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.

The Harmony: Part 4

Three days. No chanting.

Not faded. Not reduced. Gone. He woke the first morning and lay still for a full minute waiting for it. Nothing. He made chai. Nothing. Went to office, sat through meetings, ate lunch with Samar. Nothing. The city was just the city. Ordinary noise, ordinary silence, no layer underneath either of them.

He slept properly for the first time since the dhaba.

The second day he called it a stress response. Sleep deprivation, overwork, the brain finding patterns where there were none. He went for a walk after office. Bought a cutting chai from a stall and stood on the footpath and drank it and felt, for the first time in a week, completely ordinary. The relief was real. He let himself have it.

The third day he realized he was listening for it.

Not wanting it. Not missing it exactly. But checking. In the gaps between things. Between one thought and the next. Between a song ending and the next one starting. The way you check a door even when no one is supposed to arrive.

He went to the temple three lanes from the PG that evening. Left his shoes at the entrance. Sat in the back corner during the evening aarti with the notebook page folded in his pocket and compared. Syllable by syllable. The priest had a practiced rhythm, decades of the same words, a genuine fluency. Karan tracked it against what he remembered.

Wrong hymn.

He tried two more temples over the next two days. Different areas, different traditions. Sat in the back each time. Never approached the pandit. The calculation was simple — too much risk of being smiled at patiently, handed a pamphlet, told that modern stress manifests in unusual ways. So he sat and compared and left.

Nothing matched.

On the sixth evening he was at his window. Late. The street below had gone quiet. He sat on the sill and looked out and the question that had been forming for three days finally arrived cleanly: did he want it to come back?

He sat with the question for a while.

Then he stopped running from it and leaned toward it instead.

The silence held for a long moment. The street. The fan. The distant TV from Mrs. Sharma's flat.

Then, from somewhere beneath the ordinary sounds of the city, unhurried and exact.

The chanting.

All four voices. Exactly as they had been. As if the six days had not happened. As if it had simply been waiting for him to stop running and start reaching.

He sat at the window for a long time.

He told himself he did not feel relief.

The chanting, as always, was indifferent to what he told himself. 

Bas Dekhna Tha.

I kept staring at her picture.

The screen was dim, but her face wasn't. There was something alive in her eyes. Not metaphorically. Actually alive. Like if I stayed a little longer, she would move. Blink. Say something.

Man karta hai bas dekhta rahun. Man kabhi nahi bharega.

I could feel my heartbeat. Not fast. Not dramatic. Just present. Like my body had quietly stepped in and said this matters.

It's strange how none of this made sense earlier.

When we were younger, it was always those songs. Emraan Hashmi on someone else's TV. Rain, close-ups, eyes that looked like they were carrying too much. And in the background, Himesh Reshammiya, same voice, same feeling. At that age, they felt like the same person.

And the reaction was always the same. Kaun hota hai aisa. Itna pagal.

I remember laughing at that scene.

Maddy, standing in a PCO, on a call with his father. Supposed to be talking. And then he just stops. Because she's there. Dia. In the rain. Not even aware he exists in that moment.

"Main Delhi bol raha hoon Maddy se."

I laughed. Really? The rain caught in his head like that? Who loses track of something so simple?

And then Ali from Dhoom. One look at Bipasha Basu and he had imagined everything. A whole life. Marriage, arguments, growing old. All of it. In seconds.

We called it funny.

It wasn't funny.

It was just early.

There was also that music. Some other language. Words we didn't understand then. Still don't. But somehow, it still reached somewhere.

You don't learn the language. Bas mehsoos karna seekh jaate hain.

Like the feelings you build for one person.

I always thought I was outside all of this. Watching it happen to other people. Slightly amused. Slightly distant.

Until it was my turn.

Tab samjha. Tab samajh mein aaya.

We had already stopped talking.

Three months. No drama. No fight. Just mutual silence. The kind that doesn't ask questions, so you don't answer any.

That night, I don't know why I called.

Voice call.

She cut it.

For a second, it felt exactly like what it was. Overstepping something that had already ended.

And then my screen lit up again.

Video call.

Her name.

I picked up.

First time.

She didn't say anything. Neither did I.

She was just there. Slightly off-center in the frame. Hair not fully set. The room behind her quiet. And her expression not surprised. Not awkward.

Just soft.

