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Theme for September
Chapter 10: Projects, Projects, Projects Part 1
A figure hunched over his desk sleeping peacefully on his open textbook. The desk was stacked high will all sorts of books, folders, and notebooks. There was a distinct circle of balled pieces of paper that surrounded the desk indicating a hard night of studying. The door of the room silently opened and in walked Kulraj with a shocked expression on her face. She came over to the figure and gently called, "Preet, it's time to wake up." He stirred a few minutes before lifting his head off his makeshift pillow. The left side of his face bared crease marks from the textbook and his hair was a mess. He sat there motionless and then slowly turned towards his sister wondering why she woke him.
Kulraj shook her head in disbelief, "I never thought I'd see the day that Mr. Preet Juneja would spend the whole night studying." She ruffled his hair affectionately. Preet pouted and gave her a sleepy glare. "What can I ask has possessed my brother?"
"It's not like I want to. I have all these projects and papers due. Its mid-terms. If I don't get my part of the project done Meher's going to kill me...not to mention if I don't make good grades Bauji's has threaten to ground me for 6 months and take my car keys away for a full year," he explained.
She nodded, "Ah, yes the threat of grounding and loss of car," then smiling teasingly, "and afraid of Meher? She been over a lot lately...and you get along with her really well..."
Preet weakly smirked, "She's over a lot because of the group project...in fact a whole lot of people besides her have been over...it's called a group project for a reason."
"Wah, already so sassy about it aren't we?" she continued to tease.
"Why are you so interested in my love life?" he asked.
"She's a lot better than some of the other girls I've see you associate yourself with. It's still your decision my dear baby brother...all I'm just saying is don't let a good thing go," she explained.
Preet nodded getting the hint his sister was trying to tell him. "Now, quickly go and wash up. We have morning prayer." Preet obediently dragged himself out of the chair and headed for the shower.
Kunal yawned loudly as he exited the auditorium, "That was the most boring lecture I have ever heard."
"I know what you mean," Heer replied. "I could barely keep my eyes open."
"We're meeting tonight at the coffee shop, right?" Sanjana asked.
"Yes, for the hundredth time," Kunal replied wiping his eyes sleepily.
"Sorry," she pouted, "I've been so busy lately I can't keep the days straight. It's Wednesday right?"
Prem chuckled, "It's Tuesday..."
"It is?" she replied.
"...and the month is October," he continued sarcastically. Sanjana furrowed her eyebrows at him showing she wasn't very amused while he just gave her a cheesy smile.
"Anyways...thank goodness it's Tuesday," she said. "I have one more day to work on that killer international law paper."
"Great, something to look forward to for next semester," Kunal sighed. "Is Becker the only professor that teaches that class?"
"I'm afraid so," Sanjana replied. "But I'll let you borrow my notes."
He smiled, "Thanks buddy," and slide his arm around her shoulder giving her sideways hug.
Heer glanced over at Prem and asked, "I need a ride you think you could give me one?"
But before Prem could answer Sanjana interrupted, "I'll give you a ride Heer. We live on the same side of town...no point in making him drive all the way out there. Besides, it will give us a chance to hang out...we've really haven't had the chance to yet," then adding as an afterthought, "I'm sure Prem wouldn't mind...he sees you often as it is." Heer felt her face flush red and shyly lowered her head. Prem glanced upward as if distracted by something interesting in the sky.
"Well, it's that time again," Kunal said dramatically, "...that I must bid farewell."
Heer grinned, "I'm heading that way actually. I'll walk with you."
He smirked, "You are...so you wanna take the class for me?"
"No way...not even in your dreams would I take Advance Auditing," she replied. "I'm meeting Rachel so I can return some notes I borrowed from her."
"Notes? If you needed notes why didn't you use mine?" Prem asked. "I would have lent them to you."
"Prem, your handwriting is so bad. It's work enough trying to translate it...I don't need the extra work when Tax is hard enough," she explained.
Prem pouted, "It's not that bad. I can read it."
Kunal laughed, "I'm sure you can...it's your handwriting. But she's right. It's bad."
Prem looked over at Sanjana who was grimacing. "Sorry, even I would have to agree on that," she replied.
"Fine, just go," he replied scowling at Heer. She gave him a cheeky smile and then walked off with Kunal. Prem looked at Sanjana, "I'm assuming you have to leave too...work and all."
"Nope. It's Tuesday right? From now on..." she paused pulling out her iPhone, "wait better check it starts today...yep, it does...so now every Tuesday I don't have to go to work. The boss finally hired another employee...which means my schedule has lightened up a lot...I actually have some free time on the weekends," she replied with a smile.
"Glad to hear that," Prem said.
"So where you going?" she asked.
"I'm heading over to the library," he replied. "Wanna come?"
