Archana Stories

  Ananya woke up that Sunday morning with a strange feeling that something wonderful was about to happen. It was not because of anything in particular. The sunlight coming through the bedroom curtains was no different from any other morning in Bengaluru. Somewhere outside, a milk packet fell against a gate, a scooter started with a cough, and a woman in the neighbouring house called out to her son to hurry up before the idlis got cold. Yet Ananya felt as though she had discovered a secret that the rest of the world had somehow missed. She was thirty-one, married, and the mother of a little girl who had recently learned to run faster than she could walk. Her husband, Raghav, worked in a private bank. Their apartment was comfortable, their finances manageable, and their domestic life, as far as anyone could tell, perfectly settled. Ananya had no reason to complain. Perhaps that was why her happiness surprised her so much. She stood before the bedroom mirror, tying her hair into a loo...

  People had begun talking about a newcomer on the beach promenade. A woman who went for walks every evening with a little white dog. Raghav Mehta had been in Visakhapatnam for a fortnight and had grown accustomed to the place. He had begun noticing new arrivals too. Sitting at an outdoor café overlooking the beach one afternoon, he caught sight of a young woman walking along the promenade. She was fair, rather slender, and not very tall. She wore a simple cotton kurta and walked at an unhurried pace. A little white Spitz trotted behind her. Later, he encountered her in the municipal park and near the beach road. He saw her several times a day. She was always alone, wearing much the same clothes, and the little dog was invariably at her side. Nobody seemed to know who she was, and people referred to her simply as the woman with the dog. "If she is here without her husband or any friends," Raghav thought, "it might be worth making her acquaintance." He was forty year...