‘This is the Vasuvannan I told you about,’ he said, introducing me to her. ‘He is as mild-mannered as his voice.’

‘You must have committed some horrible sin in your previous life,’ I said quietly in my mind. ‘You can only know a person by their voice, smell and taste. Like grabbing at a beautifully presented plate of food with your fingers in the darkness.’

‘She’s half Malayali,’ Soordas continued. ‘Not from my caste.’

‘Hello,’ I said mildly, touching her hand.

Soordas began to describe all the things he had in common with Vidya. They were both vegetarians, blind from birth, loved old film songs. Both had friends who took advantage of them, old scars on their left hands from using knives carelessly. Both of them liked listening to cricket commentary, curries with cauliflower, could speak Malayalam but disliked brown kuthari rice.

We went to a coffee shop and sat at a table. Flicking a piece of dosa off the table accurately, Vidya said: We were both tricked by our friends when we were young.’ Her fingernails were shaped and polished, and her bangles and earrings matched the colour of her churidar top. Someone who could see was looking out for her at home, I thought.

‘They would take me along to play, and then disappear quietly without telling me. I would stand there alone and cry until my parents came looking for me. Still, after a while, I was sadder if they didn’t play tricks on me.’

Vidya told us that the only time she could win a game was when everyone was blindfolded. ‘But even then they would cheat,’ she said. ‘They would say they were blindfolded and laugh at me as I tried to catch them.’

‘Well, I might also trick you,’ I said. Soordas listened to her laugh and laughed with her.

‘We’re not going home for the pooja vacation,’ Ragesh said. They had moved their game to a mat spread on the floor. Illegal games like dice and cards for wagers are better played on the floor. They were planning a two-day motorbike trip to Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Dhanushkodi, and with them gone, the hostel would be empty. Without attracting their attention, I touched Soordas on his back, but he sat there motionless like a stone. Love truly made one blind and careless, and for the first time, when Soordas stepped out, his leg accidentally hit a chair.

‘We could hear a “thud, thud” noise in the night around twelve,’ the men said the next day. They had come earlier than usual to begin their game. ‘We realized it was coming from the blind guys’ room. Soordas’s heart—that’s what it was.’

I did not join in their laughter. When Soordas arrived in the evening, I led him to the back of the shop.

‘She has agreed to come,’ he said. ‘She might let me kiss her, but nothing more. She doesn’t have many friends so doesn’t know much about these things.’

His room-mates would be gone by then. He wanted to clean the room, he said, dust it, and prise open the windowpanes stuck to the frames and let some air in. Buy an air freshener like they used in cars. The bed and mattress were infested with bedbugs, but the insecticide spray to kill them had a nasty smell.