(This is a guest author article.)

In our busy lives, though we know it, but we don't find time to realize how much we love the ones closest to us; Our parents and siblings. The past Tuesday, I realized it pretty strongly!

I go to college from 9 AM to 5 PM daily. Tuesday is pretty hectic because of 4 continuous lectures of 'Engineering Drawings' right after the lunch break. I must confess, thinking about it alone, makes me dizzy. This time the home work sheets were incomplete with most of the class so we planned a mass bunk. I left the college just after the lunch break at 1.30 PM and was fast asleep at 2.15 PM, the time I found my bed. It wasn't before 7 PM that I woke up from a state of almost unconsciousness for I had never been so tired and had never slept that long during the day. I call this a state of unconsciousness for a reason that I'll bring out later in this post.

My brother, who is two years younger to me at 15, usually returns home (by the way, we stay alone in Chandigarh. He's here for taking coaching classes to prepare for engineering entrance exams two years later) after 8.30 PM from his classes, after leaving at 1 PM or so; the time when I am not home.

So… I woke up at 7 in the evening. The dim daylight was just as it is at 6-7 AM in the morning. With my half-opened eyes, I tried to find him in the bed. He was at the coaching center but I had not the slightest idea of it, thinking it was 7 in the morning. I opened my eyes wide to this nightmarish situation. I was sweating profusely, with my brain 'properly non-functional' and my heart beating hard and fast. I was more than worried and tensed that where might he be. My phone wasn't with me that day & I felt so helpless that I could not contact him. And such thoughts came to my mind; he might have come at his time and knocked madly at the door and I did not get up and open it to him. Maybe he left for some friend or anywhere else. I didn't know where. I never felt this miserable any moment, ever in my life.

I decided to go down (we live on the second floor) and ask from our landlord whether he had come or not or did he tell them where he was going for the night. As soon as I reached the ground floor, I saw the street crowded with people, children playing gully cricket, ladies gossiping and the landlord himself standing at the door with some local men discussing the trends in share market and dirty Indian politics. Ah! This couldn't be 7 AM i thought. I asked my landlord what the time was giving an excuse that my wrist watch had run out of battery. "Its 19:15 son."

And I had almost crashed down the staircase with relief holding my head. Phew! It felt lighter than before.

In 15 minutes I realized how much I loved and missed my brother!