I saw myself inside my house standing in front of my mother, who was folding and keeping washed clothes in the closet, and asking her as to what my father was talking about on his mobile, in the lawn downstairs. It had been half an hour and he looked concerned and intense as he walked on the grass, in the dim light of a distant tubelight at a corner of the lawn.
"Are we having some problems, some health or money problems?" I asked, without thinking.
My mother stopped in the process of folding clothes and looked at me, and said, "It is your aunt. She's having some troubles." I don't clearly remember if this aunt was my father's sister or friend, but anyways, I again saw my father through the window of our house, as he talked and tried to counsel her and convince her for something, maybe.
I was then reminded of my project meeting I had that morning with my mentor. I had to find a partner for that project. I decided to take her as my project partner. Lets name her P. Now I knew that all I had to do was to meet her the next day and ask her to be my project partner. Then suddenly I remembered that the project required coding and she was not a computer science student. I thought, "oh, never mind. I'll do all the computer science part."
I then saw two kids coming in from the front door of the house. It took me some time but I finally recognized them as my cousins. My father came in and said, "Hey kids, how have you been doing?" with a smile. The two kids didn't look cheerful. The boy must be about 10 years old and girl some 7 or 8 years old.
"Your mother has got some work, so you both would be staying here with us for a some days. I'll have your luggage kept inside." he said. Later I learnt that my aunt left town to make some arrangements and sold her house before that and all her stuff was kept in our garage.
My sister a couple of years elder than the boy. She took them to their room and tried to make them comfortable by talking to them and arranging their stuff in her room. I was impressed by her for I knew I couldn't do such a thing. I somehow lacked the compassion which she had.
But it hit me hard. I didn't know the full reason as to why my aunt had to leave suddenly. All I could think of was financial crisis. I wished I could start earning and become a millionaire as quickly as possible so that I could help them out. I held a chocolate bar as I thought of all this and looked at the bar once. A passing thought occurred to me, "How much money would this bar, or for that matter, my entire chocolate box, fetch me?" The next instant I discarded the idea as I knew that the money would be too less. I knew that all I had to do was to get employed.
(All this might make you think that I'm a kid, but i'm a college student in this dream, its just that i'm still unemployed.)
Next day, at my sister's school, where I had to attend some talk/seminar, I waited and searched for P. I knew she'd come because her name was in the list of attendees. I could have called her or gone to her house, but I wanted to surprise her. I looked at all the classrooms. Coincidently all the classrooms for talk/seminar looked like the ones in new building of APS Jalandhar when I used to study there in 11th and 12th class. I reserved our seats and decided to stand outside, in the corridor so that I meet her as soon as she comes, lest she'd sit somewhere else. As I came out of the classroom, to stand outside, I saw her. She looked just the same, except for the red pimples all over her face. Somehow that didn't bother me because she was still the same P. But why was she talking to the other speakers of the seminar.
I felt a bolt of lightening pass through me when I learnt that she was the first speaker in the seminar. I wanted to run away, or at least hide my face somewhere. Strangely I felt like a loser. I decided that I couldn't ask her to be my partner in the project. I decided to ask Atul to be my partner and finish the project quickly, as he was my batchmate in the Computer science department of my college.
