Show-Off

"I don't know", said I, realizing again how this phrase dominated my verbal vocabulary. You see, my name is Sweety. Right you are. I curse my parents each time I have to introduce myself. I mean what kind of people keep such a kind of a name? Over-obsessed with loving their child types, perhaps. Sweety. And the heavens were just against me when they came out with that horribly popular song, "Sweety, Sweety, Sweety, tera pyaar chahida..." My brother has a sensible name, Prateik. I especially adore that spelling. When Ma and Papa denied me the rights to change my name ("as long as we are alive"), I requested a change in spelling, only to satisfy myself with the knowledge that there could be none. 

I have been asked to write an essay by Prateik today. I do not call him bhaiyya. On the condition that he would include me in his invention-time tomorrow. "I don't know", I said. He said I had to include in it the fact that he was on the verge of becoming a great inventor. I am not very sure. Of my essay, that is. That he is a great inventor already, I have no doubts about. Why, only the day before he shared with me the water-proof incense stick he developed out of something-ium. I don't like Chemistry, but I like my brother. He is really cool! 

Should this piece of essay / personal memoir be lost (and revived from the depths of a ship wreck, in a mason jar, eons later), know that Prateik has already invented the straw which can be reduced to the size of a nut and can be carried in our pockets! Isn't that amazing? What more but the tremendously amusing key-locator. He has linked it with the user's spectacles, so that 'it is never out of sight!' This is his tag-line, and what a fabulous tagline!

Actually, I could go on about his dexterous skills, but often it is difficult for me to understand, too, what he wishes to convey. People call him 'special' in a tone I do not think is special at all. He paints these 'science stuff' and on evenings when I am back from school and Ma isn't around, he shows them to me and convinces me easily. I overheard Ma-Papa discussing last night about giving him away to a special school. They were speaking of references from Doctors and others. When I discussed this with him, he asked if I would write him one too.

This is it. Prateik is a great inventor, my brother and friend. On rainy holidays, we go up to the terrace and he misbehaves slightly, dancing and all, yet, he is a very nice boy. I will miss him if he is sent away. Oh, he also knows that I do not like my name. I will miss what he calls me (I dislike it too), "Pratty". 

-- Miss Sweety Sharma,

   Class VI.