She turned her phone off.
She looked at the screen, then at the river. In the distance, a priest was performing the Ganga Aarti , swinging a giant lamp on a chain. Seven flames danced in the dark.
She had come home, not to a house, but to a feeling. Her grandmother, Amma, still lived in the creaking, four-story family home where the Ganges flowed just a few hundred meters from the back door. For the first time in five years, Ananya was staying for the entire month of Chaitra.
That night, sitting on the stone steps of the ghat as the Ganges flowed black and silent under a blanket of stars, Ananya had her epiphany.
