Courage -the dream catcher - By Sweta Roy Chakraborty

Written By: Sweta Roy Chakraborty

Category: Short Story

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Sweta Roy Chakraborty presents a compelling narrative in her short story "Courage -the dream catcher," featured in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. This poignant short story explores themes of resilience, societal pressures, and the quest for justice. Chakraborty's entry is a testament to the enduring human spirit and the courage needed to navigate life's profound challenges.

About the Work

Sweta Roy Chakraborty's short story masterfully delves into the emotional turmoil of a young girl facing societal and personal adversities. With vivid imagery and a raw narrative style, the piece examines themes of betrayal, strength, and the pursuit of justice. The evocative storytelling captures the essence of courage and the transformative journey from vulnerability to empowerment.

Courage -the dream catcher

Original Submission by Sweta Roy Chakraborty

Courage -the dream catcher

“Shivani, please come down and finish your breakfast. You’ll be late for school “.

My mother’s voice floated up the stairs, ordinary and warm. I stood at the mirror with my hand pressed flat against my stomach.

How could I tell her? For ten days, even the sight of the food had made me queasy. The night before, I had taken a pregnancy test, and a second line had slowly appeared. I stared at it until I could see nothing else. I still could not believe my eyes. But a line does not lie. I would have to tell my parents. First, though, I had to tell him.

I was fifteen years old and in Grade 10. I knew the night it had happened, and I knew who the father was. What I did not know was whether that would help. Would he stand by me? He was only a student too.

I took my time getting ready. Somehow, I boarded the school bus with an empty stomach that would not stop churning.

At school I tried to catch Rajan alone, but he was never alone. Then came the PE period. The whole class trooped out to the basketball court for a match, boys against girls. I was one of the star players of the girls’ team, but that day I sat on the steps. There was no point in showing my weakness to everyone. Rajan came over on the pretext of drinking water and sat down beside me

“What happened, Shivani”? he asked.

I took the test stick out of my bag, wrapped in a tissue, and showed it to him. The colour drained from his face.

He did not ask if I was all right. He asked me to delete all our cosy chats, immediately. I had been “babes” to him on WhatsApp, and a friend at school. All those special feelings evaporated in a second.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked. “What about the baby? How will we cope?”

“Baby?” said Rajan. “Whose baby? If you could do it with me for one night, who knows how many others you have slept with.”

I can not believe my ears. Am I hearing right!

It was like a slap across my face. All the sweet talks had gone downhill to the moment it was time to stand beside me.

All tears dried in my eyes. They lost the reason to come out.

********Somehow the day ended and I reached home. My Mother took one look at me and asked what was wrong. I was deathly white.

I told her everything, beginning with Rajan’s birthday party at his family’s farmhouse in Panvel.Yes, Rajan came from a very wealthy family. They have money. They own property. They have political connection. His father owned a construction company. At the party I had a few Cokes and danced a lot. But each time I went back to my glass, I felt drowsier. Finally I asked Rajan to show me a restroom, because I wanted to throw up. He took me to a room with an attached bathroom, left me there and went back to his guests. How thoughtful, I remember thinking. He was giving me space.

I had always had a soft corner for him, and I will not pretend otherwise. He was good looking, charming, polite. He seemed to have every quality that is supposed to make a boy a gentleman.

I threw up, and then thought I would lie down for a few minutes. The tiredness pulled at me like deep water. When I opened my eyes, someone was lying beside me, holding me. I could not move properly. I could not speak. It took me a long time to understand what was happening.

“And last night,” I told my mother, “I found out I am pregnant.”

She stared at me. Silent tears filled her eyes, and they made me feel guiltier than anything else could have. We sat together in the stunned silence of not knowing what to do.

The doorbell broke it.

My Mother opened the door, and there stood Rajan’s mother. Everything about her, her clothes, her posture, spoke of power and money. She walked in and asked me, straight out, how I dared to blame her son.

For a moment I felt relieved. At least Rajan had told his mother about the baby. Perhaps some solution would come of this. Then she spoke again.

“So how many others have you slept with?”

I did not know what to say. My mother did. She politely asked her to leave, and said we would meet at school the next day.

Rajan’s mother walked out as haughtily as she had walked in.

***********

The next morning I did not take the school bus. I went with my parents. The moment we entered the school gate, I heard it, whispered from every side. See her. She is the pregnant one. News has travelled faster than the bus.

We kept quiet. The Fault was mine. Yes, it is always the fault of the girl. The girl provokes the boys and men. Her body language provokes. Sometimes the dress she wears provokes. There are endless reasons for which a girl can provoke a boy, a man, anyone who happens to be in her orbit. I believed it too, at the time.

Rajan and his mother were already waiting. We all went into Principal Sir’s room

I repeated to him what I had told my mother. Rajan denied that he even knew me. His mother said the farmhouse cameras had been switched off for repairs that month, so there was no footage to confirm a word I said. Everything had been wiped clean. She added that a girl like me should not be allowed to remain in the school.

