Chapter 1: The Knock at Midnight

In the middle of the night, the police came knocking at my door.

The hum of the ceiling fan stuttered as I rushed to the door, my father’s cough echoing from the bedroom, and the faint aroma of last night’s dal still hanging in the air. Their loud thumping echoed through the cramped corridor, waking up my elderly parents and my son, who had just drifted off to sleep. My mother, eyes wide with worry, opened the latch, and the constable’s torchlight flickered over our doormat, which still had the faded OM painted on it. I fumbled with my drawstring pyjama, heart racing, not understanding what could be so urgent at this hour.

They told me a mother had accused me of molesting her three-year-old daughter.

My tongue went dry. For a second, I thought I’d misheard. My wife, in her nightie, clutched my arm as if I might vanish. The neighbours’ doors creaked open as people peeped out, whispers already starting in the corridor. Mrs. D’Costa peered out from behind her half-open door, her night cream smeared face glowing in the torchlight, while the Sharma boys whispered from the staircase, their mother’s anklets jingling as she pulled them back. The constable’s words stung like a slap – and suddenly, all those stories from TV news of innocent people being ruined flashed in my head.

I didn’t even have time to change my chappals before I was taken straight to the police station.

The police jeep’s engine coughed to life in the muggy night, and I sat between two constables, clutching my phone, still in my faded banyan and chappals. I could smell my own sweat mixed with the dusty scent of the police jeep’s seat cover. My head spun—how could this be happening? My mother, her dupatta slipping off her shoulder, ran after the jeep, pleading with folded hands, “Sahab, galatfahmi hogayi hai, mera beta aisa nahi hai!” But the jeep drove away, leaving her voice behind in the humid night.