Like she had already decided to call before cutting mine.

We just looked.

Seconds passed. Or maybe more. Time wasn't very clear in that moment.

"Kya dekh rahe ho?"

Her voice was calm. Not teasing. Not defensive.

"Pata nahi," I said.

And that was the entire conversation.

But it wasn't empty.

There was something sitting in that silence. Something complete. Like words would have reduced it.

She adjusted her hair once, then gave up halfway. Let it fall again.

"Aise hi call kiya," she said. "Bas dekhna tha."

That line stayed.

Bas dekhna tha.

No explanation. No reason that could be explained.

Just that.

We stayed on the call longer than we spoke. Small sentences. Long pauses. Nothing important, if someone were to ask later.

But I remember everything.

The way she didn't look away, even when there was nothing to say.

The way silence didn't feel like a gap.

The way ending the call felt slightly wrong.

Like stopping something mid-way that didn't need an ending.

After it ended, I just sat there.

Phone still in my hand.

And for the first time, all those things from before didn't feel exaggerated.

They felt accurate.

Maddy wasn't distracted. He was somewhere else entirely.

Ali wasn't funny. He was just faster at feeling things.

And those songs, they were never trying to explain anything.

Some things are like that.

You don't understand them fully.

Bas mehsoos karte ho.

The Harmony: Part 3

Sunday.

He slept till ten. Made chai. Sat on the bed with his phone and watched things that required no thought. By noon the chanting had been with him for six hours straight and he had run out of strategies for managing it.

Ignoring it didn't work. Paying attention to it didn't work. Music covered the surface and left everything underneath intact. Three temples' worth of YouTube had produced nothing matching. The chanting moved through his Sunday like it had moved through his Monday and his Tuesday, unhurried, present, occupying the particular frequency that belonged to it and nothing else.

It was annoying him now. Not frightening. Annoying. The way a tap drips. The way a tube light flickers. A thing that has no off switch and no explanation and enough persistence to turn a perfectly functional rest day into something you spend actively noticing.

At 4pm he sat at his desk and opened a notebook.

He was going to write it down. Every syllable he could catch. Phonetic, approximate, his best attempt. He had been half-hearing it for days. Today he would actually listen.

He sat very still and let it come.

The chanting, as if it had been waiting for exactly this, came clearly. Clearer than the dhaba, clearer than the office gaps. He wrote for twenty minutes without stopping. Three pages. Phonetic syllables numbered by line, asterisks where he wasn't sure, circles around the repeating passages.

Then he took his laptop and searched properly. An hour and a half. Past the popular recordings, past the YouTube compilations, into forums and Sanskrit hymn archives and PDF scans of old texts. He found things that were adjacent, structurally similar, cousins of what he was hearing.

Nothing matched exactly.

Whatever this was had not been recorded anywhere he could access. He closed the laptop.

Picked up his phone. Opened Rohan's chat. Typed, deleted, typed again. Then called.

Rohan picked up on the third ring. "Bol."

"Ek baat karni hai. Seriously."

A half-beat pause. Rohan knew the difference between Karan's casual and Karan's seriously. "Haan bol. Kya hua?"

Karan told him. From the beginning. The dhaba, the chanting underneath the auto horns, the way it followed him to the PG, the office earphones, the YouTube search. The way it wasn't coming from anywhere he could locate. The way nobody else could hear it. The way it had something in it that pointed at him specifically, which he understood sounded like exactly the kind of thing a person says before someone calls them pagal.

Rohan listened without interrupting. All of it.

When Karan finished there was a silence. Rohan's silences were unusual. He filled silences. That was his function in every group conversation. So the silence meant something.

Then Rohan said, carefully, like he was testing the weight of it first. "Yaar. Mere saath bhi ek baar hua tha. Bahut saal pehle. Maine socha bhool bhulaiyan tha."

Karan sat up straighter.

"Sach mein?"

"Haan. College mein. Ek purani haveli ke paas. Ek hafte raha phir band ho gaya." A pause. "Maine kisi ko bataya nahi."

For the first time since the dhaba, Karan felt something loosen in his chest. Someone else. Someone had been here. He was not the only one.

"Tujhe kuch samjha tha? Content. Kya tha usme."

"Content." Rohan repeated the word slowly. Then — he laughed.

