Fiction: After many years in the US, Maneka returns to an India that is nothing like she remembers

The invitation arrived in her inbox just hours after her own arrival in Hrishipur. She was lying in bed, bruised from the long flight and slightly stunned by this return to a country she no longer recognised, a home without her mother, and the prospect of an endless summer, when the cell phone next to her lit up with the new text. As soon as she glanced at it and saw who it was from, Maneka knew she would accept. She would appear at this party, even if her reasons were all wrong.

She clutched the phone in a tight grip, afraid that if she let go the text might disappear like many other things in her life. The glow of the screen was the only glimmer of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel she had inhabited these past few months. The damp and trembling cloud she had been living inside had solidified only a few hours ago, with the proverbial return of the expatriate, the return they had always warned her would be the hardest.

The moment of landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport earlier that night had been one of confusion, when she couldn’t quite tell if...

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