The building stood taller than the ones around it, still smelling faintly of wet cement and fresh paint, like it hadn't quite decided if it was finished being born. Around it, the older apartment blocks slouched with age, their balconies sagging under decades of laundry lines and pigeon nests. New money standing shoulder to shoulder with old memory. I liked that contrast. It felt like a metaphor I hadn't earned yet.
"You're doing the thing again," Neelam said, arms crossed, watching me stare up at the building like it owed me an explanation.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you go quiet and pretend you're thinking business, when really you're just admiring the building like it's a girl who finally said yes."
I didn't argue. She wasn't wrong.
The truth was simpler than romance, though. A new bill had passed weeks ago, and the government's policy shift had left the builder scrambling. His old backer had to step away, quietly, the way powerful men do when the wind changes direction, and to keep the project alive the builder needed a new partner. New partners want clean books and fast cash. Fast cash means discounts. Big ones.
Two apartments, top floor, side by side. One crore twenty five lakh, all in.
"That's insane," Neelam had whispered when I first told her the number, like saying it too loudly might scare the deal away.
"That's opportunity," I'd said. "Insane is just what opportunity looks like before everyone else notices it."
When the papers were finally signed and the keys sat heavy and cold in my palm, Neelam didn't say anything for a second. Then she hugged me so hard I nearly dropped them.
"Do you understand what we just did?" she said into my shoulder.
"Bought an apartment?"
"Bought two floors of sky, you idiot."
I laughed. It was, admittedly, a better line than mine.
The rest of the money, I told her, wasn't going to sit around getting lazy in a savings account. Some would go into stocks, some into another small business I'd been circling for months. "I want us worry-free," I said. "Not rich for a season. Worry-free for good."
"And which stocks?" she asked, eyes narrowing with the particular suspicion of a woman who has watched too many men lose money with confidence.
"Later," I said. "Today is for boxes, not tickers."
Moving day arrived with a small army of truck driver bhaiyas who, somewhere between the third floor and the sixth, decided they liked us. Maybe it was the way Shilpa greeted each of them by folded hands instead of a curt nod. Maybe it was that nobody in our family barked orders at them like furniture-moving was beneath conversation. Whatever it was, when we reached the final flight of stairs to the top floor, they refused the extra charge outright.
"Bas didi, itna kaafi hai." ("That's enough, sister, this is fine.") one of them said, waving off the extra notes like they'd personally offended him.
Three hours later, sweating, laughing, arguing about whether the sofa should go through the door sideways or diagonally (sideways won, diagonally was wrong, diagonally was always wrong), the boxes and furniture finally sat piled on the top floor like a small, cardboard skyline.
Shilpa took one look at the tired, grinning faces of the drivers and made a decision the way she always did, instantly, and without asking anyone's permission.
"Aaj lunch hamare taraf se," she announced. ("Today, lunch is on us.") "Bhaiji, aap logon ne itni madad ki, hum toh soch bhi nahi sakte the itni jaldi shift ho jayenge."
("You all helped us so much, we couldn't have imagined shifting this fast.")
"Nahi didi, zaroorat nahi," one of them protested weakly, the way people protest free food when they're already sitting down.
"Zaroorat hai," Shilpa said, already pulling out plates. "Baithiye. Bas itna samjho, agar aap log na hote toh yeh saara saaman humein khud utha kar, ghisat kar, roté hue upar lana padta."
("Sit. Just understand, if it weren't for you all, we'd have had to drag this stuff up here ourselves, crying the whole way.")
That got a laugh out of everyone, including me. There's something about a woman feeding tired men that turns strangers into family within the length of one meal. By the time the plates were empty, the drivers were leaning back, content in that specific, sleepy way that only follows good food and honest work.
"Bahut badhiya khana tha, sister," the loudest of them said, standing to leave, hand over his heart like he was swearing an oath to a temple deity instead of a lunch plate. "Aap logon ka bahut bahut dhanyawaad."
("That was excellent food, sister. Thank you so much.")
Another one paused at the gate, scribbling his number on a torn corner of newspaper. "Sister, yeh filmy city hai," he said, half-serious, half-joking. "Kabhi bhi zaroorat pade, hum basti ke paas hi rehte hain. Bula lena."
("Sister, this is a filmy city. Whenever you need help, just call, we live near the basti.")
Shilpa took the number like it was something precious, folded it, and tucked it into her purse. "Zaroor," she said. ("Absolutely.")