A chill ran down Guddu’s spine when he felt that his hand was caught by an iron grip. He blankly stared at the rigid face of the owner of the bag he was expertly fumbling, he did not even imagined that the guy was studying his every movement.
He was one of the dozens small boys hanging around the station in rags, he did not knew who his parent were, the elder boys of his group told him that they have found him crying on the platform and have taken him in their gang. All these small ones, ranging from five to thirteen year olds spent their days and nights in the platform, begging and stealing. Sometimes the railway police used to pick them up and after some boxing of ears they were let off again.
The older boys taught him the skills of begging and stealing. He has become an expert thief, but today his luck just betrayed, he has studied this guy for long time, he was sprawling in the seat, eyes closed, his bag placed below his seat, guddu slowly crawled below his seat pretending to pick up the litters left by previous travelers, the guy did not even budged, and all of a sudden his hand was under the grip of a steel vice.
He was staring at the face of his captor in a frozen stare, the co passengers gathered around them, every body has his own opinion about the justice to be meted out. The guy asked Guddu who his parents are, Guddu told him the truth. He took him to the RPF counter narrated them the story and showed them a card, the RPF personnel nodded, the guy told them that he is taking Guddu with him, if his parents showed up they can fetch him from him. He bought a ticket for Guddu and took him to the train.
He took care that Guddu does not escapes, Guddu almost had an heart attack when that guy took him to a military camp. He thought his days are over, soon he will be jailed for the rest of his life. His captor took him to a small bungalow, the door of that bungalow was opened by a smartly dressed guy, he handed over Guddu to the guy and asked him to get some dresses for him and clean him up.
A couple of hours later Guddu was sitting on the dining table with the family of Major Rai, the family consisted of Major Rohit Rai, his wife Soha, and their daughter Preeti. Who was hardly one or two years older than Guddu. Rohit and Soha took Guddu under their wings, with strict supervision of Rohit and affection of Soha and Preeti Guddu’s days changed, he was soon enrolled in a school and never looked back. They gave him a new name, Ronit. And when his parents did not turned up after a few years they adopted him.
Guddu was an exceptionally brilliant student and Rohit and Soha’s upbringing brought out the best in him, before long he was well established in a multinational company as an engineer with bright future.
Preeti was married to a doctor, Ronit stayed with his parents, Rohit and Soha has made it very clear from Ronit’s childhood that past was past and now he was their child. They gave both of them equal affection.
Ronit fell in love and married Reva, she was the only child of another army officer. A few months later problems started to crop up, Reva has been brought up with lots of affection and pampering, she could not adjust to the disciplined environment of Rai family, to add to the problem her parents kept on insisting to her to move over with them, because they were desperately missing her. But she could not dare to say any thing because she knew Ronit.
With time they were blessed with a beautiful daughter, Chaiti, one day Rai family received an urgent call from Preeti’s family, they rushed to her home in Mumbai to know that they have met a terrible accident and Preeti’s husband has passed away, leaving Preeti permanently physically crippled in that accident.
Ronit steeled himself and took his sister and parents back home, Preeti completely transformed after that accident, the bubbly and happy girl became morose and gloomy. No matter how much they tried they could not bring her out of her gloom.
Soha was completely engrossed in her daughter, her kind heart was bleeding with her, the person most affected was Chaiti, she was apple of every one’s eye, always jumping around the house like a small brook, talking, laughing, running…
Now her activities were controlled, because Preeti used to get irritated by unnecessary noise, one day Reva just had enough, Chaiti was playing out in the garden, Preeti was sleeping, and her shouting woke her up, she started to grumble loudly about the way the home is run.
Reva went to her room and sat down, she told her that she is tired of all these things, she will set Chaiti’s bed in Preeti’s room, bring her belongings over there and Preeti will have to take up the duty of teaching her how to behave, Reva will take care of other things. Then she went out and brought Chaiti over there and placed her beside Preeti. Preeti gently wrapped her arms around her.
Reva saw with the corner of her eyes while going out of the room that two drops of tear were shining in Preeti’s eyes and Chaiti was cuddling her like a small child. She took Chaiti out after a few hours and told her that she will have to sleep with aunty and stay with her as much possible because aunty is scared of ghosts. The small child nodded her head like an intelligent lady. From that day onward Preeti went back to her old self, laughing, playing, babbling with Chaiti.
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