She nodded and began walking with him. "You know Prem, we haven't been hanging out as much this semester...with my hectic work schedule and all...but now that's been taken care of we have to go and do something. I've missed hanging out with you."
"Me too," he smiled. "So what should we do?"
"How about when this project is over we go out to a movie? I haven't seen a movie in such a long time," she squealed.
He chuckled, "Okay, yeah we should go and do that then."
She stuck out her pinky, "Pinky promise?"
He smiled, "Pinky promise," and hooked his pinky with hers.
"Okay, I'm holding you to that you hear. No excuses," Sanjana warned.
"Hey, I'm a man of my word...you know that," Prem said. "It's a promise I won't break."
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Meher looked on curiously at Preet as they walked through campus to the parking garage. He was wearing a maroon dress shirt in the typical Preet fashion; leaving two of the top buttons undone exposing his chest. A smug smile was spread across his face as he waved at the girls he knew who walked by them. Meher started to do a mental count of how many girls he seemed to know. When she had counted to about 10, Preet sensed that she was watching him and turned giving an explanation, "What can I say...all Juneja men have it..."
"And what exactly is that?" she asked.
"...it's Charisma," Preet proudly said pulling on the collar of his shirt. Meher rolled her eyes shaking her head. She had gotten to know Preet pretty well in the past three months of school. Even though she knew he was bit of a flirt for some reason today she didn't like the tone in his voice or his explanation. She just quietly walked holding her folders tightly to her chest. Preet noticed her silence and remembered the conversation he had in the morning with Kulraj. He wondered if he had possibly said the wrong thing.
They both quietly got into the car. Preet sighed realizing Meher wasn't in the mood to talk and turned on the radio to erase the silence. Meher watched as the busy city streets of Toronto passed by her window. She didn't like the awkwardness she was feeling especially since Preet was her friend. Finally breaking the silence she spoke, "So when are Keri, John, and Rano coming over?"
Preet smiled with relief, "About 4:30 I think. How's it going on your portion of the project?"
"I'm almost done with the advertising posters. Thanks for lending me Photoshop. That program works wonders," Meher replied happily.
"You're welcome. I'm having some issues with the Excel spreadsheets. I don't know why the graphs aren't coming out correctly," he replied.
"Rano's pretty good at that stuff. I'm sure she'll be able to help you out," she comforted.
Preet opened the front door of the house and was warmly greeted by his little nephew. "Hey there Rishi," he smiled as he picked him up. Rishi giggled and waved at Meher who smiled and waved back.
Kulraj came running into the foyer her face cover with red lipstick marks. Preet shrieked in horror, "Ah! What and who are you and what have you done to my sister!"
Kulraj folded her arms an angry pout on her face, "This is what I get when I forgot to put away my makeup this morning. Rishi decided to practice his artistic skills on me while I took a nap." Rishi hid his face in the crock of his uncle's neck afraid to look at his mother.
Meher shook her head chuckling softly, "Rishi's been a bad boy today."
"They don't call them the terrible two's for nothing," Kulraj replied. "Come here, Rishi," she said as she took him away from Preet. "As punishment you are going help Mama clean her face. And then we are going to practice our ABC's and draw on appropriate things like our coloring book." She turned towards the two young adults, "Another group meeting tonight?"
"Don't worry this should be a short one," Preet replied. "We will be in and out of here in no time."
Kulraj grinned and gave a teasingly look at Preet, "Meher, you're staying for dinner, right?"
"Oh, it's okay. Our meeting shouldn't be long. I can find something at home to eat," she politely said.
"Don't let my parents hear you say that. I insist stay for dinner," Kulraj pressured. "Plus, Ma's cooking tonight."
Meher smiled brightly at her last statement and quickly complied, "Well, okay if you insist. Anyways, Heer Didi did say she had a group meeting tonight."
Kulraj smiled, "Then it's settled." She glance over at Preet, who wore a don't make this such a big deal expression on his face.
"Hey..." Preet started trying to change the subject so he could get away from his nosey sister, "Meher, let's get some drinks and snacks out before John and them come," Preet suggested. "They should be here any minute." Meher agreed and followed him into the kitchen. Kulraj just smirked and carried Rishi upstairs.
Sanjana quietly sat on the living room couch waiting for Heer to come downstairs. She took in the surroundings of the townhouse and surmised that Heer's family had to be well off if they were paying for her to stay there. She glanced at the coffee table and noticed that the laptop was on. She checked the stairs making sure Heer wasn't coming down and moved the mouse. To her surprise the black screensaver disappeared and without having to enter a password she had full access to the computer. She smiled inwardly that the auto lock hadn't turn on and stared at the screen before her. It was Heer's part of the power point presentation. She browsed through it admitting to herself not bad...really nice work actually. She minimized the presentation and saw that the desktop background was a picture of her family...the brother is decent looking...nice family photo she thought. Sanjana knew where she wanted to go next and quickly found the Pictures folder on the computer. She eagerly clicked the folder and waited for the pictures to load. It contained various scenic photos of Toronto landmarks, Indian historic sites, and lots of family and friends from India. As she scroll through she found another folder labeled Friends and quickly opened it. She was surprised to find there were many pictures of Heer and Meher with the Junejas. She furrowed her eyebrows and thought looks like the sisters have been spending a lot of time over there.
