December 30, 1996: Tomorrow will be the turn of a new leaf, a new event, a new year, it may bring new hopes, new dreams, new fortunes or else new miseries. But today is a very significant day for me.....so much so that I strike off today's date on the wall of my bed.

I got a phone call....not those once in a green moon calls from home, but I heard a husky voice on the other side. It was an awkward situation!!! Aunty said I got a call from my brother.

When I said "hello", it was not the kind of response I expected to get from the other side. He says he is Luwang (I am not interested! or am I???).

Then what followed was a blah blah of how he saw me when I came back home, how it turned out to be "love at first sight" for him. I was blushing on the other side! Latter I came to know that he is the friend of Sunil (one of my childhood friend).

Darn it! It was the first ever proposal in my life (or maybe last). Grandpa..I miss you, see how Ibemu got her first ever proposal from a guy. Now I am sure that I am all fair and glowing, new confidence, new dreams what more can I ask for!

After that episode of first phone call, Luwang used to call me often, aunty never suspected me. She always thought that he is one of my friends. But I was always scared to go for a date, most importantly because I don’t want to betray uncle’s and auntie’s trust.

So my first boyfriend is still waiting for our first date....

I must mention that there in there was a guy near my second home, called Hero.

He was a biker, looks splendid with his splender bike! He was my first crush, I must say though I hate his rich, bossy dad.

All my friends here (though they are just 3) used to tease me whenever we meet him by chance on our way to the market, though my outings are just once in a week or maybe a month.

My friends even caught me humming tunes in his name when I was sweeping the floor! But I always thought that there's no chance for a sky ever meeting the earth.

But now that Luwang is in my life, I had completely forgotten about my first crush. One day we decided to meet at Kwakeithel Bazar during one of my outings with my local friends here. It was a brief meeting, we ate "bora" at a nearby hotel and off he went.

After that meeting I always took him as my "boyfriend". I was happy. I thought everything was perfect for me until I heard from one of my friend back home that he was a total flirt and had two girlfriends back at home.

It was shocking for me but the impact dint last for more than two days. Maybe I was brought up in such a way that my brain had already controlled over my emotions completely. There was no place in my heart for such thing as “heart break” or tears to weep for such a "mere" situation in life.

I stopped talking to him, nor accuse him of anything nor listen to him when he told me that I was his "true love" and rest are all "time pass"..funny! He eloped few months later to a girl he knew just one month before. Thank God, I was saved from an unhappy married life!

To be continued ....

NOTE:
There is strong opposition against child labour in the entire world and mostly in the third world country. In our very own state manipur,there is a common practise of giving away innocent children as domestic helpers by the poor parents. Some are lucky enough to be treated as the children of the new home while some children have to face the brutality from their "new home". But even if the childrens are being adopted as the children of the new home,what about the innocence that they have to compromise with by exposing them to the various facets of life at an early age? Every one of these children have a story of their own which is as important as anyone of our life story. They are the unsung heroes who had learnt to face life"s challenges since early childhood. My story is an adaptation from the real life story of one of the domestic helper whom I know and had grown up with though the names and certain events have been slightly modified.