Chapter 7: The Orientation
The Mumbai apartment, once a testament to her life with Arjun and then Rohan, felt like a painted stage set. Priya moved through it with the careful detachment of a curator boxing up an exhibit. Each sari folded into a trunk, each book slotted into a carton, was a quiet burial of the woman who had lived there. She left the furniture under dust sheets, a ghost museum for a ghost she was voluntarily becoming.She rents it out at very high rent enough to afford emi of her new car she will buy in Ujjain.
The final week was a masterclass in deceit. She video-called Rohan from the stripped-bare living room, the late afternoon sun casting long, dramatic shadows.
“Ma, you look tired,” he said, his face pixelated but concerned. “Is the research very intense?”
“It’s stimulating, beta,” she said, her voice light. A tremor threatened it; she coughed gently to cover the break. “But listen, the department has offered me a visiting fellowship. In Berlin. Just for six months. An incredible opportunity.”
She watched his features morph—pride, surprise, a flicker of worry. “Berlin? Wow, Ma. That’s… sudden.”
“They just called. It’s very last-minute. I’ll be leaving directly from Singapore.” She had the brochure for the Institut für Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft open on her laptop, ready to screen-share. She talked about Goethe, Brecht, theoretical frameworks, her words a smooth, rehearsed river. She was, after all, a professor. Constructing a narrative was her job.
“But your health…”
“Is perfect. The procedure was minor, just a ligament in my knee. All sorted.” She smiled, her new lips feeling strange as they formed the familiar, maternal expression. “You focus on your new job in Ujjain. Make me proud. I’ll be emailing, don’t worry, I may not be able to Pick up your call due to time schedule but will try to message asap .”
After the call, she sat in the empty room for a long time, the silence echoing. Then she stood, walked to the mirror in the hall, and studied Rina Mehta staring back.
The Ujjain train station was a cacophony of porters, pilgrims, and the metallic scent of incoming rain. Priya, now Rina, moved through the crowd draped in an expensive but simple cotton sari, its pallu drawn demurely over her head. Oversized sunglasses and a medical mask—a common sight in the post-pandemic world—hid the most dramatic evidence of her transformation. The swelling had subsided, leaving behind a sharp, arresting beauty that still made her jump at her own reflection. But shrouded in cloth, she was invisible.
She took a taxi, giving the address of the bungalow she had purchased remotely through a shell of legal paperwork. “New to Ujjain, madam?” the driver asked, eyeing her in the rearview.
“Yes,” she said, her voice lower, softer than Priya’s. “A fresh start.”
The route took them past the ancient, labyrinthine lanes around the Mahakaleshwar temple, the air thickening with the smell of marigolds and incense. Then, the city opened up near the university. The driver gestured. “New campus there. Very modern. Lots of noise these days.” She followed his gesture.
And there it was. A series of sleek, glass-fronted buildings rising beside older, ivy-covered halls. Young people milled about, a riot of backpacks and laughter. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Somewhere in that ecosystem was Rohan. Her son. Her unknowing quarry.
She didn’t ask the driver to slow down. She simply watched, a tourist gazing at a monument, as the taxi carried her past the gates. The distance felt continental.
Her new home was on a quiet, tree-lined street not far away—close enough to feel the pulse of his world, far enough to be anonymous. The bungalow was old, charming, with a walled garden running wild with bougainvillea. It smelled of disuse and jasmine. She tipped the driver, unlocked the door, and stepped into the cool, dim silence.
Alone.
The reality of it crashed down. The surgical pain had been an anchor. The lies to Rohan had been a script. This—this empty house in a city of gods and ghosts—was the stage. And she had no lines.
She dropped her bags and walked to the veranda, pushing open the shutters. The evening chant from a nearby temple swelled, Om Namah Shivaya, a sonic blanket over the city. It should have felt peaceful. It felt like a dare.
Two days later, sufficiently settled, she ventured to the university guest house. It was where visiting scholars and lecturers stayed. Where a new hire, a transfer from a smaller college in Pune named Rina Mehta, might logically seek temporary accommodation while she “looked for a permanent place.”
She wore a crisp linen kurta and trousers, her hair in a simple braid. The sunglasses were still a shield. The woman at the reception desk, Mrs. Kapoor, was a gossipy sort with kind eyes.
“Rina Mehta? Yes, yes, your transfer paperwork came through. We have a room on the first floor, overlooking the banyan.” She pushed the ledger forward. As Priya signed her mother’s name with a steady hand, Mrs. Kapoor chatted. “So many changes. We just had a lovely professor, Sharma madam, move on quite suddenly. To Germany, can you imagine? At her age!”
Priya’s pen didn’t falter. “Oh?”
“Priya Sharma. A brilliant woman. Literature. Very respected. Quiet. I remember her meeting in Mumbai branch .Kept to herself after her husband died. She raised a wonderful boy, though. He actually just joined our statistics department. Rohan. Sweet boy. He doesn’t know anyone here. It’s a bit sad, his mother leaving just as he arrived.”
The words were ice and fire. Priya kept her head down, finishing the signature. “Life is full of strange timing,” she murmured, her voice perfectly neutral.
“Isn’t it just?” Mrs. Kapoor sighed, handing her a key. “Well, welcome. The campus is lovely. You might see Rohan around. He comes sometimes to use the guest house library. Do say hello. He could use a friendly face.”
Priya took the heavy, old-fashioned key. It felt like a weapon in her palm. “I’ll keep an eye out,” she said.
Back in her bungalow that night, she stood before the full-length mirror she’d bought. No drapes, no sunglasses, no mask. The woman in the reflection was a stranger of devastating beauty. The athletic frame she’d maintained for years was now the canvas for a sculptor’s dream of curves. The face was a masterpiece of suggestion and strength. She touched her own cheekbone, the high arc of it unfamiliar.
She had done it. She was here. Embedded. Her colleague—her son—was a few hundred meters away, lonely, mentioning his mother’s departure to kindly strangers.
The guilt was a sharp, serrated thing. It sawed at the edges of her resolve. Then she heard Vikram’s voice, oily and triumphant from a month ago: A thousand kisses from a stranger, Priya. You wouldn't know where to begin.
She looked her reflection dead in the eye.
“Watch me,” she whispered to the silent room.
The game was no longer theoretical. The board was set. The first move, the gentle, benign introduction of Rina Mehta to the lonely young professor Rohan Sharma, was now a logistical necessity. She picked up her new, encrypted phone, the one untraceable to Priya Sharma. She opened the messaging app. The cursor blinked in the empty space, waiting for her to write the first line of a story she would have to live inside.
Outside, the temple bells rang for the evening aarti. Inside, Priya began to type.