Skip to main content

LIFE AND LIES #33 | Free Trade Agreements

"It's a typo," I interrupt my sister. "Correct it."

She's working from home and I am on leave and have got nothing better to do.

"No, it's not," she replies after pondering for a while.

"Ok, there's no such thing as CECPA," I begin. "It's CEPA - free trade agreement between India and South Korea. Don't you remember? A year ago, I told you that this will be the first thing your interviewers ask you. And then...there's CECA - a free trade agreement between Indian and Malaysia, and I think Singapore also. Anyway, my point is... there is no such thing as CECPA."

"Actually, my dear brother," she smiles. "There is. CECPA is a free trade agreement between India and Mauritius."

I stand there silent for a moment. Didn't I have all the FTAs on the tips of my tongue? Yes, I left college almost four years ago but I did teach all that stuff to my sister, just a year ago.

I go over the acronym again.

CECPA.

Unlike my friend, my first instinct isn't to Google. I rack my brains first. Yes, I trust my memory that much.

"Don't torture yourself," she says when I don't speak for a while. "It was signed this year only. You must not have read about it in college."

"Okay."

Was I supposed to be relieved now?

I look at my sister. She just trumped me at what I considered was my thing. All that without changing an expression. Were I in her place, I would have been doing a victory dance.

Then I realize that she has no comprehension of how far she has come in the past year. Somehow completed her Master's in a hardly known subject during COVID times, with no clue what to do next career-wise, before landing a job in the Global Trade domain, something she had no idea about.

Though I often make fun of her by saying that I made her what she is, I know, in my heart that it's not true. Had it just been an outcome of my efforts, she would not have sucked at Mathematics back in school.

She has just completed one year at her first job. And I am not aware of what her boss thinks of her performance. I know that her school and college friends hardly have any clue about her job, nor do my parents and relatives. Who else is there in her life? If there's a boyfriend, she's definitely doing a good job hiding it from a nosy brother like me.

That leaves me.

So what should I do to tell her that I am really proud of her? She doesn't let me buy anything for her. Apparently, I don't know her taste. A hug then? A pat on the back? No, she thinks it's cringe-worthy.

Ok, I got it.

"Listen," I announce. "Try to save as much as possible since you are working from home. When this COVID thing dies down, we'll take a Euro Trip together."

***

Dedicated to my sister, Ayushi!




Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous11:37 AM, August 31, 2022

    I also want to join that trip 😅

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LIFE AND LIES #100 | The Blurred Lines

Nitin was utterly shocked when he woke up on Saturday morning with a hangover and without any recollection of what had transpired the previous night. He had been drunk before. He had lost all of his senses before. But everything always came back to him the next morning. However, that day, it didn't; complete blackout. There must have been something bizarre in that drink. Over the course of the week, though, he started remembering flashes of it and began looking for an opportunity to talk to Sandhya, sober and alone. The weather had taken a sharp turn today. A sweltering sunny day gave way to a cloudy evening with thrashing winds. As everyone raced to the office window to watch the scene unfolding outside, Nitin saw Sandhya signalling to him by pressing two fingers to her lips. He couldn’t help but smile. She knew he loved to smoke in this weather. After all, she was his smoking partner in the office. Together, they went downstairs, but as soon as they stepped out of the building, t...
1 comment
Read more

LIFE AND LIES #77 | The English Teacher

When we are young, the world is full of possibilities. We can do anything, and become anything. We antagonise anyone who even hints at thinking otherwise about us. It's probably why most of us have a story to tell where the villain was a school teacher. Even I do. I don’t remember exactly how I ended up in the Headmaster’s cabin that day. All I remember is that back then I blamed my House Master for it. It wasn’t just me who had bunked the STD XII Pre-Board exams. There were many. But he made a scapegoat out of me. And the moment, I set foot inside the cabin, I received a big slap from the Headmaster. My ears rang. But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened that day. The Headmaster instructed him to call my father. Tell him to come or his son would be rusticated. I wasn’t a notorious student. I was good in my studies and had no disciplinary complaints against me. Had this incident not occurred, I would have completed my schooling in a few months with a clean record. My fat...
5 comments
Read more

Whispers and Words #1

*** Finding solace In an air-conditioned space, The city slept While I wandered the streets, Restless, Perfecting the ending Of a sentence. The cool breeze made me forget That it was a summer night. Then, out of nowhere, A cold whisper Sent a shiver down my spine. "You have to choose, my friend. Be a writer or be content." "Why can't I be both?" I asked the emptiness. And the whisper scoffed at me, "You and your consistent pursuit To get the best of both worlds. Buckle up then! You are about to be tested." I stumbled over a rock And found the ending I was looking for. "If a river wants to meet the sea, Twisting and turning, It will somehow find its way Even through the mountains." If a whisper could smile, It did, and said, "We will see." *** I don't have a million readers - not by choice, obviously - just a handful. But they mean to me as much as the millions would do. And one of those readers reminded me that I had taken a lon...
1 comment
Read more