It’s raining the night my world collapses. I’m lying in a hospital bed, helpless, after an accident left me broken—both body and spirit. All I can think about is Guddu, my five-year-old daughter, alone in our tiny house, hungry and afraid. I beg the nurse to call someone, anyone, but no one listens.

Meanwhile, Guddu, feverish and delirious, stumbles into the storm, calling for me. She doesn’t know I can’t come. She falls in the mud, shivering, unnoticed by the passing cars. A Marathi woman finds her just before dawn, half-dead from cold and hunger.

I finally make it home, only to learn she’s gone. Desperate, I rush to the pharmacy for medicine, but the doctor’s prescription costs more than I’ll earn in a year. When I beg, the pharmacist laughs. Something snaps. I grab him—just to make him understand—but the police arrive. I’m arrested. Not for love. Not for need. But for daring to care too much.

Now, eight years later, I’m presumed dead. But I’m alive. And I’m coming home.