Her first home was a rustic paradise. Born into a fairly well-off family of her village, Meenakchi was the eldest of three siblings. Her mother was a young woman, with a spark of childish beauty and innocence still alive in her eyes. She was always found draped in bright colours and with a small diamond nose ring adding to the charm and cheer of her face. Meenakchi was her favourite, mostly for the fact that as the boys left for school or went out to the fields with their father, she was her only company. And perhaps it was this influence of her mother that she carried forward years after her mother had gone.
Life was kind enough to teach her some lessons very early, her trial battle ground would be just as rugged as her real one. She was well introduced to tragedy when she lost her mother. She was twelve. She had noticed that her mother had been unwell for over a week but this was a climax she couldn't think of. The duo were in the kitchen, playing and giggling when she saw her mother's expression change. That gleam of laughter shining in her mother's eyes suddenly changing into surprise, her eyes widening and a single tear tracing its path from the corner of her eye as she collapsed on her daughter's lap would haunt Meenakchi on more than one rainy night. Since her mother's death, it seemed like her world had come to a standstill. The rest of her uneventful childhood was spent taking care of her younger siblings and aiding her old grandmother in the household chores. A sudden seriousness had descended over Meenakchi all too early and she rose to the position of her mother when around her brothers. Only when all the household chores had been done with and everyone had left the house could one find her sitting silently by her mother's bed and more than once her eyes were wet in remembrance.
An year later, her father remarried. Her stepmother, Ambika, was also a young woman from a neighbouring village and was from a prominent family. With her coming, Meenakchi and her siblings became more like guests in their own house. Although with time her brothers gained acceptance, Meenakchi was not a embraced child. And whenever her father told her to spend time with her mother, she would run to her room crying. In this woman who viewed her like an enemy, she could find no resemblance of her caring mother. Soon Meenakchi was reduced to a charwoman in the household. And on her fifteenth birthday, her stepmother had for her a special surprise.