" You have been told to come down for breakfast by Maiya did,” intoned Ranu.Her eyes still wandered around the room which held much too much things that proved to be of enthrallment. Ranu’s eyes lingered a while on the pink wispy ,voluminous party dress hanging on the wardrobe. "Maiya can’t tell me what to do!She is not the boss of me. I want strawberry ice-cream if the Dairy has any today. And some Horlicks without any water in a bowl. Go on..get it. Mamu said you are to do as I tell you .Or Else You Get Sent Back!” she said with a smirk. At that ,Ranu stood on attention.Her eyes back on her cousin,“You mean to say,I could go back home?” Several vocal matches had ensued in Ranu’s Kaka’s family. Kaki had even roped in her own Ama to debate the issue. Ama had argued long and hard against the idea of bringing a hillybilly child and raising it as their own. But Kaka had been adamant this time.He had never really looked back since he had enlisted in the Bristish Gurkha Regiment. Letters had flown back and forth in the first few months while he had been undergoing Recruit Training. He had been but a boy of only 15 who had forged a BC which stated him as being 18 along with hundreds of others.Amongst themseleves,they had shared the most amazing camaraderie and egged one another on as they faced difficulties and challenges. At night ,when the lights went off, and the Guruji in question bade them goodnight in a mildly vulgar Paltane fashion,the boys would weep.They missed being in the hills.Where they had not always had a full stomach or shoes to wear but had a sense of belonging and people to inquire after their well-being and that of their entire family. And sometimes their cattle’s too.The flat English landscape failed to entice them .And when the day had come for them to pass out and be allocated to their respective platoons ,they had hugged fiercely and bawled .Promises were made to meet up and keep in touch. But then Life happens and everyone knows what happens when that happens. He had been miserly with his income at first. Spending only when he absolutely had to and remitting the rest home. Back home, they kept asking for more and more. Father would urgently need money for an operation ,Thulo Dai would need to buy a new plot of land since their ancestral land had over time started producing lesser and lesser crop of quality as well as quantity. Maili dai’s third and fourth daughter needed to get married. Kaila bhai needed to go overseas to earn better money and the agent would be extorting a princely sum. It was endless. One day,he just stopped. He had gone back once and found himself holding everything in distaste. Everything had stank of poverty. He had never since gone back nor kept in touch save for the occasional amount of money during Dashain. Ranu was suddenly filled with utmost hope. It seemed to her as if returning home would not be a feat at all. In her mind she could already see her decrepit two-storey home, a thin thread of smoke tracing a path into the sky out of the chimney. The fire had to be watched and kept burning or Hajoor Ba would whine about the cold. And Syani , crouched in the front part of house,her stones all around her in various orders. She could even hear her baby brother mewling and her arms ached to hold him. “Go! Go now!” the cousin screeched. Ranu roused herself back to the place she was in,loathe to break up her image she had seen with so much clarity. She had even been able to get a whiff of woodsmoke. Here they used a gas stove and it had scared her a little.When she had been told by Maiya to fill the electrical thermos with water,Ranu had asked for direction to the nearest river. They had laughed uncontrollably at her and only after the laughter had ceased ,showed her the tap at the kitchen sink. She trudged back the long passage to the kitchen and was met by Maiya who cursed as she set aside the breakfast she had already prepared. “ I pray to God that the rotten child has worms in her stomach.Her mom cares less what she eats anyway.Let me get a tray for the ice-cream and Horlicks.” And as she bustled around the kitchen,Maiya complained. "You know,your Kaki is away at her Fitness Club the whole morning and then she gets home and dresses to nines for her kitty party and gets home only after your cousin is asleep! It is no wonder that the child is as rotten as she is. There is no one to take her in hand!” Maiya finished this in one exhalation. Maiya had been working at this particular household for over a year and had been appalled to see the way her employers squandered their money and yet proved to be tight-fisted when it came to paying their help.They failed to pay her and the grocery store owner on time .And sure,Maiya had been guilty once or twice of doctoring the accounts but Kaki had always managed to dock it off from her pay.Maiya was actually saving to get married with her boyfriend of over 2 years. If her present employers had instead been anything like her previous ones she would have saved enough by the end of the year. Glumly she thought of how Kaki could add and subtract figures in her head with such speed it astonished her.It probably had to do with her spending so much time playing cards ofcourse. And the fact that she was one of the most prominent money-lenders in he city of Pokhara. Maiya grumbled on and let Ranu take the tray instead.”Bring it back when she is finished hai !” she warned. Ranu did not much like the look of the food in the glass dishes .She took a lick on the way to the room and spluttered .The ice-cream was colder than the river water in winter.and sweet! She pinched a bit of the Horlicks and stuck out her tongue to take it in….and hated how it spread sweetness inside the whole of her mouth.She was glad she had better fare. