Pages From Her Diary

Almost three months in Bangalore, and I hadn't really gone anywhere. Office and room. Room and office. Weekends spent entirely within four walls, telling myself I'd explore the city once I felt like it — knowing perfectly well that feeling like it was never going to arrive on its own. Then a friend called. Come to Indiranagar. Let's meet. And I went. Which, for a man who hadn't stepped out socially in twelve weeks, was a bigger thing than it sounds. It was a good evening. Easy conversation, the kind you don't have to prepare for. For a few hours I stopped being a stranger in a city and was just a person sitting across from another person. And then his phone rang. His wife's name was on the screen I watched his face. Something in it just… closed. The ease left. He straightened slightly, glanced at the screen the way you glance at an email from your boss on a Sunday, and said quietly — "she's calling." Not warmth. Not "oh, on...