Back from India...

Peethambaran, my cycle rickshaw driver, used to take my hand and walk me to
the house, since the rickshaw couldn't get to the doorstep.
Just around the corner, I'd raise my eyes, and at the window, propped up by amma, she'd be
standing. I have never seen anyone get so excited to see me, ever. She'd
reach out both her hands, and with uncontrolled excitement, would
shout,"Bakka, Bakka!" - my dear little sister, Thulasi.

It really is fresh in my mind, still, even today, as I look at her,
standing poised in her wedding saree.

We'd had our share of fights. Sometimes I'd forget that I am older and
would hurt her. But then like all kids' fights, we'd always patch up in a
second.
She still was really small when we moved to vaniamkulam. Then sarojini amma
would accompany us to the bus stop, over the hill, about a kilometer away.
It was always a hurry, we almost never were on time, and sarojini amma
would sometimes half carry her along with the two bags.

Abudhabi schools had two different shifts, and slowly we began to see less
of each other. But then I used to take her to her music class, even though it was on the
next building, and then we'd catch up on the happenings of the day.
We used to go over to the park nearby on weekends and have rounds of dumb
charades.

When Satish ettan came over and stayed with us, on lookout for a job, we
wrote drama scripts from tinkle cartoons and played them with him. Oh! How
he was tortured.

After my 12th, I came back to India, and she stayed back. It was then that
I realized how much she was a part of my life. She too came back after 4
years and was in Vaniamkulam with ammamma. She had to travel to college by
bus, and she'd tell me about her friends in the bus, her favorite bus,
Kripa, and how she really hoped that she'd get into engineering college so
that she won't need to travel so far.
She was disappointed when she did not get through in the first round, but
then one day over the phone she breathlessly shouted about her being
selected. A wonderful moment.

There probably is never a dull moment in engineering college. When she
talked about Nitin, I really did not mind much, thinking it off as a
typical campus crush.
Amma and achan very much being against it. And once after a very silly
fight with them, she hugged me tightly and cried and cried. A moment when I
thought I hardly had started to know her.

Now, she stands posing for a photographer, on the stage with Nitin. She
looks upto him for a second, and ihe looks to her and I can see a look of
wonderful expectation and excitement.
And then, in a second that only I could catch, she looks at me and smiles-
Love you Thuchi!