‘My boy,’ she lifted my head from her shoulder, a hand rubbing my back in comfort. ‘I know it hurts, but you cannot hurt those who are supporting you through this. What good would a crutch be if you kept knocking it until it breaks? It doesn’t matter what this says,’ she patted me on the forehead with a frail, thin finger, ‘there will always be hope.’ I smiled at her, accepting her analogy for what it was.

‘I want to take you shopping today,’ I said, stroking her cheek. ‘We can go to the market, get some food for the house and something nice for you.’ She smiled back at me, and I knew I was forgiven. Maa never punished me for feeling anything. She understood that somewhere, deep inside of me, something was broken; something she had spent her whole life trying to fix. But I was the crutch that was continually knocked, and piece by piece, I felt that I was being broken.

‘Let me hold your arm please,’ I said, grabbing Maa’s arm as she moved to step over a broken fruit crate. She slapped my hand away, scowling like a toddler preparing to throw a tantrum.

‘Will you stop grabbing me, Ashray! I am old, not disabled!’

‘You will be disabled if you keep stopping me from helping you.’ I reached out to her again. She swung her shopping back at me wildly, showing me that I had pushed her too far. ‘Can we at least walk arm in arm?’ I grinned at her, trying to deploy Rishi’s disarming tactics. She smiled back, looping her arm in mine.

‘You see, Ashray? Compromise.’ I loved how my Maa always seemed to find a teachable moment in life. How her analogies sometimes didn’t make sense, but the intentions were always pure.

‘Look at these people Ashray, their noses in their phones.’ She motioned towards two women walking towards us; they were focused on the phones in their hands, and not talking to each other.

‘In my day, before these things came out, we were forced to talk to each other, that is why arranged marriages worked.’ I nodded, not quite understanding what she was saying. ‘You couldn’t hide behind those things, Ashray. You spoke about how you felt.’ I didn’t want to talk about relationships, after successfully getting through the day without too many thoughts of Sakshi’s rejection.