Life goes on. But, does it really?

On the next day, the father and son duo boarded the bus to 'Naharkatai'. They reached 'Naharkatai' after an hour long bus journey. From there they took a train to 'Itanagar' and then a cab to Lilabari Airport. Major Sharma booked tickets for the earliest flight to Kolkata. Aviraj knew about airplanes but he had never thought, that one day, he would get to fly on one. He was quite excited about the whole journey. They boarded their flight after one hour and reached Kolkata at 3pm in the afternoon. Kolkata was the capital of the state 'West Bengal ' and was counted as one of the large cities in the country. 'West Bengal' was in the eastern part of India which Aviraj found quite ironical.

'Shouldn't it be named East Bengal', he thought. Only after asking Major Sharma about it did he find out that West Bengal was the western part of the Bengal province during the British India period. When the Britishers left, the western part of the Bengal province became a part of India and the eastern part became East Pakistan. Later, East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan to form the country of Bangladesh.

He only gave a vague explanation as he did not want to talk about the various wars and killings that took place in the whole process. Aviraj would learn about it in school when he was old enough.

From Kolkata they took another flight to Mumbai, finally reaching their destination. Mumbai was the largest city in the country. It was on the western coast of the country, long way from Arunachal Pradesh, which was the easternmost state of India.

Exiting the airport, Aviraj felt nervous and excited. Suddenly Major Sharma started waving at someone. Aviraj nervously turned towards the direction Major Sharma was waving at and found a beautiful women in pink sari walking towards them. The women had long black hair and had only applied very light makeup. She gave a natural and mature vibe and was too beautiful for a brute like Major Sharma. The women was looking towards him with an excited smile.

"You must be Avi", the women bent down to match Aviraj's height and scrutinized him from top to bottom while patting his head. Aviraj just nodded shyly.

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Vikram Sharma, who was popularly known as Major Sharma in his platoon, returned to his post one month later. Aviraj initially found it hard, but he slowly adjusted to the life of city. He finally got spectacles with corrective lenses. The spectacles completely hid the evil look on his face and gave him a harmless and innocent look. His mother was very kind to him and helped him a lot in his studies before he took an entrance exam for JMP school.

It was the best school in the part of the city they were living in. His mother, Naina, thought it would be very hard for Aviraj to get into this school. But when she started teaching him, she noticed how fast Aviraj picked up new concepts and how easily he solved new problems, and her confidence grew. But something happened on the day of the exam which Naina found quite peculiar. The mother and son had reached the school one hour before the exam. Naina looked quite nervous as she repeatedly advised Aviraj not to be nervous and he'd do just fine with his talent. Compared to his mother, Aviraj looked quite relaxed and unconcerned. He calmly checked out the school building and the playing field through the window. The school campus had four buildings out of which three were in use and one was left vacant as it was too old and dilapidated. The school management were planning to renovate but they had yet to decide what it would be used for.

The remaining three buildings were arranged in the shape of U. As you got in through the entrance of the school, you would notice two small parks for small children along the sides of the road. These parks were bordered by the school building. The central building was for classes 6 to 10. The building in the right was for classes 1 to 5. The building in the left was for classes 11 and 12.

Behind the three buildings was a huge field. Half of the field was used by the football team and the other half was used by the cricket team. At one corner of the field were two gymnasiums. One of the gymnasiums had a basketball court, a badminton court, a volleyball court and two tables for table tennis. The other gymnasium had an indoor swimming pool. At the end of the field was the old school building in disrepair. One look at the infrastructure of the school was enough for Aviraj to guess how high end it was.

They made their way to the building in the right . On their way, they met quite a few people who were going to take the exam. Aviraj's mother waited outside the class with other parents as Aviraj entered the classroom.

"Oh right, whats the passing marks", Aviraj suddenly turned around and asked his mother.

"...Its forty percent", Naina replied after staring at Aviraj blankly for sometime.

"And whats the marks required to get scholarship on tuition fees", Aviraj inquired.

" ........Ninety percent", this time Naina gave a longer pause before answering.

"But you don't worry about that, you just concentrate on the exam and do your best. Its okay even if you don't make it. There's no pressure, alright."

Naina said as she saw Aviraj walk into the class after getting his answer, completely ignoring her advice.

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The next day when the results came out, Naina was surprised to find that Aviraj had scored exactly ninety percent. Initially she thought that it was just a coincident. JMP entrance exams were known to be tough. But she couldn't completely erase the doubts in her heart and requested the teacher who was in-charge of the test to show her Aviraj's response sheet. After looking at the response sheet, Naina couldn't help but have a strange expression. The teacher had also noticed the anomalies in the response sheet.

