Kulfi: The Return of Sita

 The Weakness of a Rich Farmer

Krushna was not just a man; in his village, he was the earth itself. He was a rich farmer who owned a hundred fertile acres in North India. When he walked through the sugarcane fields, the workers would stop their scythes and bow. When he drove his massive red tractor, the ground trembled beneath the tires. He was built of soil and sunlight, unshakeable and stern.

But even a strong man has a fissure in his armor. Krushna’s weakness stood barely three feet tall, with hair oiled and braided with red ribbons, and eyes that held the depth of the monsoon sky.

Sita. His six-year-old daughter.

She was the only flower that bloomed in his vast, dusty garden. She was his breath.

And there was one thing she loved with a devotion that bordered on madness: Kulfi.

It was not just a treat for her; it was an obsession. If a Kulfi wala rang his bell and Krushna said no, the reaction was catastrophic. She wouldn't just pout. She would shatter.

She would fall to the floor, her little chest heaving, and she would cry. It wasn't a tantrum; it was a tragedy. She would sob for hours, hiccups wracking her small body, tears soaking her pillow until the cotton turned transparent.

Seeing her like that cracked Krushna’s iron heart. He would have sold his land or burned his crops just to stop those tears. He was a lion to the world, but a slave to her sorrow.

 The Pilgrimage of Thanks

"We have too much, Bhagwanti," Krushna whispered to his wife one humid evening. "The harvest is good. We must thank Lord Ram. We must go to Ayodhya."

Bhagwanti agreed. They planned the grand pilgrimage.

The journey was a dream. Krushna held Sita's hand the entire way. He bought her comics he couldn't read and pointed out the cows grazing in distant meadows. He felt a swelling in his chest, a terrifying amount of love. He didn't know that he was traveling toward his own destruction.

 The Secret and the Sin

It was the final day at the Ayodhya Railway Station. The platform was a crushing ocean of humanity—thousands of pilgrims and travelers pushing against each other in the suffocating heat.

Near a pillar, a bell rang. Tring-Tring.

"Ice Cream! Thandi Malai Kulfi!"

Sita froze. She tugged at her mother’s saree. "Maa... I want Kulfi."

Bhagwanti, exhausted and managing three heavy suitcases, was stern. "No, Sita. You have a terrible cough. Not one word more." She turned her back to check the luggage locks.

Sita’s face crumbled. Her lower lip began to tremble violently. Krushna saw the storm coming. He knew the tears were seconds away, and once they started, they would last for hours on the train. He couldn't bear to see her sad on their last day.

He made a choice.

He checked that Bhagwanti was distracted. He looked down at Sita and winked.

He slid a crisp 10-rupee note into her tiny, sweaty palm.

He bent down, his mustache tickling her ear. "Shh. Don't cry. Don't tell Mummy. Run quickly, buy it and come back. Papa is watching you."

Sita’s tears vanished. She giggled—a sound like silver coins. She turned and ran toward the cart, just twenty feet away.

Krushna smiled. I saved her smile, he thought. I am the hero.

The Nightmare

At that exact moment, the express train thundered into the station.

The platform erupted into chaos. The crowd surged like a tidal wave. A wall of bodies slammed into Krushna, spinning him around, pushing him back.

"Sita!" he laughed nervously, standing on his toes.

But the ribbon was gone.

He fought his way to the Kulfi cart. It was empty.

"Sita?"

The panic was cold and sharp, like a knife sliding into his gut. "SITA!"

He spun around wildly. Through a gap in the crowd, near the dark end of the platform, he saw a flash of color.

A man was stepping into the moving general compartment of a departing southbound train. He was holding a child. Her mouth was clamped shut by a rough hand. Her eyes were wide with terror, looking for her Papa.

Krushna couldn't see the man's face. But the station lights illuminated the man’s shirt. It was unforgettable. A cheap, synthetic shirt with a loud pattern of jagged blue diamonds.

"SITA!" Krushna screamed, his voice tearing his throat.

He ran. He chased the iron beast. But the train gathered speed, taking his heart, his soul, and his daughter into the night.

 The Silence

The return home was a living funeral.

When Bhagwanti found out about the 10-rupee note, she didn't scream. She just looked at him with dead, hollow eyes and walked away.

That silence broke him.

I sent her, he thought. She cried for Kulfi, so I gave her to the monster.

