The algorithm of Niranjan’s life was operating at peak efficiency. IIT Kanpur had stamped him with a premium grade, and the campus placement cell had duly funnelled him into a multinational firm with a compensation package that felt almost rude to discuss aloud. When he arrived in Ahmedabad to claim his destiny, he did what any self-respecting, upwardly mobile bachelor would do: he rented a three-BHK on the twentieth floor of a gleaming high-rise in South Bopal. The apartment was a cavern of echoey, minimalist promise, far too large for a single man, but precisely the right size for his trajectory. He purchased a sedan that still smelled of factory plastics, parking it in the stilt basement alongside dozens of identical vehicles belonging to dozens of identical young men. Then, his parents arrived for their mandatory inspection of his success. They were gentle, provincial people from a town where life…
