Dreams.

"Why are you so happy Kishore? You still don't seem to realize that had it not been for this silly girl, you would have lived this dream ages back."

All Kishore could do to that punch was, smile.
He was driven back to time.

"Neelu! Where are you?"

He looked everywhere in that tiny shed, searching for his wife.

"Neelu… Neelu?"

He found her lying on the bed with a thick quilt on her body.

“Neelu, are you okay?”

Neelu smiled shyly. Kishore knew what it was but he wanted to listen in the sweet voice of his beloved.

"I am pregnant!"

"Oh Neelu! This has to be the happiest day of our lives! I just got the estimate of the land near the village. We can save money to buy it and then fulfil our dream. This baby has bought with it only good luck Neelu," he almost screamed in joy and hugged his wife tightly.

Kishore was a junior clerk in the primary school of a small village. Earning a meagre income that hardly kept him above the poverty line, he was thankful for whatever he had in life. Its hard to believe that someone can be happy in such limited means. But to Kishore, money was not the ultimate happiness of life. He had a dream, one that would make him the happiest person on earth, and would wash away the stains of a dark childhood, perhaps, the dream he lived for.

Kishore had no one while growing up. He remembered being on his own ever since he started his life. Who fed him when he was a toddler, who taught him to walk, who taught him words, it was all unknown to him.

There was too much of turmoil in his growing-up years, he was always ridiculed whenever he left the space for parents' name empty in any form that he filled, and faced problems that one can't imagine.

That day, when the beautiful girl from the city he was married to had finally conceived a child, he could not thank his stars enough. Though deep down, his heart bled drops of worry. He knew how hard it was going to be for him. Raising a child was not that difficult but the dream that Kishore had was too big and he knew that the child would be facing a lot of financial problems.

But that was not where his sorrows came to a full stop. Kishore had a graver reason to weep in agony. His social circle would have never accepted the child if it bore a female tag. It was that very morning that he had heard about the head panchayat kicking a girl child in the well. All he did during his wife’s pregnancy was work and pray for a male child. He told his wife that he, of course, would be equally happy if it was a boy for he knew it is all God’s will. But somehow, his heart still wanted a daughter, his princess, his pride.

They say that nature always worked in mysterious ways, keeping a balance intact, a balance that is unbeknownst to the world.

It was a rainy day that his wife had gone into labour, and rains never go easy on people who hav1e little roof over their heads. He vividly remembers how difficult it was for him to get her to the government hospital, how much pain his wife was in during the whole bumpy ride, and how the doctors had looked at her when they finally made it there. He was not a very religious person but in those 2 hours, he remembered all the Gods he knew, did all the prayers that he could remember, and promised God of quitting all his bad habits, not that he had many.

Kishore had settled himself on a cold bench with closed eyes. He was just busy thanking heavens to have made him safely reach the worn-out walls of the hospital, when a doctor came searching for him in the corridor with a droopy face. Kishore drove his brains to the wildest of imaginations but never did he imagine losing his Neelu. The doctors had termed a 'stroke' to be the reason of this loss. The doctors also told him how Neelu, albeit to much hatred of the villagers, had given Kishore a last gift, his baby girl. Their baby girl.



The moment he lit the pyre of his young wife, who he believed died to fulfil his wish of having a complete family, that very moment he affirmed himself to devote his life for the girl. He knew he would have to fight the world for this girl's survival. The first step he took was to sell the land meant for his dream. He didn’t care that it was the only way to fulfil his dream; all he wanted to do was to give his child the best he could.



They moved from the suburbs to the town, where Sapna, his daughter would know nothing of his father’s past, the horrible intentions of his villagers, or the memories of the place her mother breathed her last. Kishore always told her about Neelu, and loved her so much that Sapna never felt that he was being raised without a mother. She achieved all the success that she could or could not, getting scholarships, making it into the lists of the top college of the country, and then getting hired by the topmost employer in the campus interviews.



All this while, Kishore never thought about the dream he had. His reason to live was now a long-forgotten thing, and he never discussed it with Sapna as well, saving her from an unnecessary guilt of making his father lose his passion.



Or maybe, that is what he thought.



Kishore always maintained a diary wherein he scribbled his emotions venting out the pains and occasionally, some tears. One fine day when 'appa' was at work, the little girl found this alien object lying on the floor. Kishore, unknowingly, had left the diary home that day.

In the dead hours of night, Sapna used to fake sleep and look at her father sighing away huge pains with a pen and that diary in hand. Human has always been an object of curiosity. Sapna, justifying the saying, had already read about her father's dream and passion of building a charity home.



.



It was not by chance that she had got all this success. She had worked for it, for the dream that her father had forgotten for her sake. She had gotten into the best college and the best office because of this dream. This dream was what had kept her going.

And today, this dream was fulfilled. Pitrachhaya Anathalaya was the unusual name that she had come up with, as opposed to 'matrichhaya' suggested by her team, because she knew that though mothers are the one associated with kids and love, fathers do no less.



Today, Sapna stands with her head held high and looks at her father's dream. It is her birthday the next day. As proposed by Kishore year's back to his wife, the orphan home would be inaugurated on the day of her birth. She booked her father's ticket who is flying to her that evening. Kishore has already packed his bag and is waiting for a taxi on his door with a grin he cannot suppress. He can see his fellow neighbour walking up to him.



"Why are you so happy Kishore? You still don't seem to realize that had it not been for this silly girl Sapna, you would have lived this dream ages back."



Kishore replied with a cosy smile "Have you ever lived a life for someone else?"

"No."



"Do you have a daughter?"



"No."



"Exactly."



The taxi honked at the turn.