“We are now officially lost!” said Andhak as he brushed the dirt off his robes. “This is highly unbecoming of them. Why couldn’t the elders just do it the easy way?”

“I am sure they had their reasons.” Said Arindh from behind him. “And I suggest you keep your whining down. You are getting the Naag worked up.”

The Hero laid his sword down on the pier and looked westward. He had learnt long ago that looking at the sunset helped nothing except his image in the eyes of the obsessive admirers standing behind him. Although in pressing times, obsessive admirers were often the only thing standing between him and a future without a decent pension. They spelled votes.

He grew tired of looking at the sunset. So he sighed audibly and slowly turned towards the temple. The Sorceress stood in the hallway.

“How much longer?” he asked.

Rohan Mishra wasn’t entirely sure he liked Holi. First of all, he didn’t seem to find the idea of people rubbing his face amusing. People pinched his face all the time and it had ceased to be funny long ago. Secondly, almost everyone he knew suddenly started looking like Daffy Duck. That wasn’t funny either.

Thankfully, mummy was equally against people rubbing chemicals on his face. So he got to sit in the balcony and watch hordes and hordes of Daffy Ducks march by, shouting, singing, fighting, ripping each others clothes off and doing things of a generally barbaric nature that Rohan liked to see. Some even waved to him and yelled ‘Golu’ at him but he didn’t recognise them.

Rohan Mishra stood in the balcony holding the railings. He turned mummy-wards every few seconds and she served him some tasty white goo with a spoon. He would then resume his squirrel watching.

Through the branches of the neem tree, Rohan saw 13-month-old Disha Das in her balcony. She was walking out of the door. Eager voices from within egged her on. She stopped and tottered. “Fall, Fall!” Rohan wished. But she turned around and walked back into the room, towards cheers and loud claps. “They will spoil her this way.” Rohan thought as he gulped down his food.

Rohan Mishra decided he liked ice cream a lot. He thought he probably liked ice cream more than he liked mummy and felt ashamed of himself. So he put the ice cream away.

He had spent the last two days practicing his English and now knew three words. One was Banana. The other two were too hard to pronounce (but he knew them). He had been using his spare time to say Banana whenever he could. One could never practice enough.

It was a hot Saturday afternoon. The mummies were chatting and the daddies were watching cricket. 15-month-old Rohan Mishra (Golu) was lying on his back in the middle of a giant (by his standards) bed and was expressing his dissatisfaction with the general quality of life somewhat loudly. In time, his limited lung capacity wore out and he stopped for breath.

“This is most embarrasing,” he said to himself. “I can’t walk yet. As if that’s not enough, I get no respect. You would think they would pay some attention to my bawling, but no. Can things get worse?”