Smile

Although it is extremely frequent, Vidya felt anxious or teared up every time her father came home drunk, smashed furniture, and beat up her mother black and blue. Twelve-year-old Vidya, while applying ointment on her mother's bruised lips, suggested divorce or at least a complaint to local police, as a solution, but her mother preferred enduring everything silently.

Vidya's father, a mere worker of a cardboard manufacturing company, held his wife and daughter solely responsible for all financial troubles. Vidya remembered how once he slapped her mother in front of several guests just because the tea did not have the proper amount of sugar. There were many such instances, which shivered little Vidya to the very core.

Vidya's mother babysat for a family and tried fulfilling Vidya's wishes as much as possible. Vidya dreams of becoming rich one day, and provide her mother with the life she actually deserves. Vidya wants to gift her mother brand-new sarees and ornaments, take her for a long vacation, show her movie in an air-conditioned multiplex, and so much more.

It was a sultry afternoon. Vidya's mother was making rotis while Vidya was studying quietly. A few people from neighborhood came all of a sudden, and one of them started crying profusely. Vidya came to know that her father passed away. He met with an accident and was declared dead when admitted to a local hospital.

After completing the last rites, Vidya and her mother came back home. Vidya's mother looked around. There was the heavy stick with which her husband used to thrash her. There were clothes which Vidya's father needed properly washed and ironed or else he indulged in badmouthing. There was liquor, the stench of which made Vidya's mother utterly nauseous.

Vidya saw her mother smiling. A smile that generated nothing but relief. A smile that is replete with a sense of freedom. A smile having hope that their life has finally changed for better.