" Your son has made attempts for exactly ninety percent and got everything correct. But.... the questions he left at the end are very easy compared to the questions he attempted in the beginning."

Naina remained quite.

"Usually you would have to go through an interview after the exam but with his results, he can directly get admitted." The teacher said when she saw Naina being unresponsive.

Naina took a deep breath, thanked the teacher and quickly made her way home. She found Aviraj watching cartoons on the TV. He looked completely unconcerned, unlike a student waiting for his exam results.

"Aviii....I just saw your results. Say what, if you can guess how much you scored, I'll make pizza for dinner."

Excitement appeared on Aviraj's face upon hearing the word 'pizza ' and he completely lost interest in watching TV.

"Ninety... I got ninety, now give me pizza".

Seeing how Aviraj had replied with complete certainty, as if he had seen the results, a smile appeared on Naina's face. She couldn't help but imagine that how in the future, Aviraj would do excellent in school and get into good college. Then he would get a good job that paid him tonnes of money. Then he would marry a beautiful lady and finally she imagined how she would play with her cute little grandchildren. 'I got extremely lucky this time', she thought as she saw Aviraj running around her in excitement, completely clueless that his mother had already planned his life for him.

But no one can blame her for having such thoughts. After all, this was the dream of every parent in a middle class family.

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Months passed and Aviraj had already started going to school. He was directly admitted into the fourth grade. The person most worried about Aviraj going to school was Major Sharma. He often called home and ahd long discussions with Aviraj. In the end he could give Aviraj only one advise.

"When you feel confused and don't know how to react to certain situations, just do things normal people are expected to do."

Personally, Major Sharma felt that it was a useless advise. He himself didn't know what else to say. But little did he know that it was the exact advise Aviraj needed. It was because of this advise that Aviraj was able to start a normal school life and even able to make a few friends.

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Major Sharma would come to spend time with the family once every six month. When he came, he would stay for a month. It had been an year since Aviraj started going to school and he was already in the fifth grade. It was the month of June and Major Sharma had left for his post a few weeks ago after spending a month in Mumbai. That day Aviraj heard his mother's scream from the bathroom and he rushed out of his room to check what happened. He knocked on the door asking if something was wrong. The bathroom door opened and his mother came out crying, but for some reason, Aviraj felt that she was not sad. In fact, he had a feeling that she was very happy. She hugged Aviraj tightly as she cried.

" Thank you,... thank you god.... lucky charm..", she said something incoherently as she sobbed.

After sometime, she calmed down. She kissed Aviraj on the forehead and started looking for her phone. Aviraj felt quite confused and didn't know what to do. He just followed his mother around with a worried expression.

She called a number and the other person picked up after a few rings.

"Hello, Naina. I can't talk for long. I'm on duty right now. Is there an emergency."

It was Major Sharma's voice.

"....... I'm pregnant".

"What??!!!!!"

"I said I'm pregnant."

"I..I....You...You....I'm coming. Wait for me. Don't move.... Just wait"

And the call ended. Only now Aviraj found out that he was going to have a sibling. His mother started crying again as she hugged Aviraj. Aviraj felt very excited about the whole matter but a bitter thought had appeared in his heart which he found heard to suppress.

'Were my parents also this excited when I was born.' He thought as he unconsciously stroked the pendant hanging on his chest.

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Major Sharma arrived fifteen days later. But this time he had come to stay. After pulling some connections, he had managed to get a transfer to the base in Mumbai. Now his job would revolve more around a computer than gun, but he didn't care. He wanted to be there for his family. Aviraj and his family lived in a fifteen storey tower. The name of the building was 'Galaxy towers '. Every floor had four houses and they lived on the fifth floor. The day Major Sharma returned, he saw an old man moving into the neighboring house. Major Sharma looked at the old man with narrowed eyes before completely ignoring him and knocking on the door of his house. Aviraj opened the door. He was very excited to meet his father, especially after he found out his mom was pregnant. But he paused when he saw the old man moving into the house next door. A strange look appeared on his face as he carefully watched the old man and then looked at his father. His father was also looking at him but did not say anything. He just walked into the house and Aviraj followed him in.

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Eight months later, a girl was born in the Sharma family. They named her Aaruhi. Aviraj was very fond of the little girl, and this made his parents even more delighted. Aviraj spent a lot of time taking care of her, teaching her and even playing with her as she grew up. The brother and sister grew really close. When he looked at her, he would often think about his older brother.

'I wish I could tell him that now we also have a sister.'

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Six years passed as time flew by. Aviraj had started to completely forget his past and thought he would live a normal life with his family.

But a single incident completely shattered his dreams of a normal life.