Chapter 1: Fifty Thousand Rupees and an Empty Chest

After entering high school, my mother started giving me fifty thousand rupees as pocket money every month. The first time, I stared at the bundle, heart thudding, wondering if this was what love looked like in our house.

Sometimes, when she handed over the crisp notes, her face would be unreadable, as if she was buying silence more than affection. Even Sunita, our maid, once raised her eyebrows and said, 'Arrey, madam, aajkal ke bachchon ko toh lottery lagti hai pocket money mein!' But I never boasted. I just slipped the bundle into my tiffin pouch and quietly counted it under my blanket at night. I’d listen to the whir of the ceiling fan and the distant bark of street dogs as I counted, the notes crisp but my chest hollow.

My benchmate was so envious, she actually schemed to swap aatma with me.

She’d glare at my Montblanc pen and imported water bottle as if they were some magical charms, and sometimes I’d catch her staring at me during maths, her eyes shining with an odd hunger. When the plan unfolded, it was almost filmi—like one of those jaadu-tona stories you hear whispered in an old Delhi lane.

She ran excitedly towards the family’s black Innova, sobbing, “From now on, the rich-lady mom is mine!”

Her voice was shrill enough to make even the watchman pause. She sprinted in her scuffed Bata shoes, hair flying, clutching my new backpack, and the driver, confused, almost saluted her. Watching her, I felt a strange freedom, as if the city’s smog had cleared just for a moment.

I quietly put on her worn-out school bag, climbed onto her mother’s old scooty, and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

I could feel the bag’s weight—half books, half stitched-up hopes. The seat of the scooty was torn, and it smelled faintly of coconut oil and talcum powder. But as I wrapped my arms around her mother, the world finally felt real. Rickshaw bells, temple bells, the distant call of a vegetable seller—all felt like a song of escape.

Finally, I’ve escaped from my mother.

My chest felt lighter, as if someone had finally opened the window in a stuffy room. I looked up at the faded Ganpati sticker on the scooty mirror and whispered, ‘Thank you, Bappa.’