Trophy Wife

May, 2014Arjun“Bye brother Arjun!” Artha said as she hopped down from the backseat. “See you, Artha.” I responded, smiling at her from the window like I did every morning before she got her morning speech.I watched father shut the back door in the side view mirror. He then walked over to Artha who was now standing a little distance from the car. I sighed and looked the other way. I could hear father's stern voice as he told her the same things he told her every morning. I waited approximately two minutes before turning my head toward the window again. That's how long their morning sessions lasted. I looked at father kneeling in front of Artha, their eyes locked as he transferred his wisdom to a six-year-old. “You hear me?” He asked her. “Yes, papa.” She responded, pokerfaced. She had already been told that this was serious, and she was not to smile when he was telling her serious things. This year was Artha's first year in school, she still had twelve more years of morning-wisdom

Arjun“June exams are starting on Monday guys. You're writing maths first. Study and study hard. If you are good with maths now, you shouldn't struggle next year in grade 12. And if you ace your grade 12, your life is sorted for life.” Mr Kapoor was telling us. I've been sitting in this same seat for exactly one hour forty minutes now. Mr Kapoor is our admin teacher and maths teacher. We had a double maths period as the last two periods of the day which is 45 minutes each. And now we were 10 minutes into our admin period and then the bell would ring for us to go home. What I liked about Mr Kapoor is that he respected time. Whenever this happens, we have to stay in his classroom because of two periods for maths and admin, he stopped teaching when the maths period was over. He didn't try to steal some extra time. But what Mr Kapoor was telling us now about studying, I already knew. I heard it almost every day from my father. Besides, my study timetable was ready from the day we receive

PreetahI paced around the classroom, my arms crossed over my chest, ensuring that I at least looked like I was aware of everything that was going on around me. In reality, my mind was very far away, focused on one thing; the payment notification I had received this morning. With having to pay for my bus fare for the month, groceries, other utilities and my father's chronic medication, the money would not be enough. Not even close. I let out a heavy sigh that I was not aware of until the students sitting close to me all turned to look at me. “Sorry.” I whispered, continuing my rounds. I stopped at Fatima's desk and looked down at her answers as she wrote. She had used the correct method but with the wrong numbers. Her answer was going to be wrong. The learner in front of her was only starting question 3 now and there was only 5 minutes left. These kids... I had told them to skip questions they didn't know so as to save time. I walked to the front of the class and leaned on the fro

Artha I watched Dean's smile fade a little when the rose trail led us to his bedroom. He took in the decoration: red ballons hugging the ceilings, their coiled strings hanging over us. He stepped to his side table and picked up the bottle of champagne, reading the label. “Nice...” He grinned. He picked up the gift bag from the bed and looked back at me, giving me a warm smile. “Can I open it?” I laughed at his politeness. “Yes, you may.” He pulled out the football jersey, smiling ear to ear. “Aw, man.” He walked to me and drew me into his arms. “I love you so much, man.” I just smiled, hugging him back tightly. Nothing brought me more joy than seeing how happy Dean looked at this very moment. I would go out of my way each time if it meant seeing this joy on his face. He kissed my temple and then hugged me again. “I love you, Artha-bear.” He said softly at the side of my face. His warm breath against my ear, made me feel fuzzy inside. He then placed his hands in my hair and mad

ArthaSince it had been last minute, brother could only get two empty seats next to each other, the other seat was right at the back. The loner seat was mine. “I can't even remember if I locked my door.” Dean was telling Arjun as we walked down the aisle, looking for our seats. “This is a one-way ticket, how long are we gonna stay for?” I was following behind them.“I don't know, D. Indian weddings are so complicated.” “I hope I switched off my stove.” D continued. Arjun groaned. “If you're going to complain all the way then go sit on Artha's seat.” “Or you go sit on Artha's seat.” He responded. “I don't want to have to hear you complain about how much you don't want to get married for 19 hours.” “Oh, my friend, I do want to get married now actually.” He answered as he moved into his seat. “Is that why you sent us last minute invitations?”“Would you have rather not been invited?”“They say that when someone invites you last minute, you shouldn’t accept the invitation because it