02. The jungle lodge

Anita sighed. This boy will send me to an early grave, she thought, but he'll come by to put flowers every day.

She had Kavi relatively late in life; well after it was proper, going by what Kavita aunty had to say about it. Anita had treated that opinion exactly as she had treated many others—too young to become senior engineer, too brash to become group leader, too fill-in-the-adjective-of-your-choice to become whatever society thought she should not be—with queenly indifference.

Kavi lit up her life like the sun. A whimsical, dreamy sun that sometimes forgot to rise in the morning, but who artless smile warmed everyone it touched.

She let out a longer sigh, one with a bit more contentment. It had been a tough life, but it was a good life. Maybe what was good was necessarily hard. Or maybe, doing what was hard made the outcome that much sweeter.

Anita had seen Kavi trying to tiptoe out of his room a few minutes ago. The absence of a sweater had almost brought a stern rebuke to her lips, when a gentle hand landed on her wrist.

"Thaak, let it be", murmured Madhav, "The gates are locked, and the electric fence was turned on before dinner. He is safe within the compound."

If Kavi was her sun, Madhav was her moon. Soothing and calm, always present, but often hidden, especially when the sun decided to come out.

As Kavi disappeared behind the cottage, Anita followed him with her ears. A few grunts—that must have been him trying to get over the three-foot stone wall—followed by what sounded like a herd of elephants trampling through the forest.

My dreamer. Anita smiled to herself.

Kavi loved reading, and he loved weaving stories based on what he read. He saw flying people, birds that wore monocles, and planes that turned into boats. His imagination did not discriminate. Science fiction, magic, and nature—they all existed in equal measure in the worlds he created. Then again, discrimination—and divisiveness—was an adult skill.

Anita put on her glasses, opened a magazine, and settled down to wait for her sun to return.