idk how to explain this chapter.....uuuhhhh the scenes 😭🪔🎀🤍
kya matlab author ne aesthetic ke naam pe apne nails flaunt kar diye 💅🏻

Saachi POV

The daal makhni was on low heat, lid on, the kitchen warm with the smell of it, when I called Sahir. Sahir had gone to visit his friend Nivaan after work. Nivaan was the only one who lived in our district and was an old friend of Sahir.

"Hanji, Saachi, bas aa raha hun."

He had not even let me ask the question.

"Ek minute hold kariye," he said, and then I heard Nivaan's voice in the background.

"Saale... itni jaldi kya hai tujhe ghar jaane ki?"

"Teri bhabhi ne fake nails lagwaaye hain."

"Toh?"

"Toh ghar jaake khaana bhi banana hai mujhe."

My hand flew to my mouth.

I cut the call.

Sahir. Sahir, Sahir, Sahir.

I looked at my hands ... the small soft pink nails, barely a week old. I was removing them tomorrow. First thing tomorrow.

⋆｡°✩

It had started a few days earlier.

I was on the couch on a call with Di, feet tucked under me, waiting for Sahir. Di was asking about Namrata's birthday party .... Namrata, who stitches all my outfits, who started as a designer I went to for work and slowly became someone I called on ordinary days too.

"Pehle main soch rahi thi Namrata ki birthday ke liye nails lagwaaun. Pehle bhi bas ek hafte ke liye lagwati thi, pata tha Mumma sab dekh lengi. Par ab thoda mushkil hai... roti nahi banti phir mujhse."

I saw Sahir come through the gate, bag over his shoulder, the particular walk of someone at the end of a long day.

"Acha Di, main baad mein karti hun."

He sat beside me close, the way he sits when he is tired and not thinking about it. I got up to bring water, and his hand closed over my wrist, over the chooda bangles.

"Baithiye."

I sat, confused.

"Aap kal jayengi. Aur nails lagwaaiye jaise bhi pehle karwati thi."

My face went blank.

He had heard the call.

"Sahir, aisa nahi hai jaisa aap samajh rahe hain—"

"Saachi." He looked at me steadily. "Main nahi chahta ki aisa kuch bhi ho jisse aap keh sakein ki yeh toh shaadi ke baad chhoot gaya. Ya phir shaadi ke baad aapki koi bhi choti khushi peeche reh gayi."

"Nahi, Sahir, aisi baat nahi hai. Kuch peeche nahi chhuta. Main sab apni marzi se karti hun. Aapko bura laga toh—"

"Bura sirf iss baat ka lagega agar aap kuch sacrifice karengi. Zarurat hi nahi hai." He paused. "Wait... uss din aapne parlour mein nails ki appointment cancel ki thi."

"Nahi, woh bik—" I stopped mid-sentence. Took a breath. "Hanji. Nails ki hi kari thi."

"Aap kal karwaiye."

"Sahir, zarurat nahi hai. Vaise bhi kuch dino ke liye hi karwati hun main, aur phir roti aur bartan mein dikkat aati hai—"

"Main kar lunga."

I looked at his face.

What is this man?

⋆｡°✩

And he did.

Five days of fake nails, and Sahir made breakfast every morning, packed both our tiffins, and made dinner. On the third evening, I came home slightly late to find him in the kitchen — shirtless, in black track pants, making bhindi at the stove with the focused calm of someone who had looked up a recipe once and was committing to it fully.

I negotiated eventually that I would make daal and sabzi, he would do rotis and dishes, and the nails would come off after Namrata's birthday. He agreed without argument.

Namrata's birthday was a small gathering at her house, all girls, music from a CD player, good food, too much laughter. Sahir called four times through the night. By the second call, Namrata's friend had figured out who was calling and had started making sounds every time my phone lit up, which meant by the fourth call the entire room was involved. I stepped into the balcony and told him I was absolutely fine and that he needed to sleep.

He said okay.

Called again an hour later.

⋆｡°✩

Navratri came in quietly, the way it always does. The air changes first, something in it goes cleaner and cooler, and the marigold garlands start appearing on doorways in the neighbourhood.

