Over the next couple of days, Ragini and Rohan's friendship grew a lot. Rohan was used to having someone other than his troublesome toddler brother to play with. He enjoyed all the discussions he could have with Ragini. Since he was an avid reader, Rohan had a lot of surprising sides to his personality even though he was only five years old. He had amazing vocabulary and each day he asked Ragini a question to which she had no answer. What were the names of the gases that surround the sun? Why is one light white and another in tints of yellow? What does a piston do in a motorcycle?
Ragini didn't know if Rohan was really asking her these questions or testing her and secretly laughing. She sure didn't have answers to his questions. But it was great fun spending some part of her day reading, watching TV, playing with Rohan and sometimes discussing life with her cousin Asha or Asha's husband Ravi. Ragini didn't interact much with baby Rahul as he was mostly cranky, crying or sleeping. She didn't notice that Rohan didn't allow her to interact much with the baby. He was always around her and they always had a conversation going on.
Rohan was particularly attentive to the fact that Ragini had friends outside his own house in Chennai. He overheard her talk over the phone to some people. He knew that Ragini had asked someone called Rama whether she would go with her and Kishore to an amusement park. He was wondering why he, a little boy of five, was not being invited to this amusement park. He found adults very interesting. They read cooler books, they could go where they wanted, they didn't have to go to school. He on the other hand spent hours in his room reading the huge collection of books he had. He didn't care to play with his classmates. They were way behind his mental age.
Rohan secretly read the novel that Ragini was reading when she wasn't home. This morning she had woken up and left before he woke up. He learnt that she had gone to meet her friends. He impatiently waited for her to get back home.
Read the first three parts of this story here
These stories portray the coming of age of a girl exploring online friendship in the 1990s.
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