Ticket

“Come on, time up, we need to rush” my friend Suchitra was shouting from outside.

“Yes, I am done, coming, coming”, I almost jumped on to her kinetic Honda and we took off for the college.

“What Neelu, you always get delayed and that chemistry lecturer is very particular about punctuality. Did you forget that today’s first class is Chemistry?”, Suchitra yelled.

“Oh God! Today we are going to have tough time with her, we should better give a good excuse for arriving late,” I said.

Suchi and I are very close friends. We met each other when we were studying fifth standard. Her dad and my dad were working in the same office in different branches. But when they moved here, her dad was looking for a good school for her and so, my dad recommended the school in which I was studying. Thus, both of us went to the same school and now same college too. Suchi is good at studies and we always compete with each other. But that is only in studies, in all other things we are good friends. She shares everything with me and I share mine with her. She has been with me in good and bad times.

When we peeped into the class, our Chemistry lecturer was not there. Taking that very chance, we sneaked in.

“You girls are lucky, she just went to office to attend a phone call,” one of our classmates informed us. “She gave this chemical equation to solve before she comes, you better note it down. She may come any minute now” she said.

During the break we decided to go for a snack bar close by. As we were entering, we noticed a big banner hanging outside “Win One Crore with Ten Rupees only”. That was an advertisement for the state lottery. Also mentioned below, lot more prizes ranging from ten rupees to five lakhs.

Suchi was quite exited about that advertisement and said “Neelu, Shall we buy this ticket. We will try out our luck today”.

I laughed and said, “ Do you think we are lucky enough to win?”

“Hey, never say like that, who knows, we may win.” She said.

“Ok then, let us buy.”

We bought two tickets, one for each.

With mischievous smile, Suchi asked “Hey, how do we know which one is yours and which is mine”.

I couldn’t believe what she said. “Are you serious?”.

“Yes. Suppose if one of these tickets get the prize, then...”

“hey, come on….”. I pushed her aside and drew myself to the table to settle down.

“I don’t really believe in your confidence that we may win”, I fervently added, “And then you are acting too smart”.

“Neelu, don’t take it serious. Let us take it for fun. I was just teasing you”

I got tired of her pranks. Sometimes she does like that. I just pulled the top ticket from her hands and said that was mine.

“That is the spirit, good girl”, I could still see her teasing accent.

“Shut up”, I almost shouted.

“Sorry. We are going to share the prize money. Is it OK?”, she started her tactics to bring me to normal mood.

The next two days went by very busy, our chemistry lecturer had told us that we would be having a surprise test, so I was preparing for that… organic chemistry was a bit tough for me. On the third day, while we were going to collage, I remembered about the ticket. The results must have come the day before.

“Suchi, what happened to our lottery ticket? Did you check up the result?” I asked her with lot of enthusiasm.

“Oh I forgot to tell you, we did not win.” She said and kept quite.

Surprisingly Suchi was very quite whole of the day. She did not join me for lunch too. And when it was time to go back home, she gave some lame excuse to go to library and told me to go by bus.

She was trying to avoid me and I felt very bad. After going home, I thought about what would have happened. All I could remember was, from the moment I had asked her about the ticket, she was like that. So I figured that, we might have won the money and she doesn’t want to give it to me. Once that thought came into my mind, I became all the more miserable.

“She cannot do that to me, she is not that kind of girl”, one side of my mind was saying.

“Why not! May be she needs some money and she doesn’t want to ask her dad. So may be she took the money and wanted to keep it all to herself”, the other side was arguing.

The more I thought about it, the crazier I was getting. I shut myself in my room for rest of the day. My mom was worried about me, and kept on asking what was wrong. But of course, I never told anybody.

Next day, I waited for Suchi but she never turned up. As it was getting late, I asked dad to drop me at the collage.

As, I entered the class; I saw her sitting with another girl and laughing. I was green with jealousy. I did not understand why she was doing like that. She saw me come in, but never even smiled at me. I got very angry and thought I should talk to her and ask her what was happening. I waited for a chance but to my dismay, I never got one. I was getting restless and I could not take it any more.

At last, when we were about to leave for home, I dragged her aside.

“Why are you doing this to me Suchi?” If you really wanted the money, you could have asked me, I could have given you happily. I never thought you could loose our friendship for some stupid lottery money” My eyes filled with tears and my voice chocked. I could not say anything further.

Suchi slowly reached down into her bag and brought out a box. It was wrapped in gold color paper and there was a small bow on it. She took my hand into hers and kept that box in my hand.

I looked at the box and looked at her questioningly.

“Open it, Neelu” she said.

Wiping my tears, I opened it and there was a gold color parker pen in it.

“I laid my eyes on that pen some ten days back in the nearby book shop. The moment I saw it, I wanted to buy that and give you as a gift. But I did not have enough money. Luckily we won one hundred rupees as a consolation prize in that lottery and I wanted to surprise you by giving this pen.” Slowly she said.

I was totally in surprise and at the same time was miserably embarrassed for misunderstanding her so badly.

“I .. I… I am very sorry for what I said Suchi”, I struggled for words.

“Yesterday, after our college I went to that shop. It was closed early. I had to go again in the morning to pick it up”, she added coolly.

-Aparna Pelluru

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