Chapter 1: Paan Shops and Barrages

The paanwala’s red-stained grin flashed at me as I hurried past, the air thick with the sweet, spicy scent of chewing tobacco, roasted supari, and the distant clang of a cycle bell. After my daughter skipped class again, I spent a full eight hours searching before finally finding her in a shady cyber café tucked away behind a row of paan shops in Kaveripur.

My kurta clung to my back, damp with sweat from the afternoon’s sweltering heat. I’d run all over the city, from the rattling railway crossing to the dust-choked cricket ground, even stopped at the new samosa stall where her friends sometimes loitered. In the end, it was the chaiwallah near the paan shops—his hands stained with tea and betel juice—who recognised her description and nodded towards the alley. The sharp tang of tobacco and masala hung in the air as I hovered outside, heart thudding, silently praying she was safe and nothing worse had happened.

Just as I was about to go in, a barrage of comments scrolled across my vision:

[Arre, let the heroine meet her hero! This villain papa, always coming in between—uff, kitna toxic!]

[Mere daddy issues are on fire! When will this villain dad finally get out of the way? Big heroine mom ki entry kab hogi, re?]

[Exactly! How is this man even worthy of our big heroine mom? Good he’ll drop dead from overwork—then big heroine mom can run back to her college wala pehla pyaar!]

The words felt surreal, like the neighbourhood aunties had been binge-watching Star Plus and then gone wild in the WhatsApp group. Heroine mom? Group-pampered daughter? These people didn’t know reality. In my mind, I could hear the colony gate’s gossip circle, always ready with a tale but never a helping hand.

What? Big heroine mom and group-pampered daughter?

Hah! What a joke.

A wife obsessed with her brother—always asking for twenty lakhs in dowry—and a daughter who, in the real world, comes last in class, steals money, and bullies others at school.

Big heroine? Group favourite? Do they really deserve those titles?

Fine. If that’s the story, then I’ll stop cleaning up their messes every day and dying from overwork.

This marriage—I’ll file for divorce myself. Let them become their own heroines.