The evening sky was painted in soft orange, the kind of quiet glow that village sunsets seem to hold just a little longer. Rohan, tired from a day of cleaning and sorting through old belongings, decided to take a walk — more out of restlessness than purpose.

He slipped into a pair of worn chappals he found near the door, likely Nana’s old pair, and stepped outside. The lane outside the house had barely changed. The houses still had mud walls with faded paint, clotheslines stretched between trees, and the smell of someone cooking lauki floated in the air.

As he passed by the old banyan tree near the temple, he heard giggles and chatter coming from a group of children gathered around a young woman. She was sitting on the temple steps, hair tied in a loose plait, red glass bangles catching the light as she animatedly read aloud from a storybook.

Something about the sound of her voice — playful, warm, familiar — made Rohan slow down.

She noticed him first. Her eyes squinted slightly, then widened.

“Rohan? Rohan Kaka’s grandson?” she asked, standing up, smiling in disbelief.

He stared for a second, then the memory clicked. That voice. That face.

“Meera?” he said, almost laughing.

She nodded, beaming. “You’ve changed so much! You used to be a skinny boy who ran around in his underwear shouting ‘I’m Superman!’”

The children burst out laughing.

Rohan smiled sheepishly. “I was young. Don’t spread propaganda.”

They both laughed, the kind of laugh that melts away years in seconds. For a moment, they weren’t grown-ups — just two village kids reunited.

Meera waved the children off gently. “Homework, sabko. Go home now. Rohan bhaiya needs rescuing from his own memories.”

They began walking down the lane together, the silence between them easy.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Meera said, glancing sideways. “Last I heard, you were in Mumbai, big-shot IT engineer types.”

He nodded. “Still am, technically. Just… back for a few days. Nana passed.”

Her smile softened. “I know. I’m really sorry. He was a kind man. He taught me how to make paper pinwheels.”

“That sounds like him,” Rohan said. “He left me a letter. Said I should listen to the mango tree. I thought it was just Nana being poetic. Now I’m not so sure.”

They paused near the small field behind the temple. Fireflies had begun to flicker faintly in the grass.

“Do you remember,” Meera said slowly, “that summer we tried to dig a tunnel to America from under the mango tree?”

Rohan laughed out loud. “With two steel spoons! And we got yelled at by your mother because we ruined her plants.”

“She still talks about it!” Meera grinned. “And about the time you tried to marry me with a marigold garland.”

“We were eight,” he smirked. “You were bossy even then.”

“And you were always lost in your head. I used to think you’d become a writer. What happened?”

Rohan hesitated. “Life, maybe. Deadlines. Rent. Noise. I forgot how to listen.”

They stood there in silence. The village lights flickered on in the distance, dim and warm.

“I teach at the school now,” Meera said. “Kids don’t have storybooks or proper benches, but they have dreams. And sometimes, that’s enough.”

He looked at her — truly looked — and saw not just the girl from his past, but the woman she’d become. Rooted. Steady. Kind.

“I’m glad you're still here,” he said softly.

She smiled, lifting her arm slightly, her red bangles clinking in the dusk.

“I never left,” she said. “Some stories are meant to be lived slowly.”

As they walked back together, the night air filled with crickets and the faint smell of burning wood. For the first time in years, Rohan didn’t feel like a visitor in his own story.