I keep the fast for the first two days. I always have. Not because someone told me to, but because there is something in those two days that returns me to something simple. No chemicals, no toothpaste ... just datun and water in the morning. Fruit once in the afternoon. The Durga Paath before dawn, the house still dark and quiet around it.

I woke at four-thirty both mornings and sat on the mat in the small corner of the room where I keep the diya. The flame moved slightly in the early-morning air coming from the window.

Navratri is older than any of us. It is nine days of asking yourself how much you actually need and finding that the answer is less than you thought. The fast is not about hunger. It is about understanding that the body's loudest demands are rarely its most important ones. Every civilization that has survived long enough has known this ...that the discipline of restraint makes the mind cleaner, sharper. The science of fasting agrees now, in its careful modern language, with what the rishis said thousands of years ago: rest the digestive system, clarify the mind, return to what is essential.

Maa Durga is Shakti ... the force that runs through everything living. The nine days are nine aspects of that force. And the prayer is not asking for something outside yourself. It is recognizing something inside.

I have always come out of those two days feeling lighter. Not hungry. Lighter.

⋆｡°✩

I had not even finished explaining before he said he would eat food without onion and garlic too, even when I told him not to

I told him not to.

He said he wanted to.

I told him he did not have to.

He said he knew that.

We went in circles for about four minutes before I accepted that this conversation had a predetermined ending and went to the kitchen.

After our evening garden walk on the first day — him telling me about a long coordination meeting, me telling him about a client who had changed her mind about the colour palette for the fourth time — I came inside and spread a sheet on the floor near the window.

Sahir appeared in the doorway.

"Yeh kya kar rahi hain aap?"

"Main vrat mein zameen par soti hoon har saal. Aap fikr mat kijiye. Jaiye, so jaiye."

"Par aisa zaroori nahi hota—"

"Sabki apni marzi hoti hai. Main aisa karti hun hamesha se."

He stood there for a moment. Then went to his side of the room.

I lay down. The floor was cool and firm and exactly right for this. I closed my eyes.

I heard him moving. I opened one eye.

He was spreading his own blanket and a spare sheet on the floor — at a careful distance from me, enough to be separate, close enough to be present. He lay down without another word, without making anything of it.

I closed my eyes again.

For some reason, he stayed at a distance from me for both those days, like he understood something without me saying it.

Both nights, the floor. Both nights, the same quiet distance.

On the third morning, before I had woken up, he had made breakfast.

Paneer bhurji, roti still warm. One plate, placed in the middle of the table.

He ate with the particular relish of someone who had been politely eating around an absence for two days and was now reunited with everything he had been missing. I watched him take a large, satisfied bite and felt something warm settle in my chest.

⋆｡°✩

We visited the Durga Maa pandal of the society next to us, or maybe the temple, since they had invited Sahir too. It was the oldest pandal, and many people were visiting. We reached there in the evening after sunset because of work. I got ready wearing a beautiful saree.

As we got down from the car, police surrounded us, and I automatically put my hand around Sahir's bicep. He talked to them about the arrangements, then we went toward the pandal. He held my hand carefully and took me with him.

We paid our respects, and the Pandit ji asked me to do jholi. I pulled my saree pallu up and gave prasad with flowers from Maa and said, "Maiya aapki godh bhare jaldi."

My eyes widened, but a sweet smile came to my face when I saw Sahir immediately giving the Pandit ji 500 rupees as dakshina.

We sat there for a while listening to bhajans. Then police accompanied us up to the big ground where the garba night was happening.

They escorted us to the main stage or centre, and "Sir, sir" started coming from everywhere. A mic was given to Sahir, and the DJ was asked to stop, but Sahir clearly signalled no. Instead, he held my hand and took me toward where all the young boys and girls were dancing to loud beats.

He signalled me to join them, and everyone looked at us with police around, whispering probably that Sahir was some big officer. Later, two girls held my hand and took me to their circle. They were all probably college-going girls and had already started doing garba steps. I copied them with a big smile on my face, and then my eyes moved to see where Sahir was.

He was standing in front at a distance with his phone in his hand, clicking my picture.

