Today early in the morning my daughter picked up the phone to receive a caller whom she could not identify and called me. The voice at the other end uttered, "Auntie Ji". And I cried out "Bina"! Now this was the name of the person on the other sid of the connection. And suddenly my eyes were filled with the picture of a small frail girl with bright eyes who tried hiding behind her mother who had came to meet me some 22 years back. While we sat chatting to one another, Bina busied herself with my young son who was barely few months old at that time. As I was still working for some examination and would get time for studies only when my children went to sleep, life had become very tiresome. But now Bina started coming to our home everyday and all my three kids found in her a trusted accomplice. This was such a relief to me as earlier they would not just interact with any new children when we came to a new place on my husband's transfer.

I came to know from others that her people were very poor and it was difficult for her parents to send her to school. She mixed up with my children and would go to her home in the late evening and that too grudgingly. Came our next transfer and suddenly all this world came tumbling down for Bina as now she again would be friendless and she cried a lot. Her mother came to me one day and told me about her depression when we were leaving the place for good.
Today I really feel ashamed to think about my reaction towards her genuine concern for my kids. I started thinking in a very calculative and business-like manner that if she comes with us , I will have more time to study and cater to my other preferences as she would be looking after my kids. So far as Bina's mother was concerned, she was rather too relieved to have one of her daughter off her hands though for a small period.

Thus it was a need-based relationship that emerged between me and Bina. I had my own reasons for having her and her reasons were perhaps more concerned with her love for my little son, though her mother had also felt to have this need-based relationship. So, both of us caught in our own selfish motives made Bina a sacrificial animal.

I still remember how happy she was when she was leaving her mother! Happy and relieved, with dreams in hereyes of a better future she came to live with us in a small town which was much larger as compared to the small village that she belonged to. Could I be a mother to her? Trying to find an honest answer to this question, I finsd that though I loved her but a mother to her I could never be! I remained for her "Auntie Ji" that she called me even today after a gap of 22 years.