Stronger Than Yesterday- A Collaboration updt- 14/02, Ch 7 - Page 4

This is very very interesting

janaki, please post the update.

Originally posted by: Milaksh

This is very very interesting

😃 😃 😃

Continue soon dear...

I'm waiting...

Originally posted by: Radhikerani

This is just amazing! I can't be sure (though I am!) about Mahavishnu, but you two have definitely thought about everything!
And that is what makes it unique! Can't wait to read further!

Originally posted by: Arijit007

janaki, please post the update.

Thank you for the appreciation, everyone!

Originally posted by: Arijit007

janaki, please post the update.

Hi all :)

Chapter 3

United States of America

Shawnee, Kansas

Santoshi Ramaraju entered her sons' bedroom, frowning as she looked at the clock. It was a quarter to eight.

She glanced at the bunkbed which her sons shared. The top bed was empty, and the bedsheets were made to perfection, but there was still a lump on the bottom bed, covered by a quilt.

"Krishna!" she shouted, "I woke you up almost one hour ago! Your bus will come in less than five minutes, you little rascal. Wake up!"

She grabbed the quilt and yanked it off the bed. But there was no child sleeping under it. Instead, the quilt had covered a set of two pillows.

A peal of giggles rang through the air, and Santoshi turned around, catching a glimpse of her naughty little son dancing on his heels doing a victory dance.

"I pranked mommy, I pranked mommy!" little Krishna sang. Santoshi ran after him, but he ran ahead of her and hid under the kitchen table.

"Krishna! You are not ready yet," Santoshi grumbled.

"I am ready, mommy," Krishna came out from under the table and stood proudly in front of his mother. "See? I'm ready!"

"Why are you in your Halloween costume?" Santoshi sighed with frustration, "Trick-or-treating isn't until this afternoon. You have to go to school first."

"I'm Hawwy Potter, and Hawwy Potter goes to school in his costume!" Krishna insisted, sticking his lip out in a pout. "I won't change! I won't! I won't! I won't!"

"Let him be, Santoshi. He is only in first grade, and his teacher doesn't care if he comes to school in his costume," Gopal Ramaraju chuckled, coming down the stairs with their other son, Raghu.

Raghu, neatly groomed as always, was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. In his hands he carried a plastic bag that had his Halloween costume. He was going to be Ron Weasley.

Raghu and Krishna looked at each other and giggled.

"Hawwy!" Raghu squealed, jumping down from his father's arms and running to his twin brother.

"Won won!" Krishna squealed back, burying his face in his brother's shoulder. He was of course trying to say "Ron ron".

Hearing the sound of the bus outside, Gopal took his two sons outside and watched as they climbed into the bus.

"Be careful," he cautioned them, "Look out for each other in school, and don't talk to strangers."

"We won't, daddy," the boys chorused together. The bus took off.

Needless to say, the sight of little Harry Potter and Ron Weasley as they went trick-or-treating down the street that evening, holding hands, was a sight to behold.

////////

Raghu smiled brilliantly at the audience as they clapped for him. He had just won the school spelling bee, having spelt the word "Renunciation" correctly.

With a medal around his neck and a trophy in his arms, he descended the stage and met with his family.

"A job well done, Raghu!" his father congratulated him. "I am so proud of you!"

"My little darling, already such a smart speller!" his mother kissed both his cheeks, much to his embarrassment.

"Good job, Anna!" his little sister Vimala squealed, giving him a hug around his middle.

But it was Krishna's reaction that Raghu treasured the most.

"Good job, bro," Krishna flashed him a charming grin, "I knew you could do it."

"Thanks...bro," Raghu chuckled.

"What say we all go out for pizza tonight?" Gopal suggested. The children cheered and agreed immediately.

////////

The boys were a little older now. They were almost done with elementary school. Junior high was just around the corner.

They were in the basement of their house, and the family sat rapt with attention as they let the musical notes wash over their body. It was absolutely beautiful, divine even.

Santoshi had tears in her eyes as she saw her son playing the flute, his eyes closed in utter concentration.

"I have never heard anything like it," she whispered.

