Chapter 1: Quota Gone, Dreams Shattered

I spent fifty lakhs on a school catchment flat—sweated for every rupee, borrowed from parents, cut back on every festival gift—and now, when I walked into the school to register my daughter, I was told the quota was finished. Gone, just like that.

For a moment, I just stood there, the world spinning. My eyes drifted to my daughter's old school bag, still leaning by the door at home, and the stack of admission prep books we'd carefully arranged. The knot in my chest tightened so much I could hardly breathe. Fifty lakhs for what? For someone else to walk away with my Meera's chance?

The receptionist looked through me, bored, absently flipping through a massive register with chipped nails, tapping her pen like she was beating time to some song only she could hear. I caught a glimpse of her phone screen—a WhatsApp sticker of a dancing cat flashed before she locked it, barely glancing up as she said, "Sorry, quota used up."

My mind whirled. How could this be? We had paid every maintenance bill, filed every paper twice over. Was our whole family's struggle just a joke for these people?

I gripped the rejection slip. The words seemed to burn into my palm. In my head, all I could see was Meera's drawing on our fridge: 'I want to go to big school like papa.'

And then, just when I thought things couldn't get worse, I found out that a seven-year-old boy had somehow appeared on my family's ration card. Out of nowhere. As if we just picked up random kids on the street.

At the ration card office, sweat beading on my forehead, I stared at the printout. The faint smell of phenyl stung my nose, the old ceiling fan above rattled, and from the corridor, a chaiwala called out, 'Chai, garam chai!' A wall clock with Sai Baba's picture ticked away. But I could barely hear anything over the pounding of my heart.

What sort of city was this, yaar? Who did this? I could almost hear my daughter's innocent voice asking about her first day of school. My hands shook as I thought of how to tell her.

Panicking, I tracked down the boy’s parents. But instead of shame, I got a slap in the face. Rajeev Sharma and his wife barely even looked at me. “Anyway, my son’s already in school for a year now. Kya kar loge aap? Worst case, I’ll give you two lakh rupees, bas. Take it or leave it.”

Their tone was so casual—like we were discussing a bad cricket match. Mera toh khoon khol gaya tha. Was our whole family's struggle just a tamasha for them?

I was boiling inside, yaar. My wife’s worried face flashed in my mind, and I wanted to break something right then and there. The frustration of all those years—the skipped treats, the borrowed money, the hope—everything came bubbling out.

But I held it together. I wouldn’t let these harami log walk away with my daughter's future. Not without a fight.