#2

17th April 1995

At Eternal Sunshine Orphanage

The couple went to leave the baby in the orphanage in the morning.

When they entered through the gate, they came across toddlers of age groups 2–4 years old playing with a ball in the garden. The garden was not huge; it had one slide, a pair of swings, and a few other outdoor toys for children to play with. The couple went to the orphanage administration office to register the baby. There they met with a warden named Mrs. Joshi. She looked 40 years old. She had some wrinkles near her eyes and a kind face.

Mr. and Mrs. Mishra, the couple introduced themselves to Mrs. Joshi and told her about the episode of meeting the baby. Mrs. Joshi was an experienced but very sentimental person, hearing about it, she had tears in her eyes.

She asked another warden, Mrs. Gupta, to take the couple for a tour of the orphanage, while she fulfilled some formalities for the registration of the baby. Before that, Mrs. Joshi asked Mr. and Mrs. Mishra whether they would like to name the baby. The couple looked at each other and smiled. ''Anika'' both said at the same time. Mrs. Mishra explained, if it was up to us, we would like to name her Anika means fearless and warrior, and it's one of the names of Goddess Durga. The baby, Anika, sweetly smiled as if she understood all this.

After the tour, it was time for parting. Mr. and Mrs. Mishra were sad. Mrs. Mishra was barely able to control her tears. Anika also started bawling. Mr. and Mrs. Mishra promised to come every month to meet her. They reluctantly left.

The first chapter of Anika's life started.

On the first day, all the children from age of 2 to 18 years old came to welcome baby Anika. They organized a feast and cooked 'kheer' for dessert. In the orphanage, the elder children were assigned the duty to feed younger ones. All children were siblings and united they were family to each other. The environment was blissful and filled with laughter and incoherent words from children.

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17 June 1998

Today Anika turned 3 years, the orphanage prepared her favorite sweet 'Jalebis' for all children. Mr. and Mrs. Mishra had also sent a gift along with the letter. They shifted to a different city due to Mr. Mishra's job, a year and a half earlier.

Anika has a lively and bubbly personality, which makes people like her more. She is a chatterbox.

Her small, fair, and tender face, which looked like a peeled egg. She has a pair of black eyes like a pair of gems that broke out from their shells, one can see stars in her eyes. This year, she will start going to school with other kids.

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3 May 2007

Today is Anika's result for class 7. She is an average student. But because of her personality, she is well-liked by her peers and teachers. She has a lot of friends, but there is always one special friend in our life, Anika has two such friends, one is Purvi Ahuja and another is Mahi Singh. These three are classmates from class 1.

Anika got 'B+' grade as result. She and her friends went to celebrate their small success. Their celebration was to eat street food and gossip. Then they went shopping for school essentials.

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June 2007

At night, Orphanage

Anika's school was going to restart. She was packing her bag pack.

After few days

The school was going well. However, Anika was feeling unusual about one of her classmates, Niti's behavior. She had started behaving weirdly for the last few days. She would be afraid of every boy in class and also avoid even looking at them, the same case with male teachers. Anika was confused, as Niti was cheerful and friendly with everyone. Earlier, she would never avoid anyone. Nowadays, she was sitting quietly alone in a corner and would not mingle with anyone.

After observing Niti, Anika noticed that she had been going somewhere alone during lunch break and would return only after the teacher had started the class, except this, she never leaves her seat.

That day, a teacher asked Anika to collect assignments from the students. When it was Niti's turn, Anika noticed that she had a few handprints on her cheeks and her lower lip had a cut, even her hair was messy and blocking her eyesight. After this realization, Anika would always notice a new injury on Niti every day.

One day, Anika decided to ask Niti about these injuries and the reason for the change in her behavior. However, every time she approached Niti, she avoided Anika like a plague. Anika was dead set to find answers to all her questions. Later she followed Niti during lunch break.

While following her, Anika noted that another classmate, Kartik was also following her. Kartik and Niti were not aware of Anika following them. They reached the end of the corridor, and Anika thought, 'Why would Niti come here, there are no classrooms, only a haunted room that no one visits, even the staff rarely come to clean it?'

Niti entered the only room in the corridor. Kartik waited a while at the door, observed the surrounding, and noticed Anika. He ran hurriedly towards her.

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