Aniket would mumble something about "work pressure" and retreat to his screen.

"Then stop," he said gently.

His grandmother, Ammamma, lived in the family home—a hundred-year-old house with a courtyard where a tulsi plant grew in a raised earthen pot. Every morning at 5:30, Aniket would hear the ghungroo of her anklets as she watered the plant, chanting a small prayer. He would pull a pillow over his head.

One Tuesday—the day of the week dedicated to Hanuman, when Ammamma fasted until sunset—she didn't wake him. The coffee didn't come. The house was too quiet.

"How long does it take?"

For the rest of the day, he followed her routine. At 7 AM, he walked with her to the Hanuman temple, where she taught him to ring the bell— not too loud, not too soft, just enough to say 'I am here.' At noon, he sat with her as she shelled peas, listening to the story of how she crossed the border during Partition with only a small box of spices and her mother's sindoor . At 4 PM, he drank the sukku coffee (dry ginger coffee) she made, its heat unclogging something in his chest he didn't know was blocked.

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