There is a moon in the pitch-black night sky and a bright star close to it. Both dangled in the dark ocean of space far far away from the pull of our world. It's the Ramzan moon. Stare closely and observe deeply for a minute, you'll notice the thin crescent which is the moon and completing its outline is a tunnel. Look at it and keep gazing and it resembles like the crescent is a light coming out of a dark tunnel. It feels like the stars are but shimmering fireflies, motionless flies blowing lights in a dark cave full of witchcraft.

The perennial excuse of our maid after taking an unannounced holiday which has become ever so often now is that she did come in the morning and rang our doorbell but we did not open the door for her. For long both of us who stay in the house have believed this excuse. Not because she did and we did not. Simply because we thought of letting it pass, giving her the benefit of doubt. There have been days like today when my friend was up since 5 AM due to some exam of his and know for sure that there was no doorbell ringing, but over the months he too has learnt the art of letting it go. “Aunty plays with us” is our constant topic of conversation. And in this game of her, she has been winning all this while. She didn't come today morning too. And naturally, we had our usual “Arey yaar, ye aunty aaj bhi nahi aayi (Oh man, this maid didn't even come today)” conversation and went out to have breakfast. On our way back in the dark parking lot where you have to walk fifty meters to get to the lift someone hurriedly walked behind a pillar we were just about to pass. But we caught the lady and asked, where has she been. “I came a little early today and rang the bell..” My friend had perhaps long prepared for this moment so he jumped and asked, “What time did you ring the bell? I'm up since 5 am today…” After a long chat of I-did-but-you-did-not, she agreed to show up at our house after some minutes. We said alright and walked to the lift. What do you think we would be talking about now? Of course, about her. My friend has had some long conversations with her. He wakes up earlier than myself and while I'm still under my warm sheets, he and she would keep themselves busy in their long conversations. So on our way back to the room while talking about how clever and cunning aunty is, he asked me if I knew that aunty has completed MA (Masters in Arts). I, of course, didn't know. My mind at this moment had blanked out. I went back to my own conversations with her. Traced how I had asked her about her family. Her husband works as security personnel in an IT company. She has two kids. One goes to school and another is little so stays home. In the morning when she goes out for housework (at multiples houses), it is her husband who looks after the little one and also readies another one for school. He goes to work in the latter half and that's the reason why she does not go to any housework in the second half so as to be home to take care of her kid.