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