Purpose

When Arav first saw Smita that day, she was on his mango tree stealing his ripen mangoes. Arav's mom had told her to flee Smita. He gathered courage but the deal was he was smitten with Smita. He couldn’t see in the same direction as her. But with Mom’s 5-minute harsh scolding, he decided to give it a go. He went near a mango tree and called for Smita. Seeing Arav calling her, Smita hastily picked all 7 Chausa mangoes and jumped on the other side of the wall and started running. Arav opened the gate and saw Smita limping from her 13 feet fall. But he just stood there. He wanted to go to her, help her but he froze.

Arav and Smita studied in the only primary school in Chandelnagar province. Arav always used to watch Smita from the last row. Smita was focused on her studies and she believed romancing was not a student’s duty. 

Their annual exam arrived and both passed with flying colours. The farewell was in their 500m radius school ground. Smita had a dance performance. Arav was waiting for the dance when he heard that Smita was going to Calcutta for further studies to fulfil her dream of becoming a barrister. Arav was dejected upon hearing that. He knew Smita was the only girl he was ever going to love. He mustered his remaining courage and decided to propose to Smita so at least she would be aware of her love. He went backstage. Smita wore Silk Saree that day. Arav was packed on seeing her. Smita called him as she saw her classmate standing at the gate. She called him twice as Arav seemed to have gone deaf. Arav came to his senses and went to her. He gave his best wishes for her performance. He was going back to the ground then he remembered the reason he came to the love of his life. He asked Smita how she was feeling. She said that she was feeling nervous. Arav asked her to relax. Then the words splurted out of his mouth – I love you, he said. Smita was shocked upon hearing that. But she recovered and she replied that she couldn’t have a relationship as she thinks it would affect her studies and she couldn’t let that happen. Arav was devastated.

He came out of the room and started walking towards his house. He was walking aimlessly only thinking about Smita. He didn’t know what to do. As his house was nearby, a handmade poster ruffled through the toe of his torn shoe. He picked it up and started reading. It mentioned a speech by the king of his province, Maharaja Pratap Singh Chandel on the province’s big ground. What came to his mind, he decided to go. 

He started walking toward the ground then. He saw the sheer attendance the public had when Maharaja was halfway through his speech. Arav was feeling thirsty by all his daring during his encounter with Smita. He drank water from his bottle. 

Maharaja asked a volunteer from the ground for a necessary job. Most people raised hands. Maharaja saw that a boy with his school bag wasn’t raising his hands. He called the boy on stage. Arav walked to stage. He touched feet of Maharaja and Maharaja gave him his blessings. He asked why he wasn’t raising his hands. He said he wasn’t feeling well. Maharaja asked if he want to do something for his country. Arav replied anything. Then Maharaja pulled a khanjar (small knife) out of his sleeves. He gave Arav the khanjar. Arav held it giving the due respect to knife. Then Maharaja presented his plan. He said, there was the district magistrate who was going to run against the freedom fighter, Azad. To free Azad, Arav had to kill the magistrate when no one was looking. Arav got his purpose. He happily accepted the task assigned to him.

Arav went to the home after Maharaja ended his speech. He prepared his plan to eliminate his target. 

Next day he went to the court and sneaked in the magistrate’s toilet. The magistrate came in toilet after 40 minutes. Arav jumped on him and pushed the khanjer in the magistrate's heart. Magistrate screamed in pain. His guards came at the scene and charged at Arav. Arav tried to fight them but it was one against four. The magistrate died in front of his eyes.

Arav was given hanging till death as his punishment for the crime immediately. 

He was thrown in a kaal kothari (jail) 30 feet below the ground. There was only a one feet square hole in the wall for light. He sat as he was tired from the incident and fell to sleep. He woke in a moonlit night. The blue light from moon was celebrating Arav’s deeds, he felt. 

The walls were made of clay but the ground was of cement. He decided to flee from the jail as he felt he could do more for the country. He pulled the khanjar from his sleeves which he hid from the police. He thought of digging a hole in the wall to the ground. He knew it was a mammoth task but he had the mammoth determination. He started digging hole in the wall. He successfully dug through 7 feet of ground when the knife broke. He then started finding an alternative. He thought for an hour then a ridiculous thought crawled through his mind. What if he used his bone as the digging tool? First, he wasn’t convinced that he could do anything like that but then he thought if he could kill a man then he definitely could remove a bone from his body. He took a long breath and started cutting his arm with the broken knife. He stroke at the joint so that he wouldn’t have to deal with much bone. Then the room had the presence of Arav and a big pool of blood. He removed his clothes and put it on the amputated hand as a bandage. He removed skin from the bone with his only hand. Then he started sharpening it against the cemented ground. After 1 hour, it was sharp enough to complete the task. He again started digging the hole. The only advantage was that whatever sand was removing from digging was going down due to gravity. He was making little ridges so that he can easily go upwards. When he was just 3 feet away, he felt some sand was covering his face. It was the sand coming out from top of the sand way and the sand was crushing him. To make matter worse, a snake appeared and bit him. He gasped in pain. But he stood up and started digging the remaining hole. He came out of the jail. It was morning then. Sun was rising and he fell on the ground and died.