The Normal Family

A troublesome day

Narrator's POV

Akhila was shocked that her son was missing, she searched the nearby places, her assistant Mahesh came along. Soon somebody said they saw her son and a girl in the food stalls. She went to the nearby food stall and found Srihari there. She ordered him to come with her this instant. They both obeyed. Back at the station, she yelled at Pallavi, "Why did you take my son there, if you had come to see your father, you should have stayed here. Instead you chose to see my son, and take him to that cheap stall. Just go home. You are not seeing your father today and that is that.

Pallavi said with fear in her voice "He was the one who took me there, please let me see my father, I am sorry." Akhila paid no heed to this request. "Now you're blaming my son." she asked. A tearful Pallavi was about leave, she stood outside the station. "Why did you take her there?" Akhila asked Srihari impatiently, "I told you not to indulge in conversations with criminal minds. What is wrong with you?" "What is wrong with you?" Srihari asked angrily. "You have been yelling the whole day."

"Go home, we will talk about this later." Akhila said trying to control herself. "No, I am not going to listen to this. You think you are the boss of the world isn't it? Half the people here listen to you not because they respect you, but because they are afraid of you." Srihari said. Some people from behind nodded. "Even dad is afraid of you, I am not going to listen you now." he continued. "Srihari go wait in the car right now." Akhila yelled.

"This is not your decision to make, Pallu is my girlfriend and she will always be" he said. Akhila could not bear it anymore. In anger she slapped him across the face. Srihari was shocked. "Mahesh, take him home." Akhila said. "Ok madam" said Mahesh. "Come Srihari, it is your mother's wish that you go home" said Mahesh. Srihari angrily sat in the car.

Akhila addressed the people who were watching from behind, "Is it some sort of a movie theatre, go get back to your work, now I understand why there are so many unfinished cases here." She went outside and thought about what had happened. She felt extremely guilty, but was still upset over the fact that her Srihari spoke to her that way. How did all this happen? she thought. She consoled herself by telling herself everything will be okay, once she went home, and Pallavi will soon leave their lives without a trace.

Srihari was soon dropped at home, he too felt bad about the day. He felt guilty about talking to his mother that way, as he never had before. He couldn't understand why his mother overreacted over this situation and why she judged his Pallu this way. He always saw her as a harmless, sweet girl, while his mother had labelled her as a criminal. 'Were children supposed to be  judged based on their parent's deeds.' he thought.

Sriram's POV

Srihari and his mother had some huge fight and they are not talking to each other anymore, I know it is surprising, they had never even argued before. Anyway I was just chilling and watching the last episode of squid games to find out who won. Akhila soon found out that Srihari was talking over the phone for quite a long time, she asked me to go check who he was talking to, she was pretty sure it was some girl named Pallavi, I guess this whole fight was about her.

I said I wanted to finish this episode, after that I will do her slave work. Srihari won't listen to me anyway, plus she was just being over protective. She got angry and said, "If you don't go bring his phone to me, this instant I am going to cut the internet for the whole house." I had no choice but to go do what she had asked me to. I could listen to their conversation from outside, he was actually talking to Abhinay.

"You should have listened to Tanisha, this girl may not be worth it, by  the way how long are you grounded for?" the voice over the phone asked. "Until I break up with Pallavi." Srihari replied. "Are you going to." Abhinay asked. "I don't know, all this is not Pallavi's fault at all." Srihari replied. "Hey, one more thing, if you are grounded how come you are having your phone man." Abhinay asked. Srihari replied, "Are you on my side on this, Where do you get such torture ideas from?"

I felt bad for Srihari and told him to give me his phone and use mine instead. There was no way his mother could find that out. When I went to the hall, I saw Shiva and Akhila talking. Shiva was saying, "You should be calm in such situations." Akhila replied, "What should I do? Be calm and watch this criminal girl take away my son. I have never even raised my voice at him until today, she made me raise my hand at him. Do you think I would have reacted this way if I had any other choice? You are always talking non sense, calm down! calm down! In such situations I am actually happy that I'm single.