I think it was 2014 when I first met you. I was sitting on the back seat of my car, surrounded by a lot of empty utensils and the family that was returning after finishing the last rituals of Durga Puja.

I met you for the first time that afternoon, I heard you for the first time that afternoon.

Yaadon ka Idiot Box with Neelesh Mishra was on air and you were being told like a tale, like reality.

It was a Durga Puja special programme and the story was about you, whose name I can't recall maybe because when it was being mentioned I didn't care enough for it.

Should I call you by a name I decide? Or will it destroy what we have? What I have?

You were a young boy in the story, an orphan for the world but it hurts me, stamping that identity on your face.

You were another Cinderella. You were mistreated and ignored.

You saw the world celebrating Durga Puja with the arrival of Maa and you clinged to the word Maa as none of us do.

There were many ladies in the Pandal but you felt proud that your mother was the prettiest. You spent day and night there, in the place where you had known your mother. You ate her Prasad, as if it was food made for you, by her.

And then, they took her away from you, without notice, on Dashmi.

I remember how I met your pain and I could never know how it was wrapped up.

I wonder, if you lost your innocence and the ability to believe in what you were told that day. Did you become an atheist or did you grow into a religious person? Did the twinkle of your eye live or it kept diminishing as the world kept unfolding its faces which are far from innocent truths.

I did try searching for you beyond the radio show.
And when I couldn't find you.
I see you every year as the mother goes back.

I can see you in the crowd of thousands. I can see you crying or maybe maturing into those who celebrate asking for a promise of the mother returning again, same time next year.

I don't know why I'm attached to you so.
I don't know why whenever Durga Puja arrives I think of you.
I don't know why I think of you when I trade a part of my innocence for wisdom to survive.

I see my innocence and faith in the good, leaving  my eyes, my face everyday and I think about how yours was traded without a warning, suddenly, with cruelty.

I think about you ...
I think about you a lot.