“Ready?”
“Almost,” said Simran to her mother, reaching for her best bracelet ever so slowly.
Her mother gave her a look. Simran succumbed.
“I don’t even want to go to this dumb dinner!” she burst out. “All that woman does is put us down in front of everyone. Why are we willingly going there to embarrass ourselves?”
Her mother’s lips twitched into a small smile, and the tightness around her eyes eased.
“I know,” she said. “But when you’re an adult, you simply don’t have a say in the matter, sometimes. It’s not like I care what Mrs Sharma says anyway – you shouldn’t either. At least we’ll get treated to some fancy food! Let’s focus on that part and have fun, yes?”
With a wink, Simran’s mother breezed out of the room, calling “we leave in ten minutes!” from across the wall.
Despite her mother's assurances, Simran was not happy walking into that woman’s home. “Aunt” Maya (as she was to be called by all the neighbourhood children, because she was just oh-so-lovely to all of them) was so lavish, that you could smell it from a mile away.
Simran stepped inside Aunt Maya’s home, immediately assaulted by the thick scent of incense. The chandelier overhead sparkled, its dangling crystals reflecting the golden glow of the dining room. Everything in the house gleamed—silverware, picture frames, even the marble floors, as if the house itself conspired to impress.
“Ah, there you are, darling,” the matriarch of the home crooned, sweeping toward Simran’s mother with arms outstretched. Each movement deliberate, her bracelets sang a metallic tune as she framed the other woman with her arms, the contact cool and quickly broken.
As they took their seats at the dinner table, Aunt Maya’s eyes flickered over her friend’s dress. “Oh, that’s a lovely dress! Where did you find it?”
“At a discount store, actually,” her mother replied with an easy smile. “It was a great deal, I recommend the store to all my friends now!”
“How… resourceful,” Maya said. “I suppose I’ve never had reason to go to one. I always shop in Singapore—the fabrics are exquisite, you know. Anything else just loses its charm so quickly.” She gave a small, knowing smile before turning her attention to the servers bringing in the first course - saffron-infused galouti kebabs on a silver platter. Simran resisted the urge to glare.
As the courses arrived—one painstakingly plated dish after another, from saffron-poached pear chaat to miniature lamb kebabs dusted with rose petals and silver leaf—Aunt Maya talked. About her travels, about her shopping, about her “divine abilities”, about things no one had asked about.
“How’s your son doing these days?” Simran’s mother asked, ever gracious.
“Oh, he’s thriving at the tennis academy,” Maya beamed. “His coach says he has real potential—might even go professional one day!” Without missing a beat, she turned to Simran. “You know, dear, you should try a sport. Staying home with your books all day can’t be good for you. A little competition might do you some good.”
Simran’s grip tightened around her fork, but she forced a polite smile. She couldn’t quite bring herself to say anything in return.
Her mother, her wonderful mother who would happily brush off anything thrown in her direction, would never allow the same for her daughter. “Simran does amazingly at school, and she’s already reading textbooks above her grade. I’m not worried about her. She’s already making me proud.”
Her mother smiled, but there was something so sharp and dangerous in her eyes that Aunt Maya could not say anything in return, beyond a hasty “Yes, of course.”
Dinner and conversations continued. By the time dessert was served, Simran had stopped pretending to listen. Every compliment was a veiled insult, every word dripping with the self-satisfaction of someone who knew they were better—or at least, believed so.
It was only when they finally left—when she was wrapped in her blankets, staring at the ceiling—that the question crept into her mind.
Why?
Why did Aunt Maya always have to be like that? Why did she need to put others down, to flaunt what she had?
Maya Sharma was having a lovely day. Which was, of course, the norm for Maya. She arose from soft silk bedsheets to the sound of the household help knocking the bedroom door with two cups of Darjeeling tea in hand. She and her husband sipped their tea in silence.
Within an hour, she had bid adieu to her husband and son as they left for work and school respectively. She then settled down to watch a rerun of a Germanic art documentary she had been meaning to watch. She almost chuckled at the thought of other ladies in the area extending their minds beyond their banal soap operas. Her show was followed by a three-course lunch from their cook.
Finally, Maya settled into her workroom. This room was different from the others in the house, crammed with what others may call curious odds and ends. Decks and decks of tarot cards, each with intricate patterns etched in gold. Astrological charts lay spread across a mahogany desk, delicate lines tracing the movements of planets and stars. A smooth and clear crystal ball delicately placed in an ornate golden stand. Numerous tapestries depicting the Zodiac.
And then there were her crystals—the literal gems of her collection. Amethyst, quartz, onyx, sapphire… She had always loved stones. As a child, she collected pebbles from the local pond, pressing them into her palms as if they held whispers of something greater. Over time, her fascination deepened—no longer just about their colours or textures, but about what they could offer. Energy. Clarity. Power.