"I feel like dancing," Vimala sighed dreamily, leaning against Raghu with eyes closed. Raghu gave her an amused look and draped an arm around her shoulders.

"Then dance you shall, little kitten," he said. "Come."

Raghu led Vimala to the middle of the basement and with her hands in his own, twirled her round and round. Vimala giggled and shrieked with laughter as Raghu lifted her up and swung her around the basement.

"Raghu, be careful!" Santoshi cried with concern, but she need not have worried. Both of her sons were extremely careful with their little sister.

Krishna opened his eyes and grinned. He put down his flute and joined his siblings. He and Raghu grabbed each of Vimala's arms and swung her through the air. Their laughter echoed through the room.

Weeks later, Krishna won first place in the school talent show. After hearing the music of his magical flute, the judges forgot everything else.

////////

By the time Raghu and Krishna entered high school, they had already earned a reputation for being extremely smart, competitive and dexterous. Their teachers adored them. Their friends idolized them. Raghu was an analytical person, while Krishna was theoretical. They both received top marks in all their classes, but Raghu specifically excelled in Math and Business, while Krishna excelled in the Sciences. He loved Biology and Chemistry, but it was Psychology that became his favorite subject.

From an early age, both boys knew the path they wanted to take in their life. Raghu, who was gifted in mathematical formulas and the nuances of business, wanted to open his own business one day and make it successful. Krishna was gifted in reading people. He always knew how they were feeling, what was going on in their lives. There was not much one could hide from Krishna. He wanted to become a Psychiatrist and open his own private practice one day, and for that he needed to go to Medical School.

Raghu and Krishna were both empathetic to others' plight, but Krishna tended to be expressive while Raghu was more reflexive.

Once when they were walking to school, Krishna had seen an injured bird on the street. Several kids were crowded around it, laughing and pointing.

Krishna had jostled through the crowd and dropped onto the ground next to the bird. Taking it into his hands, he closed his eyes, feeling the pain of the bird as if it was his own. The kids began whispering, talking about his strange behavior. Rolling their eyes, they walked away, but Raghu had stayed behind.

"I can feel it," Krishna wept, "I can feel the pain of this bird, Raghu."

Raghu put a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder. "We will get it help," he said.

Producing a shoe box and filling it with grass, Raghu had taken the bird from Krishna's hands and laid it gently onto the grass. Together, the brothers had quit school that day and took a bus to the local veterinarian. The vet had been surprised that the boys had brought in a stray bird, but she healed it and two weeks later, the bird had regained its energy. Before flying away, it nipped Raghu and Krishna on the cheek fondly.

It was always like this.

Krishna felt a sense of loss when he saw living beings in pain, whether it was animals or humans. He cried for them, felt their pain as if it were his own. He comforted them. At times, he felt so attuned to the Earth that he stopped what he was doing and let his emotions take over his body. He showed kindness to those, whom people usually looked down on.

Raghu was adept at using resources wisely. From an early age, he learned to save money and use it when absolutely necessary. He knew the importance of money. He respected it, but he did not covet it. Whenever he received his allowance, he would spend nothing on himself and saved it for the day when he saw someone who needed it, and when he saw that someone, he would donate it.

They were inseparable. They were a team. They always worked together. Krishna gave emotional support, Raghu gave financial support. Krishna helped the downtrodden. Raghu helped the poverty-stricken. If Krishna was the heart, Raghu was the soul.

They had friends, but none of their friends could come close to the brothers. None of them could touch their heart like they touched each other's.

////////

High school kept Raghu and Krishna busy, and for the first time the brothers did not share any of the same classes. They both took more classes than required, so that they could graduate in three years. Their classmates thought they were crazy. High school was supposed to be about fun, they said, but Raghu and Krishna did not care for their definition of "fun". They merely concentrated on their goals. Raghu took all the business classes his school offered, and Krishna was in every science class that was taught that year. And yet, the brothers were always attuned to each other.

People thought it was typical twin behavior, but it was more than that. Raghu and Krishna were more than just twins. They could not describe it, but they often felt like they were the same person.

High school was difficult. There was peer pressure. Kids began dating, doing drugs, even drinking.

