Savitri checked the 5th position and found out that this lottery number didn"t match Saksham"s. Then she went on to match 4th, 3rd, and then 2nd. Seeing that Saksham"s lottery number had not won any of the prizes here, Savitri gently shook her head and gave up. As was about to stand up and leave for the kitchen, unintentionally Savitri"s gaze fell to the lottery number of the 1st prize winner. When she looked at the lottery number, Savitri"s body trembled and her eyes went wide. Her throat made a big gulping sound. After constantly staring at the number until her eyes hurt, she suddenly came out of her reverie and screamed loudly, "Saksham"s father! Saksham! We have made it big this time! Very big! 1,000,000! We have won Rs 1,000,000."And obviously, Arjun and Saksham both woke up due to this hysterical shout. As both of them came out of their respective rooms with only boxers on, messy hairs and red eyes, they saw Savitri dancing in the hall with the lottery ticket in her hands. Seeing this, Saksham understood that his powers had once again done their job. He had won the lottery with the prize money of Rs 1,000,000. But Arjun still didn"t know what was going on.
"Woman, why are shouting like crazy at this time of hour?" Arjun asked with red eyes.
"Old man, we won! We won!" Savitri shouted excitedly.
"What did we win?" Arjun asked with a confused look on his face.
"The lottery! Rs 1,000,000! Won! We won!" Savitri said.
"What lottery? Woman, say something that makes sense." Arjun said in an annoyed tone.
"Dad, she just wants to say that we have won a lottery with the prize money of Rs 1,000,000," Saksham explained.
When Saksham bought the lottery ticket, Savitri had scolded him slightly that he shouldn"t have bought that. Although she did say this but she did not tell Arjun about this ticket that Saksham had bought as she did not want Arjun to get angry at Saksham. So, she just kept it a secret.
If Arjun had heard about it at that time, he wouldn"t have said much about it as he knew that the reason for Saksham buying the ticket was to get money for his family. He would just have told him the same thing Savitri had said and brushed the thought of winning the lottery aside. But now, suddenly hearing that they had won a lottery and even with the prize money of Rs 1,000,000, you can only guess how big Arjun"s mouth would have opened wide.
For a while, the whole hall was silent, with only the tapping sounds of Savitri"s foot coming because of her dancing. After a while, Arjun"s soul came back to his body as his whole body trembled. He looked at the lottery ticket in Savitri"s hand as if looking at his own lover. His eyes were soft and carrying endless love and affection literally oozing out of his eyes. Not knowing when Arjun started tearing. As Savitri saw this, she also stopped. She slowly came towards Arjun and silently wiped his tears and gently handed the lottery ticket in Arjun"s hand.
"Now, we can pay off all the debts," Savitri said with a shaking voice.
"Hmm. Hmm." Arjun nodded excitedly.
In this house, there was a fourth member too. Saksham"s grandfather. But now, he had pa.s.sed away due to lung cancer. When he was diagnosed that he was suffering from lung cancer, everyone had given up hope. Arjun"s both sisters and brothers had totally given up on him. He had 2 older brothers and 2 younger sisters. Only Arjun and his family kept on the fire of hope burning in their hearts and never gave up on him. They had him see many doctors, had many check-ups, medicines, chemotherapy, etc. This kept on going for months and bills kept towering. After some check-ups, there were some symptoms of his conditions improving. Hearing this, Arjun and his family were ecstatic. They had finally gotten the sweet results of their bitter determination. Soon, all their savings had been used up. But now they couldn"t stop. No, not after coming this far.
They started borrowing money from their friends and relatives. When Arjun came to his brothers and sisters to ask for money, at first they outrightly denied. But after Arjun fought with them, and argued for a long time, only then did they give a measly amount of money for their father"s treatment after incessant complaints.
They even had to take a loan from loan sharks. But even after so many efforts, Arjun"s father still couldn"t be saved. He pa.s.sed away. At his funeral, Arjun and his family were sad for his death, but his 4 brothers and sister were sad for their money going to waste. After some days when Arjun and his family were slowly coming over the sadness of his father pa.s.sing away, his brother and sisters came to his home to ask for their money back.
Obviously, Arjun couldn"t pay them now. He didn"t even have a single penny left at home. He had to pay so many people back and even those loan sharks. He somehow managed to drive them away, but now he had fallen into the dilemma. How was he going to pay everyone back? Savitri couldn"t see Arjun so sad so she said, "How about we sell this house and go back to our village? The money we will get from selling this house would be enough to pay for all the debts and the remaining we could use to build an even better home in our village."
"No. Saksham"s studies will get disrupted due to this. We will not move away from here. I will do everything in my power to earn money and pay everyone. Don"t worry. Just believe in your man." Arjun said with his fists clenched.
And since then, he had been doing overnights and taking orders from his superiors for home-made boxed lunches. This way, both Savitri and Arjun did everything they could to earn money. But after every month, everything they used to earn would go away on debts and Saksham"s school fees. There was no saving whatsoever. So, they stopped unnecessary shopping. Only the things that they urgently need would be bought. This way they were somehow surviving till now.