The Harmony: Part 5

The office trip was Sharma sir's idea, which meant it was mandatory in the way things are mandatory when your manager frames them as optional.

Four days. A city three hours away. Team building, client meetings, one evening that was officially a cultural excursion and unofficially an excuse to eat somewhere that would go on expenses. Karan packed a bag and went, the chanting going with him the way it went everywhere now, a constant underscore to whatever was happening in the foreground.

The second evening, someone suggested an astrologer.

It was Deepak's idea. A lane near the old market, an astrologer who had been there for decades. The team had collectively run out of things to talk about and a group reading sounded like the kind of thing you did and laughed about for months afterward.

They found one. Third shop in the lane. Old man, genuinely old, the kind of old that had stopped caring about impressions. Photograph of a deity on the wall with a garland that needed changing. A register thick enough to have entries from before any of them were born.

They went one by one. Deepak came out pleased about a salary prediction. Two others came out with unremarkable futures. Then Karan sat down.

He gave his birth details. Date, time, place. The old man opened a worn booklet, cross-referenced something, made notes in a margin. His face was neutral for a long time.

Then the pen stopped.

Not dramatically. Just stopped, mid-note, as if the hand had received information the face hadn't processed yet. The old man looked at the booklet. Then at Karan. Then back at the booklet.

"Kuch hai," he said finally. His Hindi had the texture of someone who thought in a different language. He said it the way a doctor says something is there on a scan — not alarmed, not certain, but not dismissing either.

"Kya hai?" Karan asked.

The old man was quiet for a moment. "Kundli mein ek dosh hai. Par—" He stopped. Looked at the booklet again. Something in his expression shifted slightly, like a man recalculating a sum that isn't coming out the way it should. "Ajeeb hai. Yeh dosh aisa nahi hai jaise main pehle dekha ho."

"Ajeeb matlab?"

He said something in Sanskrit then. Several lines of it, half to Karan and half to himself, delivered quietly as if he was reading instructions he wasn't entirely sure applied. Karan caught nothing. The chanting in his head did not respond to it, did not shift or change — whatever the old man was saying existed in a completely different register.

"Sharp pain ho sakti hai," the old man said. "Achanak. Timing clear nahi hai. Aur—" He paused again. Looked up. "Kuch aur bhi hai. Par woh main nahi bata sakta. Mere pass words nahi hain iske liye."

Outside in the lane Deepak was already showing someone the notes he'd taken on his phone.

Karan looked at the old man for a moment. Then, because Deepak was outside laughing and this was supposed to be the funny part of the evening. "Theek hai. Salary kab badhegi?"

The old man blinked. Then, slowly, went back to his booklet. The rest of the reading was ordinary.

On the bus back to the hotel Karan sat at the window and let the highway pass. The chanting ran underneath the engine noise. He thought about the old man's pause. That moment of recalculation. Mere pass words nahi hain iske liye. He filed it and looked at the highway and didn't think about it more than that.

He called home that night.

Casual call. His mother asked about the food. His father asked about the client meetings. Then, because it was the kind of thing you say on a call home from a work trip, the kind of small story that fills comfortable silence. "Aaj ek astrologer ke paas gaye yaar. Group mein, timepass ke liye. Bola koi dosh hai, kuch hoga achanak. Aur bola mere paas words nahi hain iske liye, kuch ajeeb hai. Main toh salary ke baare mein pooch ke aa gaya."

He laughed.

His mother made a sound. Not a laugh.

"Kaunsa dosh bola?" his father asked.

"Kuch Sanskrit mein tha. Samjha nahi. Sharp pain wali cheez. Aur kuch aur jo usne nahi bataya."

"Hmm." His father's voice was the same as always. Level, unhurried.

"Kuch aur poocha usne?" his mother asked.

"Nahi. Standard reading thi baki. Career, shaadi, sab."

Small pause on the line. Not long. The kind of pause that only becomes significant in retrospect.

"Theek hai beta," his father said. "Trip enjoy kar."

"Haan haan. Okay bye."

"Bye beta. Khaana theek se khana."

He put the phone in his pocket. Outside the bus window the highway was flat and lit and endless. He did not think about the pause. He put his earphones in and closed his eyes.

Four hundred kilometers away, his parents sat with the call ended between them.

His mother set her chai down on the table. His father was looking at the wall.

"Pandit ji se milna padega," she said.

His father nodded once.

Neither of them picked up the phone to call Karan back.