The Delhi air was thick with the smell of mustard oil and distant firecrackers when Ananya stepped out of the auto-rickshaw. Her suitcase wheels rattled over the uneven lane leading to her father’s modest second-floor flat in Mayur Vihar. It had been three years since she last stood at this door. Three years of living in Bangalore, of pretending the life she built there was enough. Diwali had pulled her back.

She pressed the old doorbell. The metallic ring felt louder than it should have.