In the seven months till she saw him again

In the seven months till she saw him again,

 Meira had  turned 16, felt desperate to see him again,

 concocted stories in her head about his life,

 tried to innocently ask her mother about him

 to which she wasn’t very helpful apart from

 the obvious fact that he was in her MA class and a bright boy,

 tried to forget him because he had never come back 

to return more books of her mother's, figured out that

 he probably saw her as his proffessor’s daughter and nothing more,

 had her first kiss with a boy in her school who she felt

 was much prettier than her, then told him very guiltily 

that the kiss didn’t mean they were going out as he might

have assumed, devoured dozens of books, decided that life

 was meaningless and inherently unfair, castigated the books

 she read for making her see, think and feel more than 

was necessary for survival, sobbed a few nights into her

 pillow as she felt an acute pain in her heart at all the beauty 

and all the stupidity, punched a boy in school for calling 

her ‘chinki’, had been summoned to the principal’s office

 for her aggressive behaviour which had surprised everyone

 because she had been such a wonderful student, 

had always done well in school and hadn’t exhibited 

any antisocial behaviour till now, tried to bring up the fact 

that the boy had provoked her by using a derogatory term, 

her mother had been summoned, Naina was indignant that 

her daughter had to suffer because of a stupid ignorant boy,

 had fought on her daughter’s behalf but decided to brush up

 the matter because she didn’t want her daughter to be awarded

 a disciplinary action, Meira had cried her heart out

 on the way back, Naina had felt helpless and heartbroken

 that despite all that she had done to bring her up in what

 she had considered fair, never letting her daughter feel 

any less of a person because she was a girl, she had completely 

overlooked the fact that she looked different from her, 

different from the people who inhabited this part of the country,

 who called her awful names, and thought she was any less 

beautiful because of that. For the first time in her life, 

Naina wondered if she had done the right thing

 by leaving Manipur and bringing Meira here.