She Carried His Smile Home

"Uncle ji, please wait." Breathing hard, Ananya darted across the road; responsible as ever, she checked that it was empty and free of vehicles before making the dash. This was the first rickshaw she had seen in the twenty minutes since she had left for home. Standing outside the company gates for that long felt truly strange to her. Apparently, people could never mind their own business and kept staring as if she were not even human. Anyways, she just hoped the rickshaw driver would actually wait and take her home. "Haan beta ji.", the driver stopped, a courteous smile resting on his worn old face. (Haan beta ji - yes, child) That smile put her at ease at once. "Uncle ji, could you take me to Vijay Nagar?", she asked, a note of uncertainty in her tone. "Sure beta, please sit." She gave him a grateful smile and climbed into the rickshaw. "Finally.", she murmured after taking a sip of water, the cool air outside toying with the lone strand of hair that had slipped out of her ponytail. This was how her days went. Ananya Sharma - she was all things wonderful, and if you asked around, the sort of child any parent would wish for. Intelligent, mature, responsible, calm, determined, ambitious, polite - name the trait, and she seemed to have it. Once she completed her master's degree in Chemistry at a well-known college in Indore, she applied to a big pharma company, and with her gold-medalist record plus impeccable practical and communication skills, she secured the job at once. She knew what she was worth, and she stayed determined to prove it, always. Yet somewhere deep down, she ached to prove her worth before the people who mattered most - her parents. Yes, they were good to her, loved her, cared for her, and had raised her as best as they knew, at least in her eyes, but there was a catch. It was nothing more than this: she was a girl, and unfortunately for her, in spite of her academic and professional achievements, they carried certain stereotypical expectations for her that were never placed on her elder brother. Sanjay Sharma and Leena Sharma were decent parents, but they remained tangled in the trap of 'what would people say?' You understand the kind, right? They held their daughter to society's usual expectations and followed them regardless of anything else. Those expectations arrived with several limits. It was never the same with Ananya's elder brother Rohan Sharma, though. She had a curfew for getting home; he had none. She had to offer proper explanations and sometimes proof for the places she went; he did not even need to mention a location. He could befriend anyone he liked, while her having male friends - if she even did - was heavily frowned upon. He had the freedom to study whatever he wanted, for as long as he wanted, and chase any career path he chose, no matter how far from home it took him; she had none of those freedoms. Truth be told, even her masters had been permitted only after much resistance, and the same went for her current job - after endless arguments, pleadings, and again, heavy frowns. The condition - she was to go to work and come straight back home. If he was not expected to touch household chores - not even something as small as lifting his own plate - she, on the other hand, was expected to know every bit of housework, no matter what. And the sharpest thorn among all of it - marrying her off once she turned twenty-four. Even then, she stayed grateful - grateful for her parents' love, care, and affection, even when all of it came tied to conditions. Thankful that she had been allowed an education, and even allowed this job. Funny, wasn't it, that she needed permission for these bare basics while her bhai simply possessed those freedoms. Even so, she remained thankful, for beneath all those rules and limits, she still knew her parents did love her. She only wished they could free themselves from some social pressure and restraints. She sighed heavily. "Beta ji, traffic is bad. Please let them know at home that it may take around twenty minutes or maybe more.", the unfailingly polite rickshaw driver told her.