It started with the engagement photo.
Tuesday night. 11:23 PM. Meera was in bed, phone in hand — the default position of every Indian millennial after 11 PM, the hour when the day's defenses are down and the algorithm knows you're vulnerable. She'd been scrolling without purpose, the way you open the fridge knowing there's nothing new inside but checking anyway.
And there it was. Her own face, smiling back at her from five months ago.
The engagement photo. Still up. Still public. Still accumulating pity-likes from people who clearly knew what had happened but were liking it anyway because they didn't know the etiquette for un-liking a photo after the engagement it celebrates has collapsed.
847 likes. 63 comments. The comments were a time capsule of a reality that no longer existed.
"Finally!! So happy for you two 😍"
"Made for each other!"
"Meera you deserve the BEST"
"Can't wait for the wedding!! Save me a seat 💕"
She read them all. One by one. Like picking at a scab. Each comment was a tiny ghost — the ghost of a future that had been alive five weeks ago and was now as dead as the Orkut profile she'd had in 8th standard.
She scrolled to Sahil's tag. Tapped it. His profile loaded.
His engagement photos were gone. She already knew this — she'd discovered it during the Weekend of Avoidance. But now, three weeks later, the absence felt different. Not sharp anymore. Just... clean. Like he'd run git reset --hard on their entire relationship and pushed to main without a merge request.
His latest post was from four days ago. A photo at some rooftop restaurant — fairy lights, craft cocktails, the Bombay skyline. Two people in the frame. Him, and a girl with a clean jawline and a minimalist aesthetic.
Nitya Mathur.
They weren't tagged. No caption. Just a photo. But the body language — his arm around the back of her chair, her head tilted slightly towards him, both of them doing that thing where you're pretending you don't know the photo is being taken — said everything a caption wouldn't.
Meera stared at it for a long time.
She didn't feel the stab she expected. The jealousy, the rage, the how-could-you-move-on-so-fast fury that would have wrecked her two weeks ago. Instead, she felt something quieter. Something more like... exhaustion. Like she'd been carrying a suitcase she'd forgotten was in her hand, and she'd just noticed how heavy it was.
She went back to her own profile. Scrolled through it. The whole feed was a monument to a person she wasn't anymore. The engagement. The Goa trip. The haldi ceremony. The couple photos. The captions — "My forever." "Best thing that ever happened to me." "Can't wait to do life with you."
Every post was a layer. A tag. A label.
You're confusing what you have with what you are.
Arjun's voice, from the Vohuman café, clear as the chai he'd been drinking.
She sat up in bed.
🗑️ The Purge
She didn't archive them. Archiving was half-measures. Archiving was keeping a backup of an identity she no longer wanted to restore.
She deleted them.
One by one. Starting from the engagement photo — the one with 847 likes — and working backwards. The Goa trip. Gone. The haldi ceremony with both mothers in yellow. Gone. The candid at the Aundh banquet hall where Sahil was laughing and she was looking at him like he was the answer to a question she hadn't known she was asking. Gone.
Seventeen photos. Five reels. Three story highlights — one called "US ❤️", one called "Ring Day!", one called "Pre-Wedding Vibes."
All gone.
Each deletion asked for confirmation. Are you sure you want to delete this post? This can't be undone. She tapped "Delete" seventeen times without hesitation. It felt like removing apps she didn't use anymore — a cleanup that was overdue.
Priya's door was closed. The flat was silent. Meera's thumbs moved with the calm precision of someone deploying to production at midnight — no panic, just the quiet focus of knowing exactly what needed to be done.
When it was over, she looked at her profile.
47 posts remained. Sunsets from treks. A photo of her grandmother's pickle jars. A reel about Pune traffic she'd made as a joke that had gotten 2,000 views. A candid from COEP convocation. Her feed looked like it had been through a detox — leaner, cleaner, stripped of its most performed self.
Her bio still said: SDE-2 | COEP '21 | Baner life 🏙️ | Coffee before code ☕
She deleted the last line and left it at: Still figuring it out.
She put the phone down. Took a breath. Took another one.
She didn't feel better. But she felt lighter. Like she'd been wearing a costume she'd forgotten wasn't her skin, and she'd finally taken it off, and the air against the real surface was cold and unfamiliar but also — somehow — a relief.
📞 The Nashik Boy
The call from Aai came at 7:15 AM. Which meant Aai had been awake since 5:30, had finished her pooja, had made Baba's chai, and had been waiting for what she considered an acceptable hour to call — which, in Aai Standard Time, was approximately forty-five minutes earlier than any reasonable person would consider acceptable.
"Meeru, Maushi sent the biodata."
"Aai, I just woke up."
