It was Diwali 2015, in Dadar, Mumbai and it was about as cold as it ever got. The mercury was hovering in the mid 20s and a cold rain, driven by a wind was falling all over the area. There were reports of flooding at some places and it dampened people’s celebratory mood. There were even cautious predictions that as the rain continued to drop in the late evening and early morning hours that flooding might occur in Dadar itself. If true, this would be an extremely rare occurrence. At an average elevation of forty feet, Dadar had only received measurable rainfall six times that year. And never had it rained on Diwali.

Harischandra Sabharwal was twenty-seven years old on this most frigid evening. As he drove his battered, eight-year-old Maruti Alto home from his parent's house just before nine o'clock, his nostalgia for a possible warm and bright Diwali was being overridden by the fact that he was freezing his ass off. The Alto's heater had given up the fight about two months ago for reasons unknown and, as a struggling post-graduate student at Mumbai University, he couldn't afford to even have anyone diagnose the problem, let alone fix it. He was shivering madly as he drove through the wet and mostly deserted streets, peering myopically through a windshield clouded with condensation from his exhalations. His only consolation was that the tape deck still worked. It was currently cranking out track three of one of his favourite albums of all time: Euphoria’s Mehfuz. Those hometown boys really knew how to rock. It was a shame about what had become of them a few years before.

The neighbourhood Harischandra lived in was not one of the best. It was in the suburb of Khar, in an area constructed in the early sixties. His street was called Abhimanyu Avenue and consisted entirely of duplexes that had been converted to rentals more than a decade before. It wasn't exactly a mansion in the sky but it was all he could afford on the bank teller's salary he was being paid while working on his Master's Degree in structural engineering. He lived in the left half of the duplex and shared a large driveway with the right half, which was occupied by a twenty-nine-year-old woman named Indrani Phadnis and her six-year-old daughter, Ishana. Indrani — or Indu to her friends — was a medical assistant who worked in a large, private practice in Colaba. A gorgeous, well-built hottie who only displayed a few of the intelligence shortcomings usually associated with people of her hair-colour which was dyed red, Harischandra had been more than infatuated with her since the moment he'd moved in just over nine months before.

Harischandra was prepared to be upset and irritated as he turned down Abhimanyu Ave. and drove the last two hundred meters to the driveway. Indu had told him several days before that her so-called "boyfriend" (she had even been known to refer to him as her "fiancé" a few times), Dr. Saurabh Balay, would be visiting on Diwali in order to help her set up fireworks and presents for Ishana and to bask in the love of his future family. She had been very excited about this prospect, especially after the hurtful fiasco she'd endured just the week before at their office Diwali party. Whenever the ultra-charming, ultra-rich, and ultra-married Dr. Balay showed up at Indu's place for one of his visits he always parked his BMW in the left side of the driveway, the part that belonged to Harischandra, thus blocking Harischandra's access to his garage.

This parking problem was an issue that, months before, had already been discussed, compromised over, settled, and then the settlements disregarded. Dr. Balay refused to park his BMW on the street in "a neighbourhood like this". As to why he thought someone would not break into his car because it was in the driveway, where it could not be observed from inside Indu's house, but would break into it out on the street, where it could be observed, had never been adequately explained. Indu, trying to keep the peace with her "duplex-mate", as she called Harischandra, had promised that when Dr. Balay was coming over she would move her car out into the street so the good doctor could park on her side of the driveway, thus leaving Harischandra's side free and clear. It was a good plan on paper but somehow it never seemed to work out in practice. It was at least a weekly event that Harischandra would come home from work, or from school, or from the library and find Indu's car and Dr. Balay' BMW parked side by side, blocking his garage door entrance. He knew better than to knock on Indu's door at times such as these because it wouldn't be answered. The doctor did not show up at her house to sit on the couch and watch television, after all.

