The rain was a little too heavy that night, but Kamli was not scared, she had seen many such rains in the past, and she slept like a log after all the hard work of washing utensils all day long. Just when things had come to a blissfully positive halt, the fearful night came, it was raining and Kamli was sleeping next to the stove on which she had cooked today, it was cozy next to the fire and the leaky roof had water wetting the floor of the entire house otherwise. The last thing she called her own, had died twenty years back succumbing to alcohol and leaving her with a loan as his only legacy. She did have a few groceries, and some old clothes given by the good ladies who thought to give her old clothes were great charity, but kamli was happy for even if poor, she had something she could call her own, her home. Kamli now sixty, finally has a home, four walls and a small kitchen next to her bed, she had no concept of banking as the prime minister account opening scheme was never told to her, all her money was in the only stainless steel tiffin box she had at home.

She worked hard for the last twenty years washing utensils and eating leftovers, but finally last years she managed to finish the loan or so she was told by the landlord’s son whose father was now suffering from Alzheimer’s and could not remember how many he had duped in his life. Kamlis husband was no different, he died and left a loan for her. You need not wonder because even if you take a home loan from a nationalized bank you do the same thing, you work your entire life to get profits for the bank. Kamli is an elderly lady, all she had was a hut, a thatched hut bought by her husband just before he died, he did not have much money, so he had taken a loan from a local landlord, he died before the loan was over and by then he had already paid thrice the price of the home to the lender. This story is of Kamli, it can be any name, what’s there in a name.

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