I felt shy instantly.

I went toward him and held his hand to drag him into the middle of the dance circle, but he stood still, shaking his head with a smile. Then, as I turned to leave him in the spotlight, he held my hand, pulled me gently, and placed my hand against his chest. Then he held my hands and I did two simple steps. He followed me. Everyone around us started dancing crazily after that.

For a few minutes, we stayed shy, trying to move our bodies to the rhythm, then slowly getting comfortable. The lights, the garba beats, the crowd, Sahir's quiet presence beside me .

Then everyone started asking for photos with Sahir. He patiently took pictures with all of them, but for once he did not let go of my hand.

As we were leaving the venue, police were again all around us. The whole place looked alive, noisy, bright, and strangely disciplined at the same time.

We came home late and directly slipped into sleep again. I had my head on his stretched arm and slowly snuggled closer to him.

And now it was Kanjak tomorrow.

We went to the market to buy gifts for the kanjaks and other things. I bought cute clips, geometry boxes, and chocolates for them. Sahir was giving suggestions too, saying how the pink one would look better than the green.

We reached home, and I slept early because I needed to wake up at 5 a.m.

Kanjak fell on the ninth day.

I had soaked the kaale chane overnight. I woke at five, bathed, wore my pink saree, and started the kitchen — sooji ka halwa alongside the chane, the kitchen filling with the smell of ghee and cardamom that means one thing and one thing only.

I was kneading the dough for pooris when I felt two hands settle on my waist and a voice near my ear, breath soft against the side of my neck.

"Main kuch madad karun?"

I closed my eyes for exactly one second.

"Nahi, aap gym jaiye. Main kar lungi. Bas jaldi aa jaiyega."

"Pakka?" His hands were still where they were.

I nodded, not turning around.

He left. I stood at the counter for a moment before my hands remembered what they were doing.

⋆｡°✩

I made the pooris and started putting food into the tiffins I had bought for the girls. Four pooris, chane, and halwa in each section, and I filled the strawberry shake into bottles and tumblers. I knew they would not be able to eat all of it because they had to visit many houses, so I packed it.

When I was almost done, I went near the main gate and saw the security bhaiya speaking to an aunty who lived next door.

"Nahi, Madam, please — abhi humari baari hai. Line mein pehle humara residence aata hai—"

I stepped outside. A small gang of kanjaks stood on the path, in their best clothes, bangles clicking, looking between the guard and aunty with the patience of children who have a full morning ahead of them and cannot afford to waste it here.

The tallest one, maybe seven or eight years old, put her hands on her hips.

She looked at aunty. "Hum kanjak hain ... hume decide karne do." Then, to the guard with complete authority: "Policebhaiya ne kitni baar bulaya. Pehle hum inke ghar jaayenge."

Case closed. She turned and walked through the gate.

I laughed and held it open wider. "Aayiye."

"Sahir — jaldi aayiye bahar!" I called toward the house.

He appeared two minutes later in a white t-shirt and blue jeans, hair still slightly damp from his bath, looking exactly like someone who had rushed but was trying not to show it. He came to the kitchen doorway.

"Sorry — thoda late ho gaya." He looked at me moving between the stove and counter, checking the chane, adjusting the halwa, finding the mehndi cones.

His hand came to my waist again, steadying me in the middle of my own kitchen.

"Aaraam se, Saachi. Main hun na, aapke saath."

I nodded and breathed.

I handed him a small bucket of water, a little matki, and a towel. He took them with no questions asked and went to where the girls were sitting on the sheet I had laid on the floor.

I watched him kneel and pour water over each small pair of feet carefully, one by one, the way you handle something sacred. He dried their feet with the towel. Some of them giggled.

I came with the tilak and the diya. I pressed the red tilak onto each forehead, did their aarti, and then we brought the tiffins and the shake bottles and set one in front of each girl.

"Aap sab thoda thoda kha sakti hain abhi."

They nodded together, a small synchronized movement, and opened their tiffins.

"Yeh toh bahut acha hai," one of them announced.

"Aap kitni achi lag rahi hain — pink pink," another said, looking up at my pink saree.