Principal Sir listened patiently to both sides. He did not say a word. Then He slid an envelope across his desk.

Sender unknown.

Inside was all the footage from the farmhouse, from before it had been deleted. There were Rajan’s WhatsApp love notes, printed out. Everything was documented and arranged in chronological order.

Principal Sir told Rajan’s mother that she could not threaten an underage girl in his office, not with all the evidence pointing at her son. There were laws for matters like this, he said quietly, and there was also the life of a fifteen-year-old girl. He would not decide for us. He left it to my parents to think and choose. It was fair, I suppose.

We returned home. I looked at my mother’s face. I had expected sorrow and shame. What I found was restlessness, the look of someone who did not know what to do next. That was harder to see than tears. We finished our meal in deathly silence and went back to our rooms.

None of us were able to sleep that night. The problem it looks has another aspect. Someone keeping a track. Who was the messiah who had sent that envelope? It was creepy to think that someone had been keeping track of what went on around me A well-wisher, or another stalker?

The breakfast the next morning was finished in absolute silence. It is time to decide. Deferring the decision would not defer the consequences. Soon my body would say what I had not. The gossip mill

of social media would give the story heads and tails of its own and make me the talk of the town. And it was my fault, I told myself, for trusting someone’s sweet talk.

When I entered the school that day, heads turned and voices dropped. The father of my unborn child looked at me and whispered something to his friends. They burst out laughing. There were leering comments about the price for undressing in front of them.

That was the moment I decided to keep the child. They wanted me small and ashamed, and I would not give them that. I did not want the baby as evidence, or for some future DNA test. I wanted him, or her, because this was a living person, and I had no right to end a life.

I went home and told my parents. They were not happy, but they accepted my decision. Their strength became my strength. My father, who had barely spoken in two days, put his hand on my head. “Then we will do this together,” he said.

************

My life shrank overnight. I went from a morning bus ride in a crisp uniform to four walls and homeschooling. The applause for every basket, the trophies on the shelf, would soon be a long-forgotten story. I would look at the photographs of them longingly, as if they belonged to someone else.

Time flew, and soon it was the board exams. I wrote them in a separate room. The day my last paper ended, I delivered a beautiful baby boy. It was as if he had been waiting for his mother to be free of her studies before he came to see the world.

I named him Rash.

Another decision followed: homeschooling again, or a regular school? I chose a boarding school. It meant leaving Rash with my parents, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I needed to build a career to give him stability. He was not unwanted. He was the reason.

On the morning, I left, my mother pressed a small dream catcher into my hands. “For the bad dreams,” she said. “Hang it above your bed.” I hung it over my hostel bed. Some nights it caught nothing. On others I woke to the memory of party music and a sickly sweet taste, and lay looking at its feathers until my breathing slowed.

Days turned to years. I excelled in academics. I excelled in basketball. My parents were proud of me, and sad to watch me struggle. Little Rash grew up in their unconditional love.

For the first year I did not go home, even in the holidays. I told myself I could not afford the distraction. The truth was that I could not bear to leave him twice. In the second year I went. Rash was a toddler by then, and I spent every second of those holidays with him, storing up memories to carry back to my own battle. That was also the year I chose law.

*********

The five years of law school passed in the blink of an eye. I began working under a senior counsel known for his ruthlessness in court. His honesty was quoted as an example. My journey upwards began. But somewhere inside, I was still searching for the person who had kept me from being expelled from school.

One day I received another anonymous letter y. It was about the parties of the big shots, and what happened at them. There were photographs and evidence, but no name for the sender, and none for the victims. Then there were hospital records: a list of teenage unwed mothers. Most had been rejected by their families to escape the shame, and taken to juvenile homes. The homes were a racket. Behind their walls stood fully equipped medical units, where the girls and their unborn babies were being used to test drugs.

I felt helpless. Unless someone took the stand, my hands were tied. I showed the documents to my mentor. A sad look crossed his face.

He told me about his daughter. What had been done to her, he said had not needed force. “People imagine a struggle,” he said. “Sometimes it only takes a girl who cannot say no.” He had been too afraid of what society would say. He had not stood by her. He had sent her away to relatives and told her to stay silent. She never forgave him. She stopped taking his calls, and then stopped writing. His wife never recovered from the grief, and was gone within two years.

“I have been ruthless in court ever since,” he said. “But when it came to me daughter, I was a coward once.”

After that, evidence began to reach me regularly. The sender was still unknown. Was he a sender or a stalker?

Home was the place I cherished most. A ten-year-old waited there to tell his mother about school: who had done what, and whom he disliked. We both looked forward to the quality hour we spent together. He knew that his father had not accepted him, and that his mother loved him. It did not seem to matter to him, as long as his mother stood beside him. On weekends we went for drives, and then rented bicycles and went cycling. I cooked and he helped. It was a pattern I would have protected with my life.

