Stay tuned to our new posts and updates! Click to join us on WhatsApp L&C-Whatsapp & Telegram telegram Channel
L&C-Silhouette Subscribe
The L&C-Silhouette Basket
L&C-Silhouette Basket
A hand-picked basket of cherries from the world of most talked about books and popular posts on creative literature, reviews and interviews, movies and music, critiques and retrospectives ...
to enjoy, ponder, wonder & relish!
 
Support LnC-Silhouette. Great reading for everyone, supported by readers. SUPPORT

Friends Forever Chapter 8

December 27, 2019 | By

Aamir found that he was getting busier by the day. What with his studies, the extra emphasis on English, teaching Gopal and his involvement in Literary Club activities, he had quite a lot on his hands.

FRIENDS FOREVER TEEN NOVEL

“Were you not getting enough to eat? See how thin you’ve become?”

Aamir found that he was getting busier by the day. What with his studies, the extra emphasis on English, teaching Gopal and his involvement in Literary Club activities, he had quite a lot on his hands. He stuck to his practice of writing one page a day on whatever topic appealed to him. At regular intervals, he would take his ‘creative writing’ to Sharma Sir for ‘dissection’. Aamir’s progress was painstakingly slow but he didn’t give up. Sharma Sir, too, patiently spent time with him correcting mistakes, offering suggestions and providing encouragement.

Aamir went home for the Dussehra holidays. His parents were delighted to see him.

“Were you not getting enough to eat? See how thin you’ve become?” Saira said fussing over him.

“Come on, Saira, I think he is looking quite okay. He has grown taller that is why he is looking a bit thin,” Rashid smiled.

They were happy to hear that he loved the school and about his friendship with Sagar.

“You are lucky to get such a loyal friend, Aamir. Be as faithful to him as he is to you,” Rashid said.

He spent ten enjoyable days in Warangal. The second terminal exams were round the corner so he had to study a bit. But he had a great time. Lingayya was a good cook but he was no match for ammi. Every day she would make something special for him – mutton biryani, chicken do pyaza, boti kabab, mutton kheema – every dish was, to use his newfound vocabulary, a gourmet’s delight. And to top these delicacies were the sweets – all vintage ammi – gulab jamun, balushahi, besan laddu and lots more.

The day he was leaving, Aamir told his ammi, “You have fattened me up so much, I won’t fit into my school clothes.”

“Don’t be silly. You are looking as skinny as you were when you came here ten days ago. You need at least six months of my cooking before you can be considered remotely healthy,” she replied giving him an affectionate whack on his head.

In the bus from Warangal to Secunderabad Aamir was feeling quite depressed. It was such a miserable feeling leaving ammi and abbu. He would now be meeting them only after three months during the winter break, and that too, only for a week. But as he neared Secunderabad the excitement of going back to school made him overcome the gloom. He had to do better in the second term. At his parents’ place, he hadn’t done much study but in the next few days, he had to slog it out.

Friends Forever by Ramendra Kumar

Friends Forever is a serialized novel by Ramendra Kumar, exclusively on LnC

And slog it out he did. Even Gopal was asked to keep away for some time. As the exams approached, Aamir’s confidence grew. He did the exams well but when the results were announced he was disappointed. In English, the improvement had been only marginal. In Maths he had got 97 but in Science, he had slipped. As a result, his rank had slumped from 11th to 14th. Sagar had maintained his position.

Aamir was quite upset. “I think there is something wrong in the way I am studying,” Aamir told Sagar. “In Science, I got just 73%. In Physics, I was expecting 30 out of 33 but I ended up with just 17.”

“Where did you go wrong?”

“I think I didn’t get the concept right.”

“Yes. I too feel so. Aamir, I think you need to learn to work smart, not simply work hard. In higher classes, just mugging won’t do. You need to get your fundas right. See Neelabh, the Class IX topper. I have hardly ever seen him slogging like the rest of his classmates, yet he has been topping since Class VII.”

“Really! I have seen him playing football and cricket and generally having a good time, but I thought he must be burning the midnight oil.”

Sagar smiled. Aamir sometimes loved to speak in idiomatic English which his friend found quite amusing. “Nothing of that sort. He has got his concepts on spot. Look, I’ll take you to Neelabh and ask him to give you some hints.”

