Midnight Encounter: A Path to Unexpected Parenthood

It was midnight and an old man was walking towards his house, swaying in the intoxication of alcohol. On the way, a lamp was lit on a pole. Just below that pole, a 15-16 year old girl, wearing old torn clothes, was standing wiping her tears, scared. As soon as the old man saw the girl, he stopped. The girl was standing clinging to the lamppost in search of light. The old man went close to her and asked in a stuttering tongue, "What is your name? Who are you and what are you doing here so late at night?"

The girl was quietly looking at someone far away with scared eyes. When the old man looked in the direction where the girl was looking, four boys were staring at him. The old man knew one of them. The boy felt embarrassed on seeing the old man and went away from there with his friends. The girl was suspicious of the drunken old man too, yet she mustered up the courage to tell him, "My name is Rupa, I have run away from the orphanage. They were going to send me to someone tonight," she said with great difficulty in a hushed voice.

Old man: "What are you saying... where will you go now?"

Girl: "I don't know..."

Old man: "Will you come to my house?"

The girl was thinking in her mind that he is drunk and it is midnight, and on top of that he doesn't look decent either. Many questions were going around in her mind.

Old man: "Now I am asking you for the last time, will you come to my house forever?"

Considering bad luck as her fate, scared of the deep darkness, leaving everything to God, the girl said in a hushed voice, "Yes."

The old man immediately held the girl's hand tightly and started moving towards his house, almost dragging her with fast steps. He was so drunk that he was not able to walk properly. Somehow, staggering, he reached his mud house and knocked on the door. In a short while, his wife opened the door. Before the wife could say anything, the old man said, "Take this, take care of her. I have brought a daughter for us. Now we will not be called barren. From today, we too have children."

Tears of joy started flowing from the wife's eyes and she hugged the girl to her chest. 😭😭