One evening, as I came out of my chambers to go home, I saw a teenage girl standing with her father, watching the lawyers pass by. I stopped and asked what the matter was. She said she would like to talk for a few minutes.

It was the same story as mine. A girl raped at a party. Now that she was pregnant, everyone was denying it. It was my story again.

“I will take up your case,” I said.

We started collecting every piece of evidence. We found the venues where these birthday bashes were held, places that had become doomsday for so many girls. Some girls were accepted by their families, but kept hidden. Others were rejected and ended up in the juvenile homes to be guinea pigs. All along, the anonymous sender kept helping me. Step by step, we moved to expose it all. The wheel of life had come full circle.

We filed the case. When the accused boy’s parents walked into the courtroom, I knew them at once. The boy was Rajan’s younger brother. Same family, same pattern. The story was repeating itself.

My days and nights went into that case. I explained the situation to Rash in words a ten year-old could carry. He gave me a thumbs up. “Go get them, Mummy.” Nothing else mattered after that. I asked my parents to come and stay with us for a while.

It was a long, dirty battle. Rajan’s family had money and lawyers, and used both. There were threats and late-night calls. The defence went digging into my past and floated the same old question, how many men I had slept with. I had heard it at fifteen. It no longer had any power over me.

Many faces were exposed. The parents of other teenage girls started coming forward, first one by one, then in dozens. The juvenile homes were raided and sealed. At last the long, filthy battle ended in victory for us.

I had promised myself in Grade 10 that Rajan would never know about my son. I kept that promise, even as I took on his elite family.

The day of the verdict came. My mentor cried. The girl’s father cried. I asked her one simple question. “What next?”

“The journey begins now, ma’am,” she said. “I am going to fly for the Air Force.” ******

The identity of the anonymous sender still troubled me.

Then, one morning, an invitation arrived to meet for coffee. It gave only the name of a café, a time and a table number.

Table 7.

I accepted. Perhaps I would finally learn who had been behind the messages, and the evidence that had shaped my journey.

When I arrived, a woman a few years older than me was waiting at Table 7. For years I had imagined a man. She told me her name was Shreya.

Her elder sister had been a senior at our school, long before my time. When she discovered she was pregnant, the school expelled her. No one listened to her. She took her own life. Shreya’s mother never recovered from the shock, and had not spoken since.

Shreya had been fifteen then. She could not save her sister, but she could not stop watching either. Quietly, she began following the circle of wealthy young men, noting who went where and who was protected. The caretaker at the Panvel farmhouse who was ordered to wipe the footage, had kept copies instead. A boy inside the circle, sick of what he had witnessed, had passed her Rajan’s messages. Over time she became a journalist. What began as an attempt to understand her sister’s death, and to avenge it, had grown into her own way of demanding accountability for it.

“I sent the first envelope to your principal,” she said. “He was a young teacher at our school when my sister was expelled. He said nothing then. I wanted to see what he would do the second time.”

*******

Life has a strange way of working. Sometimes it brings us back to the very place where we once struggled, only to show us how far we have come. I came out of mine with scars, and with strength. My parents’ support mattered more than anything. It gave me the courage to rebuild when everything felt uncertain. I am equally grateful to a woman whose persistence in confronting injustice helped end a cycle of exploitation that had stayed hidden for so long.

This was never only my story. It happened then, and it is happening now. It is the story of a world where vulnerability can be silenced, privilege can breed a sense of immunity, and families are left to bear the weight of shame alone. But every story can be rewritten when someone finds the courage to speak, and others choose to stand beside them.

I used to think mine was the story of a mistake, and the consequences that followed. I know better now. What happened to me was never mine to carry. It was a crime, and it was done to me. What came after was my choice. We cannot change what has happened to us. Some memories stay, however many years pass. But we can decide what those memories become. The support I received in my darkest hour stood in the fragile space between shame and dignity, between being alone and being held, and it turned the worst of my days into the beginning of something meaningful.

The dream catcher my mother gave me hangs above Rash’s bed now. It never stopped the bad dreams from coming. It only held them back until morning, when there was light enough to face them.

Standing up for other girls became my purpose.

And perhaps, in the end, that is what courage really is. Not forgetting the darkness, but carrying enough light to make sure someone else does not have to walk through it alone.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a celebration of literary excellence, inviting writers worldwide to share their unique voices and stories. This prestigious event showcases a diverse array of genres, connecting creative minds and fostering a global appreciation for the written word.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Sweta Roy Chakraborty for her powerful contribution, "Courage -the dream catcher," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her story not only inspires but also highlights the strength found in adversity. Thank you, Sweta, for sharing your remarkable narrative with us.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.