Second Chance (Vol.1) Squandered

93: Carrom

One irate Adi was scowling violently at a cowering carrom board.

Highlights of his day! He douses his anger and then someone comes along and stokes his smouldering embers all over again. Grrrrrrr!

Noor and Zoya both were sneaking guilty looks at him. They had made their excuses and refused to wake him up because Arjun had warned them not to. They hadn't expected Arshad to go and get him.

Arshad had organized this game of carrom hoping to score some brownie points with the sisters. But Noor had no partner. Others were not back yet. So he decided to get Aditya.

Noor was fervently praying for patience. They could have as well played a non-team individuals game she called 10-20-50. Grrrrrrr!

Noor knew for sure Aditya had slept poorly 3 nights in a row. God alone knew when he had last slept properly since Arshad's crash landing into their lives. That rare sleep disturbed... by this moron...

Her fingers were itching to go into a stranglehold around Arshad's long neck.

Appi hadn't played since Jiju's demise. Noor had meant to get her to play again without ceremony amidst a chaos of chatter and pandemonium not this pall of gloom.

Noor was in dial M for murder mood.

Arshad unbeknownst to self had opened his account on a tripled negative score; must be some kind of a first in the brownie point scoring history.

Noor had eventually taken charge before Arshad caused more damage. Arshad liked to complicate simple matters like making teams by drawing chits, who would pick the chit and what not. Noor simply declared the teams. Noor-Aditya Vs Appi-Arshad. It was so obvious; only Appi could tolerate being in his team. She had also moved the board into the long shadows cast by the house. The sun was still blazing.

Everything Noor did, Arshad tried to find conspiracy theories in them; some ulterior motive and saazish. Noor actually began to pity the man. One more reason to kill him. A kinder one; putting him out of his misery.

Adi was a champion sulker. He refused to lift his head. He refused to look at any of them. He refused to talk. He refused to play sportingly. He flicked the striker hard at any of the 2 corners in front and nowhere in particular.

But it did not affect their team. Noor was in good form or lucky or both.

Zoya was also good at carrom hence no one could guess that she was shooting coins into the pockets without paying much attention. And no! Absolutely not! She wasn't lost in any Yash or Mussoorie memories. Her undivided attention was on sneaking looks at the sulking Aditya and guilt of putting him into that mood.

The so called self-proclaimed champion player however was just not able to showcase his skills. Arshad had almost pocketed the striker twice and a white coin once.

The way the strike rotated was Noor, Zoya, Aditya and Arshad. Aditya had scowled that youngest player starts first in his rules for any game.

Problem was scowling Aditya played aimlessly disruptively violently. So Arshad's chances were always ruined after Aditya's strike and Noor's improved.

Zoya had attempted to get scowling Aditya to play sensibly. She had positioned the striker on his baseline and pointed to a coin and given instructions like hit here lightly or hit there hard.

Adi: (trying to be difficult, snapped) Lightly? How lightly?

Zoya had tried to flick her finger at his fist to show how lightly but he had snatched back his hand.
Adi: (to Noor) Really? Seriously!