It begins not with a sound, but with the absence of one. The room still holding the echo of laughter, the residue of revelry, the shimmer of voices that rose and receded, of glasses set down too quickly, of bodies that leaned in just a little too close, of eyes that promised something and meant something else. And now, nothing. Just the low, lingering, liquid hum of the sea pressing itself against Bombay’s edges, as if the city is breathing in my place, because I have forgotten how. This—this quiet, creeping, consuming ache—has a name. Viraha. In the languages of the subcontinent, Viraha is not simply longing, not merely missing someone. It is the sacred, searing space between presence and absence. It is love stretched across distance, across time, across impossibility. It is the moment when you are fine all day—fluid, functional, forward—until you are not. It is the body remembering what the world has taken away. It is desire without destination, devotion without fulfilment. It is grief that glows, absence that arrives, loss that …