Jaipur in September was amber and gold — the sandstone buildings glowing in the late monsoon light, the streets narrow and noisy and alive in the way only a Rajasthani city can be. Arjun took a flight from Bangalore to Jaipur and then an auto-rickshaw from the airport, clutching a piece of paper with an address he'd memorized weeks ago but written down anyway, because some things are too important to trust to memory alone.
14-B, Shanti Nagar. Behind the Hanuman temple.
The auto-rickshaw dropped him at the mouth of a narrow lane. He could see the temple — small, painted orange, with marigold garlands draped over the entrance. A woman sat outside selling flowers, her baskets arranged in neat rows of orange and yellow and white. She was old, with deep creases in her face and silver bangles on both wrists.
"Meera Sharma ka ghar?" Arjun asked.
The woman looked at him. Looked at the backpack, the sketchbook tucked under his arm, the nervous set of his jaw. "Seedha jaao, left lo. Blue gate."
He walked. The lane was lined with houses — old Jaipur construction, thick walls, small windows, courtyards hidden behind high gates. He could hear the sounds of a neighbourhood in the late afternoon: pressure cookers whistling, a TV playing a cricket commentary, children arguing about whose turn it was.
Blue gate. There it was. Faded blue, with the paint peeling at the bottom and a small brass nameplate that said SHARMA.
He stood outside for three full minutes, his heart doing things that hearts shouldn't do at twenty-eight unless you're running a marathon or falling off a building.
What if she'd changed her mind? What if eight weeks was too long? What if she'd met someone else, someone who didn't need to go away to figure himself out? What if —
The gate opened.
Not because he knocked. Because a man was coming out — middle-aged, receding hairline, glasses, wearing a checked shirt tucked into high-waisted trousers. He looked at Arjun with the particular expression of an Indian father encountering an unknown young man outside his house.
"Yes?"
"I'm — I'm Arjun. Arjun Mehra. I'm here to see Meera."
The man studied him. Years of information were exchanged in that three-second gaze — the kind of rapid assessment that Indian fathers have perfected over millennia. Arjun could feel himself being measured: his posture, his clothes, the sketchbook, the quality of his shoes, the sincerity of his nervousness.
"Come in," Mr. Sharma said. Not warmly. Not coldly. Just factually, the way you'd say "it's Tuesday."
The courtyard was small and beautiful — a tulsi plant in the centre, a wooden swing in one corner, clothes drying on a line strung between two pillars. The walls were the colour of old turmeric.
Meera was sitting on the swing.
She was reading. Hair down, no camera, wearing a faded salwar kameez that looked like it belonged to her mother. She looked domestic and peaceful and so different from the woman who'd nearly missed a train in Delhi that for a moment Arjun wondered if he'd come to the wrong house.
Then she looked up.
