Meera's day

At the Andheri station cash counter she buys a fresh Jio SIM for six hundred rupees and walks onto the platform with two phones in her tote — main number untouched, new SIM still in its wrapper. The text she sends the fixer from the new number reads: 'Bandra or BKC only. Public. Daytime. My ride home.' The reply comes within eleven minutes: the builder prefers the farmhouse, the farmhouse is a long drive, builders are busy. She types back: 'Builders who are busy can come to Bandra on a Thursday.' The silence is long enough for her to start the Teej card design — peach borders, marigold corners — and then the fixer's reply lands just as the local pulls back into the station: 'Thursday. Bandra. Four p.m. The cafe behind the station. He will come alone, no driver.' Status flex crystallised: she has moved the meeting off a property she cannot leave and onto a street where Suresh can pick her up. Decision: the meet is on, and the new SIM stays in her tote as a record of every exchange.