Irony at it's Best

                                                     

‘It’s a muggy sort of day today’ drawled Rakesh’s voice from his room, ‘I don’t feel like going to school.’ His mother Mrs. Bhushan in the kitchen wore a smirk on her face instead of the customary exasperated look.’ All right you can stay at home’ she called back. Rakesh whose mind was wandering on his friends new gaming console came back to earth with a triumphant leap. For four day he had bemoaned to his parents about how he had too much homework to do, how he had too much of a headache to do the homework and many other vain endeavors .

At last he had succeeded. He rolled out of bed, stumbled up to the mirror and stuffed a toothbrush lopsidedly into his mouth.as he sat down for breakfast he noticed a smile playing around the edges of his father's mouth or at least the part that was not hidden behind his newspaper.at 10 o clock his father had packed up his briefcase and left for work. Rakesh who was thinking about a day where he would neither get his legs off the sofa nor let his eyes wander from the tv was called by his mother. ‘Since you are not going to school you can give this cake I baked to Mrs. Nimisha down the street’. Rakesh sensed that it would be futile to argue and Grumbling about the work but convincing himself that skipping school was better he delivered the package to the old woman.

 All day his mother kept him at work from fetching her groceries to helping her clean the kitchen. Every time however Rakesh who would never look forward to spending any energy helping his mother reminded himself of his triumph in the morning and grudgingly did the work. At 6o clock his friend Suresh called ‘dude why was you not at school today’ he asked, ‘we didn’t do any studies, but we all watched a movie, and they even gave us a doughnut and a burger each!’ Dropping his phone on his bed with his friend still on the line he walked up to his calendar and stared at today’s date. For a moment his face was blank. then it contorted in a combination of rage and disappointment. What followed was the worst row the house had ever seen, and utter bedlam reigned supreme. For what had the ignorant brat done except forget that it was children’s day?