The Smile that Killed me

 

I’m not someone who gets excited when I see a plane in the sky or feels a rush of hormones when I meet a beautiful girl. My life changed completely the day I met her for the first time. It felt as though my soul had left my body, gone for a cleansing, and then returned to me—lighter, calmer, more human.

People often say that when you meet the right person, your entire life transforms. That’s exactly what happened when I encountered her—this little girl, all alone on the outskirts of Kashmir. She was just six years old. And I was holding a gun.

Did I kill her parents? I’m not sure. God, I hope not. All I know is that she was a victim in a land occupied by Pakistan. I was supposed to either shoot her or walk away and let one of the soldiers I called my mates put a bullet through her head.

But something within me changed that day. What emerged from that moment wasn’t the soldier I had been trained to be, but the man I used to be. What emerged was my humanity.

She was barely six years old, and she was trying her best to hold back her tears. Her eyes were so blue they reminded me of the Kashmir sky. She was doing everything she could to be brave, but I could practically hear her heart pounding in the middle of all the chaos. Her gaze stayed fixed on the INSAS assault rifle in my right hand.

After a minute of overlapping thoughts—none of which I could share—I kept them to myself and held her hand. I didn’t ask for her permission. My only aim was to take her to safety.

I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I just acted.

I pulled the trigger—not at her, but into the sky. One loud, hollow shot to make it seem like I had done what I was told. The sound echoed through the mountains, and I prayed it would be enough to keep my fellow soldiers from coming to check.

I tore the insignia off my shoulder, smeared mud across my face, and wrapped the rifle in an old shawl I found hanging on a fence nearby. I scooped her into my arms. She didn’t resist. She didn’t cry. Her tiny hands clutched my collar, as if her body understood something her mind hadn’t caught up with yet.

We stayed off the roads. I followed a shepherd’s path through the hills, my boots sinking into the cold mud. I carried her until my arms went numb. When we reached a village near Baramulla, I traded my uniform for an old kurta and a worn-out pair of slippers. No one asked questions. Perhaps they saw the fatigue in my eyes, and the girl pressed against my chest.

From there, we hitched rides—back of vegetable trucks, inside crowded jeeps, once even inside a chicken coop in a bus. I told people we were fleeing violence, that her parents were dead. That I was her uncle. Some believed me. Some didn’t care.

At Jammu station, I bought two second-class tickets with cash. No names. No questions. The train to Delhi arrived just before dawn, cloaked in fog. We slipped into a corner, she on my lap, her head against my chest. She never spoke. Not a word.

From Delhi, we changed trains three times. Agra. Mumbai. Mangalore.

Each time I thought it was over—each time I thought someone would recognise me, arrest me, shoot me. But they didn’t. Or maybe they just saw a man with a child and didn’t want to get involved.

The journey lasted six days. We ate whatever was cheap—biscuits, bananas, and tea from roadside vendors. I fed her with my own hands. She never asked for anything. Never cried. She just looked at me with those blue eyes, wide and silent.

When the train finally rolled into Ernakulam, it felt like the end of the world. The air was hot and wet. The people spoke a language I didn’t understand. Women wore jasmine in their hair. Men wore white lungis. And no one looked at me twice.

That was the first time I exhaled.

My fellow soldiers believed I had died on the battlefield. The whole of India thought I was dead. But none of that mattered. It might have been a moment of brain fade—or the best decision I’ve ever made.

Kerala was unlike any place I had ever seen. They spoke a different language, wore different clothes, and ate different food. They were so unusual that they would play a Hindu slogan in a Christian church, and the folks would still dance to it like it was nothing.

But none of that mattered to us.

She never spoke to me. I don’t even know her name. Does she even have one? She might have been born in the middle of a war. What if they forgot to give her a name at all?

Maybe it’s PTSD.

These questions came flooding into my mind, one after the other. But the only thing that mattered to me then was making sure there was food on her plate.

