SURVIVAL - PART FOUR

WARNING:  READ PART ONE, TWO AND THREE FIRST

Just as the heavy clouds laden with snow loomed over their heads, reminder of a dismal winter ahead sat like a heavy burden.  Reshma nestled her sisters closer to shield them from the torturous wind that shrieked from the mountains.  The next morning, standing next to their angel was another woman.  With her body wrapped in a simple but clean sari, her face wearing a smile, she extended her arms towards them.  Before they could comprehend, all three of them found themselves sitting in a bus next to the sari-clad woman.  The bus took them to a bustling city with wide roads and flat land. Reshma remembered their bus drove past a huge gate in the shape of an arch.   From the bus, the woman carted them towards a three-wheeled scooter and they sat squished inside the noisy monster.  It stopped in front of their new home of another large gate.  This time they were led inside and taken to a spacious room lined with mattresses on the floor.  They heard sounds of children from the small window and Reshma caught sight of them playing outside.   Before they could join the playing children, they were carted towards a bathroom where they received haircuts and a thorough scrub down.  Dressed in clean clothes and full with fresh food, they settled in.  They met new children but couldn’t understand their strange language.  At first they stuck to each other and Reshma watched over her younger siblings, protecting them from the new, strange environment.  Hema, the more talkative one of the three began to venture out of her cocoon and began to make a few friends.  She quickly picked up Hindi and taught Guddi the new words.  Reshma eventually let her guard down slightly and started to absorb the new environment around her.  Soon the sisters adopted the new language and used it often.

It was the day before Guddi turned four; Reshma remembered that date well for that was also the date they lost their mother.  On that day, the sisters heard a commotion in the front yard and ran out to observe from the doorstep.  They had heard such commotions before as various adults walked through their home, gawked at the children, tried to smile and be friendly with them while keeping their distance.  It was also not unusual to see people with light hair or blue eyes like the ones in the compound on that day.  Hema and Guddi dashed out into the yard and joined the other children crowding around a tall man with brown hair and a small woman with blue eyes.  Their kind eyes smiled at all the children as they tried to follow the headmaster into his office.  Just as the woman was about to enter the building, she saw Guddi.  The woman bent her knee and came down to Guddi’s eye level to say hello.  Guddi took a step towards the woman and climbed onto her lap and started talking to her in Hindi.  Hema tried to pull her sister off and called her to get off but was ignored.  The woman intently listened and nodded her head as if she understood everything, all the time a warm smile pasted on her face.

To be continued…..