Not a small laugh. A full one. The kind that had been sitting behind the serious voice for the last three minutes waiting for the right moment.

"Bhai main mazaak kar raha tha. Teri poori baat sun ke serious rehna mushkil ho gaya tha toh thoda set up kiya. Content." He laughed again. "Tu sach mein pagal ho gaya hai kya? Chanting. Sanskrit. Tera naam."

Karan said nothing.

"Yaar relax kar. Kaam ka stress hai. Soja achi tarah. Kal theek lagega."

"Haan," Karan said. His voice came out flat. "Theek hai."

"Chal. Kal milte hain office mein."

"Haan."

He put the phone down.

Sat in the quiet that wasn't quiet.

He had held that "mere saath bhi hua tha" for maybe forty seconds. Long enough to feel what it felt like to not be alone in this. And then it had been taken back, turned into a punchline, and the room was exactly as it had been before the call — just him, just the chanting, just the Sunday evening and the street outside and nobody who understood.

He picked up the notebook with his three pages of phonetic syllables. Looked at them for a moment.

Priya. He would tell Priya. Not tonight. When he had more to show her than three pages and a feeling he couldn't explain.

He put the notebook in the drawer and turned off the desk lamp.

The chanting that night moved into a passage he hadn't heard before. Deeper. Slower. And underneath the familiar three voices, a fourth. Low. Unhurried. Braiding itself into the others so naturally it was as if it had always been there and he had simply not been listening carefully enough.

He lay in the dark and listened to all four of them.

No one else would hear this.

He had understood that now. 

Part 3: Underwear Returns

Ten forty-five. The wind had settled into something steadier now, less chaotic, more decided. The sky had darkened a shade at the edges. By afternoon, there would be proper rain. But for now, it was just wind, warm and purposeful, moving through both sectors like it had somewhere to be.

Rohan found the underwear's approximate destination by process of elimination, two cups of chai, one Google Maps session, and Meera asking entirely too many helpful questions.

"Toh hawa kis direction mein ja rahi thi?" Meera said, sitting cross-legged on Aarav's kitchen counter,r eating the last of the omelette, completely unbothered by the wind rattling the window grille behind her.

"Northeast," Aarav said, with zero authority.

"Tu northeast kaise jaanta hai?"

"Nahi jaanta. Par hawa wahi se aa rahi thi, toh gaya wahi hoga."

Rohan sat at the table with his chai, looking like a man developing a plan. He had changed into fresh clothes;s, he had, it turned out, left not everything on the terrace. One full set had survived in his cupboard. "Kitni buildings hain us direction mein?"

"Teen char," Aarav said. "Ek toh woh Shivalik wala building hai, water tank ke peeche. Paanch minute walk hai."

Rohan put his chai down. "Main jaata hoon."

Meera stopped chewing. "Kahan?"

"Wahan. Dhoondhunga."

A pause. Meera and Aarav looked at each other with the specific expression of two people watching a third person make a decision that is both completely unnecessary and absolutely worth watching.

"Rohan," Aarav said carefully. "Yeh zaruri hai?"

"Bhai, woh meri favourite thi."

"Dusri le lena. Lajpat Rai se teen ka bikaati hain."

"Yeh baat nahi hai." Rohan picked up his chai again with great dignity. "Principle ki baat hai."

"Principle," Aarav repeated, in the tone of a man filing this away.

"Meera," Rohan said, already standing, "tu mat aa."

Meera was already putting on her chappal.

---

They reached Shivalik Residency at eleven. The compound was doing that pre-rain thing, leaves skittering, gate swinging, a torn kite string tangled in the boundary wall. Rohan paused at the entrance and looked up at the building with the expression of a general assessing terrain.

"Upar se aaya hoga. Matlab kisi upar wali floor pe hoga."

"Incredible deduction," Meera said.

The watchman, Ramesh, sat in his booth with a transistor radio playing nineties film songs at low volume. He looked at the three of them with the patient expression of a man whose morning had already exceeded expectations.

"Kya kaam hai?"

Rohan stepped forward. There is a specific way a person stands when they are about to say something they know sounds absurd, but have fully committed to. Shoulders back. Chin level. Voice steady.

"Bhai, mera ek kapda uda ke aaya hoga yahan. Subah. Hawa se. White… underwear."