"His name is Omkar. Nashik boy. Family has a printing business — very established, three generations. He did MBA from Symbiosis — not the main campus, the Lavale one, but still Symbiosis. He's 29. Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink — well, Maushi said social drinking, but what does that mean? Everybody says social drinking. Your Baba also says social drinking and I've seen him finish a full Old Monk at Diwali."
"Aai — "
"He's 5'8. Fair. Decent looking — I saw the photo. Slightly thin but your Maushi says he goes to gym. He wants a working wife, which is good. And the family is open to Pune-based, so you won't have to shift."
"Aai. Stop."
A pause. Meera could hear the hurt forming at the other end, solidifying like hot jalebi hitting cold syrup.
"Why stop? What's wrong?"
"It's been one month. One month since Sahil. I haven't even — I can't even look at my own Instagram without feeling sick, and you want me to look at someone's biodata?"
"Instagram? What does Instagram have to do with — "
"I deleted all the photos last night. Every single engagement photo. Gone."
Silence. A long, loaded silence. The kind of silence that, in a Maharashtrian household, means someone is about to say something they'll both regret.
"You deleted them?" Aai's voice had gone very quiet. "All of them?"
"All of them."
"The haldi photo also? The one with me and Sahil's aai in yellow?"
Meera closed her eyes. She hadn't thought about that. She'd been thinking about her identity, her layers, her onion metaphor. She hadn't thought about the fact that for Aai, that haldi photo wasn't just a post. It was proof. Proof that her daughter's life was on track. Proof that the years of worry and the lakhs of rupees and the endless negotiations with Sahil's family had led somewhere. Proof that she, Sunita Kulkarni, had done her job as a mother.
And now it was gone.
"Aai, those photos weren't — they weren't real anymore. They were a lie. Keeping them up was like... pretending something still existed when it doesn't."
"It's not about pretending. It's about memory. Some things you keep because they happened, not because they're still happening. Your Ajji's wedding photo is still on our wall. Your Ajoba died in 1998. Should I delete that also?"
"That's different."
"How? How is that different? Because it's old enough? How much time has to pass before a memory becomes acceptable?"
Meera didn't have an answer. Her mother, for all her melodrama and biodata-forwarding, had landed a punch she wasn't expecting.
"Aai, I'm not saying the memories don't matter. I'm saying I can't heal while they're sitting right there on my profile, reminding me every day of who I was supposed to become."
"And who are you supposed to become now?"
The question hit different when Aai asked it. When Arjun asked who are you, it felt like an invitation — a door opening. When Aai asked it, it felt like an audit. A performance review. Show me the updated roadmap. Where is the new timeline? When is the revised delivery date?
"I don't know, Aai. I honestly don't know."
Another silence. Meera heard her father's voice in the background — "Chai thanda hota aahe" — the tea is getting cold. Her father's way of saying: end this before someone gets hurt.
"Fine," Aai said. "No biodata. For now. But Meeru — you can't just delete everything and have nothing. That's not how life works. You have to build something. Even if it's different."
"I know."
"And call your Baba. He won't say anything but he's worried."
"I know."
"And eat something. You sound thin."
"You can't sound thin, Aai."
"I can hear thin. A mother can hear thin. Eat something."
Meera smiled. The first real smile of the morning.
"Okay, Aai."
"Okay. Devachi krupa asudya." (May God's grace be there.)
She hung up.
🏃♀️ The Run
She went for a run.
This was unprecedented. Meera Kulkarni did not run. Meera Kulkarni had once told Priya that the only acceptable reason to run was if something was chasing you, and even then, she'd prefer to negotiate. Her gym membership at the Blue Ridge clubhouse had been untouched for five months — a monthly ₹1,200 donation to the fitness industry's most reliable business model: people who pay but don't show up.
But this morning, after the Instagram purge and the Aai call, she felt something she couldn't name. Not energy exactly. More like agitation — a restlessness in her body that wouldn't resolve by sitting still. Like a process spinning at 100% CPU with no output.
She put on the only sports shoes she owned — Nike Pegasus from two years ago, bought during a "new year new me" phase that had lasted eleven days — and walked out of the flat at 7:45 AM.
Blue Ridge had a running track. A 600-meter loop around the central garden, lined with trees that were either neem or something else — Meera had never been the kind of person who knew tree names. Other residents were already there — uncles in white sneakers doing their brisk-walk-with-arm-swinging thing, aunties in salwar kameez doing yoga on mats, a group of kids being coached by an instructor who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.
She ran.
Badly. Awkwardly. With a form that would have made any running coach weep. Her breathing was wrong within ninety seconds. By the end of the first loop, she was already composing her resignation from physical activity.
