When I looked at Ma, I felt awful. There was no place for any resentment. She was nearly eight months pregnant and getting bigger by the day. She had more than a hundred aches and pains and her feet were constantly swollen. I couldn’t blame her for not focusing on me. She had too much going on. But Papa?

I made a face when I thought of him and ruled out B. Com from my list of courses. I was certainly not going to spend three years of my life studying commerce and accounts. And this decision left me with even fewer choices.

I looked at the different combinations that were offered under humanities and while some were interesting, I didn’t know if I would be able to sustain interest in it for more than a year. I needed to do something that I was passionate about and right now, I didn’t know what that would be.

I dropped my pencil on the desk, thinking about how I needed to sort this when my phone buzzed.

It was a message from Raghu. I looked at it surprised. He never messaged this early.

‘Wassup?’

Normally, I’d have replied back with the shrugging emoji, but I wanted to talk to him. He’d been so confused himself after his board exams last year. Surely, he’d have some idea of the turmoil and could help me. I asked if he was free to talk.

He called immediately. I answered, surprised, my heart still fluttering. We talked casually about my exams and a minute into the conversation, I realized that my voice became different when talking to him. It had that same high, breathy quality that Ma’s voice had when she’d been speaking to ear-hair uncle at the reunion party.

That flustered me a little and I cleared my throat. ‘So what’s up?’ he asked.

I told him about my dilemma and he listened in silence.

‘So you don’t want to do a humanities course?’ he asked, sounding confused.

‘I don’t know. I don’t feel like studying economics or history,’ I told him.

‘They do have literature and journalism,’ he suggested.

‘Not too keen on those either,’ I told him.

‘What do you want to do?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. I wish I knew. I wish we had time to decide what we wanted instead of rushing into the next thing.’

There was a moment’s silence and then he sighed. ‘That’s why I took a break. To figure out what I wanted.’

‘You’re right! Everyone should do that. Take a gap year to figure out what they want,’ I said, exclaiming loudly.

‘Err, are you sure about this? Your parents may not be too happy about it,’ he said, sounding worried. ‘You know how much my mother went on about me taking a break. And my father . . . ’