Source: https://zerotominusone.com/p/life-is-either-tremendously-sad-or-tremendously-funny
Published: 2026-11-01

# Life is either tremendously sad or tremendously funny!

Arjun is a burned-out corporate drone who hasn’t slept a full night in almost ten years. His job is a non-stop survival game run by sociopaths in suits. The only reason he’s still standing is his wife Meera and his little girl Anaya.

He drags himself home at 11 PM after a two-hour bike ride through Bangalore traffic, dodging potholes that could swallow a scooter, with dust in his lungs and a bad back. The old HMT on his wrist, the one his late father gave him, says he’s late again. Meera greets him warmly at the door. He asks about Anaya. Asleep, but apparently she spent the whole day begging for a puppy after seeing a Labrador at her friend’s place, and now she’s obsessed. Arjun isn’t sure they can afford it. The EMI is due, the landlord wants a rent hike, and his father’s hospital bills still aren’t cleared. Then he looks at Anaya’s sleeping face and thinks maybe a pup wouldn’t be so bad if it makes her happy, even if he has to pick up more shifts.

The next day he takes her to buy the dog, and her eyes light up like it’s Diwali. Meera is shocked he actually gave in, considering how swamped he already is. Arjun doesn’t mind. If his wife and daughter are smiling, he can deal with whatever else life throws at him. Or at least that’s what he tells himself.

At the office, reality slaps him again. Khanna is screaming at him over a missing report. Arjun calmly reminds him it was submitted Thursday, but Khanna spent that day club hopping and never saw it. Arjun still takes the blame, like always. The higher-ups dump everything on him, and his juniors steal credit, dodge blame, and throw him under the bus every chance they get. But walking through his front door and seeing Meera and Anaya waiting always pulls him back together.

Then one morning, stuck at a signal with his bike rattling under him, his buddy Nikhil messages him, going on about a shop nearby that’s clearing out a stock of old HMT watches for next to nothing and begging Arjun to grab one before they’re all gone. Arjun laughs at what a diehard watch nerd Nikhil still is and agrees. He pulls over beside an open drain, opens Google Maps, and gets completely turned around in an unfamiliar area.

Then he spots Meera across the street at an outdoor café, laughing with another man. Meera, who told him she was taking Anaya to badminton coaching today. His brain refuses to process it. That evening he asks how her day went. “Usual. Dropped Anaya at coaching. Nothing special.” He’s ready to call her out, but he just nods. He doesn’t want to destroy his happy family. There has to be an explanation. Maybe he’s tired. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks, because there’s no way Meera would betray him like that.

The next day he tries to put his computer on standby before a walk. It glitches, as always, so he shuts it down completely. His feet take him back to the same area. At first he’s relieved she isn’t there. Then he hears her voice, on the phone, laughing softly. She’s brought Anaya along. The man shows up. Arjun tells himself he’s a friend, a cousin, anyone, until he hears his daughter call the man “Papa.”

That one word hits harder than anything Khanna ever threw at him.

He goes back to work numb, inventing excuses that don’t hold. Khanna storms over to chew him out for doing nothing. Arjun says the computer takes time to reboot, since standby has been unstable, and that he shuts it down on breaks for security. Khanna tells him to skip his breaks altogether if he can’t get his act together. Then his phone rings. It’s Meera. Anaya’s been in a terrible accident.

Arjun bolts out of the building, kicks his bike to life, and tears through potholes and honking traffic to the hospital with ₹340 in his account. Meera says Anaya is already in surgery. The doctor comes out, asks if they’re the parents, and says she needs an urgent transfusion. Blood types? Arjun says AB positive. Meera says O negative. The doctor takes Meera inside. Arjun asks why they need her and not him. The doctor says Anaya is also O negative, so his blood is incompatible.

Arjun sits down, trying to stay calm, but something doesn’t add up. He pulls out his phone and asks ChatGPT. After a few minutes the answer hits him like a truck. An AB positive parent can’t have an O negative child. Not rare. Biologically impossible. Anaya isn’t his daughter.

When Meera comes out, he looks her dead in the eye and asks if Anaya is really his. She doesn’t answer. Like every woman, she flips it on him. She’s the one who should be angry! He’s never around, he clearly doesn’t give a damn about this family! Arjun says he’s working overtime just to keep the lights on. She cuts him off, calls his job pointless, and says he’s stuck in a dead-end position with no promotions and no raises. How could he ever give her the life she deserves? Then she snaps that in ten years of marriage she’s raised Anaya all by herself, conveniently ignoring that Anaya isn’t even his. She says he was never part of this family anyway. She’s taking Anaya and leaving.

