27-08-2026, 05:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-09-2026, 03:45 PM by Authorsunny. Edited 1 time in total. Edited 1 time in total.)
Chapter 22 – Part 1
28 November 2025 – Friday
The first sound that reached me was not the alarm. It was the soft, rhythmic chime of silver against silver.
I opened my eyes to the grey morning light that always collected first at the edges of the grill. The tube light was still off. The night bulb near the bathroom had been switched off at some point. Ma was already in the kitchen corner. She wore a simple cotton salwar kameez — light blue with a thin white border, the kind she used for ordinary mornings before everything changed. Her hair was tied loosely at the nape, still unwashed, a few strands sticking to the back of her neck. The silver payal I had fastened the previous night moved with every step she took between the stove and the small cutting board.
She was sweating. Even from the bed I could see the faint shine on her forehead and the dampness that darkened the cloth under her arms. The gas flame was high. A kadhai sat on one burner; the pressure cooker whistled once on the other. The smell of cumin and ginger and something faintly sweet — perhaps the jaggery she sometimes added to the dry sabzi I liked — rose and mixed with the ordinary morning air of the flat. She moved with the steady purpose of someone who had been awake long enough to decide that the first day back at office after a long leave required extra care.
I sat up. The mattress creaked. She turned at the sound, the payal chiming once more as she shifted her weight.
“You’re awake,” she said. Her voice was lighter than it had been in weeks. “Good. Wash your face. Tea is almost ready. Tiffin will take another ten minutes.”
The happiness in her face was unmistakable. It was not the private, almost girlish softness she wore when messaging him. It was something broader, more settled. The heaviness that had sat in her eyes after the stairs the previous night was gone. The acceptance I had spoken, the payal I had put on her feet myself, the quiet end of the conversation — all of it had clearly lifted a weight she had been carrying alone. She no longer needed to hide the basic shape of her life from me. The guilt that had lived under her new clothes and late returns had loosened. She looked simply glad.
I went to the bathroom. The space was the same small rectangle it had always been. No bra hung on the low plastic hook. No glimpse of anything that would pull the residual heat into the centre of the morning. I was not in that mood. The previous night’s emotions still occupied too much space. I took bath with cold water, brushed my teeth, and came out.
She had already ironed the light-blue formal shirt and hung it on the back of the chair. The black formal shoes sat near the door with a soft cloth and the small tin of polish placed neatly beside them. The care was deliberate and excessive. She had not done this much on an ordinary working day for months, since things changed.
“Shirt is ironed and ready,” she said without turning from the stove. “Shoes also. I will polish them while the tea cools a little. I made the aloo sabzi the way you like — extra dry, with the jeera you prefer. And two parathas, not the thin ones. You will need proper food. First day back after so many holidays always feels longer.”
She sat on the chair and began polishing the shoes. The payal continued their soft music as she moved. The sound had become part of the room overnight. It no longer felt like an intrusion. It felt like the new ordinary.
The light-blue kameez was damp at the back from the heat of the kitchen. A thin line of sweat ran down the side of her neck and disappeared under the round collar. She made no attempt to wipe it. She simply watched me drink tea and then spoke.
“Focus properly today. The leave is over. Managers notice who comes back sharp and who comes back still carrying the holiday in their head. You used to do this in college also — give your best even on the first day after a break. Do the same now. Office is not college, but the habit is useful.”
I nodded. She reached across the table and touched the back of my hand once, the same light contact she had used the previous morning.
“And thank you,” she said, quieter. “For last night. For the way you spoke. For the way you handled everything after that woman on the stairs. You spoke like a real man, not like a boy who still needs protecting. I am proud of you, Sunny. More than I have said in a long time.”
The words landed with a warmth that mixed uncomfortably with the residual images I still carried. I kept my eyes on the tea glass.
“You don’t have to thank me for that Ma.”
“I do. You could have stayed silent or made the night heavier. You chose the other way. That matters.” She withdrew her hand and stood again. “One more thing before you leave. If anyone in the building or near the gate says something crude today, ignore it. Completely. Do not answer. Do not let your face show anything. The best answer to people like Sunita is silence. I should have done the same yesterday. If I had simply walked past her instead of answering, the whole thing would not have stretched as far as it did. I made it larger by responding. You do not need to make the same mistake.”
She said it without self-pity, only as a practical instruction for the day. Then she returned to the stove to pack the tiffin. The two steel boxes went into the larger carrier bag she always used. She added a small packet of pickle and a spoon, closed the lid firmly, and placed the bag near my backpack.
I finished the tea and got ready. The formal shirt smelled of the iron and the faint detergent she used. When I was done, she was waiting with the tiffin bag in one hand and my helmet in the other.
