Chapter 2

                                    

                                          


                          
BARKHA
                          
My name means rain. Ma named me. I don't really like my name, but I like the meaning. So it pissed me off when they messed up my name again at the emigration point at the airport. 
                          
"It's Barkha," Mahesh uncle said behind me, to help out the staff. The staff started verifying my visa. I had a visiting visa for now. But uncle was going to get me a student visa soon. While waiting I stared at the red hoy string that Ma had tied on to my wrist a few days before the accident. I had fought with her that I did not really believe in all these superstitions. Wanted to take that red string off my hand. But I wore it for Ma's sake. Now... I wiped my tears as we exited the airport. I was stepping my foot in a foreign country for the first time. 
                          
"You okay, Barkha beta?" Mahesh uncle asked me. 
                          
"Yeah..." I said. 
                          
Yeah, sure. I am okay. I am halfway across the world from my home. My parents are dead and I am going to live in the house with total strangers. Well, to be honest, Mahesh uncle is not a total stranger. But his family is. The last time I saw his wife and son was when I was twelve. And I was not even that close with them. 
                          
My life had changed so much in the past two months. Everything was really difficult to hold in. Yet I liked to pretend that I am okay. 
                          
"The weather is nice here," I told Mahesh uncle. "I expected America to be cold." 
                          
"LA is on the warmer side." He said. "Come. Let's go home."
                          
Home... The word stayed in my mind. I still could not accept his home as my home. I really did not have a home anymore... "Sure," I smiled at him. 
                          
Mahesh uncle's wife, Ganga aunty was waiting for me at 'home'. It was a working day. So their son was at school. Aunty was very welcoming. 
                          
"You look exactly as I remember, Barkha," She told me. She means I am still fat. I was. Fat. Not too much. Just a bit. But I was really fat compared to Ganga aunty who was a bit too slim. She was size zero. And beautiful with a brown complexion. "I am extremely sorry about your parents, beta." She said, hugging me. "You poor child." This was what I was hearing ever since the accident. I hated it, but I learned not to react to it. 
                          
As she left me, I looked around the house. The house was neat and nice. They had a living room, kitchen, dining area and what seemed to be a bedroom on the ground floor. Some stairs led upstairs.
                          
"You must have had a tiring flight," Ganga aunty told me. 
                          
"No. It was alright." I said. It was horrible. It was my first time getting on a flight and I was getting so much cabin sick. 
                          
"Would you like to eat something first, or see your room?" Aunty went on. "It's upstairs." I would really like to see the room. 
                          
She led me upstairs, There was a lounging area and two rooms. One room had a big poster on it of John Lenon. Aunty opened the door next to it and lead me to my new room. "I have decorated it for you," she said. "I did not know what teenage girls like, so..." everything was of a pastel shade. Too much baby pink, baby blue and white. It looked like a mix of marshmallows and cotton candy. 
                          
"Do you like it?" She asked me with so eagerness. 
                          
"Yes," I said. "It's perfect."
                          
"Great." She smiled. "But there is one thing though. The bathroom is there." She pointed to a door that is on the opposite side of the lounging area. "You would have to share it with my son. Would that be okay?"
                          
Sharing a bathroom with a teenage boy? 
                          
"I will make sure he keeps it clean." She added. "I mean, Samay is usually a really clean boy. So you would have nothing to worry about."