"Aur main?" Sahir asked from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside me.

The girl studied him seriously. "Aap police ho na."

He smiled at them.

"Nahi, pagal, yeh police nahi hain. Yeh ABC hain," another girl told her, with the authority of someone correcting a common error.

"Bacche main ABC nahi hun," he said, bursting out laughing. My eyes stayed on his laughing face.

"Betu, yeh ADM hain — A, D, M," I said.

"Shake acha hai," the first girl said, which was her complete response to this information.

"Thank you." I pulled her cheek.

"Aapke ghar bhi chota baby hai?" she asked innocently while sipping the shake.

I smiled and did not dare to look at Sahir.

"Abhi nahi hai, betu," Sahir said.

I looked at my lap. When I looked up, he was already looking at me. I looked back down at my lap.

Then Sahir went for the gifts. He came back with the bag I had packed — clips, geometry boxes, chocolates — and we gave one to each girl.

A small voice from the corner: "Mujhe kyun Barbie waali pencil box di? Main toh ladka hun."

I looked down. One small boy had come with his sister, and I had, in the morning's chaos, not thought to pack differently for him.

"Sorry beta — mujhe yaad nahi raha." I bent down near him.

Sahir was already reaching into his pocket. He pulled out two hundred-rupee notes and pressed them into the boy's hand.

Then he leaned down to his level. "Girls ko nahi batana."

The boy looked at the notes. Then up at Sahir. A slow, delighted, entirely conspiratorial smile spread across his face.

"Okay."

I pressed my hand to my forehead.

⋆｡°✩

We saw them off at the gate. When I turned to go back to the kitchen, a hand caught my wrist and I found myself turned gently toward the sofa.

"Baithiye."

"Sahir... woh bartan—"

He held up one finger, went to the kitchen, came back with a plate — puri, chane, halwa — and set it on the table in front of me.

"Saari kanjako ne khaana kha liya. Mere ghar ki kanjak toh reh hi gayi."

He cupped my face with his hand when he said it.

Something in my chest did what it always does when he says something like that... opened quietly, like a window in a room that has been closed too long.

My eyes held more than I had words for.

He tore a piece of puri, filled it with chane, and held it toward my mouth. I ate it from his hand. Then I tore a piece and held it toward his. He ate it from mine.

We finished the plate like that.

He picked it up to take to the kitchen. "Baithiye abhi," he said, when I started to rise.

I stayed.

He came back from the room with a paper bag, which he placed in my lap.

I opened it.

A hair set — straightener, curler, dryer. The whole thing, new, still in its packaging, the kind of set I had been managing without because my old one had been giving uneven heat for months and I had kept telling myself I would replace it.

I had mentioned it once. In passing. On an ordinary evening.

"Aap keh rahi thin na aapka purana set theek se kaam nahi kar raha."

I looked at him. My eyes were doing something I was not entirely in control of.

"Thank you... par main ab kaunsi kanjak hun," I said softly.

He cupped my face with both hands.

"Sahi kaha. Aap toh devi hain iss ghar ki."

I burst into laughter and hugged him instantly, and we stayed like that for a few seconds.

"Eh — hello?"

We heard a voice and I jolted back.

Arzoo was standing near the doorway, bag over her shoulder, taking in the scene with wide eyes and a slowly spreading grin.

I stood up instantly. "Aao, Arzoo. Kaisi ho?"

I met her properly. I had called Arzoo yesterday because everyone was going to work and university late due to the kanjak pujan. Everything was opening three hours late as per the instructions by the district authority, which was none other than my husband.

Arzoo came in, set her bag on the table, and looked at us both.

Sahir had, I noticed, not moved his hand from mine. He held it normally, completely calmly, while I was trying to compose my face into something sensible. Then, after a moment, he let go.

"Aap baat karo — main garam garam puri banaati hun Arzoo ke liye."

She offered to help. I refused, went to the kitchen, and gave myself approximately thirty seconds to stop smiling before I turned around.

⋆｡°✩

I carried the food out and found Sahir pressing a small tilak on Arzoo's forehead, doing a quiet aarti of her with the diya still lit from morning. She sat very still, hands in her lap, her expression somewhere between moved and uncertain, like someone receiving something they do not quite know how to hold.