“Eat the parathas properly at lunch. Do not skip because some meeting runs long. And message when you reach.”
“I will.”
She stepped closer and adjusted the collar of the shirt even though it did not need adjusting. I could notice the silver bracelet in her hand. For a second her eyes searched my face the way they had the previous night, checking whether the acceptance still held in the daylight. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her. She smiled — a real, unguarded smile that reached her eyes — and stepped back.
“Go. Traffic will start soon.”
I picked up the backpack and the tiffin. At the door I paused and looked at her once more. The light-blue salwar kameez, the unwashed hair, the sweat still visible at her temples, the silver on her ankles — all of it belonged to the woman who no longer felt the need to hide. The guilt had lifted. The happiness was genuine. I nodded once and stepped out into the corridor.
The stairs felt longer than usual. Every landing carried the possibility of an open door or a voice. The weight of the previous evening’s public naming sat in my chest as I descended. I kept my eyes on the steps and my pace steady. On the first-floor landing Sunita Kulkarni’s door was closed. No one stood in any doorway. The ground-floor corridor was empty except for the watchman half-asleep on his plastic chair. I walked past Azad Sahab’s large door without slowing and stepped out into the compound.
The bike stood in its usual place near the narrow parking strip. I secured the tiffin bag, put on the helmet, and kicked the engine to life. The ride to the office took the usual twenty-five to thirty minutes depending on the signals near the station road and the stretch after the flyover. The morning air was still cool. The city was waking in its ordinary Friday rhythm — milkmen, college buses, the first wave of office scooters. I kept the speed moderate and let the wind take some of the heaviness from the stairwell.
The office building was a standard mid-rise glass-and-concrete structure in the complex near the metro station. By the time I parked and took the lift to the fourth floor, the lobby was already filling with people returning after the long break. Conversations were louder than usual. Someone was distributing leftover sweets from home. The security guard at the floor entrance nodded as I swiped my card.
My team sat in a cluster of four desks near the east windows. There were only three of us under the same manager: me, Rohan, and Vikram. Both were older and senior — Rohan by four years, Vikram by almost seven. They were polite, competent, and kept mostly to their own work. We exchanged the necessary morning greetings and the usual remarks about the leave having ended too soon. There were no women in our immediate group. The larger floor had plenty, but I had never developed any real conversation with them beyond project-related necessity. Two colleagues from the adjacent work group — Sameer and Nikhil — had joined on the same day I had, and we occasionally ate lunch together or discussed the same tickets. That was the extent of my office social circle. It had always been enough.
I settled at my desk, opened the laptop, and began the slow process of catching up on the emails and tickets that had accumulated during the week. The environment on the floor was lighter than a normal Friday. People were still carrying the residual holiday mood — longer conversations at the coffee machine, photos of family gatherings being shown, the occasional laugh that travelled farther than usual. Managers moved between desks with the half-tolerant expression of people who knew the first day back would not be fully productive.
I tried to focus on the code in front of me. The cursor blinked. The lines of the module I had left unfinished before the leave stared back. Yet every few minutes my mind drifted back to the third-floor flat. The soft chime of the payal. The dampness on her neck. The way she had smiled when she handed me the tiffin. What was she doing now? Had she bathed? Had she messaged him? Was Azad Sahab already upstairs, or would he wait until later in the day? The questions arrived without permission and refused to leave. The acceptance I had spoken the previous night was still new. It sat in me alongside the older images and the residual discomfort, and the combination made concentration difficult.
By mid-morning the floor had settled into a more regular rhythm. I completed two smaller tickets and started on the larger module. Rohan asked a brief question about a shared API; I answered. Vikram offered a piece of the leftover chakli someone had brought; I took one. The ordinary motions of the office day continued on the surface while the larger part of my attention remained three floors up in a different building across the city.
Lunch came. I opened the tiffin at my desk rather than going to the pantry. The aloo sabzi was exactly as she had promised — dry, properly spiced, the jeera still fragrant. The parathas were thick and soft. I ate slowly, the taste pulling the morning kitchen back into the present. Sameer from the other group stopped by and asked if the food was from home. I nodded. He grinned and said his own mother had packed enough for three days. The exchange lasted less than a minute. Then he left and the desk returned to silence.
The afternoon brought the urgent meeting.
It was called at short notice — a client escalation on a module that several teams touched. Our manager, Mr. Sinha, gathered the three of us plus two others from the adjacent group in the small glass cabin near the windows. The discussion moved quickly. Numbers were shared. Timelines were revised. At one point the conversation turned to the piece of code I had been handling before the leave. I opened the relevant file on the shared screen and began explaining the current status. Halfway through the explanation I realised I had referenced an older version of the requirement document. The numbers I quoted were off by a full sprint.