Her husband called this room a museum. She called it her shrine. This was where her Purity connected with that of God. Many flocked to her for predictions and divine assistance. Some revered, perhaps even worshipped her. Many people were sceptical of her arts, but Maya knew she was special. God only connected with Pure souls like hers.
Maya shut her eyes and let the energy of the room soak into her. Slowly, she felt the power of the divine, of God himself itself enter the edges of her consciousness. Blissful, she surrendered, allowing it to sweep into her mind and take full control.
She was powerful. She was blessed. She was special. No one would understand.
She was Pure.
Little Maya would spend hours at the pond near their village home, looking for pretty stones and showing her little brother the best ways to skip them across the water. Contrary to her beliefs, she was quite untalented in skipping stones. However, she had a special talent in finding the prettiest stones the village had to offer. She would show them off to her brother who would loudly admire them. Her mother would quietly stare at the stones, as if enraptured by their beauty. Her father would ruffle her hair and proudly state that the stones loved Maya and would always come to her.
God had deemed Maya to be one of a special, blessed, few. And no special one lives a regular life, of course. God made his intentions known when, he snatched Maya’s father away in a freak accident, one bright and sunny day. It was as if the sun had been plucked from her sky, leaving only a hollow, endless grey. The laughter that once echoed through their home turned into an unbearable silence, every familiar corner now a reminder of what had been stolen.
The second shock crashed into her a few months later. Their father’s income, measly as it may have been, was the sole income source of the family. Mother had taken up the job of cleaning people’s houses, but it was still not enough to raise a family of three. Finally, mother came to the decision of keeping Maya’s younger brother. Maya would be sent to live with an aunt in the city who could afford to raise her.
In the years following, Maya had always known her mother's choice was right, logical even. Of course, they needed each other, those two earthbound souls. Maya, with her sharper edges and clearer vision, operated on a different plane entirely. She could never expect more from them.
Refreshed from the quiet hours spent in her shrine, Maya stepped out to welcome her son back home from school. His evening classes had been cancelled for the day; the family was heading out to meet her husband’s sister for dinner.
As he set his bag down, Maya approached him with a warm smile.
“How was school today, beta?” she asked, smoothing his hair fondly.
“It was fine, Maa. Nothing special,” he shrugged.
“Did you speak to Aarav today?” she asked casually, though there was a pointedness beneath her tone.
The boy hesitated. “A little. We had a project group meeting.”
Maya’s eyes lit up. “Good. That’s good. Stay close to boys like Aarav — they’re the ones who’ll go far.”
She lowered her voice slightly. “You weren’t spending too much time with Rishi again, were you?”
He looked away. “We just played together at lunch. That’s all.”
Maya sighed. “Beta, listen to me carefully. Only the wealthy do well in life. You need to stay with people who matter if you want to be powerful. Friends like Aarav will open doors for you one day. Fools like Rishi will not. Understand?”
Her son nodded reluctantly, used to these conversations.
As Maya turned to the boy’s wardrobe and picked out his shirt for dinner, she heard the front door open downstairs. Heavy footsteps echoed up the hall. Her husband was home. Shirt in hand, she walked out to greet him.
He didn’t greet her in return. His glance skimmed over her like she was part of the furniture — a fixture he tolerated out of habit. There was a dry set to his mouth, the kind of faint contempt he'd long stopped bothering to hide. He muttered something about the traffic, loosening his watch with sharp, impatient fingers.
Maya stayed quiet, still holding the shirt she had selected for their son — a glossy, branded silk shirt in vibrant teal, shot through with shimmering silver threads. As her husband’s eyes landed on the shirt, he gave a short, humourless laugh.
“Trying to make your son look like a circus act?” he said, stepping forward and snatching the shirt from her hands. Pushing past her into their son’s room, he rifled through the wardrobe and pulled out a deep navy button-down — still expensive, but subtle and commanding.
“Wear this,” he told their son, ignoring Maya entirely. “Look like someone who belongs at the table.”
Their son chuckled softly and followed his father out of the room, eager to get dressed. Maya stayed behind, the discarded shirt crumpled on the floor at her feet.
Alone — in the room, and in other ways too.
Deep breath. You’re better than him. You’re Pure, Maya. Not him. You.
With an almost laser-like focus, Maya walked into her own room and picked out one of her most expensive dresses — a masterpiece specially tailored for her at a couture house in Paris. The fabric clung and flowed in perfect measure, a deep burgundy that shimmered like crushed velvet. Around her neck and wrists, she clasped heavy gold chains encrusted with brilliant, oversized diamonds that caught every fragment of light. She adjusted the thick bracelets on her wrist, steeling herself.
When her husband entered the room, he paused briefly, his eyes flickering over her.
He said nothing. Good.
An hour later, as they approached their table at the hotel restaurant, Maya’s sister-in-law rose to welcome them. Suddenly, something was tugging Maya’s confidence back. She didn’t want to be here.
