Chapter 7 – The Spark Returns...
The nights had grown colder. The small room where Sanjay’s family lived carried the smell of dampness, the cracked walls letting in whispers of the wind. He often sat alone on the roof, his knees pulled close to his chest, watching the sky. The stars above were countless, glittering silently, but to him they felt like strangers—distant, unreachable. Each star mocked him, reminding him how far away he was from any kind of light.
The collapse of his first small stall had broken something inside him. His neighbors had called him foolish, Karim and his men had humiliated him in the market, and his own hands had nothing to show after months of hard labor. There were nights when Sanjay wondered if perhaps this was his destiny—to always chase and never catch, to always fight and never win.
One such night, as he sat on the roof in silence, his sister Meera climbed up beside him. She carried an old, torn notebook—one of the few belongings that hadn’t been sold. The cover was bent, the pages thin and yellowed, but inside, her handwriting danced in careful, delicate curves. She sat down beside him, her dupatta fluttering in the breeze, and began writing.
Sanjay watched her for a while before speaking in a dull voice, “What are you writing, Meera?”
She didn’t look up. A faint smile played on her lips. “A story.”
“A story?” He let out a bitter laugh. “We don’t have money for food, and you’re writing stories?”
This time she looked up. Her eyes, though young, carried a quiet strength. “Yes. A story about a boy who wanted to touch the sky.”
“And?” Sanjay asked, his tone sarcastic. “Did he succeed?”
She paused for a moment, then replied simply, “Not yet. But he hasn’t given up. That’s why I like him.”
Her words struck him harder than she knew. Not yet. The phrase repeated in his mind, echoing louder and louder. Not a no, not an end—just not yet.
The next morning, Sanjay returned to the market, this time not as a dreamer but as a laborer. He carried heavy sacks of rice on his back, his shoulders aching with each step. Sweat ran down his neck, and his palms burned with blisters. Yet, in that crowd of shouting traders and clattering carts, he overheard two men talking.
“Did you hear?” one man said, his voice excited. “A boy in the next town opened a tea stall, and now it’s the busiest spot in the bazaar.”
“Tea stall? What’s so special about it?” the other asked.
“He served tea differently. Clean cups, quick service, and he spoke kindly to everyone. People liked him. That’s all it took.”
Sanjay froze, his heart suddenly pounding. He placed the sack down and pretended to tie his shoelace, just so he could keep listening.
The men moved on, but their words stayed. A tea stall. Something so simple, so ordinary. And yet, success had come from it. It wasn’t the size of the dream that mattered—it was how it was done.
For the first time, Sanjay realized his earlier failure had not been because he was poor or cursed. It had been because he had trusted the wrong people and chosen the wrong path. If another boy could rise from nothing, why couldn’t he?
That evening, he sat before his mother, his voice trembling but determined. “Amma,” he said, “I want to try again.”
She looked at him in surprise, her tired eyes widening. “Again? After everything?”
“Yes,” Sanjay replied, gripping the edge of the cot. “I cannot carry sacks all my life. I cannot let Karim’s lies decide my future. If I fail, let it be my mistake—not someone else’s trick.”
His mother’s lips quivered, her eyes filling with tears. “Sanjay… I have no money left to give.”
“I know,” he said gently. “I will earn it. I will start small. Smaller than before. But this time, I will be careful. I will watch, I will learn, and I will not be fooled.”
Her silence was heavy, but there was a flicker in her gaze—a faint belief, though buried under years of hardship.
That night, Sanjay found himself unable to sleep. His eyes kept going back to Meera’s notebook lying on the table. He picked it up, running his rough fingers over the pages. Her story was childish, simple, but powerful. The boy who wanted the sky. The boy who had not given up.
He whispered to himself, “Not yet. My story is not over. Not yet.”
The words gave him a strange energy, a fire he had not felt in weeks. His body was tired, his heart bruised, but somewhere deep inside, a small ember glowed again.
The next morning, instead of going to the market for labor, Sanjay walked to the tea shop at the corner of the bazaar. He didn’t buy tea—he stood quietly in a corner, watching. The shopkeeper smiled at customers, served tea quickly, and kept his stall clean. People came not just for tea, but for the warmth in his words.
Sanjay’s eyes narrowed. This is it. This is what I will do. But I will do it better.
He went home, his chest filled with a mix of fear and excitement. For the first time in months, he wasn’t thinking about failure—he was thinking about how to begin again.
That night, as he sat with his family for a simple dinner of roti and salt, he announced, “I am going to start my own tea stall.”
Meera’s eyes sparkled. His mother didn’t speak at first, but her silence wasn’t the silence of doubt—it was the silence of cautious hope.
And for Sanjay, that was enough.
For the first time in weeks, his eyes burned not from tears, but from the faint glow of hope.
The ember inside him flickered. Weak, yes—but alive.
The spark had returned.