Mr. Sinha stopped me with a raised hand.
“Sunny. Those figures are from before the celebration freeze. The client signed off on the revised scope on the twenty-second. You should have checked the updated sheet this morning.”
The cabin went quiet. Rohan looked at his notepad. Vikram kept his eyes on the table.
I felt the heat rise in my neck. “I will correct it immediately.”
“That is not the only point.” Mr. Sinha’s voice remained level, the usual private-company tone that never needed to rise to be effective. “The leave is over. Everyone is back. The client does not care that we had a festival. They care that the numbers we present are correct. You are not fully here today. I can see it. Whatever is sitting in your head from the holiday needs to stay outside this cabin. Focus. Recheck every document before you speak in a meeting. We will regroup at five with the corrected figures.”
The scolding was not loud. It did not need to be. In the small glass space it landed with the precise weight of professional disappointment. I nodded, closed the file, and kept my eyes on the table until the meeting ended. The others filed out. Mr. Sinha stayed back for a moment longer, then simply said, “Correct it before five,” and left.
I returned to my desk. The residual holiday lightness on the floor suddenly felt distant. I opened every relevant document, cross-checked the revised scope, and rebuilt the explanation with the current numbers. The work itself was straightforward. The difficulty was keeping the third-floor flat from entering the screen every time I paused. Her sweaty forehead. The chime of the payal. The way she had said she was proud. The possibility that Azad Sahab was already sitting on the edge of the same bed where she had cried the previous night. The images mixed with the memory of the glass cabin and the manager’s level voice until concentration became a deliberate act of will.
By four-thirty the corrected figures were ready. I sent them to Mr. Sinha and to the shared folder. He replied with a single-line acknowledgement. No further comment. The day continued toward its ordinary end. People began packing bags. Conversations about weekend plans started at the desks near the windows. I closed the laptop, slipped it into the backpack, and checked that the empty tiffin boxes were secure.
The first day back had been exactly as she had predicted — longer than a normal Friday, marked by the small professional cut that reminded everyone the holiday was finished. I stood, pushed the chair in, and looked once at the east windows where the late afternoon light was already turning the colour of the evening traffic. The ride home would take the same twenty-five to thirty minutes.
28 November 2025 – Friday
The first sound that reached me was not the alarm. It was the soft, rhythmic chime of silver against silver.
I opened my eyes to the grey morning light that always collected first at the edges of the grill. The tube light was still off. The night bulb near the bathroom had been switched off at some point. Ma was already in the kitchen corner. She wore a simple cotton salwar kameez — light blue with a thin white border, the kind she used for ordinary mornings before everything changed. Her hair was tied loosely at the nape, still unwashed, a few strands sticking to the back of her neck. The silver payal I had fastened the previous night moved with every step she took between the stove and the small cutting board.
She was sweating. Even from the bed I could see the faint shine on her forehead and the dampness that darkened the cloth under her arms. The gas flame was high. A kadhai sat on one burner; the pressure cooker whistled once on the other. The smell of cumin and ginger and something faintly sweet — perhaps the jaggery she sometimes added to the dry sabzi I liked — rose and mixed with the ordinary morning air of the flat. She moved with the steady purpose of someone who had been awake long enough to decide that the first day back at office after a long leave required extra care.
I sat up. The mattress creaked. She turned at the sound, the payal chiming once more as she shifted her weight.
“You’re awake,” she said. Her voice was lighter than it had been in weeks. “Good. Wash your face. Tea is almost ready. Tiffin will take another ten minutes.”
The happiness in her face was unmistakable. It was not the private, almost girlish softness she wore when messaging him. It was something broader, more settled. The heaviness that had sat in her eyes after the stairs the previous night was gone. The acceptance I had spoken, the payal I had put on her feet myself, the quiet end of the conversation — all of it had clearly lifted a weight she had been carrying alone. She no longer needed to hide the basic shape of her life from me. The guilt that had lived under her new clothes and late returns had loosened. She looked simply glad.
I went to the bathroom. The space was the same small rectangle it had always been. No bra hung on the low plastic hook. No glimpse of anything that would pull the residual heat into the centre of the morning. I was not in that mood. The previous night’s emotions still occupied too much space. I took bath with cold water, brushed my teeth, and came out.
She had already ironed the light-blue formal shirt and hung it on the back of the chair. The black formal shoes sat near the door with a soft cloth and the small tin of polish placed neatly beside them. The care was deliberate and excessive. She had not done this much on an ordinary working day for months, since things changed.
