There was a game Madhu used to play in eighth grade with her friends. It was called Loser's Luck and the idea was that a bunch of them would come up with the worst possible scenarios. Whosoever had their turn would have to shout that out in front of the entire class during break.

The lunch breaks of one week were so eventful, it was impossible for Madhu to eat her fried rice in peace without some random classmate shouting, "loser's luck! When I'm thirty my best friend is going to be a lizard and I'll lick her butt daily!"

When she found herself stranded on a deserted road in the middle of a forest, with a seemingly unconscious man in a crashed car, Madhu couldn't help but feel that this was a way of Loser's Luck coming true.

The absence of cell reception had made her mobile useless and her brain seemed to have given up on her.

Walking closer to the driver's side, she noticed that the pundit had no obvious signs of injury. If she didn't know better, she would've assumed he was sleeping.

Just as Madhu was about to prod him through the rolled down window, he moved and made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort, before loudly uttering the words, "HARI AUM!"

His voice was loud, the kind of voice priests develop after chanting complex mantras on a daily basis. It reverberated through the canopy of trees and Madhu stumbled back in alarm, feeling that atheists had a point when they claimed clergymen were unhinged.

Even after having created enough distance between herself and the pundit, Madhu stood rooted to the ground, transfixed, as she watched the middle-aged man step out and examine the place where the Maruti had hit the tree, clicking his tongue at the damaged bonnet. He was a plump guy, with round red cheeks and a circular dimpled chin, one that he was currently rubbing, as if in deep thought.

Chikki had started barking at the sight of the pundit. Out of the corner of her eye, Madhu could see him trying to wrestle free from his belt.

"I hope you're not hurt," came the voice of the man from over his shoulder, as he surveyed the punctured tires. "Lost your way huh Madhulika?"

Her mouth gaped open. "Did you jus...how do you know my name?"

He straightened up, caramel eyes doing a once over of her face. "Your nose."

"Pardon?"

"You inherited your father's nose," he said, looking amused at her shocked expression. "Mahesh and I were...what does your generation call it now?"

"Friends?" She made a tentative guess.

"Ah yes, friends! Best friends in fact. We grew up together."

Madhu finally relaxed. He was Papa's childhood friend, must still live in Bhabra too. She decided to trust him.

"Do you need a lift unc...eeh Kaka?" She almost said uncle but that word was too urban and sounded foreign here in the countryside, hence she switched to the traditional term instead.

"Yes, thank you beta!" He walked towards the trunk of his car and took out a small khadi bag. "My garage is just on the outskirts of Bhabra, I'll tell you the rest of the way."

And so, they set off, with the pundit telling her the directions and Chikki staring at the new intruder suspiciously. In less than thirty minutes, they had left the forest behind and were wobbling on the narrow road adjacent to bare fields.

"So, you're a mechanic? I thought you were a pundit."

"No, I'm just a devoted bhakt of prabhu, a servant of God."

She eyed the way he was playing with the prayer beads around his neck. "Right."

"They'll start sowing winter crops soon," he remarked. "Take the next left."

The garage was just at the turn's nook. Madhu stopped her car, craning her neck to have a proper look at the building.

It looked completely out of place amidst the rural background. The lone structure had large glass windows and looked cleaner than half the shops in Delhi. A large red banner read "Pavan N Sons Mechanics." A couple of bicycles were placed against the entrance for repair, the place was otherwise empty.

Her shrewd mind couldn't help but notice that this location was abysmal. Their business must be terrible. She didn't say that out loud of course.

He got out of the car and shut the door behind him, before bending down to tell her the rest of the instructions. "Just drive straight from here and you'll be in Bhabra within thirty minutes. Someone must be waiting for you there."

"Alright, thank you!" She called out, watching him walk towards the building.

It was only when she had driven a lot further away, when Pavan N Sons had disappeared out of periphery, that Madhu realised she had forgotten to ask for the name of her father's old best friend.

Darkness had fallen by the time she saw her first house and pulled over to double check the directions. It had unpainted brick walls, and a thatched roof made of grass and twigs. Dung cakes were plastered on the left wall, and the entrance had no door to it. A wooden pole was erected on the ground, tied to which was a goat.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

Madhu switched on her phone's flash to get a better look, only to spot a pair of bare feet disappear from the entryway. She moved her flash away and let out a gasp.

