Hope

The Arrival

In order to talk about their arrival I must first tell you about how I got to know about all of this in the first place.

I was really close to my grandmother (the step grandmother of course, since I never got to meet my real one), because she'd always keep me by her side. I had only remember her being there for me, teaching me new activities, making me creative in every aspect of my life, filling my head with dreams and aspirations and making sure that I will always be independent and bold enough to pursue my dreams. 

Now you must be thinking that Amaira, from the first chapter we thought she's the bad guy? But this isn't what it looks like in this chapter, what's going on? Relax, she is anything but nice because she had many ulterior motives behind all of this, on which I will reflect some light later.

So one day, I come back from school, I was probably 8 years old at that time, when she just drops this bomb on me that she is my step grandmother. My first thought was that oh, that explains her ill behaviour towards my parents, and the discrimination between my uncle and my father, but I shoved those thoughts at the back of my head and said "cool". She was shocked to see such a plain response and couldn't believe how I didn't do any melodrama like in the movies, after they find out that they were adopted or something. She must have expected me to at least shed a tear or two after forging such strong bonds between the two of us, but to be honest, I really didn't care about this new piece of information. I knew that this information won't change the fact that she is still very much my grandmother, the one from whom I've learnt so much.

Anyway, so moving back, she described that how Vidhi and Vidhaan were her own children whereas Ishika, Rahul, Sanaya and Avika were her husband's. 

The day when they had arrived from the village, they apparently had no clothes to bring with them, which left me wondering if they used to just run around naked all day and how poor they must've been to not have any extra pair of clothes with them. According to her, all my aunt's hair were filled with lice, and the kids looked like they haven't had a shower in months.

The mental picture which is being painted in all your minds is probably the same as mine. It looked like I was watching a low budget film set in the 80s, where everyone was just so poor and the village livelihood was the only way of living, where kids would be covered in dirt, wearing tethered clothes, with dry hair, mud all over them, looking at a city man in wonder, that what must it feel like to sit in a car, or to own a cell-phone, or to live comfortably in a house made of bricks and mortar. 

She then continues to describe what happened for the next few days. She made them sit in the verandah, and gave them a shower, as if they weren't old enough to do so themselves, then she tried to fix the lice problem, which must have been very difficult since three head full of lice must be a lot to deal with, and then she sew clothes for all of them. Yep, she sew them herself. Which made me wonder, how big that piece of cloth must have been which enabled her to wrap my father and my aunts like a piece of furniture.

The days started to pass by, and my great grandfather had given an ultimatum to my grandfather that he better keep the kids well, or else there'll be consequences. What consequences exactly, I still wonder, but he agreed and my great grandfather also passed away in a few years.

Until then, my grandmother's first daughter had already been born, and according to her, my great grandfather loved her, and would scold everyone who would dare mess with her.

After he passed away, my grandmother had also given birth to a son, and he was the apple of my grandmother's eye because first of all he was the 'son', and second of all he was the youngest one in the family so naturally, he was expected to be given a prince like treatment. 

Amidst all of this, my grandfather got a job overseas, and decided to take up the offer which will take him away from all this madness, and would allow him to live in a house which wasn't this crowded.

Little did he know that it won't be as easy.