S16: "The Parent-Teacher Meeting"

It was around 8pm, he returned from the office. He dropped himself along with his bag on the couch.

‘Baby, I am so tired today. I interviewed hundred engineers and selected 20. It was hectic ’, he said loosing up his tie knot.

‘You want some coffee Abhi?’, I asked picking up his bag from the couch.

‘No baby, I had enough coffee today. By the way where is Sunny? Did he have his dinner?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, he finished dinner. He asked about you many times’, I said massaging his head.

‘Oh really’, he exclaimed.

Before he could finish his words, Sunny came to the living room playing a game in the phone.

‘Tomorrow you have to come to our school. There is a parent-teacher meeting’, he said with his head fully engrossed in the mobile.

‘Me?’, Abhi got excited.

‘Both’, sunny said and left even without lifting his head.

We both got very enthused. We were never excited before and not even shown a pinch of interest to attend a parent-teacher meeting in our lives. But being a parent, we gulped down the whole bunch of enthusiasm to attend it.

‘I am so excited’, he said with a widened smile.

‘What should I wear?’, I began my preparations.

‘You wear that saree which I bought for you last week. That looks pretty on you’.

‘Saree? Are you sure?’, we were dancing in excitement.

‘Yeah yeah, absolutely’, he said.

The next day, we got dressed up very sprucely. This was our first parent-teacher meeting since 

childhood as we bunked all of them as students.

As we reached the school, we got to taste two surprises which are unpalatable. 

The first one was there was no meeting, all the parents got assembled in the school grounds and the second one was no one is wearing a saree, all the mothers were in salwar suit accompanied with running shoes.

Abhi and I kept exchanging bewildered glances.

As soon as the principal started his speech, our ears and eyes blasted out listening to his words.

‘Running race?’, we both yelled at once. It was not a parent-teacher meeting, they were hosting competitions for the parents and the children.

The first one was running race for the moms and the second was the dumbcharads between the parents and children.

This rascal sunny who was engrossed in the game didn’t inform us anything.

‘I am not letting him to touch the cell phone for a week’, Abhi scowled.

‘Abhi how am I going to run with his saree and high heels?’, my nervousness touched the skies. I am not at all a saree person; I can barely walk in a saree. Running is not even a thought with a saree rolled around me.

‘Wear my shoes’, Abhi gave his casual shoes.

Anything is better than a 5 inch heels. If I would run with these heels, I will definitely drill holes along the school ground or fall down in the middle bagging awkwardness and humiliation. I wore his 

shoes and all the moms stood on the starting line warming up.

I tied my saree so that it won’t gift me any embarrassment during the run. All the moms were warming up, stretching their hands, legs, bending forward and backward with a smirk on their faces as if they are going to a wrestling match.

Even I started warming up the same way as if I am going to punch someone.

Sunny came running towards me and said, ‘Mom, Its ok. No need to run with this saree. I can’t see you fall. Just give up’.

I looked at him narrowing my eyes. ‘Sunny’s mom is not giving up’.

The whistle blew and the match began. I started running as if I was in a bull race and a whole herd of bulls are after me.

My saree started giving up. But I held everything tightly with my hands and kept running.

I crossed the line and stood in the first place, I was never this much happy to win a running race.

‘SHE IS MY WIFE’, Abhi ran towards me screaming all over the ground.

He hugged me and he was still screaming, ’She is my wife’.

From there, we saw sunny standing around the kids clapping and his friends patting his shoulder and congratulating him for our success. We saw his eyes drenched with proud.

The next round was the dumbcharads of the movie names. Some got their guesses right and some didn’t. It was our turn. Sunny picked a paper, read it and put it back.

He pointed at me. He was doing nothing other than pointing his hand at me.

We were clueless but we started guessing.

‘Me’

‘Maa, taare zameen par, maa tuje salam, vande mataram’, I started saying random movie titles.

‘Maa,Mom,mother’, Abhi too started guessing and as soon as sunny heard the word mother he nodded.

‘Mother India’, Abhi shouted and we got it right.

‘Oh my god, he pointed at me for Mother India’, I was extremely happy and Abhi was celebrating our success by smirking at everyone.

After summing up the scores of the two rounds, we stood in the first place. Though we chewed up some time in dumbcharads, we nailed it in the running race.

We were never so happy to win these types of competitions but being a parent, every small thing counts. We were overjoyed and started grinning at every child saying ‘we are Sunny’s parents ‘.