Chapter 3

"Raat kali ek khwaab main ayi..." the song went on in her head she hummed the the song as she crossed the newly opened flyover across Moolchand.She was really getting tired of the daily hustle and bustle of the city and she missed home , her home was really a small village near Kullu and she loved her village.it was the kind of place where one could see rainbows in the horizon after a drizzle.It was a place where kids roamed around freely and sometimes so freely that in summer most of the little children preferred to be naked.She missed that innocence of childhood when she could run and dive into the village lake and swim without any lewd comments or stares.she was growing older yet in her mind she was still the eight year old village girl who moved to a big city and hated the crowd and the cars and the smoke.She was a bird who was caged in the city, she had everything one could ask for yet she had nothing, her soul was somewhere else and she wanted her soul back.She had lived in a city for more than 17 years now yet she never truly lived here.She was empty , her soul was still out there in the village playing with the kids and sleeping under the stars.
Her existence in the city was for only money and this money was something that she both loved and hated.She loved it because it saves her life and that of her dying father.Her father has had a disease which has not only eaten him up but ate away her childhood her mother's life and now her youth.But she loved her father and she never complained, she took it upon her to help her father from the day she set fire to her mother's pyre and assumed the role of the 'son' of the household.
She hates money as it is eating her soul away slowly and slowly , she tried to set her mind into it but she couldn't she was to 'human' for the world she worked in.She knew she had to quit someday but she didn't know when, maybe after her passes away , which she wished never happens as she loved him and he was the only one who really cared for her.It had been only an year since her mother who had suffered all her life had passed away.She was sad about her death yet she was happy that she had died as she had suffered a lot , from being the single breadwinner for the family to taking care of a child and a paralyzed husband to living a little for herself , she had really gone through a lot , maybe god gave her a 'vacation' that she really wanted.She knew her mom was with her , she could feel her looking at her or maybe she was just guilty.
"Screeech" the loud sounds of her scooty's brake broke her thoughts, she had reached her destination.it was only 6.45pm and somehow she was early, though she knew it was only a mere coincidence that the traffic near SouthEx moved fast but she thanked her mom and god nevertheless.She always thanked them for anything good that happened in her life and fought with them for all the wrong.