15-08-2026, 12:08 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-09-2026, 02:16 PM by Authorsunny. Edited 1 time in total. Edited 1 time in total.)
Chapter 16.5 – The Seventy Minutes and the Return
23 November 2025 – Sunday night
The message from Ma had not yet come. I had been walking for what felt like a long time but was probably only twenty minutes. The main road was loud with festival traffic — families on scooters, children waving sparklers through auto windows, the repeated sharp cracks of bombs from the side lanes. I kept moving because standing still made the thoughts worse.
I stopped near the small juice centre that stayed open late and bought a bottle of water I did not need. The owner wished me Happy Anniversary. I nodded and walked on. Every time a white car passed I felt my stomach tighten even though I already knew his car was parked near our building. The knowledge did not stop the reaction.
I turned into a quieter lane and sat on the low boundary wall of a closed shop. From there the upper floors of our building were partially visible between the other structures. The fairy lights we had put up were on. Other windows blinked with their own decorations. Crackers burst in irregular intervals, throwing brief orange light across the walls. Somewhere on the second or third floor a loud aarti recording started and then stopped again.
I tried to calculate the time. I had left at approximately eight-twenty. She had said one hour, maybe a little more. The phone remained silent in my pocket. I took it out, checked the brightness, and put it back. The screen had no new notifications.
The thoughts that came were not orderly. They arrived in pieces.
The red saree. The way she had looked after the Laxmi Pujan, tilak still fresh on her forehead, the gold border of the saree catching the diya light. The calm voice in which she had asked me to give them space. The bathroom gap from the afternoon — the heavy bare shape of her breasts when the bra came off, the petticoat sitting low on her waist, the practised way she had hooked the blouse. The black kurti from the previous evening and the mixed scent I had held against my face for those few seconds before guilt made me put it down.
All of it rearranged itself around the fact that right now, in the same 10-by-12 room where we had just done the laxmi pujan, Azad was sitting with her.
I wondered whether she had kept the diyas burning. I wondered whether she had offered him prasad. The thought of an atheist man accepting prasad from the thali we had used for Laxmi Pujan produced a strange, sharp discomfort that was not only jealousy. It was something older and more complicated — a cultural boundary I had never needed to examine until my mother invited it into the house on the night of the festival itself.
I stood up and walked again. The lane opened onto a slightly larger road where a group of boys were bursting a long string of crackers. The sound was deafening for a few seconds. When it faded I realised my hands were closed into fists inside my pockets. I opened them.
The phone vibrated at nine-thirty-one.
*He has left. You can come.*
Two short sentences. No emoji. No additional softening.
I walked back faster than I had walked away. The white sedan was gone from its earlier spot. The building entrance smelled of gunpowder and incense. I climbed the floors slowly, giving myself the final minute to prepare for whatever version of the room I was about to enter.
The door was unlocked. I pushed it open.
The first thing that reached me was the smell. The incense from the pooja was still present, but under it and around it was a different note — stronger, sweeter, slightly metallic. Attar. Not the light perfume Ma usually wore. Something heavier, the kind sold in small glass bottles in certain markets, the kind that clung to clothes and skin for hours. It was unmistakable and it did not belong to any celebration tradition I knew.
The fairy lights were still on. Most of the diyas on the temple shelf had been extinguished; only two still burned with low flames. The red saree Ma had worn for the pooja was no longer on her body. She sat on the edge of the bed in the old cotton nighty, her hair open and slightly disordered, as if fingers had moved through it and then tried to smooth it back. The tilak on her forehead had been partially wiped; a faint red smear remained near her hairline. Her mouth looked softer, fuller. There was a small, irregular redness on the left side of her throat that had not been there when I left.
On the folding table stood a rectangular box that had not been there before. It was covered in dark green cloth with thin gold geometric patterns — the kind of packaging I had seen in shops that sold things for Eid or for formal other occasions. Beside it sat a small glass bottle of attar with a tight black cap, half used.
Ma looked up when I entered. Her expression was calm, almost tired, but not guilty.
“You came quickly.”