The sugarcane rotted. The tractor rusted. The rich farmer died inside; only a ghost remained.

Part 6: The Long Road South

The police failed. But Krushna tracked the shirt. He found the factory that made the "reject batch" with the jagged diamonds.

"Sold to dealers in big cities in the South," the manager said. "Hyderabad, Chennai, Madurai."

Krushna left his haveli. He walked out with nothing but a map and a fire in his belly.

He spent four years in Hyderabad, pedaling through the crowded lanes. He spent three years in Chennai, sleeping on the Marina Beach. He spent four years in Madurai, circling the temples.

He bought an old, rusted bicycle and attached a loud brass horn.

Pee-Pum! Pee-Pum!

He became the "Kulfi Wala." It was his penance.

I lost her because she loved Kulfi. I will find her with Kulfi.

But the big cities gave him nothing. Eleven years passed. He was broken, empty, and alone.

The Twelfth Summer (Rameshwaram)

It was the twelfth year. He had one last hope—to go to the edge of the land.

He drifted south to Rameshwaram. "Lost in Ram's birthplace. Found in Ram's sanctuary," he rasped.

It was the hottest day of the year. Krushna turned his wobbly cycle into a dusty lane near the temple. He stopped in front of a Stone Carver's Shop.

He had no energy left. This was the end.

He squeezed the rubber bulb of the horn.

Pee-Pum! Pee-Pum!

It was a cry for help. Sita, Papa is tired. Please come.

The Awakening

Inside the shop, a young woman named "Rani" (Sita) was wiping stone dust from her hands. She was eighteen now, married to the stone carver. She remembered nothing of her childhood—only a vague darkness.

Then she heard it.

Pee-Pum!

She stopped. A shiver ran down her spine. That sound... it cut through the fog of twelve years. It felt like a dream of a tractor, a big hand, and a forbidden sweet.

An inexplicable urge seized her. She needed that Kulfi.

She walked out into the blinding sun.

"One Kulfi, Baba," she said softly, holding out a coin.

Krushna looked up. His eyes were milky with dust. He reached for the coin.

His hand brushed hers.

He froze.

There, on her right thumb, near the nail, was a white, jagged scar.

The memory hit him like a physical blow—the barn, the rusty nail when she was two years old, the blood, him kissing the wound better.

He looked at his own thumb. He had a matching scar from pulling that same nail out.

The Kulfi stick fell from his hand.

"Sita?" he whispered. "Did... did you buy the Kulfi that day?"

Rani stared at him. She looked at the scar on his hand. The fog lifted. The secret came flooding back—the winking eye, the 10-rupee note, the command 'Don't tell Mummy.'

"Papa?" she choked out, tears spilling down her cheeks. "You... you told me not to tell Mummy."

The Husband and The Baby

Krushna collapsed, clutching her feet, sobbing twelve years of held-back tears. "I sent you away. I’m sorry."

She held him tight. "You came. I knew you would come."

She turned and called out. A gentle young man, covered in stone dust, walked out holding a baby.

"This is my husband," Sita said, wiping her father's tears. "He was an orphan. He found me when I was lost in the city. He saved me from the bad people and brought me here. He gave me a home."

The husband smiled shyly. "We have called her Rani for twelve years, Baba. That is the name she knows."

He lifted the baby girl in his arms.

"But when our daughter was born, Rani insisted. She didn't know why, but she said she wanted to remember something she had lost. So, she chose to name our daughter Sita."

Krushna looked at the baby. He laughed through his tears. Destiny had returned his Sita to him, not just as a daughter, but as a granddaughter too.

Epilogue: The Song of Homecoming

The rich farmer returned.

He walked into his haveli, not as a landlord, but as a grandfather.

Bhagwanti stood at the door. She saw Krushna. Then she saw the scar on the young woman's hand. For the first time in twelve years, the silence broke. She screamed her daughter's name and ran to her.

The farm came alive again. The son-in-law carved beautiful statues in the courtyard while the brothers worked the fields.

And every afternoon, the villagers would see the most beautiful sight.

The old farmer, sleeping on a charpai under the neem tree, with little baby Sita curled up on his chest.

He would bathe her in the tubed well water, splashing and laughing, washing away the years of sorrow. He had lost his daughter to a Kulfi, but a Kulfi had brought her back home. And this time, he never let go of her hand.

Copyright © 2025 Suraj Laxman Dange. All Rights Reserved.