(*"Meet during a power cut"*)
Keonjhar didn't get monsoon. Monsoon got Keonjhar.
In July 2018, it rained like the sky had a personal grudge. Arnav was 16, in Class 11 at SSVM School, and currently stuck on the concrete roof of his two-storey house because he'd gone up to bring down the clothes and the stairs had turned into a waterfall.
"Arnav! Beta, neeche aao, current chali jayegi!" His Ma shouted from the kitchen.
"Coming, Ma!" he lied. The truth was, he couldn't come down. His Hawai chappals had zero grip and the last time he tried, he'd nearly become a news headline: _Local Boy Slips, Meets Yamraj_.
Lightning cracked. The power went out across the block. Every house went dark, then came alive with candles and phone torches.
That's when he heard it. A laugh. Not the polite, school-assembly laugh. A real one, the kind that escapes when you're not trying to be good.
He looked across to the neighbor's roof. 4 feet away, separated by a narrow gap that every mother in the colony had warned them about.
A girl stood there with a steel bucket, collecting rainwater, absolutely drenched, school shirt sticking to her arms, hair in a hasty braid that was losing to the wind. She was holding her phone torch in her mouth, trying to aim the bucket, and failing.
She saw him watching. Instead of getting shy like girls in his class did, she rolled her eyes. Took the torch out of her mouth.
"If you're going to stare, at least help. This is for Amma's tulsi."
"I'm literally trapped," Arnav said. "If I move, I'll die and my Physics notebook will be orphaned."
"Drama." But she set the bucket down, walked to the edge of her roof, and stretched her hand out. "Give me your hand. Step over. My side has grip. My baba fixed it last summer."
"No way. My Ma will kill me. 'Sharma ji ki beti ke saath roof hopping' is not in the approved syllabus."
"It's 4 feet, Arnav. Not the India-Pakistan border. Come on, before your Ma sends a search party."
He didn't know how she knew his name. He'd seen her, of course. New neighbors from May. Daughter of the new bank manager. Class 11, DAV School. That was the extent of his data.
He took her hand. It was cold from rain and stronger than it looked. One terrifying step later, he was on her roof.
"I'm Meera," she said, like he hadn't just risked his life. "And you scream like a little kid when you jump."
"I did not scream."
"You did. Pitch of a C-sharp. I do classical."
The power came back right then, throwing yellow light from her kitchen onto the wet roof. For one second he saw her clearly: big eyes, annoyed eyebrows, a tiny scar near her left eyebrow, and a smile she was trying to suppress.
"Your bucket," he said, to say something.
"Right." She went back to filling it. "You can go home now. The brave journey back awaits."
He didn't move. Rain was easier to stand in when someone else was also getting wet. "Why tulsi water? Tap water works."
"Amma says rain water makes tulsi happy. And happy tulsi means happy house. Science won't explain it, topper saab."
"How do you know I'm a topper?"
"You got 98% in 10th. My Ma got it from your Ma at the sabzi mandi. Mothers have a faster network than Jio."
He laughed before he could stop himself. "What did your Ma trade? Your percentage?"
"97.2," Meera said, without shame or pride. Just fact. "But I got 100 in English. You got 92. So."
"So you win."
"So we're even." She lifted the bucket. "Go home, Arnav. Before both our mothers declare war."
He went. But at the stairs, he turned. "Thanks. For the C-sharp rescue."
She saluted with her free hand. "Anytime. Roof helpline is open 24x7 during monsoon.