May, 2016Arjun “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, pokerface. 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 s

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 would happen that 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 everyday from father. Besides, my study timetable was ready from the day we rec