Fahad's village lies beside a river.
During the monsoon, the river swells; in winter, sandbars emerge.
But in Fahad's household, no season ever brought relief.
His father has been gone for many years.
His mother works in other people's houses.
Fahad sometimes works as a day laborer in the fields, sometimes carries loads in the market.
On days when there is no work, there is hardly enough rice to eat.
It was in the midst of this poverty that he fell in love with Sathi.
Sathi was the girl from the neighboring house.
Her father owned a small shop; the family survived somehow.
There was always a kind of fear in Sathi's eyes—the fear of the future.
But when she was with Fahad, she smiled a little.
That smile was Fahad's greatest source of courage.
Love in a village must be hidden.
Eyes may meet, but words cannot be spoken.
Meetings happen by the pond, but no one can stand there for long.
One day Sathi said,
"My mother says—girls are not meant to dream too much."
Fahad had nothing to say.
His own life ran without dreams anyway.
People in the village understand things very quickly.
Whispers began to spread.
"That boy has nothing."
"He will ruin the girl."
Talk started in Sathi's house.
Marriage proposals began to arrive—
men with brick houses, land, and cattle.
Sathi broke down.
At night she cried silently.
During the day, she tried to stay strong in front of Fahad.
One afternoon, standing by the pond, Sathi said,
"If only you could take me with you…"
She could not finish the sentence.
Neither could Fahad.
Because he knew—
love cannot buy rice.
On the day of Sathi's wedding, drums echoed through the village.
That day, Fahad was working on the riverbank.
The sound of the drums drifted through the air and struck his chest.
He did not stop working.
Because the poor do not get leave from pain.
A few months after the wedding, someone said,
"Sathi isn't well, they say. Too much work at her in-laws' house."
Fahad did not want to hear anything more.
Some pains are such that—even knowing them, nothing can be done.
Fahad still lives in that same village.
His mother is alive.
Responsibilities are not over.
In the evenings, sitting by the river, he sometimes wonders—
how is Sathi now?
He knows there is no answer to that question.
Love is cruel in villages.
Because here, it is not people who decide—
poverty does.
And Fahad has learned one thing—
love can be lost,
but poverty cannot be escaped.