Meera's diary

19Sep

The two versions of me

I posted a selfie and a champagne-silk photo at 7pm. My face in both is warm, looking at the camera like someone loves me. Three hours later I let a lock engage…

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18Sep

Three hits, one cat, no reply

The misfire to Ranjit is the thing I keep circling. I had Heena's paralegal's card in my hand at the studio, then I didn't, then I did, then I sent the draft to…

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17Sep

Marigolds and the file

The marigolds are the part I keep coming back to. Not the wrist, not the voice, not the gold ring I have already learned to recognise from a hundred metres away…

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16Sep

The Lamp Will Not Switch Off

The lamp will not switch off. I have been lying here long enough that the bulb feels like a small sun burning for no one, and I still cannot make my hand reach…

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15Sep

Six minutes and the chai

I keep coming back to six minutes. That is the number. Ira's phone, the studio's shared iCloud, six full minutes of my Bandra clip sitting in a folder that any…

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14Sep

Lonavala Has My Address

I filed a complaint today. I keep making that sentence truer in my head. Same stairwell where the builder's man shoved me last week. His supervisor Bhagat didn'…

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13Sep

The Kada They Didn't Blur

Angel for a day. That's what Tanvi's mother wrote over my entrance walk on her story — our roka angel — and for the first time in two months I looked at a publi…

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12Sep

I held the line

Tanvi's mother touched my elbow and said "family for the day" and I had to leave the ballroom for four minutes. Not for a phone call, not for a logistics snafu…

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11Sep

Gold on the bruise

The kada is on the dresser now. I took it off when I got home because I couldn't stand the warmth of it — not the heat of the metal, the meaning — sitting on th…

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10Sep

Same length, same word count

The pin on the nightstand is from my nani's wedding sari — a small enamel rose my mum stitched on before the cloth was folded away. I don't know why I picked it…

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9Sep

circled in red at six pm

Three days until the roka and I am sitting on Heena's bed in a sleep slip wondering how a woman is supposed to pick an outfit for her own engagement when her na…

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8Sep

Three bruises and a paragraph

The bruise on my right hip is the third one I have photographed in three months. I want to say "documented" because it sounds better but photographed is the hon…

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7Sep

Counting his sentences

The selfie stays mine. Took it at the bedroom mirror before I left — pink top, messy hair, dim light doing me a favour or a disservice, I can't tell. I look tir…

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6Sep

Family for the day, lock for the night

The tikka is on the nightstand in the velvet pouch. I have not spent it, I have not shown it to anyone, and I will not. Aarav's grandmother pressed it into my p…

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5Sep

Coffee and a clipboard

She brought me coffee. Pista-green. A ten-rupee cut on a three-lakh roka, and she walked into my kitchen like she was paying respects. I took the cup. I sipped.…

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4Sep

Same Pen, Both Verdicts

The same pen wrote both things. That is the detail I cannot stop turning over. In the morning it was making neat column counts for the Taj Lands End wedding — g…

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3Sep

Sonam at the glass, threat at four

Sonam — Niharika's older sister, someone I haven't seen since the 2024 era when she posted engagement photos and I posted gig flyers — saw me through the Bandra…

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2Sep

Keep the apology

Three weddings. I vouched for Priya at three weddings in 2025, stood behind her in front of families who trusted my word, and the whole time she was forwarding…

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1Sep

The Glass Hasn't Tipped

The marigold is on my nightstand. I do not know why I kept it. A girl in a rented lehenga, maybe four, dropped it into my clipboard at the Tanvi roka and said s…

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31Aug

Held the pin the whole way

The pin sat in my palm the whole corridor walk. I could feel the teeth of it through my skin when I locked the bathroom door and when I unlocked it and when I c…

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30Aug

The word is hostess

The word the builder said into the mic was hostess. I have been turning it over in my mouth since I got home. Hostess. Not host. Not the woman who carries the r…

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29Aug

Locked from the Outside

The pista man looked at me the way the Bandra men looked at me. Same angle of jaw. Same small twist of smile that says I have already decided what you are. And…

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28Aug

The door that won't lock

The guard read my paper twice and let me through. The fixer arrived second and had to wait at the gate for the builder's own arrival. I saw it from the rearview…

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27Aug

the wrong length

I know that voice. I have heard it twice now and I will hear it a third time, and the third time I will not pick up. Today the words were rehearsed, which is th…

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26Aug

Three on my chest

The biggest payment I have ever received for anything I do with my voice, my planning, my body in the centre of a room cleared today. Tanvi's roka in September.…

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24Aug

Third wrist, Friday farmhouse

The third hand in eleven days knew where I buy my batteries. That's the fact I keep turning over in the bathroom mirror with my toothbrush in my fist. Someone h…

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23Aug

the watchman will smile tomorrow

The watchman did not know. I keep telling myself this because tomorrow morning I will have to walk past him with my dustbin and he will say good morning, Meera-…

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22Aug

He Said Not Yet

The envelope smelled like the farmhouse before I even opened it. Cardamom and hay. The same way the long table smelled when I sat there and felt safe. My hands…

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21Aug

The Loudspeaker and the Two Names

The cafe manager has known me since Heena's planning meetings. He has watched me split bills, tip well, host client dinners at his tables. He called my full nam…

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20Aug

Room 12. Bring your own lock.

The knob was unscrewed. I keep saying that to myself in the dark and it doesn't get smaller. Someone reached for that mic stand while I wasn't looking — while I…

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