Hi guys! Did my timely update surprise you all? Well, I am surprised as well. Hope you will like reading this chapter.

"This is where we will be living from now. I am leaving for office, I will be back in the evening," Daddy said and left for office. Mummy and I stared at the mountain of items in front of us. I wiped the sweat dripping from my forehead and sighed. In some time, Mummy had managed to find some utensils to cook instant noodles. After eating it, she found a rolled cotton bed lying in the corner of the room. She took a broom, swept a portion of floor, laid out an old bedsheet, rolled out the bed and covered it with new bedsheet. She didn't have to pat me to make me sleep, I was already feeling sleepy.

That's when, in my sleep, I saw the sequence of things that played out. Apparently, I had exams where I was supposed to write alphabets, words and colouring the objects. After the exam, I was taken to school because Ammamma and Mummy had some work to do. Lest did I know that it was for my school leaving certificate. The school took it's time for Mummy decided that the reason for leaving the school was my class teacher.

Hence, every time we went there, I was questioned. I had mostly the same reply, "She would always scold me even if I didn't do any mis-mis-mistake. She has hit me on my birthday."

At first, I didn't feel like recreating those incidents but on Ammamma's insistence I did. She had explained, "Look Anu, you're not telling any lies. Neither are we forcing you to tell a story. We just want you to tell the principal what had happened."

So, I told. Again and again, I reiterated until my class teacher was summoned. Looking at her anger filled eyes, I grabbed Mummy's hand. That reaction was pointed out by Ammamma. We were quickly given the certificate. After that, we walked for a long distance until a big building appeared, with big red boxes. Mummy pointed at them and said, "Anu, we are in post office and those are post boxes. I know you must be hungry but we must post this to Daddy urgently."

I felt my stomach was twisting. I opened my eyes, feeling the same twisting in my stomach. After rubbing my eyes, I called Mummy as I wandered. She called me in response. I peeped inside the kitchen and found it to be less shabby. In fact, it looked like kitchen. On the stove, I saw two vessels. The pressure cooker seemed like it was about to burst, so I ran away. Out of the pile, I found an old dusty book. When I turned the pages, I found only one drawing.

It had a man, cutting the tree with an axe. I quickly ran to kitchen, only to get frightened by the loud whistle of cooker. I clutched Mummy's legs, making her unable to move.

She cried, "Anu! Leave my legs!"

I did as soon as it stopped whistling. Seeing her turning off the stove knob gave me a relief that it will not whistle again. I pointed towards my tummy and stated, "Anu hungry."

"Of course, just give me ten minutes, both sambhar and rice will be done by then," she requested. Then she started rotating her shoulders. "Mummy pain?" I asked.

She nodded. I can't do anything to shoo her pain. . . Oh! I can do that! Closing my fist, I started circling it in air a few times and as if throwing something, I opened my fist to scream, "All Mummy pain, shoo!"

She started laughing to which I smiled back. We ate a lunch in a dusty kitchen. Of course, before that I threw a tantrum to eat while watching television but Mummy asked if it was actually working. To my utter horror, it wasn't. Then I cried for some more time when she scolded me. I quietly sat and eat. That made me focus my attention towards the food. It made me realise that this activity increased my dislike towards sambhar. I could literally see my plate filled with vegetables.

Then a portion of curd rice was fed to me. Instantly, I was feeling sleepy. When Mummy finished cleaning the dishes, I was already lying on rolled out cotton bed. She asked, "Are you sleepy again?"

I nodded. She sighed, "Life of kids is so easy."

What does that mean? We both snuggled inside a bedsheet only for me to kick after a few minutes. I had already started sweating. Mummy didn't seem like she was bothered. It took us a few days to make the dusty house look like a neat one. In between this, Mummy and I had gone to a school. If I remember it right, it was something called Adarsh Anglo Vidyalaya Public School. Phew! What a long name!

There, in a noisy classroom, I was made to sit next to a crying kid. We were given a sheet of paper and we were instructed to write the answers. The exam looked similar to the exam I wrote in Baby Sona High School. There were alphabets for which I had to match the objects, colour some of them and. . . I don't remember. It looked easy-peasy. When I told Mummy the same, she was so happy that we quickly went to a nearest phone booth to call Daddy. He was informed the same. That night Daddy got some vada pavs.

Since I had already eaten my dinner, I forcefully ate it. Mummy looked at me suspiciously. Sure enough, that night I ended up vomiting everything I had eaten for dinner. Looking at it made me feel like throwing up again. So, I snuggled inside Daddy's thin bedsheet. I felt extremely sad as Mummy had clean that awful thing. Mummy's grumbling had woken up Daddy but he just patted my head. Why doesn't he clean it? I had slowly drifted to sleep.

When the whole house was set up properly, Mummy had some spare time. It meant I would get some time to play outside the house. I was happy. Today, was the first day I would go out to play. Mummy held my hand and we walked down the stairs. There was a strange room that would go up and down if we pressed the buttons correctly. But Mummy said stairs was healthier. What does that mean?

