Blue, Black and Grey(ON HOLD)

Chapter 1

The first sound I remember hearing, is my sister's wail. I was around 4 and my sister was around 2, I've been told. I looked over to her only to find her clutching her stomach, lying on the dirty ground and wailing. She was hungry. I remember being hungry too. My stomach growled like a wild, angry beast. But looking at her, all thoughts of self preservation went away. I somehow picked her up and started walking. To my four year old shoulder, she was heavy as a boulder. But I kept on walking. I couldn't stop. If I did, I knew I won't be able to get up again. I walked up to a little slum a few blocks away. That seemed like kilometers to me at that time. I remember being so exhausted that I practically fainted at the door of one of the houses.

When i woke up, I found ourselves in a typical slum house. One room. Nothing else. But the lady sitting in front of us had kind eyes. She had bathed us and had dressed our previously naked bodies. I looked around to find my little sister drinking milk from a bottle. I thanked the lady for helping us. She just smiled and said, "No need for thanks. If I didn't help you, I'd die of shame and guilt."

Since then, she became our mother. She took care of us and fed us properly. We used to call her Amma . We used to make all sorts of unjustified childish requests and she used to do her best to satisfy us. She was a widow, we learnt that when I once asked her out of curiosity, "Amma, don't you have a husband? All the other women have husbands." She smiled a little and replied, "I had a husband. But he was so good, that God wanted him back. So he had to go back to heaven." "Oh.." Was all I could say. I was utterly confused at that time. She understood that yet said nothing. She just ruffled my hair and went to get ready to go for the housecleaning work she did at several houses. That's how she earned whatever she did, you see. She was a maid and she had to work all day long all seven days of the week to earn her living.