Amit Bhattacharya 1 I arrived in Pune on a Thursday morning, the kind of morning where the sun rises reluctantly, peeking through gauzy clouds like a child waking from sleep. The railway station buzzed with quiet urgency—porters dragging luggage, chai vendors chanting their rhythmic calls, mothers herding children in half-sleep, and the occasional clatter of metal from the stalls that never really closed the night before. I stepped out with a small suitcase, a laptop bag, and a mind still echoing with boardroom jargon and Slack pings. After seven years in a Bengaluru tech firm, I had resigned with no…
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Neha Dikshit Chapter 1: The Loudest Goodbye Mumbai never sleeps. Even at 3 a.m., the city sounds like it’s holding its breath before exhaling into chaos. The honking doesn’t stop, nor do the distant wails of ambulances or the occasional hum of trains cutting across the sleeping city like whispers through a crowded dream. Rajeev Menon sat on the edge of his bed in his 14th-floor apartment in Andheri, hands clenched tightly, heart pounding louder than any city noise. It had been three months since Anika died, but her absence still screamed louder than anything he could record. Rajeev was…