Raisa Choudhury Part 1: The Passport Window There’s something quietly electric about the moment just before a journey begins, that tiny pulse of anticipation you feel as you zip up your suitcase for the last time and check your passport compulsively even though you know it’s there, waiting like a silent witness to whatever this new chapter holds, and that’s exactly how I felt at 3:47 a.m. in my cluttered Delhi apartment, staring at the cab’s taillights as I locked my door behind me with a rush of both fear and freedom, not yet knowing that this trip would be…
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Zoya Mirza Chapter 1: The Clocktower and the Chaos The air in Old Delhi is not something you breathe—it’s something you step into, like a dense fog of memory, spice, and relentless sound. I surfaced from the depths of the Chawri Bazar metro station like a diver breaching the past. The escalator groaned under the weight of a hundred lives and then spat me out into a world that felt more alive than anything I had known in years. The street outside buzzed like an old radio dialed between frequencies. Rickshaws honked as if they were in competition. Men with…