“Maaa!……… Mammaa!”

A shriek ripped through the peaceful post breakfast Sunday morning at the Raha household.

Mother, on her way to the terrace with the basket of just rinsed wash-load, jumped out of her skin and dropped the basket on the staircase landing. Dashing to her daughter’s room on the mezzanine floor, she let out a shriek as well.

 “RANJHITA  RAHA! How could you!?!”

Ranji, aka Ranjhita, was sitting amidst what could be best described as post-typhoon rubble. Books, soft toys, cushions and even the bed mattress seemed to have survived a wok-like tossing, not to mention pulled out table-drawers and a completely ransacked three-door wardrobe.

Mother was compelled to halt at the threshold, because, where she could not bear to step, even by mistake, upon a single piece of paper, there was every chance of not only stepping on but of standing upon whole books as well!  Her initial shriek turned to speechlessness as she registered the extent of re-organising that would be required to bring in some semblance of civility to this room.

 “Not again!” she mentally rued.

Just last week, a whole tottering tower of books and papers had finally toppled from the table. It took more than three days and some bit of palm-greasing the maid to put things back in order. This would take more than three weeks and cost at least half month’s extra pay. “As it is, the maid was on leave for today and Monday. Effectively, the kick start to cleaning, this time around, had to be done, either, two days later with the maid, or from today, on my own.” mused, a thoroughly exhausted Mother.

However, Mother also realised that her last- born continued to sit, despite having heard her formal name being called out. On any normal day, this formal name address from Mother would have been enough to snap Ranji out of her sloth and galvanize her to high-speed action. Not today.

“Ranji …beta…,” softening a bit, Mother gingerly stepped into the action area and, while trying not to tread upon any object, paper or otherwise, managed to reach a dazed Ranji, still immobile.

Sensing her approach, Ranjhi turned towards her Mother and burst into tears. “Maa… my project report,” she hiccupped, “I cannot find it. Day after tomorrow is final submission. I searched everywhere. Oh! What will I do?” A fresh bout of wailing ensued.

Internally consoling herself over the total loss of a restful Sunday, Mother hugged Ranji to herself. “Hey!... Papa is home …right? …Let him take you to that printing shop and get the report reprinted. You had saved it on a floppy, right?”

“Sunday is half day for the shopkeeper. By the time we drive there, he would have closed shop. Even if I manage to reach before he closes, he would not return it today. Last time he took two full days to print out those twenty pages. And, again I would have to pay him! Just fifteen days back I paid him two hundred rupees out of this month’s pocket money. How can I pay him again in the same month?” 

“Yeah, you are right.” Mother was quick to agree. Family budget did not allow for pocket money twice a month, come what may. And pocket money included all stationary costs. No reimbursements there.

While her parents encouraged equal attention between studies and projects, Ranji was more dependent on the projects than studies to maintain her grades. Thus, she brokered no compromises, when she realised that printed submission of projects was the flavour of that academic season. Even, if it meant meeting printing costs out of her pocket money.

After a month’s effort of researching, drafting and finalising the report, Ranji had gone all the way to the Book Market Street, to get it printed from ‘Cheap Printers’, a shop very popular with all the students for its  low cost offerings. The month-long effort paid rich dividends. Preliminary show off session in the class yielded the correct amount of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from friends, foes and teachers alike. Thereafter, the report also received immense attention at home and from the social callers to the Raha household. Ranji placed it trophy-like on the top glass cabinet of her book case. It was supposed to stay there till final submission.

However, about ten days back, Archi (or Archana), Ranji’s girl-gang member, had borrowed it, to show her father and give him an idea for a similar presentation for her submission. She had a different topic, but loved the ‘printed submission’ idea. She lived in another part of the city and the girls met only during school hours. So she had taken it on one afternoon and returned it after a day. In fact, Archi had shown her thoughtfulness by returning the report inside a huge green envelope. Ranji, though, had not bothered to take out the report, once she returned home. She simply placed this envelope on top of a towering pile of books on her study table. Further pile ups on the tower over the week ultimately led to the toppling of the tottering tower. While cleaning up the nightmarish mess, the empty envelope was disregarded and the report was assumed to be one amongst the many copies and papers re-stacked.

 The ‘document misplaced’ bugle sounded almost after a week of this toppling tower mishap. In fact, the alert sounded just two days before final submission date; hence the stormy morning.

“Don’t worry darling, we’ll work out something.” reasoned the seasoned Mother, having weathered such storms during the academic years of her first-born, as well.