The goat was bleeding severely. Now that she had a better view, Madhu noticed the malnourished state of the poor animal. Her food, a bunch of fresh grass, was untouched and a half-full bucket of water was beside her. Deep purple bruises marked her white skin. Madhu had rescued enough stray dogs to know that those were given to her by a human hand.

"Excuse me, I know you're inside. I really need to know whether this is Bhabra or not."

There was no response, nobody came out. She waited for a good five minutes, half wanting to go back inside her car, but the other half thinking of ways to help the goat.

As Madhu stepped closer to examine her injuries, footsteps came rushing out of the hut.

They belonged to a woman wearing a battered sari tied higher than normal. She had raised an iron pan in one hand and was charging towards Madhu. Both her wrists were circled by chunky iron bracelets.

Madhu quickly backed away and her Nokia left her grasp, falling in the bucket. She raised her palms in the air. "I was just looking, didn't mean anything."

"You stay away from my Rani, you outsider! Don't you dare steal her now!" The woman gave her a frenzied look and shielded the goat, ironically named Rani, from Madhu.

"Please, I was just going to Bhabra, is this the right way?"

Spindly arms shakily lowered the pan, though she was still glaring at Madhu. Her eyes darted towards the Honda, narrowing when she saw Chikki napping on the back seat.

"This is Bhabra. But I've never seen you around. Who are you?"

Just as she was about to reply, a new, male voice interrupted her from behind.

"Madhulika?"

She turned around and was blinded by a sudden bright light. She couldn't make out his face, only taking in his large shadow behind the torches he was holding. Heavy footsteps crunched Rani's uneaten fodder as he stopped just a foot before Madhu. Seeing that she had closed her eyes as a response to the harsh light, he switched off both the torches, plunging all three of them into darkness so profound that even the full moon was of little help.

Paranoia was now starting to eat Madhu alive. This was proving to be a very long day and she regretted ever stepping a foot outside her home. Her phone was probably dead, her body was aching after driving for almost ten hours now, her empty stomach was growling, a madwoman wanted to knock her over with a deadly pan and she had just met the second stranger in two hours who somehow knew her name.

Even though this time, it was too dark for him to observe Madhu's nose.

"How do you know my name?"

The man ignored her. Handing one torch and a first-aid kit to the gaunt woman, he whispered what sounded like words of consolation, though Madhu's head was pounding too loudly for her to be sure.

"I waited for you on the highway for hours and when you didn't show up, I thought I had misread Thakur sahib's fax about you coming here today."

It took a moment for Madhu to realise that this was addressed to her. Eyes widening when she heard him stepping towards her, she swung her fist reflexively and it hit the first thing it could find. Hearing a loud grunt, she saw the man's dark outline stumble. Madhu snatched the second torch from him. Turning it on, she started walking backwards to her car, away from both of them.

"Stay away from me!" she screeched. "I swear to God if you take another step my dog will rip you apart."

To her utmost horror, the large man disregarded her words again. One hand still rubbing the spot on his neck where Madhu had socked him, he rushed towards her and held back the door before she could slam it shut.

Madhu was trapped. She had dropped the torch but the dome light inside the car showed that the man, who had bent down to her window, had his eyes glued to her mouth.

A sob escaped from her throat. "Please...please I'm sorry I went near the goat, please don't hurt me. You can take my money, please just let me go."

"I don't-want-your-money," he said slowly, enunciating every syllable carefully. His voice was scratchy and rough, as if he didn't use it much. He averted his eyes from her lips and started speaking more quickly. "And I won't hurt you Madhu. Don't you remember me? I'm Nakul, we used to play together."

The ringing inside her head muted when she processed those words. Faint memories of climbing trees and chasing a lanky boy flashed through the back of her eyes.

Her breathing became more levelled.

"Your father faxed me yesterday, saying that you would be arriving here today. I'm the caretaker of your house now."

He was looking earnestly at her. Glowing dark eyes, reflecting the soft yellow beams of her car's ceiling bulb, tried to communicate the sincerity behind his words.

"Nakoo, oh my God yes of course I remember, I just didn't recognise you." She relaxed visibly. "Can you drive to the house? I don't know the way."

He was again staring at her lips, replying many moments after she had stopped speaking. "Yes, yes I'll drive. Scoot."

