As I gazed out from beneath the overhang, trying to decide whether the rain had let up any—it hadn’t—I noticed a man on the opposite side of Cuffe Parade Road. He seemed to be dawdling. My radar was up. I thought he resembled a guy I’d seen when leaving the office a few minutes before. But, in fairness, he was dressed like any of a couple of million men in Bombay. Dark trousers, shirt a mite too large for his size, and chappals on his feet. Still, to be safe, I didn’t want to lead him back to my place if he was following me.

I crossed the road and, pretending to head into the hotel, I slipped into a black-and-yellow taxi instead. Five minutes later, the driver dropped me at the Taj Mahal Hotel at Apollo Bunder. The majestic Gateway to India loomed large on the other side of the road, but the rain dampened my appetite for sightseeing. The doorman saluted me and remarked that I was soaking wet, as if perhaps I hadn’t noticed.

A historic hotel, one of the finest in all of Asia, the Taj was built in 1903 by Jamshedji Tata, some say because he wasn’t allowed in the Europeans-only hotels of Bombay. It was home to chic restaurants—the Apollo Room and Rendez Vous—as well as a shopping arcade offering jewelry, high-end clothing, rugs, and art to foreign tourists. There was also a swimming pool.

I took advantage of none of those amenities, choosing instead to sit in the lobby for ten minutes before heading back outside for another taxi. I told the driver to take me to Cuffe Parade. As we neared the President Hotel, I could see no man lurking in the shadows this time. The taxi turned into the Sagar Darshan compound and dropped me at the door.

The night liftman namaste’d me with all the enthusiasm of a slug. I returned the greeting and maintained silence during our ascent to the twelfth floor. Once home, I bathed and changed into my Indian cotton pajamas. I switched on the radio, which was playing Hindi film music, and lay down on the sofa. I was growing to like some of the songs. Kishore Kumar came on, singing one I’d heard several times. “Pal Pal Dil Ke Pass Tum Rheti Ho” was a gentle love song. I later asked Padma in the office—a Hindi film fanatic—what the title meant.

“It means you stay near my heart every moment,” she told me. “From the film Blackmail.” She swooned over the film’s star, Dharmendra. “The most handsome man in the world.”

But in that moment, flat on my back, I closed my eyes and listened to his sweet voice. I thought of Sushmita. Maybe I could learn the words and sing it to her.