I guess something has changed in you to want decisions like this now but please let this be very clear—nothing has changed for me. I am secure in my world in Calcutta . . . my job, my friends, and I do not want it to change.

I once dreamed of a family that you and I would create. Of a small house, of aspirations realized in love and in work, of peace in each other’s arms. But life is a bitter pill to swallow and sometimes things do not work out the way we would like them to.

This dream of mine is broken, Angad, and I do not have the faith to begin it again.

Angad read until the lines went all watery and disappeared from the page. He could read no more. The lights were going out in his head. When the booze finished he threw the bottle into the middle of the road and watched it smash. The noise brought the dogs out. They growled at him; he growled back. One mangy, brown-and-white specimen decided to follow him. Angad chucked the letters on the road and watched them being dragged along in a truck’s slipstream.

He was very cold by now. He had forgotten to bring his jacket and cap. The fog formed a thick curtain. Angad could hardly see. He was mumbling to himself. Strange, incoherent thoughts kept popping into his head and out of his mouth: ‘Baby, do you remember,’ he muttered, ‘when your father threw you on a gas stove. You had a black eye, burn marks on your forearm . . . I kissed you there . . . chutiya Sai Baba . . . how could you? You didn’t need to . . . she’s into Sai Bai—that Slash look alike . . . no, no the other one, the one with the bandana . . . that’s right, the Axl Rose look alike . . . let’s do a nose rub, boo . . . we could have . . . why did you?’ By now Angad had left the main road and turned into a lane. His steps stubbornly refused to trace a straight line.

His head was a spinning top, a mad jumble of broken bangles—a kaleidoscope gone awry. And no amount of turning was going to produce the neat geometrical figures that used to fall into place so effortlessly in the past.

He heard footsteps behind him. He wasn’t sure. His brainpan concealed all kinds of voices and sounds. Then he stopped and turned around. There seemed to be two people standing in front of him. ‘Hello,’ said Angad, ‘we’re all in it together, mate. It happens to you, it happens to me. My father’s a very nice guy, you know. You should meet him sometime.’ Then, sensing that something was wrong, Angad said, ‘Website. You guys want a website? No problem. I’ll give you as many as you want. Flowers too. All the way from Holland. But whatever you do please don’t go to the train station. You hear me? Never go to the train station.’