, "How come he's not an A like you and your sister are? Or is Robbie his pet name?"
Jeremy didn't look very happy about the look on her face when she asked those questions.
"Um...long story." Onu replied, "Baba only insisted on calling him Robindo because his real name was too tough for him to pronounce. The only proof now that he was ever called the other name is his birth certificate."
Jeremy chuckled, keeping his photograph back in his wallet. Onu wondered if he carried it around now because he left homesick, and then brushed away the thought. "I'm betting by the time he was old enough to say it properly he was too embarrassed to."
Onu started back, slightly surprised. "How did you guess?"
"Same problem here. Try getting a kid to say Jeremiah properly when he's five. What was this elaborate full name your brother had in the first place?"
Onu flushed. The name was elaborate enough to embarrass him. "Aurobindo. That makes the three of us, I guess. We're really all As."
Nupur shook her head in disbelief, probably relieved that Shekhar Ganguly wasn't her father. "No wonder he keeps calling himself Robbie," she said, "If I were him I'd have disowned my family in the crib itself."
--
Nupur's, surprisingly, was quite recent. It was taken at a photo studio three months ago, when Orindam Uncle had decided they needed more framed photographs around the house. They'd posed and preened and posed again till their feet were sore: Nupur loved doing it, but by the end of the day Onu would have happily wrung the photographer's neck.
"Don't you have any photographs of you and your mum?"
"Nah," she replied, as blandly as she would have if he'd asked her for a cup of tea, "she burned them in a fit of frustration before...you know."
He'd never asked her again, and right now seeing this photograph in her hand - which had no female figure besides her - brought a lump to his throat.
The photo she was showing them was one of many, and Onu found himself wondering why she thought it so special. It wasn't much: she was poised behind the two of them, an arm flung over each of their shoulders, belting out another unintentional wisecrack. Onu's head was flung back in laughter, and Orindam Uncle's face looked surprised, but mildly amused. It was a nice shot, no doubt, but it didn't seem to have enough in it besides a slightly pleasant moment they'd shared.
Or maybe...just maybe, for her, that was enough. Or at least a small step towards 'enough'.
"Family photo?" he asked.
Nupur's eyes seemed to turn slightly watery at the question, and her smile trembled. She brushed a hand over the photo and placed it back in her jeans pocket.
"Family photo." she replied.
--
Robi's voice hadn't deepened, as the family had expected. Not the way Onu's had, at least. If anything, it had grown softer, more gentle, the voice of a person who wouldn't even want to hurt a fly. Anyone who didn't know him would probably have been fooled by that voice alone.
For the time being, though, the only person being fooled was their father. Baba had just bought Robi a cellphone - his very first - and for the first time ever his youngest son was seen saving up his pocket money and not spending it immediately.
"Baba doesn't know I'm calling you."
"Um...Robi, you realise how much even a one-second call to America costs, don't you?"
"Pfft, like Baba will ever get to know." Robi scoffed, "I've got enough pocket money saved here to run an empire of my own."
Their calls were always brief - triggered more by the fear of getting caught than anything else - but they always made his heart feel lighter. It was bad enough that Baba would hardly ever let the calls from the landline last long enough for him to talk comfortably with anyone, but it was through these secret ones that Onu got to see the subtle changes in his little brother, the way his own parents had failed to do.
"Besides," Robi said, laughing, "it's as if Baba's going to notice me much anyway. Not even if I ran around starkers screaming My Name Is Robindo and I'm Not a Guest!"
Baba's decision to send him to New York had spoiled things for both of them, not just him. Onu may have lost Baba and Ma physically and emotionally, but every time he tried to imagine what it felt like to see your parents night and day, and have them worry about the child that wasn't with them anymore, he cringed. He knew Baba wasn't paying enough attention to Robi anymore, even if Robi had kept respectfully mum and tried hard to keep the disappointment in his voice hidden. The increasingly late nights out of home were proof enough.
Said nights were courtesy of a girl he'd just met and was suddenly besotted with, his very first and according to him his last too. He sounded as though - given a chance - he'd go the Love Story way, complete with a cottage that would have a Bunty and Pinky banner at the threshold. Her name was Poushali and she looked like a very curvy Coke bottle (not the best description, even by Nupur standards). As of tonight, she had also given him his first kiss.
Ages ago, Onu may have bajaofied him first and then asked for tips. This was one of the reasons he hated not being with Robi in person now: where was the playfulness now that was once a part of what they shared together? The constant fights, the way they never battled over their belongings but flicked them instead? And for no other reason that Onu and Robi had rights over each other, rights they would never share with anyone else...because they would never trust anyone else as much.
"How was it?" Onu said, whispering. It was almost midnight and if Orindam Uncle caught him there would be hell to pay.
"How was what?"
"Idiot! The kiss, what else would I be talking about? Your non-existant six-pack-abs?"
"Not anymore, dodo -"
"It's Dada. Someone should come home and teach you your vowels all over again."
"- and it was...um...wet. I think I slobbered all over her."
"Eww..."
"And I think she's going to break up with me," he sighed, sounding really down and very much in need of a friend, "She told me to go approach someone else for practice...and she said even if I kissed ten thousand girls I'd never get my kissing right. She called me Mr. Slobber."
He wished he was back home with Robi, uttering enough gaalis against the girl to last her a lifetime. It wasn't fair, them being so far apart, having to sneak around their houses like thieves just to talk to each other. Robi needed him. Tomorrow, he would convince Baba. Somehow. Robi needed him now more than ever, if he hadn't been there, he wouldn't have even needed to turn to another girl -
"Robindo! Just who was that you were talking to, and what's all this you're saying about a girl?"
"Baba..." His voice was high, quavering in fear.
Baba grabbed the phone from Robi's hands, and suddenly, the phone line went dead.
Onu didn't sleep until four in the morning.
--
Mishti,
Baba's banned Robi from everything. And I mean everything. He's confiscated the phone, stopped him from talking to me for the weekend call, stopped Robi from using ANY of the phones in the house, blocked his pocket money for two months and made sure that he returns home straight from school.
I don't even know if he's manaofied Poushali somewhat or not. Though if she's still keeping up that attitude I might just remove the H from her name and replace it with a A x(
I guess this entire thing might just shoo him away from girls for life. Poor guy.
Motu.
P. S. I'm worried most about Robi. You leave me grounded for a month like that and I can maybe - just maybe - handle it. Robi can't. It's like when he's the adarsh beta he hardly gets the attention he wants, and when he's the rebellious one Baba takes away the only form of fun he has.
P. P. S. Not sure I like Baba's attitude of having the cake and eating it too. He wants us to follow his rules and when he does he just decides to scare us further? Not cool.
P. P. P. S. Four in the morning and I still can't sleep. I wish they had sleeping pills in this house, but Nupur mentioned that her dad banned sleeping pills when Sunita Aunty had threatened to swallow them after an argument one day.
P. P. P. P. S. How did she know? She grew up hearing them fight. She says that's the reason why she wakes up so late now, there's no noise in the house anymore and those fights were her wake-up alarm.
P. P. P. P. P. S. x( = redface angryface.
--
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