Sakhi's Laghukatha

Aarohi opened her purse to pay for her shopping and found her purse to be empty of cash. It was good that she was carrying credit card. She made a mental note to talk to Mahir about this. “At least he should have informed me if he took the money” she thought, fuming.

Later that evening after dinner she broached the subject up with Mahir.

“Have you taken money from my purse?”

“Nope. Why do you ask?”

“No? This is the third time in last two months that some money is missing from my purse. I thought you might have taken it for some reason. But when I found that $100 was missing again today, I wanted to confirm.”

“WHAT? Are you serious! But why didn’t you tell me this before?Anyway, how much have you lost till now?”

“About $200…”

There was shock on Mahir’s face. There were only three people in their home. They and their seven year old kid!

Now Aarohi was at lost. Who could be taking the money? She thought of baby sitter or the maid who came once a week for cleaning the apartment, but on thinking harder she concluded that they might not be the culprits.

They forgot about the incidence in a couple of days. “

Why are you crying?” Aarohi asked Bittoo when she went to pick him up from school one day. He didn’t reply. She could make out that he was trying to control but failed to stop tears smearing his cute little face. She didn’t probe more. She hugged him and they came home. But Bittoo sulked the rest of the day and refused to go to school the next day. He went finally to school after a lot of cajoling. But his tantrums increased day by day. Aarohi and Mahir noticed the behavioural changes but they attributed it to the new school, new environment and new friends.

As the days passed Bittoo became introvert and hardly talked to them or anybody. He no longer demanded to listen to a story before going to bed. In fact he no longer demanded for anything. Aarohi and Mahir started contemplating to visit his school and talk to his teachers.

Aarohi went to see Bittoo at night once he was fast asleep. Looking at his cherubic face her eyes welled up.

“What has happened to my little boy?” she started crying softly and bent to kiss her son. As she started going out she saw that Bittoo was holding something in his fist. She was shocked to find $50 note crumpled in his tiny hand. She just collapsed on the bed and sat there holding her head in her hands.

“Where had they gone wrong? Was it due to this foreign land and its culture? Was it something else?” She didn’t know how long she sat there holding her child’s hand.