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't touch me, he just didn't look up, and somehow that's worse — twenty minutes I stood there with the envelope in my tote bag while three other customers pretended to check their phones. I've done that watching. I know what it looks like from the outside. I wanted to say, look up, you cowards, and I didn't.

The Lonavala postmark is the part I can't get past. Someone at the builder's postal pin has my Andheri address and used it to send me a printed screenshot of a Taj women's-cell counter signed by an inspector who doesn't exist on Google. I spent an hour on the sofa, hot water bottle against my stomach, looking for the signature. Nothing. A ghost inspector in red ink told a ghost office I'm flagged for cross-reference. Property cell. I am a subject. I keep rereading that line.

The envelope is under my pillow. I slept with one hand on it. If someone comes through the gate I want to feel the paper move first. That's not brave, that's arithmetic.

I ate khichdi alone at the small table. The Ganesh aarti came up through the floor from the building's mandal and I thought about my mum and I had to put the spoon down.