Sonu left that day, and it felt like the end of our world. Kikki and I carried her heavy green army trunk down the three flights of stairs, down to the hostel gate. The trunk was heavy and we would remember the ache until long after.

Her father came in a huge ambassador car with an army emblem, and they drove away. None of us cried. The sun beat down on Sonu's hair as she waved out of the car.

When Kikki and I went back upstairs, we noticed the chocolate wrappers she had stuck on the wall. One of them was from some chocolates I had got her for Christmas. She had also left behind the elephant poster that Kikki had got her from Delhi.
We had been left behind. And the impish child-woman who was our roommate had suddenly ventured out into the world.
We had not known Sonu would be the first to go. We had not known she would be the first to, horror of horrors, 'get married.' We had seen pictures of her fiancé; he wore a brown suit in the photo. Sonu had not had any boyfriends - she was too simple a girl for college boys to be crazy about - and she was happy with her future of stability, if not love.

We loved her too.

We had been perplexed at her sudden role reversal. It had not taken much to change her from a girl who always missed the early morning class, to someone who organized her wedding in meticulous detail. The carefree, if fickle, girl suddenly changed to someone more mature and confident, to a woman who could handle responsibility.

We wondered how we would do it.

In many ways, Sonu's departure prepared us for the reality of the world before us. It prepared us to combat a world that could be unfair, and people who would threaten our freedom. Sonu had done it so effortlessly, the girl we thought was a child. And we, who were supposed to be mature beyond our years, were lost at the prospect of change.

In the years to come, we would look upon that day that Sonu left as a day that defined the rest of our lives. It brought no great tumult or revolution, just a subtle inner awareness that the toughest part of our lives was ahead. And that, like her, we must handle the transition with grace and courage.