Ramesh looked at him for one long moment. Then he reached under the counter and produced a small sealed plastic bag.

FOUND ITEM, BALCONY 502, SUNDAY MORNING.

He held it up.

Rohan stared. Meera made a small sound. Aarav looked away briefly at the sky.

"Yeh wahi hai?" Ramesh asked in the tone of someone completing routine paperwork.

"Ha… haan."

"502 pe rakha tha. Naye log hain. Unhone group mein daala." Ramesh set the bag on the counter. "Seedha aa gaye. Achha hai."

"Group mein daala?" Meera said immediately.

"Society ke WhatsApp group mein. Saari building ko pata hai."

A pause.

"Poori building ko pata hai ki meri underwear yahan hai," Rohan said slowly.

"Colonel Verma ne voice note bhi bheja."

Nobody said anything. Then Meera turned to Rohan with shining eyes. "Main 502 se milna chahti hoon."

"Meera—"

"Rohan. Unhone plastic bag mein band karke, label karke, watchman ko diya. Yeh log hain. Real ones."

Rohan looked at the bag. He thought about it. He picked it up.

Ramesh was already dialling.

---

Priya was on her second cup of chai when Ramesh called.

"Bhabhi ji, woh jo item diya tha subah, uska owner aa gaya."

Priya held the phone away from her ear. Looked at Karan. Karan had stopped mid-screwdriver on the bookshelf.

"Owner aa gaya?" she said.

"Haan ji. Teeno aaye hain."

"Teeno?"

Karan set the screwdriver down very gently. "Poori team leke aaya hai."

Priya was already smoothing her dupatta. "Karan chai bana."

"Priya hum inhe jaante bhi—"

"Koi aaya hai humari society mein apna kapda lene. Hawa ki wajah se. Chai toh milni chahiye. Bana."

---

The lift took its time. Rohan, Meera, and Aarav stood in it watching the floor numbers, the small bag in Rohan's hands.

"Tu kya bolega?" Aarav asked.

"Sorry bolega. Thank you bolega. Bag lunga. Aaunga."

"Itna hi?"

"Itna hi."

The lift opened at five. At the end of the corridor, the door to 502 was already open.

Priya stood in the doorway. She looked at the bag. She looked at Rohan.

"Aa gaye," she said.

"Haan ji. Yeh mera tha. Sorry. Terrace pe sookha chhoda tha—"

"Pata hai. Balcony pe seedha aa ke baith gaya. Subah ka pehla scene." She stepped back. "Andar aao. Chai rakhi hai."

Meera was already inside.

---

The flat was the organised chaos of new settling, a half-assembled bookshelf, boxes along the wall, and curtains at a slightly imperfect height. Karan came out of the kitchen with five cups on a tray, looked at everyone, looked at the bag, and maintained a straight face.

Mostly.

They sat. Wind came through the open balcony door in warm, steady gusts. The money plant moved. The cactus did not.

First thirty seconds: chai sipping. Comfortable enough silence.

Then Rohan said, "Chimta se uthaya tha?"

"Kitchen chimta," Karan confirmed. "Mera idea tha."

A beat.

"Achha idea tha," Rohan said, nodding seriously.

"Thank you," Karan said, also seriously.

Aarav looked into his chai.

Then Meera said, "Usne poore group mein daala. Sixty families."

"Kya likhti?" Priya said with feeling. "Kisi ka personal saman tha. Address toh hota nahi iske upar."

"Nahi nahi, sahi kiya," Rohan said immediately, in the tone of a man who had absolutely not wanted this. "Bilkul sahi decision."

Brief silence.

"Colonel Verma ne voice note bheja," Karan offered.

Rohan looked up. "Haan, watchman ne bataya."

"Usne 2019 ka bedsheet incident bhi mention kiya," Priya said.

"Records hain unke paas?"

"Eleven saal se hain society mein," Karan said, with quiet respect.

Rohan looked at the bag in his lap. The bag looked back. The room sat with this for a moment.

Then, from the corridor outside, firm footsteps. Everyone looked at the open door. A man in a pressed half-sleeve shirt appeared, sixty-ish, upright posture, reading glasses pushed up on his forehead. He looked into the flat, looked at the gathered group, looked specifically at the bag in Rohan's hands.

"Item mil gaya?" he said.

Karan stood up slightly. "Ji uncle, aa gaye owner."

