Manikam II I by iswar srikumar
He moved from place to place in the house but got no privacy. Someone or the other would come in or give him some errands. Or he will have to spend hours telling his grandparents how his other grandparents were, and he would have to repeat it many times until they understood.
Manickam had never felt the need for privacy as such. But today he just wanted to be left alone. He even tried going back into the bathroom but then someone or the other would come and keep knocking on the door to figure out what was taking him so long.
Meenakshi, his sister, was really intrigued. She had missed manickam a lot the last few days and had so much to tell him, but he was acting very peculiar and constantly running away. After some time she realised that he was infact hiding something. That’s it. like arjunas gaze on the eye of the bird, meenakshi became fixated on what was that little bulge under her brothers shirt.
It was a divine dance it was. The stuff of choregraphers wet dreams. Manickams search for privacy, meenakshis hawk eyes and stealth mode, and general relief and laughter outside when they realised ethiraj mama didn’t have a heart attack after all, it was just gas. As the misery left ethiraj mama through the back, it entered everyone else through their nostrils.
Manickam had already thought of the many things he wanted to do and try with the roll of paper. He finally decided he would go out and sit high up on a tree somewhere and then do everything he wanted.
He told his mother he would be back in a few minutes. His mother of course wouldn’t hear of it, and meenakshi kept jumping up and down try to draw the mothers attention to what manickam was hiding.
Oh it was a sad moment indeed
They argued for a while, there was a lot of yelling and crying. Which is when manickam felt a stinging pain across his left cheek.
If you have ever had a little sister you would know how they are masters of the word oops.
Manickam slowly pulled out his hand from under his shirt, still holding the roll of paper. His eyes were red with anger. The fire in his eyes would have scorched his mother to ashes if not for the few drops of tears wetting the fiery eyes. One such drop of liquid fire fell on the roll of paper and mysteriously vanished.
Manickam bent a bit and flung the roll high up in the air. It went flying and flying leaving a trail of white as it flew. It flew through the courtyard, high above the roof and then over it and vanished.
Meenakshi ran out of the house. Partly out of curiosity and partly to bring her brother back what he so adores as a peace offering. She ran around the house many times. she looked up and down, in ditches and even in the well. She climbed up the small guava tree to get a better vantage point but could see nothing. She came back inside and tried to figure out the mysterious trajectory of the flying roll of white. But to no avail. She even brought her friends over.
Many hours later when manickam had calmed down he too decided to take a stroll around the house. He walked with his hands in his pockets not caring a damn but sneaking a peek quite convinced that he will indeed find it. after a few dozen rounds he got a bit worried.