“Shirt is ironed and ready,” she said without turning from the stove. “Shoes also. I will polish them while the tea cools a little. I made the aloo sabzi the way you like — extra dry, with the jeera you prefer. And two parathas, not the thin ones. You will need proper food. First day back after so many holidays always feels longer.”
She sat on the chair and began polishing the shoes. The payal continued their soft music as she moved. The sound had become part of the room overnight. It no longer felt like an intrusion. It felt like the new ordinary.
The light-blue kameez was damp at the back from the heat of the kitchen. A thin line of sweat ran down the side of her neck and disappeared under the round collar. She made no attempt to wipe it. She simply watched me drink tea and then spoke.
“Focus properly today. The leave is over. Managers notice who comes back sharp and who comes back still carrying the holiday in their head. You used to do this in college also — give your best even on the first day after a break. Do the same now. Office is not college, but the habit is useful.”
I nodded. She reached across the table and touched the back of my hand once, the same light contact she had used the previous morning.
“And thank you,” she said, quieter. “For last night. For the way you spoke. For the way you handled everything after that woman on the stairs. You spoke like a real man, not like a boy who still needs protecting. I am proud of you, Sunny. More than I have said in a long time.”
The words landed with a warmth that mixed uncomfortably with the residual images I still carried. I kept my eyes on the tea glass.
“You don’t have to thank me for that Ma.”
“I do. You could have stayed silent or made the night heavier. You chose the other way. That matters.” She withdrew her hand and stood again. “One more thing before you leave. If anyone in the building or near the gate says something crude today, ignore it. Completely. Do not answer. Do not let your face show anything. The best answer to people like Sunita is silence. I should have done the same yesterday. If I had simply walked past her instead of answering, the whole thing would not have stretched as far as it did. I made it larger by responding. You do not need to make the same mistake.”
She said it without self-pity, only as a practical instruction for the day. Then she returned to the stove to pack the tiffin. The two steel boxes went into the larger carrier bag she always used. She added a small packet of pickle and a spoon, closed the lid firmly, and placed the bag near my backpack.
I finished the tea and got ready. The formal shirt smelled of the iron and the faint detergent she used. When I was done, she was waiting with the tiffin bag in one hand and my helmet in the other.
“Eat the parathas properly at lunch. Do not skip because some meeting runs long. And message when you reach.”
“I will.”
She stepped closer and adjusted the collar of the shirt even though it did not need adjusting. I could notice the silver bracelet in her hand. For a second her eyes searched my face the way they had the previous night, checking whether the acceptance still held in the daylight. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her. She smiled — a real, unguarded smile that reached her eyes — and stepped back.
“Go. Traffic will start soon.”
I picked up the backpack and the tiffin. At the door I paused and looked at her once more. The light-blue salwar kameez, the unwashed hair, the sweat still visible at her temples, the silver on her ankles — all of it belonged to the woman who no longer felt the need to hide. The guilt had lifted. The happiness was genuine. I nodded once and stepped out into the corridor.
The stairs felt longer than usual. Every landing carried the possibility of an open door or a voice. The weight of the previous evening’s public naming sat in my chest as I descended. I kept my eyes on the steps and my pace steady. On the first-floor landing Sunita Kulkarni’s door was closed. No one stood in any doorway. The ground-floor corridor was empty except for the watchman half-asleep on his plastic chair. I walked past Azad Sahab’s large door without slowing and stepped out into the compound.
The bike stood in its usual place near the narrow parking strip. I secured the tiffin bag, put on the helmet, and kicked the engine to life. The ride to the office took the usual twenty-five to thirty minutes depending on the signals near the station road and the stretch after the flyover. The morning air was still cool. The city was waking in its ordinary Friday rhythm — milkmen, college buses, the first wave of office scooters. I kept the speed moderate and let the wind take some of the heaviness from the stairwell.
The office building was a standard mid-rise glass-and-concrete structure in the complex near the metro station. By the time I parked and took the lift to the fourth floor, the lobby was already filling with people returning after the long break. Conversations were louder than usual. Someone was distributing leftover sweets from home. The security guard at the floor entrance nodded as I swiped my card.
My team sat in a cluster of four desks near the east windows. There were only three of us under the same manager: me, Rohan, and Vikram. Both were older and senior — Rohan by four years, Vikram by almost seven. They were polite, competent, and kept mostly to their own work. We exchanged the necessary morning greetings and the usual remarks about the leave having ended too soon. There were no women in our immediate group. The larger floor had plenty, but I had never developed any real conversation with them beyond project-related necessity. Two colleagues from the adjacent work group — Sameer and Nikhil — had joined on the same day I had, and we occasionally ate lunch together or discussed the same tickets. That was the extent of my office social circle. It had always been enough.
