It rained relentlessly for three days and three nights. The entire village of Nandipur was swallowed by floodwaters. The water rose like a raging beast, sweeping away everything — vegetable gardens, livestock pens, even the small tin-roofed house was submerged more than halfway.

But the most devastating blow wasn’t the flood.

Their father passed away.

He took his final breath just before dawn, as thunder rumbled across the sky. His heart condition had suddenly worsened. There was no time to get him to the hospital. Clutched in his hand was an old photo of him and his two daughters — faded with age and love.

Asha and Priya, his two daughters, wept by his side. But their sobs were drowned out by the roar of the rain.

The water rose all the way to the bed. With no other option, the two girls borrowed a small wooden boat from the neighbor, gently wrapped their father’s body in a cotton sheet, and pushed the boat out into the watery silence, their tears falling with each stroke of the oar.

Villagers lined the water-covered path, silently watching.
No one spoke. No one whispered.
Only the sound of water splashing against the wooden hull, and the heart-wrenching cries of the sisters echoed through the rain-soaked sky:

— “Papa… why does it have to be this painful…”

— “We don’t even own a single patch of high land… Why did you have to leave just as the floods came, Papa…”

They rowed through the rising water, hands trembling, lips purple from the cold, tears mixing with the rain — salty, endless. On that humble wooden boat floated not just their father’s body, but the unbearable weight of grief and farewell in the middle of a raging storm.

At the cemetery — one of the rare dry places left in the region — they asked for help to hurriedly dig a grave. With love and strength, the two daughters buried their father, standing firm in the storm of life.

That night, when they returned to what was left of home, only the tin roof jutted above the water. Asha held Priya’s hand, choking on tears:

— “Papa is gone… There’s no one left to carry the burden now…”

Priya leaned into her sister’s shoulder, sobbing:

— “Papa… why does it have to be this way… How are the two of us supposed to go on…”

And yet, somehow, they stood up.

They wiped their tears and lit an incense stick, placing it into a makeshift incense bowl — an old rice cooker lid. Fragrant smoke curled upward into the flood-stained air.

And deep within their hearts, they heard his voice, soft and steady, like it always had been:

— “Be strong, my daughters… live with dignity… Because I believe… you can overcome everything.”