Chapter 1: The Wedding Night

When Madam married me, she was only seventeen!

The night of our marriage, as the ceiling fan whirred lazily overhead, a distant temple bell chimed midnight, blending with the fan’s whirr and the heavy velvet curtains muffled the horns of Lucknow. She squatted on the red-and-gold carpet beside my wheelchair, her wide, kohl-rimmed eyes sparkling with mischief and curiosity. She kept prodding me, her voice bold and teasing: "Aur neeche kuch mehsoos bhi hota hai, ya sab acting hai? Waise... woh sab kar paoge na? And tell me, Colonel, where do you hide that folding knife? What's with all these old scars on your hands? Are your legs really broken, or just making excuses to avoid kaam?"

As she fired off question after question, the icy hush of the Colonel’s Bungalow broke for the first time in years. The air seemed to shift; even the old portraits on the wall looked like they might lean in to listen. In that moment, she woke something inside me—a soul dulled by duty and loss, suddenly alert, as if someone had thrown open a window in a stuffy room.