"Bhabhi itna kuch," she said when I put the plate in front of her.

"Bilkul nahi. Tisha ko call kiya tha — woh bechari kaam se hi free nahi hoti kahin aane ke liye."

"Bhagwan jaane itna overwork kyun karti hai," Arzoo said, tearing a careful bite.

I went inside to the room. Sahir was at the table putting files into his bag.

"Sahir." I stood at the door.

"Hanji." Busy with the files.

"Arzoo ke liye koi gift nahi liya. Woh bhi toh kanjak hai humari."

"Bilkul kanjak hai," he said, still busy with the files.

"Kab kya karu?" I asked, a little tense.

He finally looked at me. "Main hun na..."

He gave my hand a quiet squeeze. Then went out to the hall.

I came out a minute later to find Arzoo's plate empty and her in the kitchen, already washing the dish.

"Hey Bhagwan... Arzoo, chhodo. Bahar aao." I went in and took the plate from her hand. "Tumhare bhai ne kuch kehna hai tumhe."

I brought her to the hall where Sahir was standing near the sofa.

He went down on one knee in front of her and touched her feet.

"BHAI—" she said in a high-pitched voice.

"Kanjak ho humari. Chalo — aashirwaad do."

He held her hand himself and placed it on his head.

She stood completely frozen. The expression on her face was the particular expression of someone who has received something so unexpected that the body does not know immediately what to do with it.

"Aap bade ho mujhse aur main kaise kanjak—"

"Behen ho na meri chotti."

He stood, pulled out a two-thousand-rupee note and held it toward her.

She stepped back, shaking her head.

He looked at her quietly.

She hesitated. Then took it slowly, looking at her own hands.

We three sat on the sofas in the warm midday quiet of a house that had had nine small guests in it and still held their energy.

"Kal chhutti hogi tumhe?" I asked.

"Hanji. Tisha ko bhi Dussehra pe chhutti hai."

"Ravan dahan dekhne ja rahe ho?"

"Mann toh hai par bahut bheed hoti hai, isliye nahi—"

"Main aur Sahir kal ja rahe hain... GP Stadium."

Her eyebrows went up slightly. "Wahan kal bahut politicians aane waale hain."

I nodded. "Chalo tum log bhi."

"Main kar dunga arrangement. Bas pahunch kar call kar dena," Sahir said.

"Main, Tisha aur meri university friends Ruhi aur Aavya... hum chaar aa sakte hain?" she asked.

Arzoo looked at Sahir. He nodded simply, as though this was the smallest thing he had been asked all day.

Sahir picked up his bag. "Chalo — main chalta hun. Aap log baatein karo."

After talking for some time, I dropped her at the university in the car and then went to my studio.

⋆｡°✩

The next day came with a grey sky and that particular Dussehra smell ... smoke already in the air from somewhere, marigolds on every gate, the neighbourhood moving at a different pace than usual.

I wore my salwar suit, straightened my hair with the new set — it worked perfectly, smooth in one pass, the way it should — and was still adjusting my dupatta when a police officer arrived at the gate to take me to the stadium. Sahir had left in the morning, managing city coordination across multiple venues; the Ravan dahan alone had twelve locations.

The stadium, when we arrived, was something else entirely.

Thousands of people. Police lines at every gate. Media vans parked outside with cameras mounted on their roofs. Command vehicles with antennas. The VIP entry was to the side, and the officer walked me through it without stopping.

Inside, the ground was arranged in wide sections. The official seating area was slightly elevated, set apart ... rows of chairs filling with officers, their seniors, and families. I was looking for Sahir when I heard the particular shift in sound that happens when he enters a space that knows him.

He was moving across the ground with the walkie-talkie at his shoulder, giving instructions to two officers walking quickly beside him, his face carrying the particular focused calm of someone in the middle of managing something very large. Different from home. The way a river looks different when it is moving through a narrow channel.

He saw me across the space.

He came over and looked at my face with that quick checking look.

"Theek hain aap?"

"Ji."

