Author's pov:

 1970s, chandpur - Uttar Pradesh

They had named her Durga, but her father called her Champa.
A name that didn't roar like the goddess durga, but bloomed like the flower - soft, fragrant, defiant against the dust she was born in.

To him, she wasn't just a child. She was sunlight trapped in human form, the only spark in his soot-colored life.

That morning, the roof of their  mud house was leaking again. The Father and daughter duo were patching it together - he, with steady hands; she, with clumsy enthusiasm that made him chuckle. He'd always say her spirit could fix his miserable life.

But then, Chachu arrived. As always, he didn't knock.  His words came before footsteps.
He spat his paan into the bushes and waved a dismissive hand at the girl on the ladder.

"Still wasting time on that chori?" he sneered. "She's a girl. What good is she? All this love , you should've prayed harder for a son."

Durga didn't fully understand caste, patriarchy, or the sharp edges of Chachu's voice.
But she understood shame.
It sat in her chest like a pebble she couldn't spit out.

She looked at her father.

He didn't yell. That wasn't his way. Instead, he climbed down slowly, his silence a gathering storm.

Then, in a voice that didn't shake but sliced, he said,
"She is my daughter. My Champa. My angel. And she's worth more than a hundred sons who only learn to spit bitterness like you."

He turned to Durga, now blinking fast on the ladder.
Without a word, he lifted her into his arms, strong and sure, just as he had done since the day she was born.

"Don't cry, my little flower," he murmured, his beard brushing her ear. "Shall we go to the market? I'll buy you the bangles that look like the sky. Hmm?"

She nodded against his chest, and the storm dissolved , for now.

They walked hand-in-hand through the village, her little fingers curled into his calloused ones.

Durga noticed the same things she always did. How people drew back as they approached. How whispers fluttered behind their backs like restless flies. How the line outside the tea stall shifted to avoid contact.

And still, her father walked like a man untethered by scorn.

They passed the temple gates, the brass bell above quiet, the priest inside peeking at them with narrowed eyes. She tugged gently on her father's kurta.

"Baba..." she asked, voice barely louder than the rustle of leaves. "Why does no one respect us?"

He stopped. His silence was not from shock,it was from sorrow.

"When we go near... people move away. Why do they say we are... low... cas, caste?" She frowned, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. "Caste, Baba? What is caste?"

He knelt down, leveling his face with hers. His eyes searched the sky as though trying to borrow the right words from the clouds.

"Some believe that your birth decides your worth. That if you're born in a certain family, you must stay bowed forever." He looked into her eyes. "But God doesn't believe that. He gave the same blood to all. The same bones, the same sky, the same sun. The river doesn't ask a name before it quenches thirst."

She tilted her head. "Then why do they treat us like we are... dirty?"

He brushed a fallen leaf from her hair, his hands rough with works he had done throughout his life but tender with love.

"Because they are afraid, Champa. Afraid of what we might become if we rise. You... will rise,like durga maa you would rise and destroy unrighteousness."

She didn't reply. She only held his hand tighter.

At the market, he let her choose the bangles,blue like the sky she often stared into, like the hope she hadn't yet learned to name. He bought her a handful and made her promise she'd wear them always.

That night, she did.

As she lay in bed, arms crossed over her chest, the glass bangles cool against her skin, she felt like a princess,her baba's princess.

She didn't know that soon, those hands that lifted her high above the cruelty of the world would no longer be there.

That the sky-colored bangles would someday be the last thing she had as a reminder of him.

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