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He knows he's broken. He knows he hit rock bottom. He doesn't know to give up. He is a warrior. He fights back.
She is also a warrior but a different o...
Arnav slept for maybe an hour of disturbed sleep during the 6+hours of journey back home. He lay awake past 3am, and more negative thought trains ran through his head , giving him a headache. The only solace was that he would soon be home. He had Google maps opened to track the location of the bus and the distance to his home while estimating the time to reach. He woke up, took his two bags and got down and went near the driver's spot.
"Anna, I need to get down at Tharavoor bypass on the way to Salem New busstand".
"Ok brother", he said without looking back at him.
At 4:45, the bus stopped near the bypass and Arnav got down and asked the driver to open the bunker to get all his other luggage. The driver seemed to be in some sort of passively good mood. He enthusiastically jumped down and opened the compartment.
He even helped to get all the luggage outside and when Arnav thanked him, he smiled and said bye.
Arnav felt an oddly familiar sense of home once he was in the vicinity of Salem. Hometown can do that magic every time. It was a blissful feeling of belonging and security.
Arnav looked for an autorickshaw and to his surprise, he found his sister waiting for him near the busstand on the scooter - that he bought after saving his salary for 8 months aside from paying back his education loan. There was a huge relief in his heart that he quit his job after repaying all his loans and after paying for his sister's college fees for the final year.
"Anna, come let's go", Deepthi said with excitement on seeing her brother.
Arnav being a protective brother that he already was, said, "Why are you out at this hour? I would've come in auto?"
She smiled faintly and countered, "Our home is barely five minutes away and it's almost five, and the city is starting to wake up. The road is also busy, so I told maa that I would go pick you up".
Arnav gently hit her head and got into the driver's place, instinctively Deepthi moved to pillion.
After taking all the luggage, they rode to their home.
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August, 2006
Twist of Fate was very common for the Arnav household. It came as often as a beggar on the traffic signal.
The correspondent's wife appeared outside and Lakshmi knew there was no hope for her kids' education from this venture. She had come here mainly because she had heard that the correspondent was a humble man, and his wife was not.
They say women understand women's pain. And Lakshmi knew in her heart that that was why women never help out other women. They want other women to suffer more compared to them. They gossip and learn everything about others lives so that they can compare and ruin their happiness or else feel better that they have a better life.
