[POV: Divya]
Aunt Meera picked out my clothes. A simple white cotton kurta, no embroidery. "It should be plain," she'd said, her voice hollow. "It should be nothing."
She was right. I felt like nothing. A walking void in a white kurta.
The car ride to the ghat was silent. Aunt Meera held my hand, but I couldn't feel it. My skin was numb. My brain was stuck on a loop: white kurta, white flowers, white heat.
The place was wrong. All wrong. Amit belonged in galleries and messy studios and rooftop parties with fairy lights, not on this dusty, smoky riverbank with the smell of sandalwood and endings.
People were there. A blur of somber faces. College people. Distant relatives I'd never met. Their eyes stuck to me like flypaper—pitying, curious. The girlfriend. The one left behind.
I saw Rajesh before he saw me. He stood near the front, a stark black figure against all the white and beige. He was talking to an official, his posture rigid, his face a mask of grim efficiency. Handling things. Of course he was.
Our eyes met across the crowd. His mask didn't slip, but something in his gaze sharpened. A question. A warning. I looked away.
Then I saw it. The pyre. A structure of rough wood, neat and waiting.
My knees liquefied. Aunt Meera's grip on my elbow tightened. "Breathe, jaanu," she whispered. But breathing meant smelling the smoke from other pyres, meant accepting this was real.
A murmur went through the crowd. They were bringing him.
A simple bamboo stretcher, covered in white cloth and marigolds. The same white cloth from the school.
My vision tunneled. The world shrunk to that stretcher, those flowers, the shape underneath.
They placed him on the wood. The priest began chanting, the Sanskrit syllables flowing like a cold, ancient river. Someone handed Dada-ji the clay pot. His old hands shook as he raised it.
The thud of the pot breaking. The final sound.
Then, the fire.
Dada-ji took the bamboo torch, his face a monument of agony. He touched the flame to the wood near Amit's head.
A soft whoosh. A crackle.
Then the flames leaped, hungry and gold and orange, swallowing the white cloth, the flowers, the shape of him.
Something in my chest broke open.
The numbness shattered. It was like someone had poured gasoline on the frozen void inside me and thrown a match.
The heat from the pyre hit my face, a dry, fierce kiss. I could smell the sandalwood ghee, the scent of his favorite incense, and underneath it, the darker, unthinkable smell of…
"No," I whimpered.
Aunt Meera pulled me closer. "Shhh, baby. It's his release. His soul is leaving."
But it wasn't. His soul was in the paint under my fingernails, in the playlist on my phone, in the echo of his laugh in my closet. It couldn't be in that fire.
The flames grew taller, roaring now. The smoke billowed up, thick and grey, carrying pieces of marigold into the sky. Carrying him.
My breath came in short, panicked hitches. The 5-4-3-2-1 exercise flashed uselessly in my mind. Five things you can see… Flames. Smoke. Mourners. Rajesh's black shirt. Ashes.
Four things you can feel… Aunt Meera's hand, sweaty. The heat, scorching. The cotton of my kurta, scratchy. The silver bracelet, burning cold.
Three things you can hear… The fire's roar. The priest's chant. My own heart, hammering let-me-out-let-me-out-let-me-out.
Two things you can smell… Sandalwood. And something sweet, cloying, wrong.
One thing you can taste… Ash. I could taste ash on the air.
A sob finally ripped its way out of my throat, raw and ugly. I doubled over, my hands on my knees.
"I can't," I gasped. "I can't watch this. I can't."
"You must," Aunt Meera said, her own voice thick with tears. "You must send him off. He needs your peace to leave."
But I had no peace. I had a wildfire of guilt and horror.
Through the blur of tears and smoke, I saw Rajesh again. He wasn't looking at the pyre anymore. He was staring at the crowd, his eyes scanning faces with a cold, calculating intensity. Not grieving. Investigating.
It made me furious. How could he be so detached? How could he treat this like one of his business puzzles?
The final part of the ritual came. The moment to circle the pyre. To say goodbye.
My legs were lead. Aunt Meera half-dragged me forward. The heat was intense, a physical wall. The crackle of the fire was deafening.
As we passed the head of the pyre, a gust of wind blew the smoke toward us. For a second, the flames parted.
I saw.
Not him. Not a body. But the dark outline of what was being consumed. The shape of a shoulder. A glimpse of the wood beneath turning black.
My stomach heaved. I tore away from Aunt Meera, stumbling to the side, retching violently onto the dusty ground. Nothing came up. I hadn't eaten in days.
A hand, cold and firm, gripped my arm, pulling me upright. Rajesh.
His face was close to mine, his eyes blazing not with tears, but with that same furious intensity. "Get it together," he hissed, his voice low and urgent under the roar of the fire.
"Don't touch me," I slurred, trying to shake him off. "You robot. You heartless, fucking robot."
"Heartless?" His grip tightened. "You think this is easy? Watching this? You think I'm not burning in there with him?" He jerked his head toward the pyre, his jaw a hard line. "But falling apart won't bring him back. Screaming won't answer the question."
"What question?" I spat, tears and snot on my face. "The question is answered! He's gone! He's ash!"
He pulled me closer, his mouth almost at my ear. The smell of him—expensive soap and cold rage—cut through the smoke. "The question is why," he whispered, the words a venomous promise. "And who. And I'm going to find out. But I can't do it if you're a puddle on the ground. So stand up. Look like you're grieving. And watch."
He let me go as suddenly as he'd grabbed me. I swayed, staring at him. The CEO. The stage manager. Now a general, seeing an enemy on a battlefield I didn't know existed.
He turned and walked back to his post, his back straight, a black sentinel against the hellfire.
I stood there, trembling. The heat dried my tears as soon as they fell. I looked back at the pyre. The flames were lower now. The shape was gone. It was just a mound of blazing orange and red, collapsing in on itself.
Amit was in there. His laugh, his eyes, his hands that held mine, the stupid yellow socks, the taste of turpentine kisses. All of it. Turning black. Turning to powder.
The priest's chanting reached a crescendo and stopped. The formal part was over. People began to shift, to murmur, to leave.
I didn't move. I watched until the flames died down to a bed of pulsating embers. Until the smoke thinned to a grey whisper. Until all that was left was a pile of glowing, unrecognizable ruins, slowly darkening.
The world hadn't just ended. It had been incinerated.
Aunt Meera came back, her face grey with exhaustion. "Come, jaanu. It's done."
I let her lead me away. As we walked past the cooling pyre, a final, gentle breeze stirred the ashes at the edge. A fine grey powder lifted into the air, swirling.
A fleck of it landed on the back of my hand, right next to his silver bracelet.
I stared at it. A piece of him. Cold. Grey. Final.
I didn't brush it away.
I got in the car. I looked out the window. Rajesh was still there, standing alone now, staring at the dying embers as the workers moved in with long hoses. His hands were clenched at his sides.
Not a robot. A volcano, sealed shut.
The car pulled away. The ghat, the river, the smoke, all receded.
But the taste of ash was still in my mouth. The cold fleck of it was still on my skin.
And the bracelet on my wrist felt heavier than the entire world.