The diversion brought them to Chandigarh by noon. The train would halt for two hours while the railway authorities figured out the onward route — either through Pathankot if the water receded, or further around through Jammu via a longer loop that would add half a day to the journey.
Two hours in Chandigarh. Meera turned to Arjun with the expression of a child who's been told school is cancelled.
"Come on," she said. "We're getting off."
"What if the train leaves early?"
"Indian trains don't leave early. That's physically impossible. It's against the laws of nature."
He laughed. Actually laughed — a sound that surprised even him, because it came from somewhere genuine, not from politeness.
They took an auto-rickshaw to Sukhna Lake. It was a twenty-minute ride through Le Corbusier's planned city — the wide, grid-like roads, the numbered sectors, the brutalist architecture that was either visionary or ugly depending on your mood. Arjun found it oddly calming. A city designed on paper, every street in its place. Order. Predictability. Everything his life currently wasn't.
The lake was still, grey-green under an overcast sky. Paddle boats sat unused at the dock. A few couples walked along the promenade. An old man threw breadcrumbs to birds that weren't particularly interested.
Meera took photographs of the water. Then she did something unexpected — she handed the camera to Arjun.
"Your turn."
"I don't know how to use this thing."
"It's a camera, not a nuclear reactor. Point. Look. Click." She showed him the basics — aperture, shutter speed, focus. "Don't think about composition or rules. Just photograph whatever you feel."
He raised the camera, feeling foolish. Through the viewfinder, the world looked different — framed, contained, manageable. He photographed a tree whose roots had cracked the concrete walkway. A child eating ice cream with a look of intense concentration. The reflection of clouds in the lake's surface.
"Not bad," Meera said, scrolling through his shots. "The tree root one is actually quite good. You have an eye for texture."
"I told you. I used to draw."
"And I told you. Underground rivers."
They sat on a bench by the water. The sky was doing that thing it does before rain — turning silver at the edges, the air getting thick and electric.
"Can I ask you something personal?" Arjun said.
"You can ask. I might not answer."
"Your photography project in the mountains — is it for something specific? A magazine, a gallery, a client?"
She was quiet for a moment. "It's for Maa. She kept a journal. Every year on her birthday, she'd write about the things she wanted to see before she died. The Northern Lights. The Sahara Desert at dawn. The mountains of Kashmir in autumn when the chinar leaves turn red." Meera's voice was steady, but her fingers gripped the edge of the bench. "She saw none of them. Life got in the way — my father's job, money, my school, her illness. So I'm going to see them for her. And photograph them. And make a book. Not for publishing. Just for her."
Something in Arjun's chest tightened. Not with pain — with recognition. "That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."
"It's not beautiful. It's grief wearing a better outfit." She looked at him. "But thank you."
The first drops of rain fell — fat, warm, and decisive. Within seconds, it was a downpour. They ran for the nearest shelter, a concrete gazebo with a leaking roof, and stood there, soaked and breathless, while Chandigarh's monsoon rain turned the lake into a field of silver circles.
Meera laughed. Full, open, uncomplicated laughter. And Arjun watched the rain run down her face and thought: I am in trouble.
Not the kind of trouble that comes with warning signs. The quiet kind. The kind that starts as warmth and ends as everything.
They got back to the station with twelve minutes to spare. The train hadn't moved. Of course it hadn't. They were soaked, smiling, and something between them had shifted — like furniture rearranged in a dark room. You couldn't see it, but you could feel the new shape of the space.
The Sardar ji couple had gotten off at Ludhiana as planned. New passengers had boarded. The berths around them were occupied by strangers. But the two seats by the window — theirs — were waiting.
Meera pulled out a towel from her bag and offered half of it to Arjun.
"You came prepared," he said.
"Photographer. We pack for everything."
"Except trains that actually leave on time."
She threw the towel at him. He caught it, grinning.
The train pulled out of Chandigarh at 3:17 PM, now officially six hours behind schedule. Arjun realized, with a feeling he couldn't name, that he didn't want it to speed up.
