I remember it like it was yesterday: my grandma and I, sitting on a rickshaw and carrying 15 blankets. We were delivering these blankets to a local all-girls Sikh orphanage near our home in India.
It looked funny, almost embarrassing at the time. I was scared that somebody from my school would notice and make fun of me. Although the ride was short, it took ages.
When we arrived, I stepped down from the rickshaw and greeted the headmistress of the building. She led to the T.V. room, where about a hundred girls sat in rows and were watching a game show — the younger ones in front and the older ones in the back. The headmistress called 15 of them outside on the porch and directed me to give each of my blankets to one girl. I proceeded.
After completing my chore, I was tired and felt indifferent. It was then that I noticed a little girl, cautiously peering over the door. As I moved forward to have a look, she ran away. Upon inquiring about this little girl from the headmistress, I found that her name was Asees*, a girl given up by her father.
She caught my interest, and I asked more about her. She had a sweet tooth and was a big fan of Dairy Milk Bubbly, a bar of local milk chocolate, and it just happened to be that Dairy Milk Bubbly was my favorite too. I pulled out one from my little purse and found her in a corner, too shy to speak. With a warm smile on my face, I handed her the bar.
“Thank you, Didi,” she said in a quiet and shy manner.
She’d called me her sister. Nobody had called me that before.