Trading Smiles

Vinish stood on the balcony of his 15th-floor apartment, gazing up at the night sky and wondering why his life felt so dull. It wasn’t as if he’d had a hard life, or one filled with hardship.

In fact, his childhood had been privileged. He was a gentle but clever boy from a young age, the third and youngest child in the Sethupathi family. His father, Muthu Sethupathi, was a politician and businessman, while his mother, Ganga, was the headmistress of a government girls’ high school. Their family owned a hundred-year-old bungalow surrounded by lush green fields. Their ancestors had been prominent financiers, and their legacy lived on through the family’s properties.

But Vinish never cared much for these “trivial” matters. He attended a premier school in the area but never boasted about his privileges. In contrast, his eldest brother Gautham, eight years older, always had a superiority complex. Gautham frequently belittled those less wealthy and was openly misogynistic, believing women were inferior and meant only to serve.

His sister Swetha was not much different. Whenever she could, she flaunted the family’s wealth and spoke condescendingly about their maids, seeing them as a lower species. Despite a three-year age gap, Vinish and Swetha looked almost like twins both lean and fair-skinned but this similarity went largely downplayed by their family.

Vinish finished school with good grades but struggled to make genuine friends. Those he thought of as friends turned out to be opportunists, interested only in his family’s influence. He longed to leave and build a life of his own.

Against his family’s wishes who wanted him to enroll in a local private engineering college, Vinish chose to pursue a B.Com degree at a government college in Chennai. Thanks to his excellent marks, he received a full fee waiver. His decision disappointed his family, but his father relented, saying, “He’s a boy; he can do whatever he wants.”

However, when his sister wanted to study fashion in London, their father refused, insisting, “Girls can only teach or treat, and nothing in between.” Swetha settled for a medical degree at a private university, with the family paying a hefty donation.

Now, in 2025, Vinish’s parents were content in their hometown. His mother had retired, and his father managed local political affairs from home. Gautham was married with two children; his wife, Saveetha, despite having a degree in political science, was never allowed to be involved in Gautham’s business. Gautham himself, though poorly educated, had become a leading figure in a state political party. Swetha was now married to a relative and lived as a housewife in a nearby town.

At 22, Vinish lived alone in his Chennai apartment, bought with money he’d earned himself. During college, without his family’s knowledge, he’d worked various part-time jobs and saved diligently. He invested his savings in cryptocurrency, saw substantial returns, and thus never needed to rely on his family for money or even get a conventional job.

He gradually distanced himself from his family, choosing a secluded life in his new apartment, focusing on investments but lacking any real goals. And so, on this night, he found himself staring at the sky, eventually drifting off to sleep, hoping for some change in his life.

As he slept, a shooting star streaked across the sky, and, out of nowhere, a saree floated onto his balcony. Unbeknownst to him, the wheels of change had already begun to turn.

Let’s see what the saree holds for this young man, lost and searching for hope.