She: The Devi

In my school there was one girl, she was my senior. Always shy, never talks to anyone, always with dirty and unironed clothes. While checking in prayer time teachers used to give her punishment.

I was a new student in that school, so i didn't know what's her story. Sometimes some teachers asked her why she always comes with dirty clothes, but she never replied. In PTM her father used to come but he was the least bothered person on earth.

It was starting of winters, and she came school without a jacket. She was shivering a little.

It was recess time She was sitting on a bench in ground, I went to her and asked why you never talk to someone di. Are you okay? Do you need jacket or sweater to warm you. She didn't say anything. She looked up at me, i can see tears in her eyes. I asked her what happen? If she wants help, we can go and talk to our principal.

And than she opened her lips and said," No, My mother will never let me come in school if I talk to someone about this."

I asked: about what?

She: About everything, everything that I bare.

Do you need any help from me or is there something I can do for you?

And what next, she said i couldn't believe on my ears. I still get heartache whenever I remember this incident.

She said, "I haven't eaten from past few days can you please give me something to eat?"

I immediately gave my lunchbox to her. She asked me whether I'm hungry or not? (Such a pure soul)

While eating she thanked me and went to her class. I was sitting there with a empty lunchbox and questions in my head.

From that day i started to carry extra lunchbox for her every day. My mother asked me to take a sweater for her and also discuss this with my class teacher. She was happy when I told her I brought lunchbox and a sweater for her. She smiled at me and told no one ever did something for her like this. Same day, I told my class teacher about her: she said she can't help if she's not ready to get help. (I was disheartened, but what a 12-year-old girl can do).

I became a joke in my class because I used to eat lunch with a weird girl. I never cared, just I wanted to help the girl as much as I could.

It was routine for us to eat lunch every day in recess. Slowly and gradually, I was reading the pages of her life, where I came to know that her parents didn't want a girl child, she had a younger brother too. She do all household chores, despite that she neither got proper food, love, care and concern from them, often I could also see some scar or marks on her body. Her pain was clearly visible in her eyes, her emotional and mental state, everything. Sometimes silence speaks a lot.

one day she started crying and said, her mother is getting her out of school and getting her admitted in madrassa. I asked, why? She said because they don't want to spend more on my education.

I interrupted her: but you don't have to pay full fee, right?

She said she can't do anything, her father already talked to principal about this. it's my last day in school, I'm sorry I didn't tell you this earlier, i didn't have courage to tell you because you're the only friend i have here. I can't thank you enough for everything you did for me.

She hugged me and left, that was the last day I saw her.

To be honest I never forget her. Those 3 months I had spent with her while eating lunch are best memories of that school. Later I got to know she got married with some guy who already have 2 children.

I only wish that now God give her the happiness with which she was deprived of.

I don't understand how being a girl is proven a sin or a crime by the society. She was so sweet, pure beauty both inside and outside, despite of all the sufferings she never complained, just like her name, Devi.