The man nodded once. "Good." He looked at Rohan with the calm appraisal of someone who has handled larger situations. "Beta, terrace pe kapde sookhaate waqt hawa ka direction dekhna chahiye. Kitne baje chhoda tha?"

Rohan opened his mouth. Closed it. "Ji… raat ko. Koi… gyarah baje ke aas paas."

"Gyarah baje north-northeast wind thi. Eighteen kilometres per hour. Clearly yahi aana tha." He tapped the door frame once, satisfied. "Main Colonel Verma hoon. Third floor."

"Ji," Rohan said.

"Next time,e checthero forecast." He looked at Priya. "Bhabhi ji, chai achhi thi." And he left.

His footsteps went steadily back down the corridor.

Everyone in the room stared at the empty doorway for three full seconds.

"Woh chai pee ke gaya?" Meera said.

"Usne chai li thi?" Priya said, also confused.

Karan counted the cups on the tray. "Ek cup kam hai."

---

They left at half past eleven.

In the lift going down, nobody spoke for a moment. Then Aarav said, "Ab tu isko pehnega?"

Rohan looked at the bag with genuine consideration. "Nahi. Retire. Colonel Verma style, record mein daalo, 2026, Sector 35, Sunday, north-northeast wind, eighteen kmph."

The lift opened. They walked out through the compound. At the gate, Rohan stopped and turned back to look up at the fifth floor. The balcony was visible, a money plant, a cactus, and an open door with the curtain moving in the wind.

Ramesh watched them leave from his booth, radio still going, and made a small note in his register under Sunday's date. He did this for unusual items. It was his own record system, separate from Colonel Verma's, which he considered slightly less reliable.

He wrote: "White underwear. Found 502 balconies. The owner came. Returned. 11:32 AM."

Then, after a moment, he added: "Three people came for one pair of underwear."

He looked at it. Felt it was complete. Closed the register.

The wind moved through the compound, warm and building toward rain, lifting a few dry leaves off the ground and setting them back down somewhere slightly different.

In Sector 35, Meera was already typing.

"Guys. Full closure. Rohan ne underwear wapas le li."

Rohan: "Delete kar."

Aarav: "Never."

Meera: "Colonel Verma bhi tha wahan. Voice note wala."

Aarav: "KYA?"

Rohan stared at his phone. Put it in his pocket. Looked at the sky, which was definitely going to rain soon, and started walking.

Some things you simply cannot explain to a WhatsApp group.

You can only walk home, bag under arm, wind at your back, and let the morning be what it was.

Ek underwear. Teen sector. Ek Colonel. Paanch log. Ek register entry.

Aur Chandigarh ka yeh Sunday, jis din Colonel Verma ki chai gayab hui, woh bhi ab record mein hai.

Part 2: Mystery Underwear

Eight o'clock. Same sky. Same wind. Same Sunday.

Half a kilometre away, behind the water tank, across two narrow lanes and one very decisive gust of wind, Shivalik Residency.

The building had eight floors, a lift that worked on its own schedule, and a WhatsApp group called "Shivalik Residency Welfare & Misc." that had been silent for five days. It had sixty-two families, a small garden that the RWA president, Mr Bhatia, treated as a personal project, and one young couple on the fifth floor who had moved in exactly nine days ago and were still figuring out which switch controlled which light.

Priya had been awake since seven-fifteen.

Not because she wanted to be. Moving into your first real home, not a PG or a shared flat, but an actual home that you and your husband were paying EMI on, came with a particular kind of restless energy that no amount of warm milk could soothe. Three days of arranging boxes. Two rehangings of the curtains. One very serious argument about where the dining table should go had ended in a draw, with the dining table sitting at an angle that satisfied no one.

She had stepped onto the balcony in her dupatta and pyjamas with the small watering can to attend to her two plants. A money plant. A cactus, because she had read that cacti needed minimal care, and she was, by her own honest admission, "emotionally unreliable with plants."

The morning was warm and restless. That particular Chandigarh wind was going, the pre-storm kind that doesn't commit to being cold or hot, just moves constantly, picks things up, puts them elsewhere. The kind that makes you hold your dupatta with one hand. The sky was pale and bright, not quite stormy, not quite clear. The neem trees along the lane below were swaying with that nervous, full-body sway.