He tries to stop her. She calls Anaya to pack up. He grabs his daughter’s arm and begs. He shouts that he did everything for her, that he always tried his best. Anaya, scared, says quietly, “I like my other papa more.”

Every last bit of hope inside him collapses.

The next morning he drags himself into work, hollow. It gets worse. Khanna calls him into a meeting and accuses him of stealing ₹5 crore. He insists he didn’t do it, but the logs show the transfer came from his account on his work terminal. The decision’s already made. He’s fired on the spot, no severance, no experience letter.

Meera files for divorce within the week, and has the audacity to sue him for child support for a kid who isn’t even his. He’s still under investigation, so he agrees to pay everything back to avoid jail. His savings go first, then his father’s gold chain, then his bike, the one thing that got him through those potholes every day. When the rent bounces, the landlord throws his stuff onto the street. By the time Arjun gets back from the loan office, half of it is gone, including the old HMT his father gave him, the last thing he had left of the man.

He takes the first job he can find: hauling cement on a construction site for ₹600 a day. The contractor skims half and docks him for “late arrival,” which is rich, considering he now walks two hours each way because he has no bike. He sleeps in a leaking tin shed with eleven other men. The loan sharks find him anyway and break two of his ribs behind a tea stall as a “reminder.” It’s the kind of work that breaks men long before their debts are cleared.

With the last of his money, he tries to fight back. At the police station, the constable doesn’t even look up. “For an FIR you need proof. But for ₹5,000, I can make sure it’s noted properly.” Arjun pays. Nothing is ever noted. Then he hands ₹40,000 to a cheap lawyer with a plastic chair and a dead fan. Two weeks later the office is locked, the number is switched off, and a neighbor tells him the man has done this to six other people this year.

Still stubborn, he goes to Anaya’s school and waits by the gate with a small chocolate. She walks out holding Meera’s hand, the other man waiting by a car. For one second, Arjun thinks she’ll run to him. Instead she hides her face in the man’s shoulder. The security guard sees a filthy stranger staring at a child, grabs him by the collar, and throws him onto the road. “Chal, nikal! Next time I call the police.” Arjun sits on the pavement with the melted chocolate in his fist, watching the car drive away.

All he has left is the occasional message from Nikhil. One night his friend sends a cheerful photo of a new HMT on his wrist with the caption “thanks for nothing, bro, got one myself.” Arjun starts typing, “Bro, let’s catch up like old times,” then deletes it. He can’t let Nikhil see how far he’s fallen, and he doesn’t even have a watch left to check how late it is. Hang on, he tells himself. Push through. Maybe if he works hard enough, things will turn around.

Then, in the middle of lunch (dry roti and onion), he coughs hard and spits up blood. That’s when he knows what’s coming won’t be better. He can’t afford a doctor. At night the bloody coughing gets worse, and all he can do is curl up on a thin mattress and wait to die.

As the last of his strength fades, a strange light appears above his bed and starts showing him visions. The truth unravels. He never stole a rupee. It was Khanna, the same bastard who’s been sleeping with Meera. Every excuse she gave, every word about feeling neglected, was complete bullshit. She never saw him as a real person. To her he was just a wallet. She was in on the setup from the start, working with Khanna to frame him.

His chest tightens, not from the sickness but from the weight of the betrayal. Then a man steps out of the light and confirms the vision is real. He asks Arjun if he’s really going to lie there and let the people who ruined his life get away with it.

Arjun, drained and broken, clenches his fists around the filthy blanket. He’s had enough. He swears that no matter what it takes, no matter what he has to become, they will pay.

The man smiles, pleased by the rage radiating off him. Arjun asks who the hell he is and why he’s here. The man says he took an interest because, despite everything, Arjun stayed a decent man. Arjun doesn’t care. Being decent left him ruined. If he gets another chance, he’s putting himself first for once.

That’s exactly what the man wanted to hear. He offers Arjun a chance to start over in a new world, and Arjun gets to pick. He doesn’t know if he’s hallucinating or dying, but if he truly gets to choose, he’s going all in