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New to my Blog??

Click on the below links to read my previous stories..

Bus#126W       My Family and I       Games we play       All Roads Lead Home       As Good As It Gets       Whodunit?      

The Reunion       A Dog's World      My Sister's Daughter

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

My Sister's Daughter - Chapter 24 - Khushi's Job

I left Pia with Shantanu and went to meet the newspaper editor. It was a long overdue effort from my side to get on with my life. Now that Pia seemed relatively okay, I didn’t need to be there for her all the time.
The editor of “City Journal”, Prasad Nair was a kind old man. He had seemed surprised to receive my call again. I guess he had thought that the earlier call was a prank. I had apologized profusely about not turning up citing personal reasons. He had been very understanding over the phone and had asked me to visit him anytime it was convenient for me.

I stopped outside an ancient looking building. It was big but run down. Clearly the “City Journal” had seen better days. To tell you the truth, it looked deserted to me. For a second, I was convinced that I had missed a turn and ended up in the wrong place.
“Are you here to meet Prasad??” a male voice called out from the second floor of the building. I looked up, I couldn’t see anyone.
“Yes, is this City Journal’s office?? I didn’t see a board around here..” I asked facing the part of the building from where, I believed, the caller had shouted from.
I could hear some laughter and then the voice said “Don’t bother looking for boards, come on up. Prasad is waiting for you..”
I wasn’t too sure whether the person inside was Prasad. I walked inside, suspicious of all sounds around me but apart from the floor creaking, I heard nothing.

“Hellooooooo??” I called out. I was getting freaked out in that place. I felt like I was in a horror movie. I didn’t want to work here!! I couldn’t imagine why Prasad Nair was still working from here.  The wooden flooring and roof looked like it was going to fall down any moment.
“Here.. We are here..” The voice directed. I followed the voice carefully, watching my every step.

A tall man stood in front of me. He didn’t seem too happy to see me.
“This way..” He said abruptly and led me inside a room.
Now this room looked lived in, unlike the rest of the abandoned building. Prasad Nair was sitting was sitting at the far end of the room. He looked old and weathered. He should have retired a long time ago, I thought to myself. I put on my best smile and approached him.
“Mr. Nair? I’m Khushi.. I..”
“You’re hired..”  I stopped mid sentence and stared at him.. He smiled at my confusion.
“Look around Khushi.. I have only one employee.” He pointed at the surly man, “And you can see we are doing terribly. Even then if you want to work here, you are hired.. Just for that.”
If he had noticed the surprise on my face, he said nothing about it.
“Just like that?”  I asked.  I looked around; I needed something to do with my time. And I could leave anytime I wanted.
“Okay.. I’ll take it..” 
Prasad stared at me in disbelief. So did the rude man. “You’ll take it???” he asked incredulously.
“Yes..” I didn’t have to explain to him why I was taking the job, “But I do want to know, what happened to City Journal?? I can tell that once upon a time, it did really well..”
“You are damn right it did!” Prasad was indignant that I had asked such a question, “It had a readership of over twenty thousand and considering we publish only city news, it was a remarkable number!”
“And then??” I asked.
“And then, I took over.. ” The sadness in Prasad’s voice was apparent. “I made all the wrong decisions, fired the right people. The readership has dwindled to a few hundreds, but as long as I live, I’ll never let City Journal die..”
His passion touched me and I reached out and touched his shoulder, “Don’t worry Prasad, I’ll try my best to help you turn this around.. ”
He took my hand in his and looked into my eyes. He reminded me of my grandfather.
After a long time he said, “I believe you will..”

I was nothing but a lowly journalist. I knew nothing about running a newspaper, leave alone trying to make one successful but nevertheless, I was going to give it my best shot.

My Sister's Daughter - Chapter 23 - First day without a note!

We opened the carton carefully. It was as precious as some lost treasure for us.
The first thing that came out was a belt.. I remembered that belt. It was Di’s favorite and she never let me use it. So I had done the only thing I could to get it.. I had stolen it from her. I remember how furious she was when she found out it was missing. She ransacked my house looking for it but she never found it. All the time she was looking for it, it was around my waist. I remember sitting very still so that she wouldn’t notice the belt around me.
Pia was rolling with laughter as I described the incident to her. Her unrestrained laugh caught my mum and dad’s attention and they joined in, telling Pia stories about her mum and dad. About how they had met, how they had fallen in love, how happy they had been when they got to know they were going to have Pia.

One by one, we pulled things out. Everything seemed to have a story around it and before we knew it, the carton was empty but that’s ok. It had served its purpose. We all smiled at each other. The story sharing had somehow brought us all closer. Tired and emotionally spent, we all went to our rooms.
 I stayed up for a while, waiting for Pia to crawl into my bed. But she didn’t.  I got up and went to her room to check on her and saw her sleeping soundly.
A sudden noise made me turn around. My father was standing behind me. He smiled at me. Both of us had had the same concern about Pia. He put his arm around me and I leaned back.
We watched her sleep for a while, almost afraid, that if we moved, Pia would wake up.


The next morning passed pleasantly. Pia was happy and chirpy. Her upbeat mood made all of us think that things had changed for the better.
When I went to pick her up from school, she didn’t have a note from her teacher. I was amazed at what Shantanu had done within a span of three weeks.. To me it seemed that Pia was completely back to normal.
As usual, I took her to Shantanu’s, all happy. Once Pia was out of the earshot, I congratulated Shantanu on what a great job he had done.
He gave me questioning look.
“Pia’s all okay now..” I explained. Shantanu smiled indulgently at my naïveté’s.
“She’s on the right track.. But she’s nowhere being completely okay.. ” I looked over at Pia chatting happily with the receptionist. She looked perfectly fine to me.
“But she didn’t get a note today!!” I couldn’t understand why Shantanu was being so skeptical.
“Khushi..” Shantanu explained patiently, “Did it occur to you that maybe, she didn’t give you the note or maybe, she just didn’t get caught today? It could be anything..”
Was he accusing my Pia of lying to me??? No I would not believe him!