(Friends Forever is a children’s novel by Ramendra Kumar with illustrations by Avijit Sarkar, serialized exclusively on LnC every Wednesday and Friday)

Click here to read all episodes of Friends Forever

Read on to Chapter 9

Friends Forever Chapter 9

Ramendra Kumar (Ramen) is an award-winning writer, performance storyteller and inspirational speaker with 49 books. His writings have been translated into 32 languages and included in 26 textbooks and many anthologies in various countries. Ramen has written across all genres ranging from picture books to adult fiction, satire, poetry, travelogues, biographies and on issues related to parenting and relationships. His writings have been published by the major publishing houses in India. His books brought out by National Book Trust (NBT), India have notched up sales of more than 4.9 lakh copies in just one year. Ramen has been invited to several international literary festivals as well as Indian events such as Jaipur Litfest and seminars organised by Sahitya Akademi and IGNOU. The author has won a total of 41 awards in the competition for writers of children’s literature organised by Children’s Book Trust (CBT) over the years, which is among the highest by any writer. Ramen was chosen as the ‘Author and Storyteller of the Year’ (2022), on ‘Talking Stories’, London, UK’s number one Radio Programme dedicated to the art of storytelling. He was nominated as a Jury Member for the Best Children’s Author Category of The Times of India’s ‘Women AutHer’ Awards, 2020. Ramen was also selected as a mentor for the Scholastic Writers Academy. An alumnus of the prestigious Hyderabad Public School (HPS), Ramen is an Engineer & an MBA. He and his inspiration, his wife Madhavi, were General Managers at SAIL, when they took Voluntary Retirement to pursue their respective passions. Their children are bonsai celebrities in their own right. While Ankita is a youth icon and a travel blogger with an Instagram following of 296 K, Aniket creates cool Apps and designs covers for his dad’s books. Ramen is now a Cancer warrior and an inspiration to many. His website is www.ramendra.in and he has a page devoted to him on Wikipedia.
All Posts of Ramendra Kumar

Hope you enjoyed reading...

... we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading and supporting our creative, informative and analytical posts than ever before. And yes, we are firmly set on the path we chose when we started... our twin magazines Learning and Creativity and Silhouette Magazine (LnC-Silhouette) will be accessible to all, across the world.

We are editorially independent, not funded, supported or influenced by investors or agencies. We try to keep our content easily readable in an undisturbed interface, not swamped by advertisements and pop-ups. Our mission is to provide a platform you can call your own creative outlet and everyone from renowned authors and critics to budding bloggers, artists, teen writers and kids love to build their own space here and share with the world.

When readers like you contribute, big or small, it goes directly into funding our initiative. Your support helps us to keep striving towards making our content better. And yes, we need to build on this year after year. Support LnC-Silhouette with a little amount - and it only takes a minute. Thank you

Support LnC-Silhouette

Creative Writing

Got a poem, story, musing or painting you would like to share with the world? Send your creative writings and expressions to editor@learningandcreativity.com

Learning and Creativity publishes articles, stories, poems, reviews, and other literary works, artworks, photographs and other publishable material contributed by writers, artists and photographers as a friendly gesture. The opinions shared by the writers, artists and photographers are their personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Learning and Creativity- emagazine. Images used in the posts (not including those from Learning and Creativity's own photo archives) have been procured from the contributors themselves, public forums, social networking sites, publicity releases, free photo sites such as Pixabay, Pexels, Morguefile, etc and Wikimedia Creative Commons. Please inform us if any of the images used here are copyrighted, we will pull those images down.

One thought on “Friends Forever Chapter 8

  • Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Today’s Motivation

    <div class=at-above-post addthis_tool data-url=https://learningandcreativity.com/motivation-quote-think-unthinkable/></div>“Being an architect isn't only about construction, it's about creating wide spaces with small spaces.” 
― Yannick Heywang<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings above via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings below via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons above via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons below via filter on get_the_excerpt --><div class=at-below-post addthis_tool data-url=https://learningandcreativity.com/motivation-quote-think-unthinkable/></div><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt -->
    “Being an architect isn't only about construction, it's about creating wide spaces with small spaces.” ― Yannick Heywang