Priya set the watering can on the railing, reached for the money plant —

And stopped.

There, sitting between the money plant and the cactus on the balcony railing, slightly puffed by the breeze, as if it had been placed there with calm deliberate intention —

Was a single piece of white underwear.

She stared at it.

It moved gently in the wind.

She looked left. She looked right. She looked down at the lane five floors below. She looked up at the pale Sunday sky, which offered nothing except the distant pressure cooker whistle and the sound of someone's wind chime going absolutely berserk three balconies away.

"Karan." Her voice was very measured.

From inside, the sound of enthusiastic toothbrushing. "Hmm?"

"Balcony pe aa."

"Do minute yaar, brush—"

"Abhi."

He appeared in twenty-five seconds. Toothbrush still in hand. Small foam situation near his left cheek. He stepped out into the wind, squinting, and Priya pointed at the railing without a single word.

Karan looked at it. Looked at Priya. Looked back at it.

He removed the toothbrush from his mouth.

"Yeh… kahan se aaya?"

"Yahi toh main pooch rahi hoon."

"Priya." Very serious tone. "Yeh mera nahi hai."

"Main jaanti hoon yeh tera nahi hai. Tera toh woh grey wala hai jo tune kal same railing pe sookha chhoda tha aur main do baar bol chuki hoon ki andar rakh kapde—"

"Theek hai, theek hai—"

"—par tune suna nahi, aur aaj toh dekh, ab yeh naya drama—"

"Priya." He held up one hand gently. "Ek problem ek baar. Pehle yeh explain karte hain."

They both looked at the underwear. It puffed pleasantly in the warm wind, completely unbothered.

"Kahin se uda ke aaya hoga," Karan said, in the tone of a man trying to be reasonable. "Hawa dekh kitni chal rahi hai. Kisi ki terrace se, ya upar ke floor se."

"Toh ab kya karein?"

This was, Karan acknowledged internally, genuinely complicated. He put the toothbrush behind his ear, a habit Priya had been trying to break since the wedding. The underwear was adult-sized, clearly male, white, and in decent condition. It had arrived without invitation, without explanation, and showed no signs of returning to its point of origin.

"Phenk dete hain," he said finally.

"Kahan phenkte hain? Neeche phenk diya toh koi dekhega. Waise bhi paanchwi floor se—"

"Dustbin?"

"Kaise uthao? Seedha haath se? Karan yeh kisi ka personal kapda hai."

Karan thought. "Chimta hai kitchen mein?"

Priya stared at him. "Naya ghar hai humara. Ek mahina bhi nahi hua. Aur tu chimta leke balcony pe khada hoga underwear pakad ke? Pehle impression kya hoga society mein?"

A particularly strong gust came through. Both of them grabbed the railing. The underwear lifted off the railing, floated upward, and Priya made a small involuntary sound, but then it settled back down again, this time slightly further along the railing, closer to the cactus.

"Yeh cactus ke upar na baith jaaye," Karan said thoughtfully.

"That is not the point—"

From two balconies to their left, an aunty in a bright pink housecoat appeared. Mrs Malhotra, whom they had met once briefly in the lift and who had immediately told them the complete history of every family on their floor. She was watering her very extensive plant collection, and she had clearly clocked the underwear.

She looked at it. She looked at them. She looked at the underwear again.

"Naya ghar hai?" she called over the wind, pleasantly.

"Ji aunty," Priya called back, smiling at someone in a situation.

"Adjust ho jaate hain dheere dheere," Mrs Malhotra said with great wisdom, and went back to her plants, as if a piece of underwear on a new couple's balcony railing was simply part of the settling-in process.

Karan turned to Priya, keeping his voice low. "Aunty ne notice kar liya."

"Poori society notice kar legi agar yeh yahan raha. Karan, kuch karo."

He straightened up. New home. First real crisis. Time to be the kind of husband who handles things.

He went inside and came back with the kitchen chimta, holding it with the quiet dignity of a man who had committed to a plan and was seeing it through. Priya covered her mouth with her dupatta to block the wind, she would later insist.

Karan reached out with the chimta, carefully, like defusing something. He picked up the underwear. Held it out at chimta-length. Both of them regarded it.

"Kisi ka hai," Priya said quietly, all humour temporarily gone. "Matlab koi dhoondh raha hoga."