“You messaged.”
She nodded and gestured toward the chair.
“Sit. Drink water. You look warm.”
23 November 2025 – Sunday night
The message from Ma had not yet come. I had been walking for what felt like a long time but was probably only twenty minutes. The main road was loud with festival traffic — families on scooters, children waving sparklers through auto windows, the repeated sharp cracks of bombs from the side lanes. I kept moving because standing still made the thoughts worse.
I stopped near the small juice centre that stayed open late and bought a bottle of water I did not need. The owner wished me Happy Anniversary. I nodded and walked on. Every time a white car passed I felt my stomach tighten even though I already knew his car was parked near our building. The knowledge did not stop the reaction.
I turned into a quieter lane and sat on the low boundary wall of a closed shop. From there the upper floors of our building were partially visible between the other structures. The fairy lights we had put up were on. Other windows blinked with their own decorations. Crackers burst in irregular intervals, throwing brief orange light across the walls. Somewhere on the second or third floor a loud aarti recording started and then stopped again.
I tried to calculate the time. I had left at approximately eight-twenty. She had said one hour, maybe a little more. The phone remained silent in my pocket. I took it out, checked the brightness, and put it back. The screen had no new notifications.
The thoughts that came were not orderly. They arrived in pieces.
The red saree. The way she had looked after the Laxmi Pujan, tilak still fresh on her forehead, the gold border of the saree catching the diya light. The calm voice in which she had asked me to give them space. The bathroom gap from the afternoon — the heavy bare shape of her breasts when the bra came off, the petticoat sitting low on her waist, the practised way she had hooked the blouse. The black kurti from the previous evening and the mixed scent I had held against my face for those few seconds before guilt made me put it down.
All of it rearranged itself around the fact that right now, in the same 10-by-12 room where we had just done the laxmi pujan, Azad was sitting with her.
I wondered whether she had kept the diyas burning. I wondered whether she had offered him prasad. The thought of an atheist man accepting prasad from the thali we had used for Laxmi Pujan produced a strange, sharp discomfort that was not only jealousy. It was something older and more complicated — a cultural boundary I had never needed to examine until my mother invited it into the house on the night of the festival itself.
I stood up and walked again. The lane opened onto a slightly larger road where a group of boys were bursting a long string of crackers. The sound was deafening for a few seconds. When it faded I realised my hands were closed into fists inside my pockets. I opened them.
The phone vibrated at nine-thirty-one.
*He has left. You can come.*
Two short sentences. No emoji. No additional softening.
I walked back faster than I had walked away. The white sedan was gone from its earlier spot. The building entrance smelled of gunpowder and incense. I climbed the floors slowly, giving myself the final minute to prepare for whatever version of the room I was about to enter.
The door was unlocked. I pushed it open.
The first thing that reached me was the smell. The incense from the pooja was still present, but under it and around it was a different note — stronger, sweeter, slightly metallic. Attar. Not the light perfume Ma usually wore. Something heavier, the kind sold in small glass bottles in certain markets, the kind that clung to clothes and skin for hours. It was unmistakable and it did not belong to any celebration tradition I knew.
The fairy lights were still on. Most of the diyas on the temple shelf had been extinguished; only two still burned with low flames. The red saree Ma had worn for the pooja was no longer on her body. She sat on the edge of the bed in the old cotton nighty, her hair open and slightly disordered, as if fingers had moved through it and then tried to smooth it back. The tilak on her forehead had been partially wiped; a faint red smear remained near her hairline. Her mouth looked softer, fuller. There was a small, irregular redness on the left side of her throat that had not been there when I left.
On the folding table stood a rectangular box that had not been there before. It was covered in dark green cloth with thin gold geometric patterns — the kind of packaging I had seen in shops that sold things for Eid or for formal other occasions. Beside it sat a small glass bottle of attar with a tight black cap, half used.
Ma looked up when I entered. Her expression was calm, almost tired, but not guilty.
“You came quickly.”
“You messaged.”
She nodded and gestured toward the chair.
“Sit. Drink water. You look warm.”
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