I'm almost 45 now but I will never forget the teenage and adolscene year's of my life that I had spent in hostels of Assam.
so it was around 30 minutes to school from our hostel which was in a rural area
a yellow bus used to come to pick all village and hostel boy's for school
every day since I have joined my school I used to see a village girl in our school bus she was the only girl in our school back then from the day I have been here I have always seen here she never used to miss a school
back then boys and girls school used to be diffrent ours one was a 3 storeyd large building while hers one was a broken clubhouse and the worst thing is she was the only student there

we had a holiday of 3 months after our boards when we returned I didn't saw that girl for an entire year I asked the bus uncle but he said she is suffering from serious illness

after a week I again saw her in school uniform but this time she was also wearing
bangles and a sindur on her scalp
I approached and asked her how's your health now she looked at me and said in a ignorant manner " fine " I replied " is there a fancy dress competition on your school "
she replied looking the other way " no i got married yesterday " I said " okay " ( because it was normal those days in rural areas )
and asked " so you are going to come from now she replied " no I am going to inform master ji that I won't be able to come to school anymore " I didn't asked anything more and quite frankly I never saw that girl again in my school bus or in my school life

later I came to know from the bus uncle that she was suffering from chicken pox an old man took her to city for treatment and in return demanded her parent's to get her married to him.

a short story by
Sayan Das