Madhu did exactly that and a few seconds later, the engine revved. A heavy silence filled the car, so thick it could've been sliced with a knife. What do you say to a friend you haven't even seen for over two decades? There was no music to distract her either. Like an idiot, she had forgotten to take any recorded cassettes and there was obviously no radio network here. If only Chikki was awake, things would've been less awkward. But no, that useless doggy had slept throughout the entire fiasco and was still dog-snoring.

Strangely, Nakul didn't seem too affected by the lack of sound. Either that or he was just really concentrating on his task, which made sense given the path was getting narrower every minute.

"Do you still live here?" she asked him eventually, eyeing the defined veins of his muscular forearms. They seemed to belong in the posh gyms of her hotel, not here in the middle of nowhere.

His frame in general was well-built. Not buff no, but strong, the kind of strength which is acquired after years of hard labour, real labour, not lifting weights meaninglessly during fancy workouts. He had to slide the seat back all the way in order to comfortably hold the steering, and she estimated him to be nearing six feet.

Madhu was disappointed when he didn't answer her, didn't even look at her. She had many questions. The way he was driving with ease suggested he was familiar with automobiles. But where had he even learnt to drive if he hadn't ever stepped out of Bhabra? And if he had stepped out, why did he return? Why was he working as a lowly caretaker when, from what Madhu remembered, he wanted to make a name for himself? Even his clothing--a simple black tee over camouflage pants--looked oddly misplaced.

As they went further inside the village, the state of the houses got better. Walls had paint on them, cattle looked well fed and covered in sheds, roofs weren't thatched. Even though Bhabra was a relatively small village--with less than 200 families--the social stratification was clear. The good homes were in the interior, the bad on the outskirts.

Nakul hit the breaks in front of the best house of them all, aptly located in the nucleus of the village. It was at least a hundred metres away from its nearest neighbour and was surrounded by fields--land owned by her family, she realised with a jolt. The two-storied building stood imposing in the moonlight, towering over the surrounding agrarian landscape.

Nakul had parked right in front of the entrance and wordlessly left to remove her luggage from the trunk. Maybe he was feeling awkward after all.

Pursing her lips, Madhu got out of the car too. She woke Chikki up, and together, they followed Nakoo.

It had changed considerably since Madhu had left the place for good. A low perimeter wall enclosing the property had been erected. There was now a Litchi tree in one corner, but without any fruit since it was off-season. The renovated cattle shed was painted light blue like the rest of the house. Though it was semi-pakka­, with brick walls under a thatched roof.

She was reassured to see that the holy basil of Tulsi was still standing straight, just before the newly designed porch. Her mother had planted that when Madhu was five.

Stepping into the veranda, Madhu sighed in relief, for there was running electricity in the house.

"I've cleared out your mother's old room for you." Came Nakul's voice from her left. Now that there was sufficient light, she could see a thick patch of discolouration on his face, from the underside of his right eye till behind his ear, covering a good portion of his cheek. A burn scar.

"Thank you," she said softly. He had turned his back to her and didn't reply. She didn't know why, but that made her feel weirdly lonely.

Chikki had found himself a good spot beneath the swing on the Veranda and had fallen asleep again.

"Is there anything to eat here?" she called out after him.

He ignored her again, pulling the four-seater dining table in the middle of the room. This was getting too much now.

"Can't you hear me? I'm talking to you!"

Again, no response. He simply continued fiddling with the table mat.

Irked, she strode across the room and, grabbing his bicep, tried to turned him around.

He hardly moved, still rooted to the ground. Though he did turn to acknowledge her, raising one brow. They were barely a foot apart and his eyes fell straight to her mouth.

Madhu crossed her arms over her chest. "My eyes are up here, quit staring at my lips you creep."

He didn't listen, still squinting at her moving mouth, a calculative look on his face, before he replied "Well then how would I know what you're saying?"

"What do you mean?"

A second later, his eyes snapped upwards, looking directly into hers. "I'm deaf."

*Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humour before me, I go for here hear?*

--paraphrasing Fred Weasley.

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GLOSSARY:

Gaon - village
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What do you think of Bhabra? And Nakul and that mechanic/pundit?

I've included a picture of a traditional Indian house centered around an open courtyard, in case you were having difficulty in visualizing it. There are regional variations of course. For instance, the courtyard of the house in the image is tiled but the one in Madhu's ancestral home--like any other house in rural Uttar Pradesh--doesn't have tiles. The image is I think of a Rajhasthani house.