The moment went away as quickly as it came, and Maya hugged her sister-in-law. Soon, she had fallen back into her habits of talking about her life, her divine abilities. She didn’t mention her shopping though. Her sister-in-law’s gaze flickered over Maya’s vibrant dress, a slight narrowing of her eyes before she commented, her tone laced with a delicate disdain.
"That's quite… striking, Maya."
Her husband’s lips twitched, his eyes briefly meeting his sister’s in silent agreement. A shared, almost imperceptible smirk passed between them as Maya lifted her wine glass, her little finger extended just so. Later, the clinking of her fork against the plate seemed to draw their combined attention. And the mention of her latest tarot reading and crystal acquisition earned another shared glance.
“Maya,” her sister-in-law’s voice cut through her own, sharp and laced with concern, “you look… quite drawn. Are you sleeping alright? You don’t seem to be doing much these days. All that free time – it must be exhausting.” Maya’s eyelids fluttered once, twice. “Darling,” the sickly-sweet smile returned, “I know the most marvellous dermatologist. Truly a miracle worker.”
Maya Sharma’s day was not so lovely after all.
Living a new life in a new world is a heavy challenge for an adult. It was infinitely more challenging for a teenager like Maya, but she was brave, showing courage and determination beyond her years, even as the weight of grief threatened to crush her spirit. She stumbled, she ached, but she refused to let the darkness consume her, clinging fiercely to the memories of her father as a guiding light.
The city throbbed with noise, its sharp edges cutting at Maya’s quiet country instincts. Her fingers curled tighter around the frayed straps of her backpack each morning, knuckles white as she crossed the school gates. There were no familiar hills, no scent of woodsmoke or her brother’s teasing grin. Just endless cement and faces that barely looked her way. Her aunt, her classmates, her teachers – no one seemed to notice her endless efforts in adjusting to her new normal. They simply left her to her own devices, occasionally sending her messages of acknowledgement through scathing offhand remarks about her dressing, her language and weird country ways.
No one said it outright, but Maya could hear the judgment in every tilted eyebrow, every wrinkled nose. Her aunt’s voice dripped with cold disinterest, offering meals without looking up from her phone. Teachers called her name like a chore. Classmates muttered under their breath—"Weird accent," "Is that a nightgown?"—without caring if she heard. She always did.
Maya couldn’t believe she was truly doing this. She hesitantly stepped into the dermatologist’s office, nervous and unsure about what to expect. Not that she would let anyone see that though. She was soon directed to a small room, where a friendly lady in a lab coat explained the procedure she would be undergoing today. They were going to…laser off her wrinkles. Or something like that. The dermatologist mentioned many complicated terms she couldn’t understand.
It hurt. Her face was swollen and red the whole day, and it hurt to touch her face. She had to press her precious crystals to her face to soothe her skin before bedtime. Maya cursed herself a hundred times for taking her vile sister-in-law’s advice.
Every single person in that family looked down on her. They mocked the way she dressed, the way she ate, walked, spoke — every small gesture picked apart, every word turned into a private joke behind polished smiles. As if she were some sideshow curiosity, barely human in their eyes. But they didn’t see it, did they? They didn’t feel what she felt. They didn’t know the purity that thrummed in her chest, the invisible thread tying her to something far greater than them, greater than any jewelled title or foreign diploma they paraded around. She was closer to God than they could ever dream of being. And yet they dared to sneer at her? To scoff at her prayers, her rituals, her very being? How dare they think themselves better? How dare they reduce her to a joke, when they were the ones hollow inside, rotten with arrogance and cheap pride? How dare they breathe and smirk and speak as if she was the lesser one?
On the morning of the school picnic, sixteen-year-old Maya smoothed her dress for the hundredth time. She’d stitched it in secret the night before, patching holes with trembling hands. The fabric still held the scent of her village home, faint but stubborn. She pressed it to her chest and whispered, “Please be enough.”
The bus ride was long and loud, full of laughter that didn’t include her. But when the group arrived at the plaza—an explosion of stone and water and surreal sculptures—something shifted. For a moment, they all stared in unison. Eyes wide. Mouths open. And Maya felt it too: awe. Shared.
She lingered by the edge of a group of girls snapping photos. Heart hammering, she stepped closer.
“Would… would you like me to take a photo for you?” she asked, successfully holding back the tremor in her voice.
One of the girls, Sanya, gave her a quick glance before handing her a camcorder. “Be careful with it, it’s expensive. And take a video,” she said hastily, before running to join her girlfriends under a particularly colourful sculpture.
Maya stared. She had never seen a device like this before. Where were the buttons? What was that little screen jutting out of the main body? Maybe she was meant to press something on the screen to take a video? Maya pressed…and with an all-too loud click, the screen snapped off and fell to the ground.
Before she could register what was happening, she saw Sanya marching towards her and felt a sudden and sharp pain on her cheek.
“You freak! What’s wrong with you?! Do you know how expensive that camera was?”