Suddenly, my life had a new purpose. It wasn’t about killing soldiers anymore. It was taking care of this innocent girl. I found a job in a local shop; it wasn't a white-collar position, but it provided me with an income. I lay low, and days have passed with every day she got more comfortable with me. She still won't come to the room when I am home or eat with me, but I swear I saw her smile one day! There was so much sadness in her face, but that one moment when a smile popped up on her face. It made me the happiest person in the world.

It began with a whisper.

Someone saw my face at a tea stall and said it looked familiar. Another remembered a photo from a war memorial. Someone else dug up a news clipping: Kargil Martyr – Rifleman Disappears in Operation Snowfall.

That was me.

They said I had died with honour. That I was a hero.

But heroes don’t sweep floors in Ernakulam shops. Heroes don’t walk barefoot with a silent child clinging to their hand.

The questions started as murmurs. Then came the photographs. One of me drying her hair with a towel during the Onam rains. Another, of her leaning against me during a temple festival, her eyes shut, finally asleep in safety.

They twisted everything.

“Ex-soldier abducts Pakistani girl.”

“Was he hiding all these years… or hunting?”

“Pedophile alert in Kerala town.”

That last headline broke me more than any bullet could.

They took her first.

It happened on a Tuesday. Two officers came with polite voices and rubber gloves. They didn’t need a warrant. Just a whisper of suspicion. They told me it was “for her safety.”

She clung to my hand, trembling like a leaf in the rain. I tried to hold on, just a second longer.

But they pulled her away.

She screamed—not with words, but with a sound so raw it split the air. I hadn’t heard her make a single sound in all those months. Not a laugh. Not a cry. Until that day.

Then she was gone.

I stood alone in an empty house, holding a damp towel she had left on the floor.

A week later, the news spread across borders: “Mother of abducted girl found in Pakistan.”

Her name was Rahna.

Her mother had survived the bombing. She had believed her daughter was dead. And now, five years later, the world returned her—but not in the way she imagined.

I wasn’t allowed to speak to her. Not even once.

The public didn’t want to hear my side. They didn’t care about six-day train journeys or nights I stayed awake so she could sleep without fear. They didn’t want to hear about the smile. That one, brief, precious smile.

They wanted a monster.

And so, they built one.

The trial never came. It didn’t need to. The media had already delivered the verdict. The people executed it.

I watched her cross the border from behind a metal grille. On every screen in every chai shop, she walked hand-in-hand with a woman in a black shawl. Her mother.

She didn’t look back.

Not once.

Her mother stood before the cameras. Her voice was shaking, not with grief—but with rage.

“My daughter remembers everything. He took her. Kept her like a prisoner. She says he told her not to speak. She calls him Satan now.”

I had no words. Only silence.

I sat in my cell, staring at the floor, hearing her voice echo in my head.

Satan.

They could’ve stabbed me. It would’ve hurt less.

They let me out after a few days. No charges filed. No trial. Just a release.

The jailer handed me my bag—empty but for a photograph folded at the bottom. It was one of the ones they had used on the news. I had saved it. Her smile. That smile. The only one I ever got.

Outside, a crowd waited.

They didn’t chant. They didn’t scream.

They just waited for the right moment.

A stone hit my shoulder. Another hit my knee. Then came fists. Boots. Spit.

Some cursed me. Some called me names I’d never repeat.

But through the pain, through the blur of blood and broken bone—I thought of her.

Not the Rahna I saw on the news.

But the Rahna who once refused to sleep unless I sat by the door. The Rahna who held my finger on that first train ride. The Rahna who smiled when I made her a paper boat during the rains.

And even as the crowd howled, even as my ribs cracked, I smiled.

Because she was home.

Because she would never have to hide again.

Because she would forget me, and that was a kind of freedom too.

Years later ....

Rahna was twelve when she began asking questions again. The therapists said she needed to heal on her own terms.

One night, she dug through an old suitcase her mother kept locked. Inside, between official papers and news clippings, was a small drawing.

A paper boat.

She didn’t cry.

She just stared at it for a long, long time. And for the first time in years, she whispered something under her breath—so soft, so broken, it sounded like a ghost remembering its own name.

"Appa."

But only the night heard her.

And the wind.