17th was bitterly cold. A little girl was running madly up a steep hilly road. Dark
clouds ominously rolled in the sky. 17th was dark. She ran madly, stumbled on a stone,
fell and cut her elbow. She laughed, but quickly shook her head, picked her shivering self
up and ran faster, faster. Over and over. There was nobody around but she ran madly. The
clouds chased her. 17th was cloudy. I couldn’t help, clouds were in the way. Tears blew
off her face. Over and over. The wind wanted revenge. It picked up dead leaves and
flowers and blew them onto her face. They won-the clouds, they embraced her and she
was wet. 17th was stormy. The blinding dust hit her like needles. Holding something cold
and green she ran madly. She often turned her face away to avoid it- the dust. A yellow
butterfly came under her feet. Her house was near, just dipping below the horizon. Little
things die so easily and forever. So she ran holding cold and green. It would have died
anyway because 17th was bitterly cold, dark, cloudy, stormy. So she ran. The butterfly-
besides it was a little thing….

It’s so cold where am I? -Oh-must have dozed off on this park bench. It’s
getting dark, I better go home soon, it’s going to rain today. The dream- I dream it often.
You may not like to hear it, dreams of a loner, but come home with me, I’ll tell you. For
that you’ll have to go back with me to the winter of 58 (nineteen silent) almost forty
years ago, when I was a little girl of eleven; the one in the dream; and we had come to
this little hilly town about six months ago when my father got transferred here from
Calcutta.

I was not really the social type, so missed few old friends .In fact when I was six
years younger I overheard the doctor tell my parents not to expect much from me, for I
had a wonderfully low IQ and-well many other things I can’t remember. I do remember,
however, that everyone said I was the sweetest child with the bonniest smile, ‘Rupali’-
that’s what they called me for short-have I told you that before?

Anyway, I loved my new home. However, when I quietly roamed the hilly terrain,
watching the wind blow everything around, rhyming to myself, somehow my parents
thought I was feeling lonely. So one fine day, my father bought me a parrot that was
warm and green. I thought of a name no more common than ‘Polly’ and put a red ink
mark on her neck. And my name-no I’ve told you that -. So when I roamed about the hills
with Polly’s cage in my left hand, somehow my parents thought I was not lonely. Days,
weeks and months slipped away, as was their old habit-though I used to weep quite often.
Days, weeks and months slipped by with everyone thinking I was sad, so they tried to
comfort me with words, which stopped whenever I looked up at them and smiled.