The doorbell rang. Mr. and Mrs Ganguly was back from the vacation. Mr. Ganguly pulled out the home keys from his pocket, after ringing the bell quite a couple of times, to find, Aadi wasn’t home. In the beginning he thought maybe his son was out for the groceries but the same unwashed plates in the kitchen basin which they had left two weeks back, made him realize that his son may not be staying here at home for the past few weeks. His cell phone kept going to voice mail which made his parents really anxious.
It’s 8:30am. Aadi woke up and checked his cell-phone to see 9 missed calls from bapi (dad). He is still mad at them and is not at all ready to call him back.
The morning icicles hung from the windows and the lawn outside was blanketed with more than a foot of snow. He got out of his bed, freshened himself fast to come downstairs. He poured himself a cup of tea and taking a few triscuits in hand, he joined his friend for breakfast. They had the news channel on and it really bothered him to learn that the schools would remain closed for another week for the heavy snow.
The morning icicles hung from the windows and the lawn outside was blanketed with more than a foot of snow. He got out of his bed, freshened himself fast to come downstairs. He poured himself a cup of tea and taking a few triscuits in hand, he joined his friend for breakfast. They had the news channel on and it really bothered him to learn that the schools would remain closed for another week for the heavy snow.
It’s not that he wasn’t enjoying the winters at his friend’s place, It’s just that he had different plans for himself this Christmas. He always wanted to visit Rome and witness the Roman architecture with his eyes, instead of just reading it in the history books. Stories about the Colosseum and Pantheon House always lured him to visit that place. Yes, Italy trip was all he and his parents planned that winter.
Tickets had been booked and bags had already been packed.
His Facebook status read “Just two days to Italy” .
Unfortunately he wasn’t aware of the fact that his passport had expired a month back and it would take at least 3 weeks to renew it. His parents blamed him for not being careful enough. Taking responsibilities of his own mistakes, he expected his parents to cancel the whole trip and maybe make the same plans, coming summer or the following winter. He never had the slightest idea that his parents would put the Italy trip as a first priority and put him second. Though mad and hurt, he knew how to hide his feelings well beneath the surface. He wanted to show he was quite cool with the idea of staying back. After his parents left for the vacation he got really bored at home, called up his friend to see if he could spend the holidays at his place in Wyoming. This is how he ends up here.
The wind howled and the snow continued. He went back to the guest room.
All he could think of was bapi understood me so well. At least from him he never got the slightest feeling that he was drifting away so far from his parents. He felt they owed him an explanation for choosing the vacation over him. Maybe they didn’t realize Rome was important for him too, in fact he was looking forward to spending the vacation with his parents. He wanted to know if they could really enjoy Rome with their son staying back. He wanted to confide his feelings to someone.
Dear Diary,
I was really stupid not to believe the line “Paper has more patience than people” when I first read it in ‘The diary of a young girl -Anne Frank”. It makes sense now. I have so much to get it out my chest and I am not sure where to start…
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