Chapter 8

"Have you forgotten that too?" Harshini appeared really suspicious for the first time. "Are you sure you are my sister?" Mounika was taken aback by the question. She wondered if it was a dream or a reality. She had never been so confused before.

"I don't know." Mounika replied looking pensive. "I .... this is all so confusing." Harshini observed the worried expression on her younger sibling's face that blackened the beautiful heart beneath that cute, innocent face. She wished she could preserve that innocence, but the world was too harsh for good, innocent people.

"Why?" she asked kindly, keeping the sarcasm out of her voice. Somehow, she felt protective of this vulnerable looking sister.

"I... I don't what to believe or what not to believe. I am not sure if this is a dream or some sort of nightmare I am living." Mounika said mournfully, with her chin between her palms. "I banged my head on the road but why should this happen to me? Why should everyone look familiar yet strange? What have I done to deserve this?"

Harshini put a protective hand around Mounika's shoulders and pulled her close. Mounika suddenly started sobbing and Harshini patted her back saying soothing words. She didn't want to show this side to her younger devil, but she couldn't help it. The kid was too innocent to be thrown to the wolves but was there any other option?

"I wish he would man up and do something." she said to herself aloud unmindful of Mounika resting her head on her bosom. "Otherwise, this baby sister of mine wouldn't have to work." Mounika raised her head and looked at her elder sister happily. This was the sister she knew, and she found fresh hope flooding her veins.

"Will you drop me at my office tomorrow akka (elder sister)?" she asked, and Harshini looked as if she had been slapped. Her features clouded for a while and stared at Mounika for a while before replying.

"Take the 5C bus to Dwaraka Nagar." she said. "Get down at Manikya Puri and go to R& M Accounting Firm." she got up and went to her side of the bed leaving her sibling disappointed. "Most probably you will find a colleague in that bus. "I can't get up by 6 am and get ready by 7.30 am in the morning for my office at 9 am unless it is something productive for me." she turned around and fell asleep or at least pretended to be asleep leaving Mounika puzzled.

The next day Mounika woke up at 5 am as she was used to. She quickly got ready, went to the Puja room, lit dhoop sticks and prayed for a while before finally going into the kitchen. Her mother had already started washing the vessels and Mounika prepared tea.

She spent the next hour preparing breakfast and lunch while her mother sat wearily in the corner. It broke her heart to see that her mother sported a fresh bruise, and she had a feeling her mother couldn't do anything much. She searched the kitchen and found some pain killers. She gave one to her mother with a glass of hot tea and the latter took the medicine without a word.

Mounika cleaned the house quickly and did as much as she could to reduce the workload on her mother.

"Rest mother." she said. "I will try and send the doctor."

"Don't spend money like water!" Mounika smiled at the characteristic words of her mother.

"Don't worry mother." she replied. "Nothing's more important than you." she packed her lunch and walked out of the house. It was already half past seven.

'The one horrible aspect of rush hour,' she thought as she stepped into the bus 5C, 'is the jampacked buses!'

"Move in! Move in!" the conductor urged, packing the travelers like a sausage/sandwich/jumbo burger.

"Manikya Puri!" she took the ticket and the change from the conductor. At least he had not written the change on the back of the ticket this time. The journey was uneventful, and she was worried about how to perform tasks she had no idea about.

Finding the office was also easy as it was in a complex easy to identify. She walked into the office at 8.52 am and she was greeted by the office boy. She returned the greeting, but she still had no idea where her desk was. It was not the kind of office that would have separate cabins for every employee, but it was not so small either that made employees work from a single station.

There were ten workstations on each side of the big hall with three separate cabins at the end marked Chief Accountant, CEO, and Proprietor. She had a feeling that these three cabins were Air Conditioned while the hall had 6 ceiling fans and four water coolers. There was a water dispenser and a coffee vending machine. There were windows to the east and west of the room so there was no dearth of fresh air.

She went round the workstations observing how each one had been arranged differently but in an efficient way according to the taste of the employee. One thing that caught her eye was the small pictures of a god or goddess on the desks and that the computers had Kumkum and turmeric bindis.

Mounika found her workstation on the west side to the far-left corner opposite the Proprietor's cabin. She had a feeling that her station was the only one that gave the proprietor full access to what she did in the day. She sat in her chair and switched on the computer.

She turned back and looked at the tinted glasses of the Proprietor's cabin and she realized that it was a one-way glass that gave access from inside but not from outside. No one would know what happened inside the cabin unless one went inside on purpose.

She turned back to her system and stared at the screen for a few seconds unsure what to do.

"Perhaps I should just go through the files on the desktop, so I know what I have been doing every day." She quickly went through the files, and she knew she had an uphill task ahead of her. It was going to be a challenge surviving in this highly professional accounting firm where she appeared to be the second lowest ranked employee in the organization.

"Ma'am sir is calling you." The office boy informed her, and she locked the monitor before walking into the proprietor's cabin. Her day had started, and she wondered what task he had in store for her and whether she would be able to perform those tasks successfully.