Fiction: Vani will marry Vir only if he wins her over before the train reaches the last stop

There was screaming and yelling: “It was almost 7 am, and I had barely slept. I didn’t feel like getting up, but if I didn’t, the whole train would. The drama was happening next door, Mum and Dad. But what happened so early?”

“Why can’t both of you act like a mature couple for once?” I cried.

“He doesn’t listen to me!” Mum revolted. Dad stayed quiet. It felt like I was a schoolteacher who had caught two students misbehaving.

‘Please, guys, we are on a train. The walls are too thin. Can we not pretend for a few more days?” I pleaded.

“Do you even know what happened?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, probably some stress from work happened that you are taking out on Mum,” I said, and I left the room. Ever since Dad became successful, things have gone downhill for our family. We take fancy, soulless vacations now, but I miss the family trips we did before Rishi Uncle kicked us out and we had no money.

Our Jim Corbett trip when I was 12 was probably a million times better than our trip to Norway, fighting under the Northern Lights.

Maybe it’s Dad’s fault or Mum’s, but both seem right from their point of view. But...

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