Girls tried to approach Raghu and Krishna, but they were always rejected. No one understand why two such good looking Indian dudes were rejecting their advances.

"Psst! Krish! Look, Christina Parker is totally checking you out. She is hot!"

Krishna looked up from his painting and rolled his eyes at Joshua Adams.

"If you like her so much, Josh, ask her out yourself. But leave me alone."

"What is wrong with you?" Josh glanced at his friend with shock. "Are you gay by any chance?"

"Right," Krishna snorted sarcastically. "If that'll keep the girls away, then sure, I'm gay."

"What kind of girl are you looking for anyway?" Josh asked, "You don't blink an eye at any of the girls in our school. You think you're too good for them or something?"

"No," Krishna answered simply, "When the right girl comes along, I will know. Besides, the girl of my heart is not of this world."

"What are you talking about?" Josh looked utterly confused.

"When I marry, it'll be to a girl who truly understands me. She will understand the language of nature like I do. She will be as attuned to it as I am. Until I find that girl, I am happy being alone."

"Who said anything about marriage?" Josh looked horrified. "I'm talking about dating, dude. What's the fun of being young if you don't go out on a few dates?"

"I cannot dishonor a woman like that," Krishna explained with a smile, knowing his friend would never understand.

In another class, Raghu was in a similar situation with his own friend, Anthony Reynolds aka Tony.

"In our culture, we do not go on "a few dates", Raghu explained. "We do not use and throw women like they are paper. Love is pure. It should be honored and respected."

"Most kids our age don't look for love when they're dating," Tony rolled his eyes.

"Then what do they look for?" Raghu asked seriously. "If love is not there, what's the point?"

"To have fun, to hang out, I don't know," Tony shrugged.

"There are many ways to have fun," Raghu chuckled, "Dating is not one of them, at least for me. When I find my soulmate, my heart will know. Until then, I will treat women as if they were my sisters."

"You don't know what you're missing," Tony shook his head ruefully.

"I can say the same about you," Raghu retorted with a mysterious smile.

It was not only the dating scene. Many kids in their class began smoking, and the first time Krishna saw someone smoking a cigarette outside, he had gotten so angry that he'd marched up to them, yanked the cigarette away, and threw it onto an ash tray.

"Hey, what was that for, you freak?" the boy asked angrily. Raghu recognized him as Trevor, Tony's elder brother.

"Do you know how much you are damaging the environment?" Krishna asked him angrily, "Every time you smoke, you release chemicals into the air that makes it toxic for others to breathe."

"Dude, don't smoke if you don't want to, but lay off my case!" Trevor snapped, shoving Krishna aside. "I don't give a crap about the stupid environment. Leave me alone."

"Do you care at least about yourself?" Raghu asked him quietly, but with just as serious an expression. "With every cigarette you are damaging the organs in your body. Is a few minutes of pleasure worth the self-harm you are inflicting on yourself?"

Trevor did not respond. Giving them both a disgusted look, he stalked away, laughing with his friends about the "Indian freaks" who had ruined his fun.

"Raghu, no one respects the Earth anymore," Krishna remarked softly, his eyes cold with sorrow. "My heart is restless. It feels defeated."

"I feel the same, Krishna," Raghu said, "There are people living on the streets, who have no roof over their head and no food to eat. It befuddles my mind why people waste money on things that harm themselves and others, instead of giving it to those who actually need it."

"When does it end?" Krishna voiced aloud, "Will it ever end?"

Neither brother knew how to answer the question.

////////

As much as they loved each other, Raghu and Krishna were crazy about their little sister. Two and a half years younger than them, she entered high school when they were in their junior year, and suddenly they had their hands full protecting her from other boys.

Vimala was beautiful. Fair with high cheekbones, full lips and lively eyes, by the time she reached adolescence her body had burnt most of its baby fat and instead formed curves in all the right places. The result was the she turned the head of every adolescent boy in the school.

Lively and playful by nature, Vimala was suddenly shy with the attention she got from the opposite gender. She began wearing looser clothes and travelled in tight packs with other girls.

Raghu and Krishna always kept an eye out for her, but being in higher grades, they had more classes and weren't always present when she needed them.