Maya could only stare. The girl raised her hand to slap Maya once again, until another classmate intervened.
“Drop it, Sanya. She’s probably never held anything worth more than a few bucks in her whole life. What do you expect from someone who’s used to trash? You wanted a newer camera anyway, here’s your chance!”
Maya stood frozen, the broken camcorder like a weapon in her hand. Laughter buzzed in her ears, faraway and close all at once.
Back home, her aunt didn’t wait for an explanation. “Sanya’s mother called,” she snarled, her voice rising with every word. “You think I have money lying around for your mistakes?” Her hand struck Maya’s other cheek, ringing louder than the slap itself.
“You’ll be out of this house soon enough. Then go ruin your own life.”
That night, Maya locked the bathroom door and slid to the floor. She stared at the tiles until they blurred. They didn’t see her. All her quiet, careful efforts—sewn into her dress, hidden in her silences—meant nothing to them. They had everything: money, parents, a home. And still, they used their comfort like a weapon against her. They were the freaks, the witches, not her…
In the silence, a new thought began to bloom, fragile yet insistent. They were blind, lost in their shallow routines. Their "culture," their city polish, had dulled their senses. They couldn't see her. But she could see them. A quiet certainty settled within her. There must be a reason. Why else would her heart ache with such fierce clarity in this oblivious world? A spark ignited. She would learn their ways, master their "culture," and then she would show them. She would rise above their petty cruelty, her spirit a richer, more enduring thing. One day...
Within a week of her dermatologist appointment, Maya had entirely forgotten her hateful thoughts towards her husband’s family. Her face was glowing and had not looked so refreshed in years, if ever. If single procedure could do so much, what would two do? Her forehead was still creasing more than she wanted. And her dark circles still stood out more than she’d like.
Feeling a strange electric sense of power coursing through her, Maya lifted the phone to book another appointment.
The late afternoon sun was beginning to mellow as Simran and her mother strolled along the quiet lane near their home, the breeze carrying the scent of rain-washed earth. Simran kicked a stray pebble ahead of her, half-listening to her mother's chatter about school lunches and the neighbour’s new puppy, when a gleaming white car turned into the driveway ahead.
It was Aunt Maya’s car, easing into her parking lot. The door swung open, and out stepped Maya.
Simran’s mother smiled warmly and took a step forward. "Hello, Mrs Sharma! What a surprise to see you!" she said, her voice bright.
Maya’s hand twitched toward her hair, as if to fix it, then dropped. She gave a curt, brittle smile.
"Hello," she muttered quickly, her gaze sliding away from them. She looked like she would rather vanish than stand there under the open sky.
Simran blinked. Aunt Maya looked… off. Her face was swollen and shiny, as if someone had coated it with oil. There were taut patches near her mouth and a strange stillness around her eyes, as if her skin no longer moved quite right. In the sunlight, she looked almost waxen, like a delicate figure left too long under a cruel heat.
Her mother hesitated for just a heartbeat, then picked up the conversation as if nothing were wrong.
"We were just getting some fresh air," she said warmly. "I’ve been looking through our finances all day, and needed a break! You see, it’s time to start setting aside more serious savings for Simran’s college fund. Not just a little here and there. Real savings. College isn’t cheap, and dreams cost money too. She deserves the best chances we can give her."
She said it simply, but Simran felt the weight behind it. Her mother's hand came to rest lightly on her shoulder — steady, familiar, strong. Not just love, but commitment. An unwavering promise that no matter what it took, she would clear the path for Simran’s future.
Maya’s mouth twisted slightly. She looked at the two of them — the open affection, the casual hope. Something very cold flickered across her features.
"You should be careful," Maya said sharply, her voice slicing into the easy air. "You’re too attached to your daughter. It’s unhealthy. She’ll never be independent if you keep smothering her like this."
There was a short, stunned silence. Then Simran’s mother smiled. Not mockingly, but with the quiet certainty of someone who had already thought deeply about the things Maya was only now trying to throw into doubt.
"I’d rather love my daughter too much than too little," she said gently. "Children aren't glass, Mrs Sharma. They don’t break because you hold them too close. They break when you don’t hold them at all."
Maya’s face tightened. She opened her mouth as if to reply, then pressed her lips into a flat line instead. Without another word, she turned sharply and stalked toward her building entrance, heels clicking loudly against the stone.
Simran watched the doorway swing shut behind her, feeling a strange mix of pity and discomfort.
"Is she okay?" she asked in a small voice.
Her mother’s smile softened again, sadness flickering through her expression like a passing shadow. "Some people just have different ways of carrying their hurt, beta," she said, squeezing Simran’s shoulder. "That's all."
Together, they turned back to the road, the long golden evening still stretching ahead of them.
It was hard to recall what the rest of Maya’s school life was like. She remembered giving up on trying to make friends, learning to appreciate her own solidarity. The only force keeping her through the whole experience was a burning sense of injustice against her, and a desire to prove herself superior to the moral trash that surrounded her.