He took my hand and walked me toward the official seating. Around us, people noticed him ... through the small adjustments that happen ... the straightening, the salutes from constables, the clearing of a path that is cleared without being asked for.

He introduced me to the District Magistrate ... a senior man with an easy manner, his wife beside him in a silk saree.

"Sir, yeh Saachi hain."

The DM's wife smiled at me warmly.

"Sahir, your wife is very beautiful."

"Thank you, Ma'am," Sahir said.

Naturally, without pause, without looking anywhere but at the DM's wife. Like it was simply true and he was simply acknowledging it.

I met the other officers and their families, sat and talked, learned the names of people whose lives intersected with Sahir's working day in ways I had not fully pictured before. Then a politician arrived — one of the senior ones — made his rounds, spoke to the DM, and turned to Sahir with the satisfied look of someone about to pay a compliment.

"Bheed bahut hai ... management dekh lijiye, DM sir."

The DM smiled. "If Sachdeva is handling it, phir matlab hum log chinta hi nahi karte."

Sahir inclined his head once, accepting this the way he accepts everything ... without making it larger or smaller than it was.

He came and stood beside me a moment later.

"Theek hain?" He cupped my face briefly, checking.

"Ji, bilkul."

He squeezed my hand once and went back.

I sat and watched him work for the rest of the event.

Slowly, while watching him, I understood again what kind of man I had married. Not just a husband, but a man who worked with honesty and carried responsibility without making noise about it. It is easy to respect a person when they are strong, but it is rare to respect them and feel safe around them at the same time. Sahir was that rare kind.

⋆｡°✩

The police car took me home when the event ended. Sahir, despite the crowd and the coordination and the officials around him, walked me to the car himself, opened the door, and made sure I was seated.

"Pahunch ke call kariye."

I called when I reached. He said he would be home in two hours.

Two and a half hours later, I heard him come in from the kitchen.

I went to the room.

He was still in the same clothes, his belt lying on the side of the bed, his shirt untucked, and his feet still wearing socks. I sat near him. He was already half asleep.

I sat beside him and caressed his hair.

"Sahir, khana kha lijiye."

"Hmmm," he said in that deep sleepy voice.

"Khana kha lijiye."

"Nahi," he said into the pillow, already more than half asleep.

I stayed where I was. Ran my hand slowly through his hair. He went completely still, his breathing deepening.

I took off his socks. Set his shoes properly by the bed. Turned off the main light, leaving only the small lamp on.

Then I sat at the window for a while, not eating, not quite ready to. I knew he would not like it in the morning if he found out I had skipped dinner. .The night outside was full of the last of the Dussehra sounds, the smoke still faint in the air, someone's crackers going off three streets away.

Ravan burns every year. That is what the story says — evil falls, and then the world resets, and everyone goes home with ash on their clothes and light in their eyes. But the real thing burns only once. The paper-and-bamboo Ravan falls in one bright minute and is done. The real ones take longer. The real ones burn slowly, over years, and you don't always know they're burning until one day the smoke clears and you look at where the fear used to live and find it smaller than you remembered.

I looked at Sahir's sleeping face in the low lamplight.

Some things take time to become safe. The body learns cautiously. The heart even more so. But sometimes you sit at a window in the dark and realise the old weight is not where you left it .... that it has, without announcement, become lighter.

I was not afraid tonight.

That was new. And it was enough.

⋆｡°✩

Arzoo POV

"Arre bhai sahab ... yahan insaanon ka sailaab aa gaya kya," Tisha said, coming to a stop outside the stadium gates.

She was not wrong.

The crowd outside the main entry was the kind of crowd that has its own weather ...pressing, warm, loud with the particular excitement of ten thousand people who have all decided to be in the same place at the same time. Boys on shoulders, families with small children held firmly by the wrist, food carts doing the business of their entire year in one evening.

"Lag toh aisa hi raha hai," Ruhi said, standing on her toes to see over the heads.

Aavya had gone quiet, which means she is calculating something.

Something tightened in my chest. I have never been good with crowds ... the loss of space, the noise coming from all directions at once, the feeling that the edges of things are not where they should be.