“Why don’t you start writing the report right away?” she suggested. "In the meantime, Father will call up Shaloo Uncle to see if he would allow us to take printouts. Am sure, Uncle would understand your emergency. If he declines, then at least you would be ready with your hand-written report.”

“What!?!” cried out Ranji. “Write twenty pages of report, leaving my exam preparations aside?”

“And”, continued the distraught soul, “Shaloo Uncle would have a fit if he has to print out twenty pages. Even for a one page printout, he uses his office printer.”

“Yeah.” sighed out Mother. Her suggestion of ‘Uncle Shaloo’ was only a feeble attempt to get her daughter to hand write the report. “Well, what else can you do?”

“I don’t know!” Ranji’s wailing resumed. “Oh, where did that blasted report disappear?”

Mother got up and, maintaining care not to step on the strewn books, exited quickly. No point in bearing the brunt of Ranji dear’s howls, when clearly there was no solution in sight.

The rest of the household wisely opted to stay well out of Ranji’s way. Not that it mattered much. She kept herself confined to her room for the rest of the day, coming out only to have her meals. Her curious elder sister, Anju, peeked in her room to find Ranji copiously writing the report. Although feeling bad for her lost report, Mother was relieved that Ranji had wisely decided to write up the report.

Monday morning, a sullen Ranji left for school, barely looking at anyone and leaving her lunch box behind.

“Bad mood and empty stomach….prepare yourself for a life-threatening storm in the evening, my dear!” chuckled Father, as he left for office.

“Sorry Ma,” chimed in Anju, while starting her scooter. “Would have delivered her tiffin, had I not had an early morning staff meeting. But, don’t worry. Her gang wouldn’t allow her to starve. All of them are real sweethearts.”

Evening came. Ranji returned. She flung her bag on the sofa and dashed off to the washroom. Mother could hear huge sobs. Warily, she parked herself in front of the bathroom door. Sixteen year old hormones were extremely unreliable. Daily, papers kept reporting silly causes leading to fatal actions taken by immature adolescents.

“Hi!, Dear, did you eat?” Mother asked cautiously.

“I fought”, came, Ranji’s garbled response from the washroom.

“With whom?”

“Archi.”

“Arch!?!....Why?”

“She gave me an empty envelope. There was no report inside.”

“Oh my God!...did she tell you today? Why did she hide this for so long?”

“No. She did not admit. I know. I asked her. She denied. She was lying. I could feel it.” With that, her sobs under control, Ranji finally came out of the washroom and moved towards her room.

A visibly relieved Mother hurried behind her.

“How do you know for sure? She returned your report a week ago. It could have got trashed with other junk papers while we were cleaning out last week.” In fact, that was the fear stalking Mother since yesterday. If that was true, then Mother was responsible for the loss of report.

“I know. I never took the report out from the envelope. Neither did any of you. How come when we were cleaning this room, no one noticed that report? We all saw the envelope, empty, lying amidst other papers. Why not that report?”

“But why would Archi not return your report? You two had different topics. And she is your best friend. How could you even doubt her, let alone fight with her?”

“Ma… we were best of friends. But now we are competitors.” declared Ranji. “Haven’t you heard that there can be only one topper? So many friendships have gone sour over the last two years in our class. We were lucky it lasted so long.” concluded Ranji on a sagely note.

Mother looked at her astonished. The girl- gang had begun way back in class three with the five of them. “Pandavies”, called fondly by their Hindi teacher, were the pride of their teachers and envy of the students. For seven long years, every month, one Sunday was foregone by each of their five families to allow the girl gang to have day-outs or night-ins by rotation. No one complained. It was a sight for the sore eyes to see such cheer and joy that their friendship bred.

When had the “Pandavies” grown out of their innocence and entered the world of competition? Who had sowed such bitter seeds of suspicion and rivalry amongst them? Mother was truly appalled.

“So…did the fight bring back your report?” enquired Mother, while serving Ranji some snacks.

“No. I didn’t expect so” replied Ranji, hungrily attacking the food.”Not when the intention is to see me suffer.”

“Ranji!” cried out Mother.”How can you be so presumptuous? Archi is your good friend. In fact, she is better with her grades than any of you. Why would she do such a thing? What about the other girls in the gang? Did they tell you that she retained your report?”

“My printed report was too good. Archi’s dad did not agree to spend so much money for a small report. She knew I would score more than her in the internal assessment with my printed report. Who knows, I might have surpassed her in the final tally with my internal assessment marks!”

Mother was dumbfounded with this never-before-seen attitude of Ranji. She fell silent. Ranji finished her snacks and moved back to her lair to finish her work.

