Priya lowered the camera for a moment and looked out the window. She did not say anything. But Aryan saw her expression, which was different from her filming expression — something more private, more instinctive.
"You okay?" he said.
"Beautiful," she said. "Just — unexpectedly big."
The Innova turned off the paved road onto a dirt track. Dust rose behind them. The ravines closed in on both sides, and the sky above narrowed to a strip of pale afternoon blue, and the sound of everything changed — the world going quieter and at the same time more present, the way wild places do when you enter them deeply enough.
Vikram Choudhary parked at the edge of a clearing where the track ended. He got out and looked at the ravine entrance ahead of them without speaking. Then he said, to the ravine rather than to them: "We stay together. We are back at the vehicle before dark. These are the rules."
"Absolutely," Aryan said, already filming.