"Chale hum bhi andar bheed mein—"

"Bilkul nahi." I said it immediately. "Vapas chalenge, kahin aur chale jaayenge, par iss bheed mein nahi. Ladke hi ladke hain."

I already had my phone out.

Bhai didn't pick.

"Oh God—"

"Arrey ruk," Tisha said.

I called again. He picked up on the second try, and from the background I could immediately tell what kind of evening it was for him — voices, walkie-talkie static, someone saying "sir, sir" in the distance.

"Haan, Arzoo—"

"Bhai, hum stadium ke bahar hain. Crowd bahut zyada hai. Hum andar kaise—"

He gave me a gate number. The other side of the stadium, less used, quieter. Then the call was over.

Within five minutes, two constables appeared through the crowd, moving against the current with the easy authority of people who have done this a hundred times.

"Arzoo Ma'am?"

"Ji, main hun."

"Chaliye."

They walked ahead of us and the crowd parted the way crowds do when they understand that standing aside is faster than not. We were inside in three minutes flat.

⋆｡°✩

The ground was enormous from the inside — lit up, the main stage draped in marigold and tube lights, the Ravan effigy standing at the far end against the darkening sky, taller than it looks in photographs. Officials and their families in a cordoned section. The public stands filling fast. Cameras. Spotlights. A sound system testing itself in long, rolling waves of bass.

Bhai was near the command area, walkie-talkie in hand, two officers on either side keeping pace with him.

I could hear his voice from where we were, even in the noise.

"CM sir aane waale hain ... tum log ne bahar itna crowd kyun laga ke rakha hai entry gates par? Kisi ko injury nahi honi chahiye. Jao abhi jaakar, clear karwao."

His tone at work is different from home. I had heard it once before, during the police situation, and it still does something to my posture to hear it ... straightens me slightly, makes me pay attention.

He looked over and saw us.

"Aa gaye tum log."

"Haan, Bhai—"

"Sharma ji ,inka safely sitting arrangement karwayiye. Ladies ke section mein, kam bheed waali jagah." He was already looking back toward the command area. "Khayal rakhiye inka."

And he was gone.

Sharma ji, a solid and cheerful sub-inspector who had clearly been briefed, took us to a section near the officials' area ,,,wide seats, good sightlines, barely crowded. We settled in.

Aavya leaned across toward me and said, "Batao, Sharma ji ko bola tumhare bhai ne." She gestured toward where a younger officer was standing a few rows down, monitoring the section. "Unke saath itna handsome young police waala khada tha ... usse nahi bola?"

Tisha laughed.

I looked at the young officer. His uniform badge read: Aditya Mathur.

"Aavya, bas."

"Main toh sirf keh rahi hun—"

"Ramleela shuru ho gayi hai," Ruhi said firmly, pointing toward the stage.

⋆｡°✩

The last phase of Ramleela was already underway when we arrived ....the voices of the performers rising and falling with the kind of practiced emotion that comes from doing something for years. The crowd settled into watching. Somewhere behind us, a child asked her mother what was happening, and she began explaining in a low, patient voice that I could just barely hear.

Then the CM arrived.

The crowd went up in a wave of sound — shouting, some cheering, the specific noise of a large group responding to the arrival of power. Police lines tightened. Cameras swung. The CM made his way to the official section, shook hands, waved at the stands.

I watched for a minute. Then looked back toward the command area, where Bhai had been standing since we arrived ... on his feet, managing the crowd flow from the entry gates, coordinating with ground officers, doing the invisible work that makes a large event not collapse into itself.

He had not sat once.

The CM would be here for twenty minutes, wave at ten thousand people, and leave.

Bhai would be here from eight in the morning until after midnight, making sure none of those ten thousand people got hurt.

The crowd cheered again. I looked at them cheering.

This is the strange thing. The one who arrives last gets the loudest sound. The ones who have been there from the beginning — in the heat, in the dust, holding the whole thing together — those ones nobody cheers for. You just expect the event to run well and move on. It is only when something goes wrong that you understand who was standing between you and the wrong thing.

I watched him across the ground, his walkie-talkie at his shoulder, face tilted toward whatever information was coming in.

