Why do you think everyone is unique? It is because of their qualities. Some may be myriad minded, creative, absent minded, flawless, sublime and so on.

“Not everything is what it seems”, there may have been a time when you might have misjudged someone or comprehended a situation in a wrong manner. There was an incident that took place in Rekha’s life.

Rekha was a normal girl. She was average at studies. She was a very sensitive and sincere person and trenchant in her behaviour; and very straight forward in her speech. When this incident took place she was only eleven.

It was spring and the air had a strange rosy atmosphere, everything seemed pleasant and beautiful and many children were delighted with the mild weather. However, Rekha was grief stricken and nothing would console her. He father had gone to a faraway town for business matters and would not be back for a long time.

Rekha had seldom made friends, and for her father was not a mere family member, he was more than that. He was a very valuable companion and she would share her doubts and problems with him. Rekha had become upset with the turn of events. Her mother had tried to ask her numerous times about why she felt upset, but Rekha would keep quiet and let her mother guess the reason while a lone tear would escape her eyes.

Rekha was also upset because her new classmates would tease her a lot, sometimes till she started crying. Rekha did not know much about her father and his occupation since he had taken up a new job. Therefore she was not able to write an essay about her father. Her classmates would call her names such as ‘Miss Lost’ and ‘Miss Ignorant’. Rekha knew she was not very bright, but she was not the worst, either. Rekha tolerated het classmates’ teasing even though it was in fact, really insipid.

The next day Rekha left for school ensuring that this time she knew all about her father.

As she was going, she passed by one of her classmates who shouted, “Hey! Look, it’s Miss Lost”, in a loud voice. “Of course not! I know about my father now”, she replied in a confident tone.

One classmate asked, “What degree does he have?” “What company does he work for?” another piped in.

Soon all her classmates started shouting at her. Rekha just stood there amidst the crowd of voices while her classmates fired questions at her.

That day when she went home she felt rather confused and embarrassed. She went inside her room and was going to ask her mother about the questions when she saw a neat-looking envelope with an address written upon it and a stamp stuck there. To her, it looked like the world’s most beautiful envelope. One look at it and Rekha realised that it was a letter.

Rekha forgot everything and smiled. Rekha opened the letter to reveal a simple, white page with a beautiful handwriting, which showed the qualities of the person who wrote it. It was simply written, yet the context was very clear. The pretext was clear too; whoever wrote it missed her so much that he was compelled to write to her. The letter was good but what was even better was the name of the person who wrote it. It caught Rekha’s eye! It was her father!

Rekha looked forward to the letters which unfortunately came only once a fortnight.

One day Rekha’s classmate saw one of her letters and asked her about it. Rekha told her classmate and the classmate, whose name was Anupriya, was very impressed by her gentle and caring nature and soon they became inseparable friends. Once they had a project to do, which they decided to do together. Rekha promised Anupriya that she would visit her house. On the destined time, Rekha collected the materials needed into a small bag and left for Anupriya’s house. She soon boarded the bus and reached there after half an hour.

Rekha was just nearing the house when she saw a man clad in black clothes, wearing black sunglasses, signalling another man to bring forward a small statue made entirely of gold!

Rekha gasped as she realised that they both were thieves!

“Thief!” Rekha screamed at the top of her voice. He was not actually a thief, but in reality he was Anupriya’s father’s friend, who had brought a statue as a gift. He turned around and saw Rekha, whose face had turned pale. Rekha dropped her watch in her hurry to run.

The man ran to return Rekha’s watch, but Rekha thought he was going to harm her.

Rekha even ran down the wrong route to her house in a hurry. The route led to a highway that was very far from her house. She huffed and puffed. She suddenly realised that she had taken the wrong route! What had she done!

Suddenly something hard fell on Rekha’s head. When Rekha looked up, to her surprise, it was hail! Soon the hailstorm grew so strong that Rekha collapsed.

When she woke up, the hail had stopped. Rekha did not remember what she was doing. In the distance she heard a police siren.

She asked the policeman, “Will you leave me home?”

“Yes”, he replied, knowing that she was not aware that her mother had asked them to do just so. When Rekha returned home she did not ring the bell. She took out the keys from her bag and directly went in. She was about to ask her mother for something to eat, but she abruptly stopped. She could not believe what she was seeing! She saw a stack of letters and envelopes, all scattered on the table which she gave to her so-called father. She saw her mother writing the letters which she thought came from her father.

“Mother?” she asked weakly, in dismay.

Her mother promptly got up and shoved all the letters in a corner so that Rekha would not be able to see them; but she had already seen them.

Realising that her mother tried to respond, but before she could respond, Rekha threw her arms around her and hugged her saying, “I have been very mean to you. Forgive me!”

Mother and daughter broke down, tears flowing freely as ever.

No word was said, but still the emotions were perceived.

It was a spring morning which Rekha could never forget.