When Mishti entered through the huge gate, she found all four cars owned by the Maheshwari's parked in front of the entrance. Bade Papa and Shaurya Maheshwari, Kuhu's dad, handled the family business and mostly returned home late in the evening. Badi Maa, who retired 8 years ago as a History Professor, spent most of the time writing history books  and making audio books online.  Varsha Maheshwari, Kuhu's mother, was a Geography teacher in a private school and tutored piano in the evenings. Jasmeet Maheshwari, Nishant's mother, was a dermatologist and owned her private clinic.  On a Thursday afternoon like today, finding all the cars in front of the house was rather a strange site.  

Worried that something might have happened,  Mishti entered the house hurriedly.  Right in front of her, in the living room, all the family members were involved in some intense discussion. As Mishti stepped in, Badi Maa shushed everyone, "Mishti?"  She walked towards her and gave her a hug.

Startled by the sudden embrace, Mishti looked at the rest of the family members and spoke, "Badi Maa, everyone is at home? Is everything okay?"

"Yes," Badi Maa hugged her tightly and kissed her forehead, "Congratulations for getting into the institute!"

Everyone joined in to congratulate Mishti.  Kuhu's mom got up and handed her a bag, "Kuhu has gone to the room to check the outfit. Look," Kuhu's mom pulled the dress that Mishti had chosen four days back, "the tailor altered your outfit, go ahead change into this and let me know if there is anything else you want altered?"

Mishti rushed upstairs realizing that she probably had disturbed an important meeting. When she reached her room, she found Kuhu watching a dance choreography on her phone. Mishti  dropped her bag on the chair,  picked up the novel that she was reading, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and sat next to Kuhu on her side of the bed. Kuhu glanced at Mishti and kept watching the video.  While one sister found peace dancing, the other found peace in reading Classic Books. 

"Oh!" Mishti pretended, "I had to call Nannu. Did you talk to him lately?" 

"Hmm Hmm."  Kuhu replied annoyingly.

Mishti glanced Kuhu for a brief second and flipped the page of her book, "Is he in London or back to Wales?"

"London." Kuhu said with a void of emotion.

There was a long silence between the sisters when Mishti finally spoke again "I got an email that a post for me delivered today. It should be the certificate from the Chess Tournament."

Kuhu looked up from her phone, "e-mail?"

"Oh yes, it is a pity I couldn't bring it with me. I really wanted to show..." but before Mishti could complete her sentence, Kuhu sprung up and sprinted to her bag pack. She pulled out her sleek MacBook Air and started typing frantically. 

"What happened Kuhu?"

"Mishti, wait..." Then her eyes found something elated her, "I got in."

"You got what?" Mishti pretended.

"I got in to my dream company." Kuhu's friend Alexandra had once taken her to the Events Company that arranged all kinds of fancy evenings.  The workplace was filled with quirky furniture. The entire place matched Kuhu's frequency- loud and classy yet quirky too. It was her dream to own an Events Company and work at a large scale, but she needed to intern and she wanted it to it in this company only.  

"Wow Kuhu!" Mishti sprung up with excitement and stood by her sister, " I can't believe it, I'm soooo proud of you!" She hugged her sister, "You have the personality for it, I know!"  She wiped her sister's tears and got on her knees "Hashtag tears of happiness, right?"

Kuhu nodded. "Only if I had waited," her voice choked, "and checked my mails." 

"Kuhu you accomplished this because of your merit and your kuhuness."

 Rubbing her back and comforting her, "I'm sure there is something even better for you." Mishti assured her.

Kuhu shrugged in response. A tear escaped her eye. "I've gone through nearly ten companies in the last three days, they didn't have the same feel nor do they want to hire someone." Feeling defeated, she read the rest of the mail. 

"Kuhu, we will keep trying?"

"We?" Kuhu looked up. She had tears in her eyes, but now she was baffled. Mishti was kind, but she never liked Mishti. Only if Mishti wasn't her sister, she might have been friends with her, even best friend. But because Mishti was a sister, the person whom she had to share her family with and everything she ever had, she never learnt to come in terms with the fact. As hard it must have been for Mishti to adjust in a new family, away from her parents, it was hard for Kuhu too to be left by the only family she ever knew for the first  six years of her life. Her biological mother had died and she was sent in to live with her biological father, who was not only married to another woman but also had a daughter of his own. Making her own space in this family had been difficult, very difficult for a six year old to comprehend the complexities of a family. And by the time, she had been accepted and welcomed as a family member, a new child was added, in fact adopted by her grandparents. She had to share everything with Mishti. Mishti was always a kind and generous girl, she was humble and down to earth, the traits that Kuhu admired in people, but she was also the same girl whom she had to share everything. As she grew older, she could feel her family comparing the two girls and she could feel that the family was proud of one adopted daughter than the other. 

"You and me!I will help you find a good job!" Mishti spoke and her eyes pleaded, "Trust me." As the words penetrated in her mind, Trust is earned when actions meet words, she was more determined to build her relationship with her sister. She will ensure that she is the best sister Kuhu could ever ask for. 

Kuhu finally spoke, "You were right. After living away from family for two years, now living with them again is going to be different. Everyone in our family works. Now you have an internship too, what am I going to do home alone? Earlier, I thought you and I will just hang out with our school friends, perhaps go on a trip or two, just enjoy our time in India." Kuhu lowered her head and sighed, "Our family must be thinking that one daughter is ambitious and the other..."

"Kuhu, the family doesn't think like that!"

"I feel miserable. I accomplished something and now because of my rushed decision, I ruined the opportunity to make my family proud. I feel suffocated Mishti, I want to work, anything. I need to get out of the house, anywhere, all day,  for five days a week."