When Maya finished school, her aunt handed her a plate and said, “You’re done now. Time to help out.” Her uncle didn’t bother looking up from his newspaper. “We’ve spent enough on you already,” he muttered, as if that settled it. There were no arguments. The idea of college vanished like steam off a pot.
And so, Maya started hunting for jobs that didn’t ask for degrees—just a presentable smile and long hours. After a string of failed interviews, she got lucky: a position at a perfume store. The manager gave her a once-over, ignored her application entirely, and said, “You’re not qualified, but you’ve got a pretty face. That’ll draw people in.”
The manager clearly knew what he was talking about, because that’s where she met him. The man she’d later marry—a man she’d come to loathe. At first, he seemed like nothing more than another bored rich boy, the kind who bought things just to feel like the day had purpose. Tall, well-dressed and a little too smug. He locked eyes with Maya, he found himself buying a sharp smelling perfume that made him sneeze. Two days later, he came back for another bottle he didn’t need. By the third visit, he claimed he had a party to attend and wanted her opinion on what smelled “confident but mysterious.” The fourth time, he didn’t even bother on pretence and straight-up asked Maya to dinner.
He was warm, overly complimentary, and strangely persistent. He assured her that her accent wasn’t strange—it was “unique.” Her takes on perfumes weren’t naive—they were “refreshingly honest.” Despite their vastly different social classes, he did not see her as a lesser being. She was thankful for that, and appreciated him for it. But she did not want to go to dinner with him. He spoke like someone who’d never been told no, and when Maya said exactly that—no—he only smiled, as if it was a misunderstanding she’d eventually correct.
Maya also heard the whispers from her coworkers — that he was the grand-nephew of a powerful CEO of a sprawling conglomerate with stakes in everything from shipping to luxury goods. Despite not having any claim to the company himself, that somehow explained the way he carried himself: with an easy entitlement, and a quiet certainty that the world would bend to accommodate him.
Weeks turned to months. He kept showing up. Sometimes with a story about his travels, sometimes with flowers, always ending in the same request: dinner. Maya kept declining. He continued to insist that she simply didn’t realize how much she cared for him. “You’ll say yes one day,” he told her, winking. “You just don’t know it yet.”
In his mind, love was a simple equation. He had overlooked her background, her lack of polish, her second-hand shoes. That had to mean something. To him, that meant everything. Why else would he be so drawn to her if it weren’t fate? If it weren’t real?
Convinced that he understood her heart better than she did, he decided to make it official. One evening, instead of waiting by the perfume counter, he drove straight to her home, rehearsed speech in mind and bouquet in hand, fully prepared to ask her family for her hand in marriage.
When Maya discovered this through her aunt and uncle, the gold coins in their eyes shone through the dim lights. She could feel her heart sinking, for she knew they would say yes, and that decision would be final. Maya’s past had been determined by circumstances outside of her control, and now her future would be too.
Maya walked into the dermatologist’s clinic for what felt like the hundredth time, moving with the ease of someone who belonged. She greeted the receptionist with a smile and took her usual seat in the waiting room. As she removed her branded sunglasses, her eyes drifted around the room. Other women, equally well-dressed and equally detached, sat on plush velvet seats, their attention fixed on their phones. Occasionally, a small-time film star could be spotted, conspicuous in their attempts to stay hidden.
The waiting room was beautifully decorated – glittering marble tiles connected to walls with ornate engravings on them. One large wall had been knocked off, replaced with large, tinted windows. A variety of indoor plants of different shapes and sizes supported the tinting, by further obscuring the world outside. The attempts of hiding away the outside world of harsh sunlight and harsh realities were generally successful. But today, Maya’s eyes wandered and settled on the windows.
Her eyes were unseeing, simply staring into space, blissfully lost.
Until she noticed movement. Blinking, Maya saw there was a person on the other side of the window. On the seventh storey of the building! He could not see Maya, nor any of the luxury the inner rooms had to offer, but he worked with quiet determination, spraying soapy water over the window and wiping it clean with a long-handled tool. His clothes were threadbare, and his harness was a patchwork of fabric and fraying rope — knotted with the desperation of someone who could not afford better.
Slung over his shoulder was a red tartan cloth, faded and stained from use. Something about the worn pattern punched the air from her lungs.
Her father had one just like that.
For one terrible moment, Maya was no longer standing in an air-conditioned waiting room. She was back in the sweltering fields of her childhood, the sun a hammer against the earth, her father's silhouette stooped against the light, that same red cloth hanging from his shoulder as he wiped his brow and smiled at her.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She stared harder at the man outside — at the curve of his back, the way his hairline thinned at the temples, the stubborn set of his jaw. Features blurred by glass, by soap and water, but the resemblance was unbearable.
Her father, who had been dead for years. Her father, whom she had folded away neatly into a past life she rarely dared to touch.
