Towards unknown destination I

I was the youngest in the family but I was not the favourite of my father. May be that was because I was not his planned baby. He already had a house full of kids from his first wife and I was just another mouth to feed for him. My brothers had learned to adjust with the mistreatment from our half siblings but I was just a child then.

My father thought that he needed someone to herd the cattle for the family and found me fit for the job. At the age of seven, when most of the children my age went to school, I was spending my days with the nature, herding the cattle.

One fine day, I heard that my cousins were coming home for their holidays. I hadn't met any of them since they worked in the capital. I was asked by my mother to get ready to go and see them since they wanted to meet me. I was very excited. We planned to visit them without the knowledge of my father because he didn't like us visiting them. A few days after their arrival to the village, I and my mother went to see them. They all welcomed us with their open hearts and they had a long talk with my mother. I was too small to understand what was going on. From that day, my mother started packing things silently and I felt the urge to ask but I could not. A week after our visit to the cousins place, my mother took me to the market on some pretext. I saw a car waiting and my mother told me to get inside. I saw my cousins inside the car and they drove me away, taking me away from my mother, the only person who cared for me.

That ride in the car was my first ride. I felt the trees moving and nauseous but my cousins assured me that it would be fine after sometime.  It was after many stops on the way that we reached the town. I saw the tall buildings for the first time. The hotel we stayed in was a very huge in comparison to the small hut where I and my mother along with my brothers stayed. (My father had a big palatial house which we hardly visited). After shower, my cousins took me to buy some dress for me. It was all like a dream for me. I was treated like a princess for the first time in my life. They wanted me to dress in pants and shirts which was very new experience to me. It took me sometime to get used to the dress.