The Lottery Ticket

Papa was dying. He needed chemotherapy for his cancer but the money we were using was fast depleting. Covid was going on. We rarely stepped out of the house Papa was getting thinner day by day. I used to bathe him and feed him but he had lost the will to survive. He retired as a professor and Principal in an architecture college. Everything was going on as planned but then cancer struck like a bolt from the blue. My studies were going on as a doctor. I had to leave my studies to take care of him. I used to admit him to the hospital to take care of him.

And then one evening he collapsed. He fell in the bathroom and never got up. I called the neighbor’s and we took him to the hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. I called my grandparents and they came. We took the body to the cremation grounds and cremated him as per Hindu rites. The body was wrapped in cloth and could not be opened as per covid norms.

The next day I read the paper. The result of the lottery ticket that he had bought was announced. I checked the number. It was the one that Papa had bought. It was like he had given me the gift of taking care of him. The ticket was one crore. ”If only you were alive to share the ticket with me “, I thought to myself. It was a sunny day and it looked like all my dreams were going

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to be true.

Now I could do my further studies. I wanted to do my MD in medicine. Papa had paid me the fees and much more. I had wondered and toyed with the idea of going abroad to the US. A Professor of mine had suggested I should go abroad. But we were stuck with the problem of finances. I proceeded to apply for US EMILY the exam with which I could go abroad. My friends came to my house and wished me luck. I went with my friends to do the shopping for my impending trip to America.

On the day of my departure, I carried a photo of Papa for blessing. My grandparents had come to drop me at the airport. I was going to Houston for the exams third stage. I had cleared the earlier two stages. I looked at Papas photograph to see if they were any clues as to how my exam would go. In Houston, I had an uncle whose family had settled there. He came to pick me up.

Three years later I got my green card and started my practice as a doctor in The US. My dream was fulfilled. It looked as though Papa was with me all the time. My brother had finished his studies as a computer engineer I called him to the US. Now we brother and sister started our lives in America. It was as though Papa was watching over us as our guardian angel. The lottery ticket that Papa had bought for us enabled me to a better life.