Mishti paced the room to think of a way to help her sister. Kuhu rested her cheek on the cold table and picked up a rubix's cube to calm herself down.  Just as the rubix's cube was solved,  Mishti exclaimed in excitement, "Asha Foundation!" 

"Asha Foundation?" Kuhu looked up at her with bewilderment. 

"It's an NGO here in Rajkot. I read about it in the newspaper," Mishti explained. "We could see if they want to hire you, if that doesn't work out, you can volunteer. Meanwhile, we will keep sending applications to companies, within a month, I'm sure you will find a company worth going to."

"An NGO?"

"Anything right now, right?"  Mishti asked.

Kuhu nodded, "Anything."

"At this time, I feel an NGO will be the fastest to reply. They won't say no to volunteers." Mishti spoke up. 

"Volunteers? Will you also?" Kuhu asked her sister. 

Mishti was excited again,"I want to, I did from the beginning, but because of Badi Maa I thought ..." Mishti  looked at her sister's crestfallen face, "No actually I won't. I won't have the time." She calmed her exhilaration.

"Okay, lets give it a try." Kuhu found the contact information on the internet and within a few seconds, she was talking to a lady, who informed her that there were no positions vacant for a job but she could volunteer.  Kuhu was informed to come to the NGO and fill up a form. The founder would take a quick interview and then document verification. If all goes well,  the volunteer is registered officially.   Within ten minutes, Kuhu out of the house, with her black michael kors  bag on her shoulder. By then all the cars had vanished from the front and Badi Maa had also left uninformed.  Mishti thought not to complex things by asking the adults, but her curious mind was anxious to know if her family was actually hiding something she should know about. Mishti grabbed some slices of watermelon and headed to her room to read the rest of the book.

Kuhu reached the NGO and filled the elaborate form.  Then the lady directed her to the office of the founder.  When she entered the office, she saw many paintings in all corners. Mishti had informed her that the NGO did art exhibitions and the money received from these art exhibitions were put in place for the NGO's fund. The room was filled with paintings, it was lovely decorated by art work done by kids and there were plants everywhere. The use of all colors of the rainbow made the entire space vibrant.  She admired the painting in front of her, it was a painting of a night view of a lake, in the foreground was a tent which was decorated with white light and ornaments. 

Then came a slight sound of the shutter of the camera along with a flash that startled her and she lost her balance and knocked the paint palette, splashing all the paint from it on the canvas in front of it.   "What the," she turned to the direction of the flash. 

"I'm so sorry for startling you. I was just taking a photo."  A hand quickly came to pull her back to her  feet. She looked at a man, who had a worried look pasted on his face, his hair in a ponytail, that tied his neck length hair into a more clean look. He was wearing a blue v-neck shirt and grey denims. She pulled her hand out of his grip, "I'm sorry about the canvas." She looked at the paint splattered at the painting she was admiring just seconds ago. 

"It's okay." The man spoke kindly, "It brings a few feel to the painting. It's art." 

Kuhu wiped the paint off her the back of her left handand picked her bag up which too had been sprayed by tiny droplets of paint. She pulled out a tissue and swiftly cleaned her expensive purse before the color stained it for ever. "I'm looking for the founder of the NGO," she spoke annoyed at the man.

"Oh!" The young man held his hand out. "That would be me." She shook the hand and felt a tickle. His hands were cold against her warm ones. "I'm Abir and your name is?"

"Kuhu..." She replied, "Kuhu Maheshwari."

She sat down in front of his desk and he took a seat front of her. As he sorted the pile of photos and put them at the corner of the table,  "How may I help you?" 

Though Kuhu was still mad because some paint droplets had smeared her bag and refused to wipe off, her poor very expensive bag. She spoke finally, "I wanted to  join the NGO as a volunteer." Kuhu finally said," I have some free time at my disposal as it is my summer vacation."

Abir looked at her and smiled,  "What are you studying?"

"International Hospitality Business but I'm more interested in Event Management."

"Bachelors?" 

"Yes, second year just ended a week back."

" Then why an NGO?" Abir asked unconvinced.

Kuhu stuttered a bit, she wasn't ready for an answer and then she thought of Mishti. What would have Mishti replied but that too didn't give her any help and she finally spoke , "I wanted to join a company that would pay we well and would be good work experience for me. I got in one that I really wanted to be part of, but it's in London and I'm in Rajkot. I want to keep myself busy and make this vacation a productive one.  I want to do new things in life and working in NGO definitely is going to be a new experience." She had been honest and she felt good about it. 

Abir asked some more questions and within five minutes, Kuhu was reading the agreement and her documents  were being scanned for records.  

"Welcome to the Team." Abir looked at Kuhu intently and explained anything that was left off. He was impressed by her honesty and though he never said no to volunteers, he definitely felt she had the potential to be useful for the NGO and be an asset that  he was looking for long.  She apologized for the painting she had ruined and got out of the NGO quickly so that she could tell her family the good news.  

When Kuhu left, Abir separated the photos he had on his desk into categories and put them in separate folders .  He cleared his table and looked at his to-do-list. He had accomplished everything he had planned for today. Satisfied,  he then moved to his favorite spot in his office,  a column that faced the big window, which had a view to the nursery.  He propped down his bean bag against the column and pulled out a red faux-leather book from his back pack.  He looked at the first page and smiled,  traced his thumb and felt the imprint. There was a sketch of a family of eight with a blue ball pen. Though the sketch didn't help identify anyone, Abir looked at the scribble at the corner of the page, he whispered the words,  "Property of Mishti."

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