{Intrigued}

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It's been four days I have been here and I am already missing Miami like hell, no matter how people try that I feel comfortable around them. 

What I found most intriguing was that mostly all people here in society know English and can speak it fluently, considering the fact that India indeed is the second country in the world to speak English the most. though their accent is a lot different from ours. 

They even converse in English in front of me, so I don't feel neglected. Though I have told them I understand Hindi a little, but they say I am more comfortable in English so they will prefer it themselves. 

My accent is so different from theirs. My insecurities are eating me up. If I was in Miami I would have gone to the beach to clear my mind by just sitting there and would have enjoyed the ocean breeze and peaceful aura there. It's a lot noisier over here. First, the lack of sleep and the habitat change isn't helping at all.

Currently, it's 11 pm and still, people are chilling outside, though they weren't disturbing me as I am sitting in a corner beside a tree, gazing at the stars. My parents are already settled down perfectly but I am in a whole different quandary.

It's Friday and everyone is relaxing as the adults are done with their daily routine and the children are having a short break after completing their midterm exams. It's the end of August and they are going back to school in their school in September first week.

The difference is just that I haven't even started my sophomore year of high school and they are already done with the half session of the year as school here starts from the first week of April. 

I asked Dad about this but he says that won't be a problem as he will talk that out and let me know. I am most probably going to school where all the society children are going. I have left that decision for dad to decide as I know he will choose the best for me.

I have become friends with Arnav, Lara's son, Yeah the one who clung to my leg. He is just like Dylan. Whenever I see him, I think if Dylan meets him, they will be best friends the very next second. I find him adorable the very next moment when he introduces himself after hugging my leg. He even made me totally forget about the argument which was going on with my parents that day.

He also gets lonely just like me at home as both Karthik and Lara work the whole day. I see myself in him more, day by day. He told me how excited that finally he got some company. 

He stays with me the whole time when his parents aren't around. I told him that he is a crazy person, which indeed he is. We just clicked together in this short time span. He had introduced me to his friends in this society.

There are a lot of children in this society. Even of my age, younger and elder than me. I have talked to them and they were so intrigued while talking to me. I feel awkward at first to even introduce myself but as Arnav is the friend of every person in this society he proudly gives my introduction to all of them. I smacked him to talk that much but he just grins sheepishly.

Well, I never expected that I could open up here that easily but Arnav just made me do it eventually. He is the child who everyone adores here along with his gang. This society lives like a huge family and I feel like I am just an intruder between them. Everyone knows each other very well. They all are friendly and frank with each other and even with me.

I was shocked when the whole of society throws a welcome party for us on Wednesday night. I thought they wouldn't do this after my little cry show in front of them. 

We were invited to the terrace for the gathering. All people introduced themselves after our introduction. Dad was the one who spoke first and then in lead, mom did. So I have no other chance but to introduce myself. Mom pushed me towards the group of teens over there.

Thank god that my knight without shining armor AKA Arnav comes to my rescue. Actually, that's what I thought he would do, but he actually dragged me towards them. He was bossing around and threatening them that treat her sister well, otherwise, they would regret it. With his harmless threat and adorable face, everyone chuckled. That was the only moment that we all shared the same emotions.

The most irritating thing is that people come to me and ask for a picture with me. I don't have any other option but to say yes. One after one comes to me and clicks the photo, talks about what I am doing here, and goes back to where they were standing earlier.

The day when we arrived and set our luggage, I wasn't in the mood of doing anything after that, as I was way too somnolent. I was going to bed but my phone ranged. I pulled it up to my ear without seeing the caller ID because I was too lazy to do so.

I was startled and my poor ears were bleeding when Lexi-freaking-Torres shouted in my ears. I pulled my phone back and shouted back at her. She yelled angrily that I have totally forgotten her and I am breaking the rules. What a Drama Queen.

As I was going to reply to her, she told me that she wasn't interested in seeing my ear. I was confused for a few seconds but then the realization hit me that she had face-timed me. In my defense, I wasn't just in my conscious mind at that moment.

I showed her my new house. She was awestricken to see my bedroom. We talked for three hours. I don't know when time flowed this fast and the fact that how I get that energy to even pull that. We both have to go after that. 

Even Dylan joined our chat in between. I told him about Arnav and he gets all hyped as he listened to how everything is here and the rest of the days we talked about stuff and I told Alexa about the sculptures at the airport. I already sent her pictures at that very moment.

I sighed thinking about all the previous day. I survived these days. First of all, I can't properly sleep at night, and second of all, it's all...awkward. I am already feeling like this, what will happen when I go to the new high school...Wait, it's school, not high school, at least for where I am living. 

In India, they haven't separated schools. They have every year until the senior year in the same school. They don't even have a freshman term and all. They are categorized into classes. According to their schooling system, I am in 10 grade and I will have boards. Though I haven't understood what boards are, I just know that we have to go to another school to give our final exams as well as it's forbidden to cheat there, as if you get busted you will ruin your whole year.

