Friends , I have been so overwhelmed by readers' responses to my articles and thats baffling!

I am not a professional writer nor attended any college back home but I am just sharing my life experiences with others!!

Here is another one of those!!

I attended Little Flower school for sometime with my younger sister. Gosh!! the bus was fully packed but we enjoyed riding it !!

My lunchbox was always packed with dried oksa (pork meat) and pineapple which I never ever got to eat it because my friend Brihaspati Bose (my neighbor, who was bigger built than me, her nickname was Bou or Bu ), always accosted me at the the outside door of the school playground to trade her lunch with mine!!

I would quietly and dutifully hand it over to her without any questions asked as she was one of the bosses among the group who were the biggest and the loudest!! She said she was fed up of her mom packing her box with sandwich and other non-cool stuffs !!

It was the same lunch being served on the plane (her dad worked for the catering department in the Indian Airlines) !!

At first I used to be scared because I did not want her mom to accuse me of making her eating meat!!

Later I came to know that her folks were vegans and so no meat was served at her home. She could not stop her mouth from watering to see us all have fun with meat and other stuffs for lunch in school !!

The first time she just grabbed it from my hand while I was eating because she found me an easy target to bully!! We were neighbors in Paona Bazar, so I think that kind of made it easier for her to grab it just like that!!

She had a younger brother and both of them were very bright and intelligent kids for their age!! Not for nothing the Bengalis are famed all over for their brainy-ness!!

Her mom used to make very good Aloo(potato rolls) chops and Bou would always trade that with me for my Oksa Akangba(dried pork meat).

So much for her devout mom who was an ardent devotee of Durga mata( the Hindu goddess Durga ), which she would worship day in and day out for purity, blessings etc., lighting dhoop and agarbattis ( incense sticks).... unaware of her daughter already eating meat in school!!

I am sure if her mom found that out ..she sure would create hell ..1st thing she would say..."Eeessh....Babare...Baba tumi ki koricho!! Amader badnam korichilam!!" and call out to Bou's dad and say in her loudest "Ekhane ai..aami ekta kotha bolchi".

I am not for sure if these were the correct Bengali words she said but these are as far and as much as I could remember.

Bou could care less because the deed was already done... acccording to her... and so her mom could howl and cry foul all she wanted but she could not get those yummy Oksa (meat) out of her belly....what went inside through her mouth came out as waste ...that's what Bou told me ..and that meant we had to continue the lunch ritual regardless...until my folks switched me to Nirmalabas school!!

Her family used to take me with them for the Durga Puja festivities and it was great watching those wild dances in the puja Pandal( festivities site).

I once saw her attending Guru Nanak high school but never could really get the chance to contact for some reason!! I really would like to contact her !

Hey! Bou wherever you are, be happy !!