They rode back from the bank in a kind of stunned silence that felt like the quiet after a thunderclap.Gadhiraju kept stealing glances from side mirror at the child in the back seat of Honda Unicorn, at the way Dilli sat a little straighter now, fingers nervously tracing the edge of the new passbook peeking from his pocket.
After a while Dilli got an idea could not hold it in. "How much liquid cash do you have with you, dad?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
"About seven thousand, peddoda," his dad answered, voice harsh but steady. The number hung in the air around the bike like a candle flame suddenly lit. Dilli's eyes, when he said it, shone with something that was not simply childish excitement — more like a small greedy demon at a sweet shop.
Gadhiraju blinked. The earlier bank scene — the old man's bag, the manager's silence, the slip — still rang in his head. He tried to joke it off. "You know you have ₹1,45,000 in your bank, pedhoda. What will my seven thousand change do?" He forced a laugh that did not reach his eyes.
Dilli's reply was quick and strangely adult: "That money with you will be spent. It will be wasted. Better if it's in something that keeps growing." He tapped his chest as if a grown-up's conviction lived there. Gadhiraju sat very still. A laugh pressed at the back of his throat and then died. Three days — three nights — had changed his son's whole bearing. He did not know whether to laugh or to cry.
Dilli persuaded his dad to take him to a jewellery store in Rajahmundry at that instant.
The road unwound like a ribbon: red earth giving way to blacktop; small hamlets, paddy fields knee-deep in green, the occasional buffalo languid by the roadside. The Alto hummed steadily; a radio somewhere in the dashboard muttered a Telugu song and then went quiet as both men drifted into their private thoughts. When the Dowaleswaram cotton barrage came into view, the concrete ribs of the structure cast long shadows over the Godavari, and the river glittered like tumbled coins. The sight steadied Gadhiraju's heart — it had always calmed him — but today it also made him feel oddly small in the face of his son's sudden gravity.
"Pedhoda," he asked again, watching the boy's profile, "what happened that night? You don't have to carry this weight. You're ten. Let me carry the burden, I'm still young enough to work hard for the family." He said it like a promise and like a plea.
Dilli's fingers tightened once on the passbook. He looked up, eyes clear as glass. "Nanna i had a big dream I don't know how long it's outside but I lived years in it but ended as a failure in it because of me our family also suffered in it.i don't want that to become a reality I will be super successful and take care of our family and make you all happy"." His voice was simple, like a child reciting a lesson, but the words landed like grown things.
Gadhiraju felt something heavy sink into his chest and then, absurdly, swell into pride. Is this my boy or a monk reincarnated? he wondered. His hand found the top of Dilli's head and ruffled the hair reflexively. He swallowed and said with a brittle smile, "Kid, enjoy your childhood. I'll do the hard parts. Don't worry."
Inside, Dilli was already sorting through memory and resolve. He remembered the thirty-one wasted years as if they were his own — the way his father had steered him toward safe choices out of love, the fights over subjects and careers. He saw his father not as the man who scolded but as the man who had held the family up. Now it's my turn, he thought fiercely. "I'm not a kid, Nanna. Let's work together." He wanted to speak the lines he had never dared in the earlier life; now he could, and the words felt like armor.
They reached Rajahmundry with the sun dropping a little, the city lights just beginning to wink. The jewellery shop sat in a bright cluster of stores — glass windows reflecting neon and the faint bustle of evening shoppers. Inside, under warm lamps, glittering rows of coins and chains waited like patient soldiers.
Dilli's order was bizarre and specific. He asked the shopkeeper for:
• Ten 1-gram gold coins at ₹500 per gram — that's 10 × 500 = ₹5,000.
• One hundred 1-gram silver coins at ₹10 per gram — that's 100 × 10 = ₹1,000.
• Two hundred small stainless-steel plates at ₹5 each — that's 200 × 5 = ₹1,000.
He had worked the arithmetic in his head and the total came to ₹5,000 + ₹1,000 + ₹1,000 = ₹7,000, exactly what his father had in his pocket. The shopkeeper and Gadhiraju both stared as the boy spoke in the calm, businesslike voice of someone who had rehearsed not just the numbers but the reasons.
The father's astonishment was comic and tender at once. He watched his son's face, small, intent, oddly adult — and then looked at the stern village elder who had never given more than ₹20 on birthdays. Memory and expectation crashed into each other.
"Pack them properly," Gadhiraju told the shopkeeper finally, his own voice thin with wonder.
The shopkeeper, touched by Dilli's earnestness and charmed by the audacity of the child who knew what he wanted, wrapped the coins, counted carefully, and then after watching Dilli's determined little face, slipped an extra 1-gram gold coin into the packet. "For luck," he said, discreet and smiling. Dilli's face lit like a festival lamp.
They drove home with parcels neatly arranged. The metal clinked faintly inside the boxes — a sound that to Dilli meant more than glitter; it meant foundation stones, a small army of savings that could be fed into a demat account and made to work.
As they entered the yard, Nagamani— Dilli's mother — bustled out to meet them, halfway between scolding and curiosity. She took one look at the parcels and at Gadhiraju's bemused expression and immediately went for her default maternal rhythm.
"He is still a child! He has no sense — what did you think, giving him seven thousand?" she demanded, fanning the air with her sari. "Huddy, did a buffalo kick you on the head while milking today? Did your head get stuck?" Her voice had the sharp edge of concern wrapped in humor.
Dilli stepped forward, bold and a little theatrical. "Amma, you said I don't have good thinking. Maybe you are talking about dad his brain is stuck thinking for the village. But who gave me my brain, Amma? I inherited your intelligence." He paused for effect. Then with the impulsive charm of a ten-year-old: "I thought I got a wonderful idea to loot people and buy my most beautiful and intelligent mom a wonderful chain."
Nagamani froze for a heartbeat. Then a laugh — surprised, delighted, incredulous burst out of her. She shook her head, a smile breaking over her face. "Where did you learn to talk like this, my dear? Huddy, your son should teach you how to woo a woman!" She kissed Dilli lightly on the forehead before slipping back into the kitchen, still chuckling.
Gadhiraju stood there, collapsed into a grin that looked both relieved and embarrassed. He watched his son skip inside, carrying the small boxes like a triumphant soldier. For all his earlier jokes about letting the boy be, something in him had shifted a new, fierce protectiveness mixed with a widening pride. The child who had once begged for biscuits had bought gold and silver and plates with planning and purpose.
That night, as the family sat down, the little packets were placed neatly in a locked drawer. Nagamani fussed over the ritual of arranging plates and chains, laughing about the scene but visibly moved. Gadhiraju and Dilli sat close. The father's hand rested on his son's shoulder, heavy with a man's fatigue and suddenly very light with hope. The child laid plans in his head; the father let himself imagine the future just enough to be warmed by it.
Dilli drifted to sleep that night thinking of ledgers and coins and the smell of river water at Dowaleswaram. He was ten years old again in body, but he was building a life that remembered thirty-one lost years and refused to repeat them. And his father who had always been strict for love understood at last that the boy's mischief had been replaced by a strange, patient resolve.
Outside, the village slept under a blanket of distant stars. Inside the small house, dreams and plans were being folded carefully into boxes and passbooks, and a family that had known scarcity was beginning to taste the strange, new shape of possibility.