He worked abroad for three years, earning money and dreaming of the day he would return home and place comfort in his mother’s hands. But when Ravi finally came back to his village, he found his elderly mother sick and half-conscious on a broken cot outside their crumbling hut.
And what he did after that changed everything.
Three long years had passed since Ravi had left his village for Dubai. Every day overseas, he worked under the blazing sun, hiding the blisters on his hands and telling his mother on the phone, “I’m happy here, Mom. Just a little more work.” But the truth was, every night he slept with her photo pressed to his chest.
After his father died, it was his mother who had held the family together. She worked as a farm laborer, skipped meals so he could eat, and even sold her jewelry to buy his ticket abroad. The day he left, she told him only one thing:
“Earn money, son, but don’t lose yourself.”
Now, as the taxi bumped along the dusty village roads, Ravi’s chest swelled with hope. He imagined his mother’s eyes filling with tears of joy when she saw him. He imagined her saying, “My son has come home.”
But when the taxi stopped in front of the house, his steps froze.
That was no longer a home.
The mud walls had cracked and crumbled. Half the roof had collapsed. And outside, in the courtyard, on an old broken cot, someone was lying motionless.
Ravi moved closer.
Then his breath stopped.
It was his mother.
She looked smaller than he remembered, as if life had been draining out of her day by day. Her face was dry and thin, her eyes sunken, her hair almost completely white. Beside her sat an empty water pot and a half-used strip of medicine.
His hands began to shake.
He bent over her and whispered, “Mom… Mom…”
Her eyelids fluttered. Slowly, painfully, she opened her eyes. For a moment she stared at him as if she were trying to understand whether he was real.
Then her lips trembled.
“Ravi…”
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