I settled at my desk, opened the laptop, and began the slow process of catching up on the emails and tickets that had accumulated during the week. The environment on the floor was lighter than a normal Friday. People were still carrying the residual holiday mood — longer conversations at the coffee machine, photos of family gatherings being shown, the occasional laugh that travelled farther than usual. Managers moved between desks with the half-tolerant expression of people who knew the first day back would not be fully productive.
I tried to focus on the code in front of me. The cursor blinked. The lines of the module I had left unfinished before the leave stared back. Yet every few minutes my mind drifted back to the third-floor flat. The soft chime of the payal. The dampness on her neck. The way she had smiled when she handed me the tiffin. What was she doing now? Had she bathed? Had she messaged him? Was Azad Sahab already upstairs, or would he wait until later in the day? The questions arrived without permission and refused to leave. The acceptance I had spoken the previous night was still new. It sat in me alongside the older images and the residual discomfort, and the combination made concentration difficult.
By mid-morning the floor had settled into a more regular rhythm. I completed two smaller tickets and started on the larger module. Rohan asked a brief question about a shared API; I answered. Vikram offered a piece of the leftover chakli someone had brought; I took one. The ordinary motions of the office day continued on the surface while the larger part of my attention remained three floors up in a different building across the city.
Lunch came. I opened the tiffin at my desk rather than going to the pantry. The aloo sabzi was exactly as she had promised — dry, properly spiced, the jeera still fragrant. The parathas were thick and soft. I ate slowly, the taste pulling the morning kitchen back into the present. Sameer from the other group stopped by and asked if the food was from home. I nodded. He grinned and said his own mother had packed enough for three days. The exchange lasted less than a minute. Then he left and the desk returned to silence.
The afternoon brought the urgent meeting.
It was called at short notice — a client escalation on a module that several teams touched. Our manager, Mr. Sinha, gathered the three of us plus two others from the adjacent group in the small glass cabin near the windows. The discussion moved quickly. Numbers were shared. Timelines were revised. At one point the conversation turned to the piece of code I had been handling before the leave. I opened the relevant file on the shared screen and began explaining the current status. Halfway through the explanation I realised I had referenced an older version of the requirement document. The numbers I quoted were off by a full sprint.
Mr. Sinha stopped me with a raised hand.
“Sunny. Those figures are from before the celebration freeze. The client signed off on the revised scope on the twenty-second. You should have checked the updated sheet this morning.”
The cabin went quiet. Rohan looked at his notepad. Vikram kept his eyes on the table.
I felt the heat rise in my neck. “I will correct it immediately.”
“That is not the only point.” Mr. Sinha’s voice remained level, the usual private-company tone that never needed to rise to be effective. “The leave is over. Everyone is back. The client does not care that we had a festival. They care that the numbers we present are correct. You are not fully here today. I can see it. Whatever is sitting in your head from the holiday needs to stay outside this cabin. Focus. Recheck every document before you speak in a meeting. We will regroup at five with the corrected figures.”
The scolding was not loud. It did not need to be. In the small glass space it landed with the precise weight of professional disappointment. I nodded, closed the file, and kept my eyes on the table until the meeting ended. The others filed out. Mr. Sinha stayed back for a moment longer, then simply said, “Correct it before five,” and left.
I returned to my desk. The residual holiday lightness on the floor suddenly felt distant. I opened every relevant document, cross-checked the revised scope, and rebuilt the explanation with the current numbers. The work itself was straightforward. The difficulty was keeping the third-floor flat from entering the screen every time I paused. Her sweaty forehead. The chime of the payal. The way she had said she was proud. The possibility that Azad Sahab was already sitting on the edge of the same bed where she had cried the previous night. The images mixed with the memory of the glass cabin and the manager’s level voice until concentration became a deliberate act of will.
By four-thirty the corrected figures were ready. I sent them to Mr. Sinha and to the shared folder. He replied with a single-line acknowledgement. No further comment. The day continued toward its ordinary end. People began packing bags. Conversations about weekend plans started at the desks near the windows. I closed the laptop, slipped it into the backpack, and checked that the empty tiffin boxes were secure.
The first day back had been exactly as she had predicted — longer than a normal Friday, marked by the small professional cut that reminded everyone the holiday was finished. I stood, pushed the chair in, and looked once at the east windows where the late afternoon light was already turning the colour of the evening traffic. The ride home would take the same twenty-five to thirty minutes.
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