Hey Dad! Meet My Mom by Sandeep Sharma, Leepi Agrawal

Gujarati’s purely believed in business and they also cheated the newbies and I didn’t want to be their prey.
    “Okay.” He simply ended the conversation.
    Well, I was anyway not too interested to have any conversation with him. All I knew was that from the next day onwards I would be getting into the race of life, the race of engineering. I didn’t want to be a FARZI ENGINEER and that was all that flashed in my mind.
    “Bhai uthar vanu kasth karjo” (Brother please take the pain of getting down), the driver said in a slightly insistent manner.
    “How much?” I asked taking off the luggage from the trunk.
    “450 for the ride and 50 for the luggage.”
    “What? 450!! I haven’t hired a chartered plane, and how can you charge me for the luggage too?” I was almost shocked to hear the fare.
    “You have to pay the fare, in fact you should thank God that you got my taxi in this wild rain, else you would have to spend your whole night at the station itself.” The driver was making me feel vulnerable.
    “Look, it’s your business and you were doing your job, you can’t cheat your passengers.” I uttered in a cursory tone.
    The cacophony of me, the driver and the wild rains gathered people around but they remained aloof from us, witnessing the scene as if some crime was going on. I didn’t want my ambience to lose its charm, so I just paid the fare.

    I proceeded towards my rented apartment, which I was to be sharing with three guys who were my seniors at St. Xavier’s college and I guessed that would somehow be expedient.
    Getting comfortable with them would not be a big issue for me like with girls but still somewhere within me lay an introvert.
    Before entering my apartment I scanned the surroundings, an isolated lawn turned to a stream, the roof of the other building swayed on the other side and only one prayer came to my mind.
    ‘God, I hope the roof on my room does not leak like in some 1920’s movie. I know You are good and always want to see me happy. Aren’t You?’
    I peeked around to look for a door bell.
    Damn! It wasn’t there. It created an antipathy in me. I took a deep breath and knocked the wooden door hard with my hand.
    As soon as the door opened, a guy in shorts, almost 6.5’ feet tall and an analogy of a ‘Raymond Man’, looked at me curiously.
    “Yes?” he said or rather questioned in a fraternal voice.
    “Hi, I am Puneet, Puneet Shrivastava”, putting forward my hand for a shake.
    “Hello, what do you want sir?” His voice was intractable.
    “Actually, I am new to this city, and your landlady Mrs. Martha has allotted me a room here. She told me that I would have to share it with three other guys”. I explained after a short pause.
    “Oh, okay.”
    The guy welcomed me inside. The room looked like a fish market, a pile of clothes was tossed like garbage into the dustbin, and the walls were literally advertising rather promoting beautiful Bollywood heroines, bed sheets were flung far away from the beds, pillows had no covers, coke cans were lying around in the corners and food packet wrappers under the beds. My very first reaction after seeing all this was, “Ewww!!”
    I didn’t know from where to begin so I started with the basics of all conversations which was ‘what is your name?’
    “My name is Ashish; third year Bachelor’s, let me introduce you to the other two guys, my brodas.”
    Ashish whistled and called them out of the room. Both came, casting me strange looks. He then introduced everyone, starting with me.
    “Guys, I’d told you to pay up our rent, Mrs. Martha is such a greedy lady, she just needs money, now we must stop ordering pizza and save up our cash to pay the rent on time otherwise today we have Puneet and tomorrow some Navneet will come”, said Ashish, making the atmosphere quite embarrassing for me.
    “Excuse me, if you have any problem with me, please do let me know, I can arrange for different accommodation.” I said getting nerved with