Another Raksha Bandhan. He had always wished for a kid sister, who would tie him a rakhi.

“Mom, why can’t I have a sis?” he queries.

The mother gives him a blank expression. She has just undergone her third abortion.

“Can’t afford daughters,” her husband, a rickshaw puller, would say.

Vijai Pant is a school teacher in India. In his free time he lets his creative juices flow in the form of stories and poems.