Yeah, so much for me to take in and I am even scared of these board things but on the bright side, they said that exams are pretty uncomplicated and we can ace them easily.

All thanks to twin sisters here in society who are in 10 grade. They enlighten me with these facts about the schools here. They both are polar opposites. One is always high and another one is more sensible. They were so excited to see a newbie in society. They tell me so many things about life here. I haven't talked to them much but still, I know some basic stuff they told me.

One thing that I have learned here so far is that family is the top priority here, no matter what but family always comes first here. People here love to maintain a schedule for their day as well as they always take out time for their family. Like on weekends they just relaxed and have family time, even they meet their relatives once or twice a month and it's normal to meet them at any time.

People here are diverse. I thought that Indians were all brown-skinned or just had tanned skin or darker than that, but in our society, we have all colored skin people. I was astonished at first to see that but it's common here. 

I questioned Arnav how is it possible to have all different people in one place?

He didn't even realize at first what I was asking about and even after realizing, he said there's nothing special about that. We have people from different regions here and cultures. 

They celebrated a religious festival last week. It's called Raksha Bandhan. Arnav explained that it's a festival of brother and sister where Sister ties a band on the wrist of her brothers and in return the brother will gift her sister something she wishes for. It's cool.

Raksha means Protecting or defending and Bandhan means a bond or a tie. The meaning behind 'Raksha Bandhan' is that sister is tying a band on her brother's wrist to make a bond whereas the brother in return will protect her sister no matter what. The band presents the love between them.

Things like this really intrigued me and wanted me to know more about India. A piece of me wants to know everything and experience everything but the other part of me is scared that I won't fit here and I will be messing things up and it wasn't a good idea that we came here.

"Hey you aren't going back?" someone shouted. I don't realize who the person is. I checked my phone to check the time. It's 12:32 am. I was thinking about one and a half hours. Wow, that's a very big span of time.

"Umm...Yeah!" I replied and stood up dusting off the dust from my back. I walked towards the person and thanked him. He looks like a man in his late fifties. He nodded and walked to his building. I entered my house after 5 minutes as it takes time to come up here and then dragged my lazy arse to my house. Dad was working on a laptop and Mom was in the kitchen doing something.

"Oh! We think you weren't planning to come back and run back to Miami." Dad chuckled and I scowled. As if I could do that.

"I just lost track of time." I reasoned.

"As always..." Mom mentioned coming out of the kitchen holding two cups of coffee.

"And you as always drinking caffeine at night. How many times I should tell you that don't drink this much caffeine at night time."

"Sweetie! You know we have to work till late" He reasoned. again. 

I cut him off "Yeah! I know that. No need to repeat that, I am just saying relax for some time. Your health is more important." I said to both Mom and dad.

"Okay, our highness we will keep that in our minds." Dad bowed down.

"Dadddddd!!" it irritates me when he uses that tone.

"Okay, we will be done with this work in some time but you better go to sleep as we are going to go to your school tomorrow," Dad informed.

"What? Really?" I said in a somewhat annoyed tone as it doesn't matter how much I want to experience how Asian study is, still I don't wanna go.

But no one asked for your opinion here, dear

The same goes for you Catie

Whatever!!

"Yeah, so now go to sleep, we will talk about it tomorrow."

"Okay, but first tell me the name."

"No!" Dad was going to reveal but mom interrupted

"But why?" I asked the reason behind her denial.

"Because baby if we reveal that now you will Google it and will stay awake and waste your beauty sleep." Mom explained.

"But..."

"No buts and now go and sleep," Mom said in her authoritative voice and I know better not to say anything. I stammered my foot and looked up to dad, expecting his help. Dad chuckled but got silent and gulped down while seeing mom's death glare. While muttering things went into my room as I didn't have any other option.

I do my night routine which starts with brushing my teeth. I usually take a bath but I wasn't feeling to do it so I changed into a grey tank top with black Nike shorts.

I sighed after lying down on my bed. Thoughts about my new school crashing down my mind. Mom doesn't even let dad tell me the name, if she had, I wouldn't be thinking so much about it and simply surf about it.

Exactly that's the reason she mentioned that she won't tell you

I know, after all, she is my mother, and please shut up I am trying to sleep here.

While thinking about all the things you were trying to sleep, well good luck with the sleep then.

Whatever!!

I don't know-how will be things tomorrow, so let me not ruin my present and just sleep. It wasn't too long after that when I got dropped in a whole different world A.K.A. dreamland.

***

Hello peeps!! How ya all doing?

Q: Do you like the festive 'Raksha Bandhan'?

A: Oh I love that festive. I get to meet all my brothers and the whole day is just blissful for me.

K: I really want to celebrate the festive.

P:?

Vote if you like it.


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