My existential angst was interrupted by a soulful rendition of ‘Tum Mile’ emanating from the bright yellow jhola that contained all my stuff. It was my sister Sammy, calling to ask when I’d be back. She sounded like she’d had a bad day and needed some respite, so I bade farewell to Vijay and commenced the long journey home. The streets were fraught with peak-time Mumbai traffic. Forty-five minutes later, a cab deposited me outside Sea Mermaid, the quaint little apartment block where Sammy and her husband Rishi lived. They stayed in one of the few tree-lined lanes left in the upscale suburb of Bandra.

I had moved in with Sammy and Rishi a few months earlier, after my flatmate Abha had got married and moved away to Australia. My original plan had been to look around for another flatmate or move to new paying-guest accommodation, but Sammy and Rishi had insisted I move in with them. They had recently relocated to Mumbai from Gurgaon, and Sammy had quit a promising career in architecture to focus on Aryan, their nine-month-old baby. With Rishi setting up his own architectural practice in Mumbai and having to travel and work long hours, both of them had thought it would be better for me to move in with them and I had willingly agreed.

Even though their apartment was pretty far from my office—whereas my old apartment had just been a stone’s throw away—it was a small price to pay for the joy I got from spending time with Sammy and Aryan. Plus I’d grown to love Bandra with its little winding lanes, beautiful old bungalows and proximity to the sea. Living in Bandra somehow made me miss my hometown of Dehradun a little less, even though I often felt like I would have a Dehradun-shaped hole in my heart for as long as I continued living elsewhere. It wasn’t that I disliked Mumbai—it had its own unique charm and the constant buzz of the city had impressed me hugely when I first moved here. It was just that I always got the uncomfortable feeling that I didn’t really belong here. That I would never be able to fit in amongst all those incredibly driven people, constantly gripping life by the leash, with my penchant for daydreaming and living life in my own fantasy bubble.

Dehradun, with its sleepy, mellow pace of life was much more my kind of place. Still, Mumbai had the sea which I loved. And more importantly, Bandra—where I now lived— had easy access to the sea. I had spent many a windswept afternoon aimlessly wandering along Bandstand, just enjoying the feel of the sea breeze run its salty fingers through my hair.

Sammy and Rishi’s apartment was a ten-minute walk away from the sea, and even though you couldn’t see it, you could smell its salty fragrance from the apartment’s balcony— reason enough for the broker to charge a bomb by way of rent for the ‘sea breeze’. I let myself into the apartment now and tiptoed gingerly into the living room. It was a clearly laid-down rule of the house: no door bells, no slamming doors and soft voices at all times to avoid disturbing the sleepless little bundle that resided within its precincts and was prone to be roused by the slightest sound.