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- School year resumed and Ranu felt resplendent in her new uniform.Maiya had taken them to Chiple Dungha for shopping under Kaka’s orders and bought school supplies.New shoes! New socks,several pairs in fact. Maiya was also under strict orders to buy Ranu some clothes as she had arrived with only two worn out dresses .This embarrassed Kaka greatly but Kaki even more.They had tried to get their daughter to pass down some of her smaller clothings but had been met with outright refusal. And thus not long after she had come to live with her Kaka ,Kaki’s friends had come for lunch and Ranu had ben helping in the kitchen.Scurrying to and fro ,laying the table and carrying dishes and dishes of food.One friend in particular had been startled at the resemblance Ranu shared with her Kaka and they had all remarked upon it. “O ho, the genes on your husband’s side is sure very strong…the fair colouring ,the same eyes,the same forehead,even the cleft in the chin!” they cackled. Just then ,in strode the daughter of the house.She was a beautiful child,who was doted upon by her grandparents if not her parents when they could.and she had on a new dress only recently gifted to her by her uncle on her mom’s side from Hong Kong. And although no one said a word,Kaki felt it.They had looked at the two children and seen extreme similarities and yet not. She had felt profoundly embarrassed and a measure of unreasonable anger towards the child so that later she would push her roughly when she walked past her niece. And now there they were at school. Both in the same class since Ranu had a lot of catching up to do. A certain amount of money had exchanged hands to get the girls in this particular school , but ofcourse it was a matter of prestige! In a way it was Kaka’s way of redeeming himself in the eyes of their relatives , for Pokhara is a small city and family secrets could hardly be expected to kept as such. He had been for some time the whipping boy for inattentive ,unfilial sons. The barbs and satire had not gone unnoticed. Ranu was a price he paid not wholly out of his heart but willingly nevertheless. The school building itself seemed monstrously huge to Ranu. She had inquired about tiffin with Maiya. “ I always took some makai-bhatmas to school. I get hungry otherwise .” she had implored . Maiya had laughed at this. And had proceeded to tell her about food being served at school at lunchtime. Lessons had been an eye opener in the truest sense for Ranu. The Math teacher had praised Ranu when she had done well in her mental sums. And her multiplications. He had used picures and stories to explain the different aspects of the sums. But best of all had been English period when an attractive sari-clad lady walked in. “Good morning ,children! You may call me Miss Anju. Today we will not be having any lessons,instead I will tell you a story about a mouse and a fairy.” And all the time Miss Amju had been telling the story,Ranu had wondered at the atrocity of a talking mouse and a so called fairy who would wait until the last moment to arrive. She had loved how beautifully Miss Anju spoke and wished her teacher would notice her.So she raised her hand towards the end of the story and said” But Miss,you are lying.Mice do not talk. We have a lot of mice in our village. They are troublesome creatures and not affable at all!” Two red spots appeared on Miss Anju’s cheeks. A minute later Ranu was standing in a corner while the story went on. They were picked up by Maiya who looked unusually grave.She loved being out otherwise,answering to catcalls,giggling at something the shopkeepers said or did. Ranu and her cousin was not told anything however. When they got home, Ranu saw some bags all packed. She was met by Kaki. “Your Hajoor Ba has passed away.He had been sick for some time now. Kaka is going away in an hour so you may write a letter to your family if you want.”she sniffed.Her eyes were red rimmed.Not because she felt for her father-in-law but because her husband had tried to get her to accompany him to his village home. And being the person she was ,she was not aware that Ranu was almost illiterate. Recognising only a few of the English alphabets and some of the nepali ones. Ranu stood stock still.Hajoor Ba had been a merry man when he was drunk or not. After his accident too,he did not complain as much as he could have except when the fire went out. A strong wave of homesickness ran through her. “Could I please go too?” she begged. Her Kaka had at that moment stepped out to make a call to take care of his busisness while he was away. It was a long walk to his village after all. Four hours by bus and nearly three days worth of trek for the fit. Kaka with his belly hanging over his belt would probably take four. “No,Ranu….”her Kaki started.But was interrupted by husband, “ Get Maiya didi to pack your things.” Ranu ran to the kitchen and nearly bursting with excitement told Maiya. Maiya rolled her eyes ,thinking of the increased workload once again. They had let go of the smaller girls who helped around the house. An argument had started once again in the living room. Ranu went to her room.Gathering her meager belongings, her heart filled with yearning. A shadow fell across the floor,she looked up to see her cousin. She held her hands behind her back. “Will you come back?” she asked. Careful to sound as if she cared little. They had over the past two months become like sisters. Ranu had been as patient with her cousin as she used to with her sister Syani. And she had gently won her over with her tales of the mountains and hills .Of how they swam in the rivers in the summer and fished so that their stomachs were fuller than it had been over the winter. Of the fireflies they caught at sundown and put in glass jars. Or the mudfights they had after planting rice,in the ricefields. Ranu had told her cousin of the countless wonders that filled the surrouding areas .Of things which would amaze which did not depend on being connected to an electrical socket or included inserting batteries.And Ranu had listened too,with the great wisdom some children are apt to have. "Ofcourse I will come back ,Apekchya!:I just need to see my family and be there for my Hajoor Ba’s last rites .You can be so silly sometimes Apoo.” She looked at her distraught cousin. She bent down to pack her slippers and when she straightened up ,her cousin had gone. Ranu was not surpised at her cousin’s gloom…she had lived a rather lonely life before she had come to stay. She mused for a while on how Apoo would live in her village.It was a laughable image.Ranu was almost shaking with excitement now. All she had left to do was to bring her bedsheet out for laundry. She saw an object lying at the end of her bed ,under the covers .Ranu threw it back. It was the music box.