Upon reaching the ground, I saw two groups of kids playing – one group were quite older than me, other being my age. I felt my heart beating faster, I didn't know this feeling was called nervousness. Mummy made the general introductions and I was promptly taken into my age group cluster. We played many games like langdi, chuppam-chuppai and pakadam-pakadai.

After playing all these games I realised two things. Firstly, I was dead tired. Secondly, I was extremely slow in running. Due to this, once I was caught in pakadam-pakadai, I was the den for a long time. At that time, I prayed to Ishwara, the name which Ammamma keeps praying to, to help me in some way, otherwise my tired legs will give away. I never expected my wish to be granted so easily for a huge lorry came inside the building. Mummy, who was about to leave, stood there.

From that lorry, a woman, four men, a girl and a boy got down. I could see lots of things inside the lorry. The girl suddenly clutched her mother's leg and started crying. Mummy went to enquire and soon brought that girl with her. In our group, there was an additional entry. Her name was Manvi. It was decided that I would continue to be den. Maybe, even Ishwara couldn't do anything. While playing the game, I realised that Manvi was slower than me. So, this was the way of answering my prayers. Soon enough, Manvi was caught and I became free from this den business.

Now, Manvi had to catch any of us to be relieved from the den position. The person she catches would be the next den. The person she catches was important and I certainly didn't want to expose my weakness to her. So, I started running even more swiftly. Honestly, my legs pained but it was worth it. While playing the game, I noticed one thing – once I was sure that some person is fast, I wouldn't go behind them. Yeah, it took me quite a lot of time to grasp this otherwise I would have caught someone.

Manvi understood that I am one of the fast people for she didn't run behind me for long. Imagine, someone considered me as fast. I wanted to chuckle but I was out of breath. I saw Mummy signalling that she will be going upstairs to cook dinner. We played the game for a long time. Honestly, I pitied that she was den for a long time. I considered being caught so that she could enjoy too. But my legs weren't ready for it.

What Manvi did was out my thoughts! She bent down as if to tie her shoes. She collected a fistful of sand which I hadn't noticed. Some of them noticed for they started yelling at her. But in that flash of moment, she hurled the sand towards my face and it went inside my eyes. I started rubbing my eyes when I felt a jolt on my back, followed by a scream, "Out!"

Seriously! That slap on my back was so powerful that I started crying. I felt a pair of hands touching my hands and advised, "Don't rub it. It will pain even more. Tell me where your flat is, I will drop you."

"301, 3rd floor," I replied. Mummy was not ready to take me down to play until I had told her perfectly. That girl took me through stairs to my house or what people here called flat. When Mummy opened the door, she must have been aghast but she had more important questions.

"Kisne kiya? Tell me," she demanded.

The girl replied, "That new girl. . ."

"Manvi?"

"Haa aunty, she did it."

Had I not cried more loudly, Mummy would have asked more questions. While washing my face, I gave her the complete details of what happened. Mummy muttered, "I shouldn't have pitied her."

That's when I realised, I was hungry. Mummy fed me the dinner. Climbing on the divan in the living room, I burped and giggled. I was looking outside the window when I saw Daddy's scooter coming in. I screamed, "Daddy! Daddy!"

But he didn't look up which made me sad. After a few moments, I saw the door lock turning. Before he could enter, I jumped from the divan, squealing, "Daddy!"

I hugged his legs after which he lifted me. He asked, "Did Anu eat her dinner?"

I nodded. "Good girl!"

It was decided that Mummy and Daddy will finish their dinners so that we would go out. Soon, we were on the scooter, gentle breeze hitting my face. Then, we reached a shop that was super crowded. Daddy said, "Since I got my salary, I thought why don't we buy some house items from this newly inaugurated shop."

Mummy eyed him suspiciously. "Who told you about this?"

"Ha! I am a smart person. While driving back home, I saw this crowd. I stopped the bike near footpath and asked some person who informed me. He said there are some good discounts."

She slowly nodded her head. I looked at the crowd and held Daddy's hand tightly. Near the food grains section, I saw a familiar face. That's Manvi! I jerked Daddy's hand and pointed towards Manvi, "Daddy! She's in our building."

He reprimanded, "Anu, don't point out the finger."

By the time I pulled my finger into my fist, Manvi's mother had seen me. She came near us to enquire. "What happened?"

Mummy replied, "Nothing serious. Anika was telling that Manvi lives in the same building."

"Oh I see! Actually, my Manvi is very naughty so I thought she did some mischief."

"Nothing like that."

All this while, I saw Manvi hiding behind her father. Since Daddy looked little upset, I explained to him the whole incident. He pondered, "No wonder she was hiding behind her father. But Anu, you mustn't point at people like that."

"Then how will you come to know who I am talking about?"

"Just describe it. Like you could have told, Daddy the girl wearing purple shirt with a hairband lives in my building. Simple, isn't it?"

I nodded. While coming back, I looked at the building gate. I never knew that the building will be treasurer of some of my bittersweet memories.

Thank you for reading!