Muran 1 - Every Drop Counts
Every Drop Counts
Sathya has always been one of my most unforgettable cousins—outspoken, filterless, and impossible to place as innocent or mischievous. We’re the same age, but when we first met as kids, I didn’t know how to deal with her. Years later, life took us in different ways: she studied nursing and worked in the Gulf, while I did engineering and was working as a software developer in Chennai.
One vacation she was flying through Chennai, and I went to pick her up at the airport. On the drive back we stopped for juice. Sathya was bubbling over with stories from abroad—her patients, her adventures, her flights. At one point she grinned and said, “You can only see flights from the ground. I’m the one who actually flies.” I laughed, amused by how seriously she meant it.
Just then our juice arrived. I drained mine in one go and reached for my wallet when I noticed Sathya staring at me, shocked.
“You finished it?” she asked.
“Yes…?”
“Till the last drop?”
“Of course. Why not?”
She gasped. “Pavi! Because of you, I haven’t finished a juice in ten years!”
I froze. “Wait, what did I do?”
She reminded me of a day a decade earlier, when Mama had taken us shopping. We stopped for juice, and while she finished hers quickly, I was slowly sipping.
“How long will you drink?” Sathya asked.
“What's the rush, let’s go”
“But u still dint finish it?”
“Finishing it all isn’t stylish. Leaving some behind looks cooler.”
Apparently, I was showing off back then—maybe because I was from a town and she was from a village. I never thought of myself as the show-off, but that day, I guess I was.
I burst out laughing. “Sathya, that was silly of me! We’re grown up now, earning our own money. Why waste even a drop just to look cool?”
She shook her head, half-annoyed, half-amused at how seriously she had lived by my high school nonsense.
Years later, when we met again as mothers, we ordered juice once more. This time, before she could tease me, I confessed: “If it’s too sweet or too cold, I won't finish it anymore. Health first.” She laughed so hard the shopkeeper stared.
That’s Sathya—able to turn a glass of juice into a story we’ll laugh about for a lifetime. And now, every time I drink juice, I think about her.
Should i have written it in tamil for more of a personal touch? I have 9 more to come..
Constructive Feedback Welcome.
Picture courtesy: Gemini AI
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