CHAPTER 3

The children were watching their books turning into ashes by the fire, set by their mother after hearing the news. Their mother was crying in their only room. One by one all the neighbors left doing their bit to calm her down, but who can end her misery which has only just begin. Manu got up to move and Aashi followed him and they both were with their mother now and it’s only now that they broke their silence and started crying alongside their mother. The whole night they cried inside and the books burnt outside. I was wondering if it’s the books or their future that was set on fire.

And I was wondering why I was so out of my senses the previous night? Why I didn’t listen to my wife? Why it happened to my family? But in fact it is happening to many a families, I realized it now because it has happened to me now. What will happen to my family now, how will they move on? Today, at least I can see my wife and my children. Tomorrow, I’ll be gone forever. Now I am crying sitting at a chair placed at a corner of the room, hiding from them, hoping my family isn’t watching me crying. But how can they, ghost can only be felt when they want themselves to be felt and I will never let my family see me this way. And I am crying, as I am leaving forever, because the future of my children is burning outside along with their books in a fire, a fire of despair.