Harischandra generally just sucked such events up and let them go. He would park his own car on the street until the doctor left and then move it into the garage where it belonged. If he did talk to Indu about it later it was never in a stern manner. He found it impossible to remain mad at Indu once he was actually in her presence and looking at that long black hair, at the shape of that gorgeous body, once he was listening to that sultry, sexy voice coming out of her mouth. Perhaps if she had been a stuck-up bitch like most of the truly magnificent women Harischandra had been acquainted with throughout his life it might have been different. But Indu was far from a bitch. She was one of the sweetest, good-hearted women Harischandra had ever met and she liked Harischandra, not in that way unfortunately, but as a friend and confidant. They talked often and well, usually during the early evening hours on nights that Dr. Balay couldn't seem to make an appearance. She invited him to have dinner with her and Ishana a few times a month and he did the same for them. She told him of the frustrations she sometimes had to deal with in this "unconventional relationship" she was involved in. More than a few times she had cried on his shoulder after Dr. Balay had cancelled plans with her at the last moment or just failed to show up when he was expected or, most common, had been forced to delay the serving of the divorce papers to his wife for any number of financial, familial, or legal reasons.

"Sometimes, when I'm really feeling depressed about this," she had confided to him just last week as she'd cried on his shoulder about the Diwali party debacle in which he'd showed up with his wife on his arm and had happily danced the night away with her while completely ignoring Indrani all night, "I start to wonder if he isn't just using me for sex."

Harischandra had been able to suppress a sharp, contemptuous laugh from emerging from his mouth but he hadn't been able to suppress a roll of the eyes. Fortunately, her face had been buried in his shoulder at that moment and she'd missed it.

And, of course, the good doctor had charmed his way back into her graces the very next day by buying her a pair of diamond earring and explaining to her that his wife had insisted on going to the Diwali party and that he had to pretend to be happy so as to avoid fuelling the rumours that were already passing around the office about he and Indrani. She had known going into this that they couldn't reveal their love for each other until the time was right, hadn't she? She had agreed that she had and Dr. Balay' BMW had remained in the driveway until well past Harischandra's bedtime that night, forcing him to leave his Alto out until the morning. When Indu talked to Harischandra the next day she gleefully told him that the doctor had told her that the strife between himself and his wife had now reached the intolerable stage and he'd promised her that he would start looking into the divorce proceedings as soon as the new year began. By this time next year, that divorce would be complete and she would be the new Mrs. Balay. And furthermore, she had added, Dr. Balay had talked the current Mrs. Balay into taking their three children to Colaba for the holiday and that he, Dr. Balay, would be staying home.

"He said it'll be just like we're family," Indu had explained excitedly. "He'll come over for Diwali and we'll have a big dinner and sit in front of the fire and let Ishana open some of her presents and then, after she goes to bed he'll help me set up all the Santa things. In the morning we'll get up early and watch her open everything and then have Diwali dinner together. Oh, Harischandray, it's like a dream come true for me."

"That sounds great," Harischandra had said, feeling the familiar stab in his own heart he felt whenever she forgave and forgot the sleazebag adulterer's latest escapade.

But now, as the duplex came into view, Harischandra saw that the left half of the driveway was conspicuously empty of a BMW. The entire structure was lit up with the twinkling Diwali lights Harischandra himself had put up a few weeks before (complete with a large, inflatable decoration that was now blowing precariously back and forth in the gusty wind) but there was no doctormobile to be seen. Had he not shown up yet? Was he here as planned and had taken his 'future family' out for a ride? Or had he flaked on her yet again? As Harischandra pushed the remote control button on his dashboard and waited for the garage door to roll up on its track, he thought that the flaking out theory was, by far, the most likely. After all, Dr. Balay had a long history of flaking out even on non-holiday promises. Harischandra tried not to savour the gleeful emotion that accompanied this thought but he really couldn't help it.

He pulled his car into the garage and then unloaded the leftover chicken, stuffing, and sweet potatoes his mother had insisted he take home with him. He walked into the house and found that his heater in here had apparently decided to give up its battle against the elements as well. This was hardly surprising. The heater worked fine when the temperature was in the fifties outside.