He looked for the contact details of the author, but there seemed to be none. However, at the bottom, he found her name—Radhika Kapoor. But there was no picture.

‘Radhika Kapoor,’ Madhav murmured as the pale receptionist looked at him again. He tried to commit the name to memory.

Behind the closed chamber door, the doctor asked Mrs Mehra multiple questions about her son’s recent behaviour. He read Madhav’s case file that had the findings and opinions of several other doctors.

‘Madhav repeatedly insists that he doesn’t want this life. He says he is living for someone else. He talks to the mirror at night,’ said his mother, her voice cracking. Madhav’s father held her hand tightly.

‘I need to talk to him. We should put him on stronger medication,’ the doctor said as he wrote out a prescription.

‘He is sitting outside, doctor.’

‘Call him in,’ the doctor said as he turned on his recording device.

His mother came out and saw him sitting impatiently, rubbing his palms together.

She went up to him. ‘Madhav, the doctor is calling you.’

‘I don’t want to answer his stupid questions yet again,’ Madhav replied, agitated.

‘It will be fine, Madhav. He just wants to speak to you.’ She lightly squeezed his shoulder.

‘Oh yeah, I know. It will be all right the way you always claim it’ll be, and then I won’t remember anything the next morning.’

‘Please, Madhav. Come for us. It will be fine,’ she said, her eyes pleading.

Madhav faked a half-smile and went into the room with her. It was a spacious room with a desk and a small bookshelf. He had lain on the bed in the room before, next to which were several medical instruments. Get-well cards were meticulously displayed along the windowsill, flanked by flower arrangements. How generic, he thought.

‘Hello, Madhav! How are you?’ the doctor asked, placing Madhav’s case file aside as he rose to shake his hand. Dr Batra was a somewhat corpulent man in his mid-sixties who had been practising psychiatry for forty years and, yet, he hadn’t been able to fathom Madhav’s condition. According to him, Madhav was probably suffering from bipolar disorder and the only cure for that was strong medication and psychotherapy. He insisted on asking him the same questions during every visit, despite Madhav’s evident frustration. But Mrs Mehra was hopeful that one day the psychiatrist would actually break through her son’s peculiar shell.

‘I’m fine, as always,’ Madhav said, trying to be cordial.

Initially, Madhav answered all of Dr Batra’s questions with great solemnity. Then he started joking about how college was making his life miserable. The more he talked, the more evident was his sadness. His voice became less domineering and more childlike. He told the doctor about a few of his insecurities—how a new job might restrict his creativity and affect his poetry and how certain expectations were starting to make him feel claustrophobic.

‘How’s your life, honestly?’ Dr Batra asked another vague question to help Madhav open up a bit further.