Emotion rose in her throat — sudden, raw, unstoppable. A great, gasping well of grief and guilt and love and shame, rising up from a place she thought she had long ago paved over. The man outside scrubbed at a stubborn mark on the glass, unaware of the ruin he was leaving behind him.
Maya stood up abruptly, blinking rapidly, her hands trembling at her sides. As if sheer force of will could shake off what she had seen, what she had remembered. As if standing would anchor her back to the polished, careful life she had built — a life with no place for the girl who used to run barefoot across muddy fields, chasing a man in a red tartan cloth. But the feeling clung to her. Heavy and wet and impossibly real.
She cancelled more than half her treatments for the day, gritted her teeth through the few she couldn’t avoid, and headed home. When her chauffeur opened the car door, she slipped in without a word, her jaw tight, her body rigid. She spent the drive with her face turned sharply away from the window, as if the world outside could reach through the glass and drag her back. Every time her eyes betrayed her — catching sight of a hawker with a rickety cart, or a woman sweeping the pavement with short, brittle strokes — she squeezed them shut, hard. Her parents were everywhere. Her past was bleeding through the city streets, clawing its way through tinted windows and stitched leather seats, refusing to be shut out.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” she whispered under her breath, again and again. Her voice was ragged, barely a sound. If her driver noticed, he didn’t ask.
Finally, Maya reached home. Her legs trembled as she stepped through the doorway. Ignoring the welcome of the household help, she half ran, half stumbled into her shrine and locked the door. The quiet inside was dense, padded with the smell of incense and sandalwood. Maya collapsed into her chair, chest heaving, eyes wild. Sweat gathered at her brow and trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t notice how flushed and raw her skin had become. Her hands fumbled for her crystals, her cards, anything to latch onto—something pure, something quiet. She reached for the rose quartz first, pressing it hard into her palm like it could push the panic back down. Her other hand spread the cards on the altar in uneven lines, but her vision was swimming.
“Breathe”, she told herself. “In. Out.”
The first card she flipped was The Star. Hope, renewal. She tried to hold on to that meaning, to the symbol. But her father’s face came instead—lined, sun-darkened, his mouth tight as he wiped grease from his hands. His eyes had always been tired.
In. Out.
Next card: Ten of Swords. Betrayal. Rock bottom. Her mother's cackle rang in her ears—sharp and high. Her brother was there too, throwing his head back, both of them wheezing with laughter.
Her fingers twitched, and one of the crystals slipped from her grip, clattering against the stone floor. She didn’t pick it up.
She flipped another card, and the slap came with it—Sanya’s hand, a blur, her palm cracking across Maya’s cheek. The burn of humiliation in her skin. The laughter of her classmates echoing around her like a coliseum.
Her fingers moved with more urgency now, desperate to find a card that would soothe. The Lovers? Justice? Anything.
But instead came the worst one. Not a card. A memory. Her own hand—adult, adorned with rings—reaching into her designer purse and tossing spare coins onto the floor in front of them. Her family. Her blood. Their eyes wide, their dignity small and crumpled like the ten-rupee note by her foot.
Maya let out a sound. Not quite a sob. Not quite a gasp. She pressed both hands flat against the floor, trying to anchor herself, trying to stay in the now. But it was too late.
She couldn’t keep going like this. And so, Maya closed her eyes. She let the door creak open—the one she’d sealed long ago. Let it swing back on rusted hinges. The flood didn’t come all at once. It trickled first, then poured.
She didn’t resist. Not this time.
The months leading up to Maya’s marriage were somehow the worst of her life. She spent the time in a daze, listlessly accepting what the world threw at her. She would sit through his coaching, learning how to sit, how to talk, how to eat, how to live. He justified that while he was so open minded and gracious, his family was unfortunately not. So, he would coach Maya on the ways of high society, and she was to never breathe a word of her origins.
Her entire life, family and existence… overwritten by the fancy of a rich brat.
Through all of this, Maya somehow survived. Through cold sweats in the middle of nights, muffled outbursts in the most isolated recesses of bathrooms, Maya survived. A core thought that kept her going through it all was her connection to God and her Purity.
“I’m better than this. I’m the chosen one. These fools don’t know any better. I’m special.” would play through her mind like an almost continuous mantra, through her days and nights.
About a few months into her marriage, her aunt called her to visit. She was welcomed like royalty. The best cutlery laid out. Water refilled before she could ask. Her aunt bustling around the kitchen personally, sweating through her fine sari, sending the help away. It was theatrical, the kind of reverence reserved for people with power.
After dinner, true intentions became known.
“Say, Maya,” her aunt began, easing onto the sofa beside her, a hand laid carefully on her leg, “Your life sounds so comfortable now, I’m so happy for you. And your husband’s giving you all this extra money to spend, na? Would you like to share some with us? We took care of you for so many years, after all.”
She’d been a burden then, an investment now. Then, she’d been shouted at for needing too many rotis. Now, she was being worshipped for what she could give. They hadn’t changed—only her price tag had.
