She would be 9 or 10 years old. Sitting outside her makeshift house, her elbows slept on her arched haggard legs and her head topped her crouched self. She was lost in her own ruminations, held to the deepest of them and I couldn't pursue any of my thoughts that trooped inside my head to read her mind. But I could see clearly that she was devotedly mulling over something intense, something far older than her age and far gloomier than her face and that she was troubled.

A woman falls out of the gate to the house, down to the floor close to where the girl is sitting.

Her mother, she is wounded but crawls in no time over to her daughter to immune her betwixt her bangle clad hands. Scared, she moves to peep inside into her own house, her quivering eyes raiding the place for signs of terror when her drunk husband barged out in her face. Balancing on unmeasured steps and breathing anger, he was instant. He grabbed his daughter, like we suddenly pounch on a paper to prevent it from flying in the air. He lashed her cheeks thrice before shoving her besides the 'chulha' on the cemented saddle to make 'rotis' for him.

Now, her mother was thinking and this time I knew what thoughts spoke to her.