I wake up and yawn. I am hungry, and I can smell breakfast cooking, the warm smell of food floats through my senses. I run into the other room and sit down to scoff my chapatis and lentils. The warm food satisfies my hunger. Jumping up with my mouth full, I yell bye to my mam'mi and run out of our house. Our house is of an average size, made out of the usual baked mud bricks, with two rooms and a little lean-to on the side of the house which we use to store things in, mainly food. We also have a small yard for the pigs we keep for meat. Our house is in the town of Harappa.
Mam'mi shouts at me to get back inside and help with the house work, but I want to play with the boys on the street. Girls can't play, or work in the fields or go out to battle other villages. We have to wash stuff, and be quiet, and marry and have children. Sometimes I secretly wish I was a boy. I would like to be able to do all the jobs that my forefathers did before me, but I'm a girl. I can't. My father died in battle. It is something we do not speak about as it is a great dishonour to our family that he died instead of returning to us to help protect the village and his family. A man is not supposed to be weak. I d not remember him at all. Mam'mi doesn't ever talk about it, so I shouldn't either.
My brightly coloured sari sticks to me in the humidity. But no one is out in the streets. Our town is pretty large, but I couldn't see or hear anyone playing on our street at all, and it was hard to see in the swirling, thick, heavy dust that had surrounded the town lately. It is strangely quiet, and I can feel the damp, humid air swirling around me. It s dead silent. I feel scared and run up and down the street, looking for a sign of life. I see a figure in the dust, coming out of a house. My house. It is Mam'mi, her mouth and nose covered with a cloth to protect herself against he thick swirling dust, mixed with the heavy, moist air. She is calling to me.
"Aditi, come back!"
I run away, not wanting to do the house work, but confused because of the look on my mam'mi's face. She is running and calling.
"Aditi! Aditi!"
Then I understand as I look up to the dark swelling clouds in the sky, coming fast. Monsoon season is here.
The clouds open up with fat raindrops falling from the sky. Mam'mi grabs my hand and we start dancing in the rain. It is very, very refreshing. People come out and jump in the rain with us, laughing and sticking out their tongues to catch the thickly falling raindrops. Now I know why people weren't out in the streets this morning, they were helping to block up cracks and dong other stuff like that to prep the village for the monsoon. There will probably be floods soon, but for now our only though s to dance in the rain. It is the best feeling in the world. Mam'mi's cotton sari is soaked and so is mine, but we don't care.
Eventually we stop, and slowly go inside. I still have to do house work, but I don't mind so much anymore. As I go inside I put on my spare cotton sari in exchange for my damp one, and go out to feed the pigs. I also help Mam'mi wash up the flat plates, licking chapati crumbs off of them. There must be more than this in the world, and one day I'll discover it, but right now, I wouldn't swap places with anyone, because I think I am happy where I am.