One day after school, Vimala was waiting for her brothers near the school buses and shrieked with fear when someone's hand came out of nowhere and squeezed her bottom.

She whipped around and saw a group of football players, the jocks, stalking away laughing.

"Nice skirt, babe!" one of them catcalled.

Breathing deeply, Vimala closed her eyes and tried to control the tears that threatened to erupt. Her mother would tell her to ignore it. Boys will be boys, she'd say.

But how could she ignore it, when people around her, who'd seen the whole thing, began whispering and sniggering? She felt humiliated and violated, but she was too scared to do anything about it. She was only a freshman. She didn't know anyone yet, she barely had any friends.

"Vims!"

Vimala wiped her tears quickly, catching sight of her brothers, but it was too late.

"Vims, what's wrong?" Krishna asked his sister with concern.

"Nothing," Vimala choked back her tears, but they kept coming.

"What happened, little kitten?" the warmth in Raghu's voice made Vimala break down completely.

She told them what happened, and when she lifted her eyes to see her brothers, she was frightened at the fury coloring their faces.

"Wait!" she shouted, but it was too late. They had already dashed off, setting pursuit to her offenders. She ran after them.

////////

Drake Jenkins had yearned to spank that little freshman girl the minute he'd laid eyes on her. He would've done more, but with so many people present he'd settled for what he could get. A girl had no right to look so hot and then pretend innocence.

He came from a wealthy family. His father was the CEO of a major corporation. From a very young age, he got whatever he wanted. He went through girlfriends like he did clothes. Every week there was a different girl on his arm.

He had faced the anger of many protective brothers in the past, but Drake had never seen two such brothers as he did today. They were looking at him with barely concealed fury. It was almost unearthly, their anger.

If Drake believed in God, he would have felt as if he was staring into the eyes of hell.

Raghu Ramaraju, who was generally known as a calm and composed person, stepped up to his sister's offender with eyes that burned with righteous anger.

"Never," he whispered coldly, "will I see you touching my sister again, you hear me?"

When Drake made no response, Krishna stepped up and joined his brother.

"I know you have a sister," he said, "So you must know how it feels, to be responsible for someone, to be their elder brother. How would you feel if someone misbehaved with your own sister?"

Still Drake made no answer. He stared at the brothers defiantly.

"Every woman is a daughter, a sister or a mother," Raghu spoke in chilling tones, forcing Drake to look at him, "To misbehave with her, is to misbehave with your own mother, your own sister."

"You are the worst kind of human being," hissed Krishna, "If I see you lay another finger on Vimala ever again, you will face our combined wrath!"

"We are letting you go with a warning this time, but do not cross our path again," Raghu added, "Not only Vimala, I do not want to hear about you misbehaving with any woman. Enough is enough, this ends here."

Drake stared at the two brothers with loathing, but his friends had long since fled, so he spat out "fine!" with utter revulsion, and then he turned and walked away.

Raghu pulled his sister into a tight, protective hug and cradled her head with his hands, as he'd done when she was a child.

"I am so sorry this happened to you, little kitten," he whispered, "We failed you."

"No, you didn't!" Vimala cried, "I could never have asked for two braver, kinder brothers."

"We will make sure nothing like this ever happens again," Krishna promised her, kissing her forehead affectionately. "We will never fail you again."

"I love you both so much!" Vimala leaned into their embrace, forgetting the pain of her humiliation and basking in the love of her two brothers.

The story soon spread, and as a result no boy went near Vimala again for the entirety of her high school years. Most girls would've been disappointed by the lack of male attention, but Vimala was quite happy. Like her brothers, she had no need for dating or romance.

Raghu and Krishna graduated from high school that year. They were happy to see Vimala grow into a confidant young woman. She did not let her freshman year humiliation define her life, and instead grew from it to become strong and fearless. They were proud of their sister.

And now, they were prepared for the next journey of their life.

Both brothers had been accepted into Yale University.

Raghu would be joining the Yale School of Management and get his Business degree before pursuing an MBA.

Krishna would be joining the Premedical studies program at Yale before applying for Medical School.

Both boys planned to take on extra credits and complete their Bachelors in three years. It would be a tough journey ahead, but they were prepared to make it.

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