Around 9p.m., Father and Anju returned from work. Unbeknown to Mother and Ranji, Anju had taken the CD containing the project report in the morning while leaving for office. Using office printer for personal work was against family practices. Actually, Father and elder daughter had met up after office hours to go to ‘Cheap Printers’ and managed to persuade the owner to give them a reprint of the project report within ten o’ clock next morning. Father had decided to personally visit the school and handover the report to Ranji’s teacher.

As per habit, they checked the letter box before entering the house. A large Manila folder was half sticking out of the box. They took it inside. 

Ranji was laying out the dinner table and Mother was busy warming up the food. Both were sulking after their last exchange. Father and Anju looked at each other, sighed and went to their respective rooms to freshen up, leaving the envelope on the sideboard top.

Ranji was about to sit at the dinner table when she sighted the envelope.

“Oh My God!”

“What happened” rushed out Mother from the kitchen hearing Ranji’s squeal.

“Look!”  By now Ranji had reached the sideboard, but instead of picking up the envelope, was eyeing it suspiciously, as if it would erupt on touch.

“How did it get here?” asked Mother anxiously.

“Aahh… I and Anju found it in the letterbox. What’s inside?” Father joined them at the dining hall.

Ranji gingerly touched the envelope and hesitantly picked it up. Mother impatiently snatched it from Ranji and peered inside.

“It’s a sheaf of papers.” She started to declare, only to discover “No…its Ranji’s report!”

Out came the familiar sheaf of printed papers, stapled in one corner, with a note stuck on the top sheet. Roughly translated, the note in Hindi said,

“Hi. These fell from your envelope while you were boarding the bus some days back. I happened to notice it. I was standing a little away from you and didn’t know your name, so couldn’t yell out. Before I could gather the windblown sheets, your bus had left. I had planned to return them to you in school. However, I am struck with viral fever ever since and have not been able to go to school since then. I don’t have a phone in my house and was able to hand these over to Sweety only when she came to see me this morning. She was describing how you had a blazing row with your best friend over some project report in the middle of the cafeteria. That’s when I realised that she was referring to you and this report. I had to part with my last month’s savings as a bribe to Sweety to deliver this to you. She said she knew where you lived. I am sorry about your fight with your best friend. Had I not been ill, you would have received this lot earlier. Please forgive me and do make up with your best friend. Believe me when I say that I am a great admirer of your group. I wait for your entire group to come each day to the cafeteria and watch you all having a lovely time chatting, teasing, singing and arguing. I also know that each of you have very good values when it comes to helping others and I can never imagine your group without any one of you. I see enough of girls and their flimsy friendship, making and breaking daily in my cafeteria.  But in so many years, you five have never shown a bit of treachery or deceit. Sweety said something about your argument over competition and challenge. I have been watching your group for so many years. I have seen how you support each other. Please never bring competition and challenge amongst yourselves. There are many admirers like me around your group who feel blessed to witness such a strong bond and feel rejuvenated between long drawn daily grind just watching your smiling lot. I really am sorry about the delay in returning your report.”

There was no sign off by the sender. But an ashen faced Ranji knew who had retrieved and sent back her report- ‘ek ankh mausi’ (One-eyed aunty), the helper to the cafeteria owner. Sweety was the owner’s daughter who attended the school’s charitable wing in the evenings while helping out her mother and this aunty in the cafeteria during school hours. This one-eyed lady generally kept a very low profile, to the extent of being invisible. School gossip was that her abusive husband had poured acid on her face but she survived somehow. Her severely deformed face was perhaps the reason for her almost invisible self, but she must have been efficient at her work to have survived the tyrannical cafeteria owner’s tall orders. Ranji had only seen her occasionally when the lady was forced to attend to her gang in the absence of her mistress. Then also, she would cover her face with her ghunghat (veil). The girls, typically, too busy with their own bantering seldom noticed her but did smile at her if they made eye-contact.

Before her parents or sibling could blink, Ranji headed towards the phone. They heard her asking for Archi and soon she was lost to her family while she narrated the night’s events to her best friend. Where her family had been expectantly eavesdropping to hear Ranji sheepishly apologise for her earlier unfair accusations, they were grossly disappointed. Friends, especially teenagers, never apologised…they just moved on!

“So much for all that lecture on ‘lonely at the top’!” chuckled Mother.

“Admirer indeed!” Father winked at his wife. “In fact I admire her for restoring our family peace.”

Each of them grinning, the Raha family settled for their dinner, not expecting their youngest member to join soon, busy as she was with her best friend.