Chapter 2: The 100 Rupees & The Voice on the Stairs

Chapter 2: The 100 Rupees & The Voice on the Stairs

The Prophecy of the Lie

They say, "Be careful what you speak, for the Universe is always listening."

I didn't know this then. I was just a boy, grieving and confused.

After my mother left, the silence in the house was unbearable. My friends looked at me with pity. I hated that look. I wanted to escape it.

So, I told a lie.

"I am going to Hyderabad," I told them confidently. "I will study there."

They laughed. They knew I had no money, no plan, and no relatives who would take me. They thought I was just bluffing to save face.

And I was bluffing.

But looking back now, from this chair in Chitradurga, I realize something terrifying and beautiful.

Maa Devi was listening.

My mother, wherever she was, was listening.

I didn't know I was writing my own script. I spoke a lie, and She turned it into my destiny.

The Uncle, The Injury, and The Miracle

That very morning, a jeep pulled up.

It was my maternal uncle (mother's sister's husband). He was in the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force).

He had been transferred from Kerala to Hyderabad and was on his way to join.

He stopped to see us.

But here is the twist of Fate: My aunt’s hand was injured. She needed help with the kids and the journey. They had a train to catch in the evening.

During the discussion, my uncle looked at my father.

"The boy is studying well," he said. "Let me take him to Hyderabad. Since I am in Defense, I can try to get him a seat in a Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV)."

My father, standing in the shadow of his own grief, simply said, "Okay. Try."

What happened next was a miracle.

It was a working day. I went to my school—the same school where I stood up for unpaid fees—and asked for my SSLC Marks Card and Transfer Certificate (TC).

Usually, this takes days. Weeks even.

But that day? I got everything in a single hour.

The Principal, the clerks—everyone moved fast. It was as if the school itself was pushing me out.

The lie I told my friends in the morning became my reality by the afternoon.

The Last 100 Rupees

I was 14 or 15 years old. I was excited.

I was leaving the village. I was going to the big city.

I didn't think about my father. I didn't think about how lonely he would be in that empty house without his wife, and now, without his son.

I was selfish, like all children are. I just wanted to go.

As I was leaving, my father stood at the door.

He checked his pockets. He checked his shirt.

He pulled out a single note.

100 Rupees.

He gave it to me. His hand trembled slightly.

"This is all I have," he said.

He didn't have advice. He didn't have a speech. He just had his helplessness and that 100 rupee note.

I took it, got into the vehicle, and left him alone in the dark.

Hyderabad: The Stranger in the City

Hyderabad was a different world.

I got the admission in Kendriya Vidyalaya.

But life was hard. I didn't know Hindi well. I was a village boy in a city of fast talkers.

I felt lost. I was just an average student, struggling to understand the language, struggling to fit in.

But the biggest struggle was yet to come.

The Voice on the Stairs (September 2000)

It was September. Just 7 months after my mother died.

We were living in a rented portion of a double-story building. The landline phone was in the owner’s house on the ground floor.

I was sitting on the stairs, staring at nothing.

Suddenly, a thought dropped into my head. Not a guess. A certainty.

The landline will ring now.

TRING. TRING.

It rang.

I froze.

Then, the second thought came.

The owner will call you.

A second later, the owner lady shouted, "Athmanveshi! Phone for you!"

My heart started hammering. I walked down the stairs.

Then, the third thought came. The darkest one.

Someone has died.

My mind tried to protect me. It whispered, It must be your grandfather. Or maybe that far relative who was sick.

I picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other side was heavy.

"Your father passed away."

The Demon Hunger

I didn't cry.

I just went blank.

It was like a switch had been turned off. I felt... nothing.

My uncle couldn't leave his family alone in the new city, so just he and I got on a bus back to our village.

The journey was long.

I sat in the window seat, looking at the dark fields passing by. I should have been thinking about my father. I should have been thinking about that 100 rupee note.

But I wasn't. I was blank. Lazy. Empty.

We stopped at Kurnool for dinner.

And here is the raw truth that haunts me: I was hungry.

I sat there in a hotel, knowing my father was lying dead at home, and I ate.

I ate like a demon. I ate a whole meal, wiping the plate clean.

Grief is a strange beast. Sometimes it doesn't look like tears; sometimes it looks like hunger.

The Gate of Tears

We reached the village late at night.

The jeep drove down the familiar road.

Then, I saw it.

The Gate of our field. The gate of the farmhouse where he used to sit and smoke.

The moment I saw that gate, the food in my stomach turned to stone. The numbness vanished.

The reality hit me like a slap.

He is gone.

The unfinished Prince is gone.

I left him alone.

I collapsed at the gate, and finally, the tears came.

I was an orphan.

Rich by blood. Poor by fate. And now, alone by destiny.

"The gate of the farmhouse was the end of my childhood and the beginning of a long, lonely road.

In Chapter 3, I'll share how a boy with nothing but a 100 Rupee memory began to find his voice. "

(To be continued...)