Chapter 5: Wet Consequences
The rain hadn't just soaked their luggage; it had drowned it. Priya’s spare cotton sari was a heavy, clinging weight in her hands, the dark blue border bleeding indigo dye onto her palms. Rohan’s only other shirt was a translucent wet rag. The Dharmashala keeper, an apologetic man with betel-stained teeth, had mumbled about a leaking roof in the other wing and shuffled them into this single, windowless room. The fan chopped the thick air, doing nothing to dry anything.
“We’ll be late,” Priya said, her voice tight. She wrung out the pallu of her current sari over the cracked bathroom sink. Water darkened the rust stain around the drain.
“We can’t go like this, Amma. You’re shivering.”
“Nonsense. It’s Kolkata humidity. I’m not shivering.” But she was. The air conditioning at the corporate office would be brutal. She pictured the stares, the dripping fabric, the way her modest blouse would cling. A flush of heat that had nothing to do with temperature climbed her neck.
Rohan watched her, his own damp shirt sticking to his shoulders. “Take my jacket. It’s in the car. It’s mostly dry.”
“And you’ll go into a business meeting looking like you swam here? No. We go as we are. This is about your father. My comfort is not the point.”
The argument died there, suffocated by the greater truth. Her husband, Vikram, was in a Mumbai hospital, tubes keeping him steady while she fought for the contract that would pay for the next, more experimental phase of treatment. Dignity was a luxury.
The taxi ride was a silent, steamy capsule. Kolkata passed by in a smear of grey monsoon and frantic traffic. Priya held her leather portfolio against her chest like a shield, feeling the damp patch where water had seeped into the leather grow against her skin.
The Silverman & Roy office was a shock of glacial, sterile air. The receptionist’s polite smile faltered for a microsecond at their state. Priya straightened her spine, the wet sari chafing against her shoulder with every step. They were shown into a small conference room. Mr. Sarkar, a man with a carefully trimmed moustache and eyes that missed nothing, rose to greet them.
“Mrs. Mehta, Mr. Mehta. You found the weather, I see.”
“A minor adventure,” Priya said, smiling with a warmth she didn’t feel, taking the proffered chair. The synthetic upholstery felt cold and unpleasant through her thin sari.
The meeting began. Numbers, projections, timelines. Priya’s voice was steady, her points sharp. But her awareness was split. She felt the fabric of her sari slowly warming against the chair, a damp patch undoubtedly forming. She saw the way Sarkar’s gaze flickered to Rohan’s wrinkled collar. A familiar, frustrating dynamic settled in—Sarkar directing complex logistical questions to Rohan, bypassing her.
Rohan handled them deftly, but then he’d say, “My mother has the final word on the supply chain figures. Amma?”
And she’d pull the answer from the files in her mind, crisp and clear. But the effort was exhausting. The chill was in her bones now. A faint, traitorous tremor began in her hands. She clasped them on the table, the knuckles white.
During a discussion on raw material tariffs, a young intern slipped in with a tray of tea. As she set the china cup before Priya, her elbow jostged the portfolio. A few droplets of tea sloshed onto the mahogany table.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” the girl whispered, horrified.
“It’s nothing,” Priya murmured, reaching for a napkin.
But Mr. Sarkar chuckled. “Careful, Neha. Mrs. Mehta has had enough water for one day.”
It was a innocuous comment, almost friendly. But in the silent room, under the hum of the AC, it hung there. A reminder of their sodden, disordered state. A subtle puncturing of the professional veneer she was clinging to. Priya’s smile felt fossilized on her face.
She dabbed at the spill. The napkin turned translucent, useless.
Rohan, who had been taking notes, set his pen down. The click was deliberate. “The water damage to our materials is regrettable,” he said, his voice low but clear, cutting through the awkwardness. “But it doesn’t touch the integrity of our proposal. Perhaps we should focus on the clause about force majeure on page seven. Monsoons, after all.” He looked directly at Sarkar, his expression neutral, but a veiled challenge in his eyes. Don’t.
The moment passed. The meeting rolled on. But something had shifted. Priya felt a surge of something fierce and grateful for her son. It mingled with a deep, humming embarrassment that he had needed to defend her.
An hour later, it was over. Polite handshakes. Promises to review. No decision.
Back in the taxi, the monsoon light was fading into a deep bruised purple. The city’s lights began to swim in the wet streets. Priya leaned her head against the cool window, utterly spent.
“You were brilliant,” Rohan said softly.
“I was damp,” she replied, a bleak laugh escaping her. “And old. I saw him looking at me like I was some… relic who’d been caught in a flood.”
“He’s an idiot.”
She turned to look at him. His profile was sharp against the passing glare of headlights. The little boy who used to hide behind her saree was now the man who’d held a corporate player’s gaze for her. The complexity of it, the sheer strange love of it, tightened her throat.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, not meaning it.
“Yes, I should have.”
Silence settled, thicker than before. The shared room awaited them, a single bed, a swaying mosquito net, a lifetime of un-crossable boundaries now forced into terrifying proximity. The damp clothes were no longer just an inconvenience; they were a ticking clock. They would have to change out of them. In that small room.
Priya closed her eyes, not against the city, but against the reality looming in the dim Dharmashala. The fan humming. The single bulb. The space between them shrinking with every passing kilometre.