After ten, the roads are clearer of other cars. On nights like this, he takes the less frequented route, the longer way back to the apartment. He has a colleague who walks the five kilometres to his home, crossing two double-lane intersections and broken pavements built around old neem and peepul trees. Despite the stench emanating from the walls along one stretch, the walk is still a pleasant one. Outside of the capital, people are reluctant to understand this.
The stories he tells Aru before bed aren’t always as interesting. She recaps what their daughter gets up to after she is picked up. She’s still speaking intermittently as he drifts off to the familiar sounds of her distant voice. The smell of a warmed pan wakes him up as he stands over it, drinking the day’s first cup of coffee. He has heard his daughter tell her friends that he cooks, serves and clears up. The way she breaks it into three processes amuses him.
Away from the table — at work, in the washroom, in moments alone — he reads back the message from Kalyani — the first friend to reach out. She wouldn’t say anything over text. It’s sensible, he knows. In her shoes, he would have done both the decent and the practical thing too. After the call, he considered asking her to meet him for a cup of coffee. He had a burning need to understand but no concrete questions.
Once, when Karan was overtired and under-slept, he told her, “You’re more fixed in your ways than you think. I don’t know why you insist on seeing yourself as a free spirit.” After a moment: “Who you are is perfectly adequate.” She can’t call him angry because he won’t rise to that state.
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