Chapter 4: Escape on the Scooty

After that day, Priya often told me she was fed up with her mother and wanted to be my mother’s daughter. I thought she was just joking, but I never expected she would actually use aatma badalna to steal my mother.

She’d say it with a smile, flicking her plait over her shoulder, “Arrey yaar, adopt me, na!” I’d laugh, not realising she meant it with every fibre of her being. But now, the joke was on me.

“Rhea, accept your fate. In this life, neither of us can switch back.”

Her words echoed like a filmi villain’s curse. I felt a chill creep up my spine, the kind you get when the electricity goes out in the middle of a horror show.

While I was distracted, Priya had already finished drinking all the drugged milkshake and was running off towards the black Innova that picked me up every day after school.

The driver, Ramesh bhaiyya, must have thought something was off, but Priya’s swagger convinced everyone. It was as if she had trained her whole life for this role.

Watching her joyful figure, I slowly put on her old school bag, found her mother’s little scooty in the crowd, and quietly sighed with relief in my heart.

The crowd jostled, school bell ringing, and I walked to the scooty as if entering a different world. The wind tangled my hair, the smell of frying samosas from a roadside stall drifted by, and her mother’s sari pallu brushed my cheek as I climbed on. The weight of a simple life pressed on me, oddly comforting.

Finally, I’ve escaped from my mother.

I whispered ‘Bas, ho gaya’ to myself. Even the dust from the scooty’s exhaust tasted like freedom.