Before Khushi Patil became a name the world whispered with awe and fear, before headlines called her a phoenix risen from ashes, she was simply a girl — a girl with a dream, a laugh that lit up her home, and a family that, on the surface, was whole.
In a narrow Mumbai lane, nestled between honking chaos and the scent of frying vada pav, stood the Patil home. It wasn't the biggest. It wasn't the richest. But it was filled with something rarer: love. Or so she believed.
Six lives lived under that roof. Grandfather Pandurang, once a respected teacher, now a man of slow steps and sharp wisdom. Grandmother Namrata, sweet as her gajar ka halwa and stronger than she ever let on. Sanjay, the father—charming, stable, a man with a good reputation and a darker reality. Sonali, the mother — the sun, the soul, the sacrifice. Khushi, the daughter — bright-eyed, hopeful, book in hand and stars in her gaze. And Ron, her baby brother — innocence incarnate, trailing behind her like a shadow of joy.
They laughed together. Ate together. Prayed together.
But love is a glass sculpture. It looks perfect until it shatters.
Khushi would later remember the night the sky wept hardest. She would remember her mother's final smile. She would remember how her world didn't end in a bang — but in a quiet creak of a door, a folded note, and a scream that never stopped echoing in her bones.
She didn't know then that the woman who wore her mother's bangles the next day would also wear the face of betrayal. She didn't know that her textbooks would be replaced by bruises, her dreams by darkness, her meals by scraps.
She didn't know she would one day die — not at the hands of fate, but of family.
But she also didn't know that death was not the end.
It was only the beginning.