47. Abhi tumhari beti zinda hai maa!

Little girls are so cute, I tell you! One such bundle of joy is my sister. I shall fail to do justice to this post if I start writing about her and what she does, and how we argue and bicker, and then laugh and laugh till we cry for no reason, and how we have whispered our deepest secrets to each other that only we could share, and how sometimes(umm.. many-a-times), I feel she is way too mature than I am and could ever be,though I am the elder one and how she always.. always knows when I need a hug, and.. bleh!

Ok, I think I have done enough justice to the profound talent I possess - that of deviating from the point :D

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A prelude to the narration was deemed required by yours truly and hence, here it is.
#1 : 'The little sister'(wherever mentioned) is a 14-year old who has been learning (and continues to learn) Bharatanatyam for the past 5 years. This story dates to the time when parents of yours truly and 'the little sister' had Arangetram plans for the latter.

#2 : Arangetram(the same as mentioned above), happens to be a slightly costly affair. 'Costly' would be a purely relative term, and hence, 'slightly' costly. It happens to be an event where the teacher is to be gifted 'Pattu Pudavai'(silk sarees) as Guru Dakshina. A major chunk of expenditure on an Arangetram would be the rent for an auditorium, remunerations for the accompanying musicians etc. Round about 2.5 lakhs of raw cash goes into this affair(this is again an approximation; it could get more grandiose).

#3 : 'The little sister' who happened to be listening to all of this planning managed to make mental notes of the same.

#4 : 'The little sister' is given a pocket money of Rs.500 with no fixed scheduling period, which she keeps in a little maroon purse. Apart from this fixed amount, she also accumulates what is given by visiting relatives after 1000 namaskarams that she is made to do.

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As the story goes, this is what happened one fine day.. Yours truly needed a little money for bus fare to go to a friend's place. It is usually publicly known, adding much to the disgrace of yours truly, that yours truly would any day go trouble her little sister(read monster when it comes to lending money) for a little change than show bus-wallahs 100-rupee notes and earn their innocent sugar-coated replies. At the time of this event, 'little sister' supposedly had (or claimed to have) only Rs.200 in her wallet and hence, blatantly denied the request.

Excerpts of what ensued is produced here :

YT : Yours truly
TLS  : The Little Sister

YT : Tere paas change hai? (Do u have some change on yourself?)

TLS : Nahi. (No.)

YT(poking) : Mujhe pata hai, tere paas hai. (I know you have it)

TLS : Fir kyun poocha? (Why did you have to ask then?)

YT : Please dede. (Give it to me please) *Yes, occasionally we do beg each other*

TLS : Yaar, sorry main nahi de sakti. Main apne arangetram ke liye bacha rahi hun. Mom dad ko support karungi arangetram organise karne mein. (Sorry, can't lend it to you. I am saving all this for my arangetram. I'll support mom & dad for the arangetram with this.)

YT : *no words* :D

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The usage of 'yours truly' multiple times in the passage is intentional. The author of this post derives inexplicable sadistic pleasure by irritating noble readers, who would cringe at its usage.

EDIT : Some of you seem to have mistaken the 'support' part of the post. Though I agree in every way that TLS is a responsible child in the true sense of the word, 'support' here was not meant supporting our parents by providing a stable income to the family :D I dont mean to humour such a sensitive thing, but what I had really intended to say was that at that point of time, she thought of lending a helping hand to my parents for the arangetram by saing up herself out of her pocket money. That was really cute! :D