Meera’s first splurge involved buying a gramophone, a luxury she couldn’t have even dreamt of in her poky house in Bandra, and even less so when she lived in Danpada. Ravi Shankar, Bhimsen Joshi, Mohammad Rafi and Talat Mahmood now sang to her when she wanted. She was able to ship in American records with the help of a nurse she had befriended at Mount Sinai. One of the first records she received was the soundtrack of Kiss Me Kate. Listening to it sent a chill down her spine as she remembered the cold New York winter. Taking in the balmy sea breeze, she tried her best not to think about Abhimanyu, but it was a battle she often lost.

But if there was something that kept her distracted during her spare time, it was the fan mail that piled up at her doorstep every morning. People she didn’t know would pour their hearts out in letters from across India and beyond, from cities in the Middle East to Eastern Europe. Cities she could neither place on a map nor correctly pronounce the names of. At first, she read every letter and tried responding to them all, but soon, it became too overwhelming, and Kamal began picking out the most interesting and moving ones for her to read and reply to. ‘Thank you for your kind words. I wish my best to your mother. I hope she gets well soon,’ she’d write in her neat handwriting. Personal words of gratitude or encouragement, along with an autographed headshot of Meera looking into the camera.