My bhai deserves all the applause.

Then the main lights went to half, and the music came up, and the Ravan effigy caught ... slowly at first, then all at once, orange and enormous against the black sky, the crowd going completely electric around us, phones out, arms up, the whole stadium lit by something burning.

Ruhi was screaming next to me. Tisha had one hand on her heart. Even I, who had told myself I would watch calmly, felt the thing that fire always does to the chest ... something ancient and immediate, a joy that skips the thinking brain entirely.

I watched it.

Not through my phone. Through my eyes. The way it was meant to be watched.

Around me, most people had their phones raised. The screens showed the fire smaller and flatter than the fire actually was. I thought about how strange it is ... that we have started attending things in order to record them, as if the proof of being there has become more important than the being there itself. As if we have decided that a life lived through a screen is somehow more real than the one happening around the screen.

In a few more years, with the way technology moves, there will be even more of it. More screens between people and the things they came to see. More photographs of joy instead of joy. I wonder sometimes what we are making, and whether we will miss it when it is fully made.

The fire burned down slowly into itself. The crowd began to move.

⋆｡°✩

"Madam...Sahir sir ka order hai aapko safely ghar pahunchana."

Aditya Mathur was standing at the end of our row, composed and professional.

Behind me, I felt Ruhi and Aavya exchange a look I did not need to see to understand.

"Abhi toh maine chooriyan bhi nahi khareedi—" Avya started.

"Madam, sir ka order hai. Bahar crowd bahut zyada hai. Abhi theek nahi rahega."

We collected our things. He walked ahead, the crowd adjusting ahead of him the way it had for the constables earlier. Police were already clearing the main roads and for the first time I saw a crowd going out line by line, waiting for their turns. Damn, my brother was implementing civic sense and discipline.

⋆｡°✩

We got into the police jeep ... all four of us in the back. Ruhi's house was closest, so we went there first. Then the jeep moved toward home.

Aavya, I noticed, had shifted somewhat toward the front of the jeep. Then a little more. Then, after two red lights, she was entirely in the front seat.

Aditya Mathur kept his eyes on the road.

I stared out the window.

We dropped Ruhi off first since her house came on the way. After that, me and Tisha got down together near our lane. Now only Aavya was left in the jeep.

The moment we stepped out, she quietly got up from the back seat and moved to the front beside Aditya Mathur as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

He kept his eyes fixed straight on the road, his expression completely composed

Then

As always, Bhai called the minute we were home.

"Pahunch gayi?"

"Ji, Bhai. Thank you."

"Chalo, ab rest karo tum dono. Thak gayi hongi."

I called Mumma after. Told her about the fire and the crowd and what it looked like when ten thousand people all go quiet at the same moment for the same thing. She listened and made the sounds she makes when she is picturing something she is glad to picture.

⋆｡°✩

The next day at university, Aavya arrived just before class started.

Ruhi looked at her. "Oho, kya baat hai. Kal raat toh kamaal ho gayi."

Aavya chuckled.

"Number mila?" Ruhi asked, direct as always.

Aavya's face went through something complicated.

"Nahi, Dheet Nikla bahut," she said with a sad face.

"Number nahi diya." Then she folded up her sleeves. "Par pata nahi kyun... chooriyan dilwa di."

We both stared at the bangles on her wrist.

"KYA?!"

The two of us shouted together, at full volume.

Tell me your favourite scene from this chapter 🤍

And honestly... one chapter takes far more time, thought, and effort than it may look from outside.

Lil "aao behen chugli karein" session 😭

For the past two days, we've had HOURS of power cuts in our area. And funnily (or unfortunately), somehow our house help damaged the inverter setup 😭

Early morning she literally yelled:
"Jaldi aao help karo apne aap ho gaya!" 😂

And my brother was like:
"What were you even doing there??"

Mind you, that area is outside near the entrance and kind of hidden 😭 God knows what happened there. Either she broke it or damaged something badly because now it's getting repaired.

And now the whole house is dark 😭
No bulbs, no AC extreme garmi... kya ho raha hai bhai. I genuinely couldn't even write properly.