Sight.

I know I am bad at remembering names. This girl was called "Bujji" at home. I never cared to ask what her real name was. her younger sister Sridevi was my classmate form 8Th to 10Th grade. One summer afternoon of 1990, Bujji came into my life. She was dressed in a skirt and a blouse. Her stroll was scary. Her feet pointing sidewards and her head tilted on an angle facing upwards. Her lifeless eyes wandered in their sockets and a pair of shaky hands felt my face as she talked to me. My heart skipped a beat and my stomach knotted from feeling her hands on my face.
I used to visit Sridevi's house quiet often from then on, clutching a chewing gum in my hand. Bujji would come to me the moment I entered their house and feel my face with her hands. Her lifeless eyes filled with a light that told me that she liked me. She used to take the chewing gum and thank me.
This girl loved to laugh and sit beside me with her body arranged in a strange angle and her shoulder resting on mine.She loved to talk as well. She used to get upset if her sister asked her to leave. She used to beg me to stay back for a little longer when I was ready to leave. She was so full of life. So uncomplicated and so easy to please. Give her a chewing gum and she would fumble on the wrapper and pry the gum out and into her mouth, chewing it away with great relish and a funny sound.
A facet of Bujji made me very happy. Another facet made me very sad. She must me thirty years old now. (I am not in touch with her sister anymore.) She must probably still be the same uncomplicated, fun loving, bubbly girl that I met seventeen years ago. She must probably love bubble gums as much as she did back then. Would she be married? would she have kids? I still think about all these things and it's been 15 years since I last met her.
The fruity smell of a chewing gum puts a smile on my face and my eyes become a tad misty sometimes thinking of Bujji. I admire her for the way she looked at the world!