Fine.
She smiled, slow and cold, letting her lip curl just enough. “Think you deserve the money? Since you forced this marriage on me and enabled all this wealth?” She dipped her hand into her purse and pulled out a handful of loose change. “Sure. Here’s some.”
The coins hit the floor with an almost musical clatter. Her heart was thumping through her ears. She was finally showing them.
Her aunt gaped. Her uncle’s eyes widened in anger and he launched into a tirade, voice booming through the room. She was only half-listening, taking short rapid breaths, feeling the energy coursing through her veins. She stood straighter with every shouted word.
When he finally stopped, she knelt and carefully, almost lovingly, placed one more coin on the floor.
“Be thankful I’m giving you even this,” she said. “You deserve far less. You treated me like a burden for years—and now you’re grovelling for scraps at my feet. Poetic, isn’t it?”
With that, she turned on her heel to leave. As she did, she caught a glimpse of her young cousin she had shared a room with while living here. The little one was peeking her head out of her room, wide innocent eyes filled with hurt and surprise. She had always looked up to Maya. Truly loved her. She didn’t deserve this…
With a mighty mental shove, that thought was pushed away. Maya coldly met her cousin’s gaze, making the little girl’s eyes well with tears. In seconds, Maya was out of the house and calling her driver to pick her up.
Outside, the air was heavy. It was late, and the streets were still. No judgment, no movement—just the quiet hum of a city holding its breath. Maya stared at her feet, vestiges of mental semblance forbidding her from raising her head.
This is what it felt like… To crush someone beneath you, to watch them squirm, to feel the power surge through your veins like fire. Money had flipped the board. She was no longer the pawn—they all were. Now she was the master of her life, and it seemed she could master the lives of others as well…
A crack loud as a whiplash echoed through Maya’s mind, and her gaze went up, all the way up to the stars. She let out a big whooping laugh, and she couldn’t stop laughing until she had tears in her eyes. By the time the driver arrived, she was still half-laughing and half-crying, all while staring at the stars like an equal.
In the years following, Maya became a completely new person. When a hawker pleaded with her to buy something, eyes sunken and voice cracking, she would turn away with a curl of her lip. When an old man dragged his feet across the street, bent by the weight of years and unpaid bills, she would glance past him with a cold, impatient stare. When her neighbours laughed over cheap meals, their lives small but full of messy, unbreakable love — she would sneer the hardest.
Pitiful, all of them. They suffered because they deserved to. Their lives were ugly because they were ugly. Weak. Tethered to a world she had transcended. They were not Pure like her.
It was as simple as that.
With that final thought, Maya’s eyes snapped wide open, and she lurched forward, accidentally falling off her chair. Her body hit the floor with a dull thud, but she barely felt it. She turned herself over and stared blankly at the ceiling above her, the swirling patterns of the plaster blurring and sharpening in her tired gaze.
How had she become this? The very kind of person she once despised?
She continued to lie there in a haze, numbness creeping into her bones, her mind too worn to protest. Her eyes fluttered close under the weight of exhaustion.
She didn't know if she was awake or dreaming. She was too tired to tell. But along the edges of her vision, she saw a figure slowly approaching her. A man, barefoot, his clothes simple and faded. Over one shoulder was slung a red tartan cloth, worn thin from years of wiping sweat and dust. His face was lined deeply, skin darkened from endless days under the sun. Yet his eyes were gentle. So terribly familiar.
Her father sat down beside her. The tartan cloth slipped down his arm, pooling softly onto the floor.
Maya stared at him, her mouth dry, her heart pounding unevenly in her chest. She opened her lips to speak, but no words came.
"You look tired beti," he said quietly.
Maya squeezed her eyes shut. "I am," she whispered. "I... I don't know what happened. I don’t know how I became this."
Her father said nothing, waiting.
"I always thought..." Maya's voice broke, a scratchy whisper against the silence. "I was always the victim. I was the one wronged. Other were wrong, I was right. I never did anything to harm anyone, I was the only one who was right, who was pure!" Her hands trembled slightly against the carpet beneath her.
Her father nodded, his expression unreadable.
"I never had control," Maya continued. "Not when we lived in that tiny house, not when you worked yourself to death, not when you and Maa left me alone in this world. The only time I ever felt I had any control over my life... was when I had wealth. That's why it mattered so much. That's why it matters even now."
The words spilled out of her, ugly and raw.
Her father reached out, gently placing his calloused hand over hers.
"Are you becoming the person I wanted you to be?" he asked. His voice was soft but firm, cutting through her defences like a blade wrapped in velvet. "Are you kind, Maya? Are you empathetic? Do you believe only the rich deserve fortune?"
Maya shook her head in little jerks, as if trying to deny the shape of his questions. Tears blurred her vision.
