Madhumita Ray Chapter 1: The Trunk in the Attic The late March sun hung lazily over Shobhabazar, its amber glow falling across the shuttered windows of Anwesha’s ancestral home. The house, with its high ceilings, red oxide floors, and fading portraits, had been silent for years—like a tabla with loosened skin, still noble but mute. It had belonged to her grandfather, a man she barely remembered except through his letters—always inked in blue, always signed “Dadu.” Anwesha had returned from Mumbai after almost a decade, driven by equal parts nostalgia and necessity. Her mother’s sudden passing left the Shobhabazar house…