"Haan." Karan lowered the chimta slightly. "Par hum kaise jaanein kiska hai? Uda ke aaya hai. Koi address toh hai nahi iske upar."

They stood there in the warm, windy morning, chimta extended, a piece of a stranger's underwear dangling between them, genuinely unsure what the correct human response to this situation was.

Then Priya said, "WhatsApp group."

"Kya?"

"Society ka group hai na. Shivalik Residency Welfare & Misc."

Karan looked at her. "Tu seriously soch rahi hai ki main us group mein—"

"Main post kar rahi hoon." She already had her phone out.

"Priya—"

But she had typed it. She read it aloud before sending, in the voice of someone composing an official letter: "Good morning, everyone. We are new residents on the 5th floor, Flat 502. This morning, we found an item of clothing, a white pair of underwear, that appears to have blown onto our balcony due to the wind. If anyone has lost a clothing item, kindly contact us. We will keep it safe. Thank you."

She pressed send.

Karan stared at the phone. Then, at the underwear, still held in the chimta. Then back at the phone.

"Tu ne 'white underwear' likha. Group mein. Sixty families have."

"Toh kya likhti? 'An unidentified garment'? Karan, log samjhenge nahi."

The message delivered. One tick. Two ticks. Blue.

Then, nothing. For thirty full seconds, the group that had been silent for five days stayed silent. The wind moved. The neem trees swayed. The underwear dangled from the chimta.

Then the messages started.

First, a simple "😂" from an unknown number. Then another. Then: "Arre wah, pehle din se hi adventure shuru!" Then Mrs Malhotra, who had clearly moved very fast from her balcony to her phone, typed: "Beta yeh toh Chandigarh ki hawa hai, kuch bhi la sakti hai 😄 Welcome to Shivalik." Then someone called Bhatia, RWA Pres. sent, with alarming speed: "This matter will be discussed at the next general body meeting. All residents, please note that items should be properly secured during windy conditions. Thank you."

Karan read that last one twice. "RWA president ne meeting mein daala isko."

"Pehle hafte mein," Priya said, with the voice of someone updating their expectations about the next few years of their life.

More laughing emojis were arriving. Someone had added a wind emoji. Someone else, a teenager by the typing style, had sent simply: "legend 💀"

Then a voice note appeared. From a number saved as "Col. Verma (Retd.) 3rd Floor." They looked at each other. Karan pressed play.

A gravelly, precise voice came through, slightly too close to the microphone: "This is Colonel Verma. I have been in this society for eleven years. This is not the first such incident. In 2019, there was a bedsheet. In 2021, one full kurta pyjama set. The wind does what the wind does. Beta, simply put the item in a bag and give it to the watchman. He will sort it out. That is all."

The voice note ended.

Priya and Karan stood in the windy morning, chimta still extended, staring at the phone.

"Colonel Verma has records," Karan said finally.

"2019 mein bedsheet thi," Priya said.

They looked at each other for a long moment. Then, slowly, both of them started smiling. The helpless kind. The what-is-this-life kind.

Priya went inside and came back with a small plastic bag. Karan, with great ceremony, deposited the underwear into it. She sealed it. Wrote on the outside with a marker in careful letters: "FOUND ITEM, BALCONY 502, SUNDAY MORNING."

They took the lift down. Handed it to Ramesh the watchman, who looked at the bag, looked at them, looked at the writing on the bag, and nodded with the deep, unbothered calm of a man who had been given stranger things on a Sunday morning.

"Kisi ka aayega toh de dunga," he said simply.

They went back upstairs.

The group was still going. Forty-seven messages while they had been in the lift. Someone had made a meme. Mr Bhatia had sent two more announcements. Colonel Verma had sent another voice note, this one seemingly unprompted, just clarifying that in 2019 it had actually been a double bedsheet.

Priya put the phone face-down and made chai.

Karan stood at the balcony door, looking out at the windy morning, the pale sky, the swaying neem trees. Somewhere out there, past the water tank and across the lane, the original owner of that underwear was probably having their own Sunday morning. Probably didn't even know yet where their kapda had ended up.

He smiled at nothing in particular.

New home. First storm. First mystery.

Shivalik Residency ne welcome kar liya tha apne andaaz mein.

https://pokerdeeds.blogspot.com/2026/04/part-3-underwear-returns.html