Midway through her photo snooping session she stumbled upon a series of Prem and Heer photos. It seemed to be some sort of birthday or celebration party because they were trying to smear cake on each other. She could feel her blood pressure rising as each passing photo depicted a developing flirtatious relationship between the two. The last three photos nearly sent her over the edge. The first one was a close up photo of them by the pool where Prem was standing behind Heer his arms wrapping from behind; his hands holding onto hers as he tried to put more fostering on her face. The smile on their faces was proof enough that they were enjoying each other's company. The second seemed to be the follow up picture of what happened by the pool; Prem and Heer shivering wet huddled closely together underneath one blanket. The third was a cute photo of them sitting at a cafe. Prem had his arm wrapped around one of Heer's shoulders. Sanjana quickly closed the Pictures folder and maximized the power point presentation when she heard the sounds of footsteps moving down the stairs. She glanced at the staircase faking a smile as Heer came down.
"So sorry about that, Sanjana. I thought you said you were coming by at 5:30 otherwise I wouldn't have worked out," Heer explained. "Took me forever to blow dry my hair for some reason."
She waved her hand, "It's okay. It's not a big deal." Heer narrowed her eyes as she noticed the laptop screen. "Oh, sorry," Sanjana quickly explained, "I accidental bump it and the screen saver went away. I sort of looked at the power point presentation. It's really nice work so far."
"Really? Thanks," Heer grinned. "We should probably get going, right? The guys must be waiting for us." Sanjana nodded and waited by the door as Heer placed her laptop into her computer tote and grabbed her marketing folder. Heer's eyes widen at the sight of Sanjana's shiny red Mercedes Benz CLS550 Coupe.
Sanjana grinned, "Yea, it's an early Diwali gift from my Dad. Just got it today...and I absolutely love it! Wait till you see all the cool features it has inside." Heer sat down in the car and looked at Sanjana who smiled with delight nodding her head, "Yes, it has heated seats. The winters here get really cold so this will definitely come in handy." She scrolled through her iPod that was attached to the radio and found her Bollywood soundtrack mix.
"Oh, I love this song," Heer said as the strumming guitar rift started.
Sanjana grinned genuinely, "Me too Aahun Aahun is such a cool song. And the movie Love Aaj Kal was the best. "
Heer smiled in agreement, "I really liked the movie too."
For the majority of the drive Sanjana found herself forgetting her jealous over the photos as Heer and her talked about their favorite Bollywood movies and gossiped about the latest celebrity news. "I mean can you believe that?" Sanjana shared. "There is no way they are just friends."
"I think they are secretly dating too," Heer said. "Haven't there been a lot of Tellywood actors who have met their spouse on the same show they worked on?"
"I know. There is a lot of reel to real couples from Tellywood," Sanjana giggled. "Gosh, it would so incredible if that really happened. I mean their chemistry on screen was simply mind blowing...no way they can fake that...I don't care how good of a actor you are..."
"Unfortunately, they are being pretty tight lipped about it. So I guess we can only wait and see. We won't find out until they decide to announce an engagement," Heer replied.
"Watch them bust out that they've been married all along and have a kid," Sanjana joked.
Heer laughed, "That would be hilarious."
As the red coupe pulled into the coffee shop parking lot Sanjana's sense of enjoyment dampen at the thought of the impending group meeting. She was excited to see Prem but was loathing the interaction that he and Heer would be engaging in. The photos of them together began to play through her mind. "I don't think the guys are here yet. I don't see Prem's or Kunal's car." Heer said bringing Sanjana out of her momentary trance.
"Heer?" Sanajana cautiously questioned with slight twinge of spite, "Have you ever thought of learning how to drive?"
"I've never thought about it much. In India there are loads of transportation options and I was always with my family so either my Dad or my brother would be driving," she explained.
"Well, you will be here for two years...or more if you decide to get a job here. Knowing how to drive would be very useful. After all you can't always expect...you know depend on one person...I mean...it would be easier for you to get around if you had your own transportation," Sanjana reasoned.
Heer sat there contemplating what she had said, "I guess."
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Pre-Cap:
Projects, Projects, Projects Part 2
What's up with Veera's attitude?
What's Preet's plan? Will Meher figure it out?
Prem on Shaadi.com? 😲
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Comments always welcomed! 😃
---Grace
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
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