But she kept going. Not because she was enjoying it — she was actively hating it — but because the hating was different. It was a new sensation. A physical one. For the first time in a month, her body was producing a feeling that had nothing to do with Sahil, nothing to do with Instagram, nothing to do with who she was or wasn't. Just lungs burning, legs heavy, heart hammering.
Three loops. 1.8 kilometers. She stopped, bent over, hands on knees, breathing like she'd just deployed a hotfix to production during peak traffic.
An uncle walking past gave her a thumbs-up. "Very good, beta. Slowly slowly, you will improve."
She wanted to tell him she had no intention of improving. She wanted to tell him this was a one-time protest against the tyranny of her own thoughts. Instead, she nodded and said "Thank you, uncle" and walked back to the flat on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else.
In the shower, she noticed something. The question — who are you when you take away everything that can be taken away — was still there. But for the twenty-three minutes she'd been running, it had been quiet. Not answered. Not solved. Just... paused. Like the body had taken over and given the mind permission to shut up for a while.
Interesting.
📖 The Conversation
She texted Arjun that evening.
Meera: I deleted all my engagement photos last night.
Arjun: How do you feel?
Meera: Lighter. Also my Aai is furious. She thinks I deleted her memories.
Arjun: Did you?
Meera: I deleted my performance. There's a difference. Right?
Arjun: That's a really good distinction, Meera. Seriously.
Meera: I also went for a run this morning. 1.8 km. Almost died.
Arjun: 😂 Progress. Physical and existential.
Meera: Okay I have to ask. The framework. The thing you keep hinting at. When are you going to actually tell me?
A pause. The typing indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Arjun: Are you free Saturday? Same place?
Meera: Vohuman?
Arjun: Vohuman. I'll bring the yellow book.
Meera: FINALLY. What is it? Self-help? Philosophy? Some startup founder's memoir about how losing everything made him a billionaire?
Arjun: None of those. It's much older than any of those. And much more practical.
Meera: Mysterious again.
Arjun: Last time, I promise. Saturday I'll lay it all out. But Meera — come with that question. The real one. Not "how do I feel better" but "what am I." That's the door. The book is just the key. 🔑
She stared at the message.
The book is just the key.
She'd known smart people. COEP was full of smart people. Finova was full of smart people. Sahil was — objectively, annoyingly — a smart person. But Arjun was a different kind of smart. The kind of smart that didn't perform itself. He never dropped book titles to impress. Never said "I read somewhere that..." the way people do when they want you to know they read. He spoke like someone who had taken something apart, examined every piece, put it back together, and was now simply telling you what he'd found. No decoration. No ego.
Whatever was in that yellow book, it had rebuilt him. She'd seen the evidence. After his mother died, Arjun could have gone the way a lot of people go — numb, functional, moving through life with the lights on but nobody home. Instead, he'd become... this. Someone who sat in a café with a grieving friend and said you're not broken, your situation is broken — and meant it. Someone who could look at pain without flinching and say there's something underneath this that's worth finding.
She wanted what he had. Not the philosophy — she didn't even know what it was yet. She wanted the steadiness. That quality of being rooted in something that didn't shake when the world shook. Of knowing who you were even when every external label had been ripped away.
She wanted the center of the onion.
🌙 Thursday Night
Two days before the Saturday meeting. Meera was lying in bed, staring at her phone. Her screen time report had just popped up: 4 hours 12 minutes daily average. Down from the 6+ hours of the first two weeks post-breakup. Progress, she supposed.
She opened the Notes app and typed:
Things I know about myself (for real, not labels):
1.
She stared at the blinking cursor for three minutes.
She couldn't write a single thing.
Not because she was being dramatic. Because every time she tried, the answer was a label. I'm hardworking — that's a trait, not a self. I like coffee — that's a preference, not a self. I care about my family — that's a value, not a self. Every answer pointed at something she did or liked or believed. None of it pointed at the one who was doing, liking, believing.
It was like trying to describe the screen by listing the apps on it. The apps aren't the screen. They run on the screen. But what's the screen?
She typed:
- I don't know.
Then, underneath:
And for the first time, I think that's the right answer.
She saved the note, closed the phone, and stared at the ceiling fan.
Saturday. The yellow book. The framework. The key.
She was ready.
She didn't know what she was ready for. But the question was no longer a burden. It had become something else — something that pulled instead of pushed. Not "I need to fix this" but "I need to understand this." Not panic. Curiosity.
And curiosity, she was beginning to learn, was a very different engine than pain.
📖 Next chapter: The Yellow Book — Arjun brings the Bhagavad Gita to Vohuman Café, and Meera discovers that the oldest book she's never read has the most modern answer to the only question that matters.