The courtyard of Ayushi’s home hummed with unfinished rituals and women’s laughter — the priest’s mantra weaving into the dusk like threads of smoke — but Ayushi’s room at the back wasn’t part of that celebration. It was sealed into loneliness, into the quiet throb of two uneven breaths, the faint hiss of a lamp, and the long stretching shadow of a man.

Outside, muffled mantras rose and fell like waves. Brass thalis clinked, bangles jingled as cousins darted past with plates of kheer, and the earthy aroma of burnt camphor mixed with jasmine garlands. Yet from within Ayushi’s small, walled-off room, all that brightness seemed unreachable, a cheer muffled behind layers of mud and silence. Her world had shrunk to a hush, pressed into the rhythm of her fast breathing — and the echo of another’s breath set against hers like a discordant drumbeat.