The story begins from here…

I wasn’t able to comprehend why people were grief stricken and mourning. Koka rested in his bed, he was motionless and everyone paid their tributes by offering him flowers. Seeing this, I too ran outside and plucked a few flowers. I squirmed through the horde of people who made it quite impossible for me to go near the bed where Koka was resting with his eyes shut. I did manage to approach near Koka and like everyone else I too put the flowers on his body. Seeing this Aita went into hysteria and wept inconsolably. After some hours had passed and as the number of people augmented soon Koka was taken outside. I saw a Pandit chanting some verses and Dity was repeating those. I was more shocked to see Dity not in his usual attire but in dhoti and just sador. Things were happening too fast and too soon and no one seemed to have time for me to explain what was going on. Soon Koka was transferred to a sangi and he was carried away.

Everything happened in such a jiffy that I tried not to get too much into it. I thought once the people wouldleave us alone I’d ask Maa or Dity what actually was happening. But I never got a chance.
All that followed for the rest 15 days made me realize that Koka would never come back again. I could not see him nor talk to him ever. But why? No one had an answer to this.

Dity had shaved his head and the first time I saw him I gave a sharp cry! I didn’t like him this way. I wanted my Dity to be the way he was always – denim clad or in shorts or in kurta pajamas, not someone wearing dhotis and that too with his head shaved!

Soon the mourning days passed over. Things were back to normal –How much I missed my bed! (I had a bed to myself which Koka named it as “xoru khat”. It was basically a type of “charpoy”)

But something went terribly missing from our home. Something snapped. Something went wrong and all of a sudden happiness which was always around, now seemed to come in small packages.

But well, I had another set of Aita & Koka too…. So I knew at least there were people I could bank upon… and every summer I looked eagerly for my one month Shillong vacations….