"I wish you were here!" she burst out. "I wish you hadn't left. I wish you had stayed to guide me. You and Maa both... You left me to figure it out on my own!" Her voice cracked open, hoarse with all the years of grief and loneliness she had never allowed herself to name.
"I... I did my best," she whispered, almost like a child. "I didn't know how to do better, but I kept trying. I kept trying."
Her father didn't answer immediately. He only squeezed her hand, once, gently.
His voice came again, soft but filled with a certain weight. "I always wanted you to have more than I did. More than we ever had. But that doesn't mean I wanted you to lose yourself in the pursuit of it." He paused, and his hand tightened briefly around hers. "Do you know what truly makes someone powerful, Maya? It's not their wealth. It's their heart. It's the ability to give, to show kindness, to hold others up, even when you’re struggling yourself."
"You are more than the things you’ve become obsessed with. You are your love, your compassion, your ability to help others. Are you still that person, Maya? Or have you lost her?"
The floodgates inside her heart were cracking open. Her chest tightened, her breath shallow, as the realization slowly settled in. She had never let herself feel any of this. The guilt. The regret. Maya had never truly allowed herself to mourn what was lost to her. Not when her father died—she’d stayed strong for her mother. Not when she was sent to the city—she’d stayed strong for herself. Not when she was married—she’d stayed strong for vengeance. Years…so many years of holding herself together by sheer force of will. But she couldn’t deny it anymore. The weight of the years, the emptiness she had been running from — it was all there, sitting in front of her.
"Please... please tell me what to do," Maya whispered through her clenched throat, tears already brimming in her eyes. "I don’t know how to fix this."
Her father’s hand lifted from hers, and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her gently toward him. His embrace was warm, solid — like it had always been when she was younger. "You don't need to fix everything, Maya. Sometimes, it's enough just to start with your heart."
Maya closed her eyes, her breath hitching, her chest heaving with all the emotions she had buried for so long. A sob escaped her lips, quiet at first, then louder, deeper. She clung to him, shaking with the weight of her sorrow. She held onto him like she had never held onto anything in her life.
She cried, her body trembling in his arms, as he held her close. And for that brief moment, Maya felt something shift inside her — something she hadn't felt in years. It was the softest warmth, a feeling of safety, as though she wasn’t alone in this world. As if she didn’t have to carry it all by herself anymore.
She buried her face in his shoulder, letting her tears fall freely, the flood of grief and regret finally pouring out of her. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," she whispered, the words barely audible between her sobs.
Her father's voice, steady and warm, whispered softly in her ear. "It's okay, Maya. I love you."
Eventually, dawn’s first birdsong slipped through a gap in the curtains, riding a golden ray of sunlight. Maya blinked, her eyes red and swollen, and found a cushion clutched in her arms. Disoriented, she rose slowly, as if the weight of her own body was too much to bear.
She moved toward the gap in the curtains, her gaze drifting slowly over the world around her, registering the morning like a child experiencing it for the first time. She raised her hand, caught in the softness of the light, watching as it fell across her palm. Her fingers lingered, absorbing the warmth, before she slowly curled her fingers inward, almost as if holding onto something she had just discovered.
A faint smile, tentative and fragile, curled at the corners of her lips. For a long moment, she stayed there, breathing deeply, soaking in the silence.
Then, as if something deep within her stirred—something ancient, something almost forgotten—the corners of her lips lifted ever so slightly.
Not by much, but just enough.
Simran grunted in frustration. She could not wear her best bracelet because “Aunt” Maya would notice and find a way to tear her down for it. But she could not go without one either because “Aunt” Maya would still notice and have something to say. It was always lose-lose with her. Always had been.
By the time she arrived at the party—hosted by one of Maya’s many well-placed friends—Simran had already braced herself for battle. Chin lifted, smile rehearsed, armour on.
But something was off.
Maya was there, of course, dressed impeccably as ever. But she wasn’t commanding the room the way she used to. Her laugh, when it came, was quieter. Her posture less proud. She hovered more than glided, spoke less and listened more. And when she caught sight of Simran, she didn’t deliver her usual barbed greeting. No jab about fashion. No knowing smirk. Just a soft “Hello, Simran,” and a smile that, for once, didn’t seem like a performance.
Simran blinked. “Hello, Aunt Maya,” she replied slowly, half-expecting a trap. But Maya only tilted her head, complimented her earrings—genuinely, it seemed—and moved on.
All evening, Simran watched her. The flickers were still there—old Maya surfacing in the curl of a lip or the flash of an eye—but they were brief, as if she was catching herself in the act and choosing to shift course. It was strange. Disarming. Almost… touching.
What had happened?
Maya, meanwhile, felt every gesture like a balancing act. Every smile, every word a quiet battle between who she’d been and who she wanted to be. She didn’t know how long it would last—this clarity, this softness that had settled into her after the storm. She didn’t know if she would ever truly be free of the weight she had carried, or the harm she had caused.
But she would try. She was pure, after all.