It was raining in Mumbai. Not the charming drizzle that inspires poetry, but the relentless, bucket-over-the-head sort that turns streets into rivers and replaces fancy cars on streets with life-boats.

Rohan Kapoor, 34, investment banker of some repute and notoriety and proud owner of a penthouse in Parel far too big for its occupants, was stranded indoors. Ordinarily, Rohan thrived on boardrooms, beat deadlines, and simply loved the intoxicating whiff of money being made. But three days of rain had stripped him of his armour and left him staring at his own furniture like a prisoner counting bricks.

His wife Rashmi, a software engineer, was away in London for two weeks dazzling the tech world with her ingenuity. Their three-year-old daughter Anayra was safe with her grandparents in Navi Mumbai who wouldn’t trust their son-in-law with babysitting at all. And Rohan found himself stranded alone at home, bored, and adrift.

By the third day, in a fit of desperation, he decided to do what men of boredom and faint self-importance have done since the invention of the telephone: call people under the noble pretext of “checking in.”

“Just making sure you’re safe in this dreadful rain,” he informed one acquaintance, who was so startled by the sudden benevolence that he almost spit out the delicious fafda he was gorging on.

Scroll after scroll, number after number, until his thumb stumbled on a name that made him pause and groan: Sudha.

He hadn’t spoken to her since their break-up seven years ago, a break-up that had all the elegance of a bull exiting a china shop. But the rain does peculiar things to men, and before he knew it, his thumb had dialed.

The phone rang, clicked, and then — that voice. “Hello?”

“Hi. Sudha?”

There was a pause, then a laugh. Dry, amused. “Well, well. It is just like getting a call from a man who thought other people’s birthdays were optional.”

Rohan ignored the jibe. He cleared his throat. “I was just calling around to check on people, you know, with the rains and all. Making sure everyone’s safe.”

Another laugh, sharper this time. “You? Checking on people? Forgive me, but that’s like hearing a cat has taken up lifeguarding.”

Rohan bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” she said, with exaggerated patience, “you were always the most self-centered man I’ve known. That’s why we broke up.”

“That’s absurd,” he snapped. “You said we broke up because I was too busy with work. Not this… nonsense.”

“Oh, don’t be so literal, Rohan. Work was just the polite word. The translation is: You only ever noticed yourself.”

“I beg your pardon! That is a gross mischaracterization. I …”

“If only you had figured it out back then,” she interrupted sweetly, “we might still be together. But subtlety was never your strong suit.”

At that moment, a man’s voice called from her end. “Sudha, who’s on the phone?”

“That’s my husband,” she replied brightly, then added with a smile Rohan could almost hear: “We are hosting a little party for neighbours stranded by the rains. Real people, real lives, you know? Anyway, thanks for checking in, dear. And I must say I am grateful and blessed. Because that is exactly what you would want me to say, isn’t it?”

And before he could summon a retort, the line went dead.

Rohan stared at the phone, stunned. The rain outside lashed the windows with what he could only interpret as mockery.

That night, he didn’t sleep. He tossed, turned, interrogated the ceiling fan for answers, and finally decided to fact-check this insult. The next morning, he called three of his closest friends and demanded brutal honesty. To his horror, they all agreed with Sudha. Self-centered? Yes. Oblivious to others? Absolutely. Loving? In his way, perhaps — but always the axis of his own universe.

The revelation hit harder than a market crash. If Sudha and his friends thought so, did Rashmi too secretly feel the same, suppressing it to keep the peace? He knew this has to change.

For ten days, Rohan Kapoor, deft at mergers and acquisitions and the conqueror of IPOs, suddenly found himself attempting domestic revolutions. He folded laundry (badly). He read bedtime stories to Anayra over video calls (she preferred her grandmother’s versions). He even dusted the furniture (shifting specks of dust from one square feet of the house to other). Yet, in these fumbling efforts, he found, to his astonishment, a quiet satisfaction. For once, life wasn’t about him.

By the time Rashmi returned from Frankfurt, jet-lagged and suitcase in tow, Rohan had prepared not only a meal for her, but also a letter – a full written confession cataloguing his faults and pledging to change.

One look at the dal and she knew it wasn’t the usual one that their cook made for them. She raised her brows at the candlelit table. “You cooked?”

“Yes. I have realized things,” he said gravely. “I have been selfish. Everything has revolved around me. And I don’t want that anymore.” He handed her the folded letter. “I wrote it all down.”

She read silently, expression unreadable. When she finished, she folded it neatly, placed it on the table, and gave him that half-smile, the one that managed to be both kind and faintly amused.

“Rohan,” she said softly, “do you realize this entire letter is still about you? You wanted to confess. You wanted to change. You wanted to be forgiven. Every line begins with I. Honestly, it reads like a business pitch for your own sainthood.”

He gaped. “What? No! I meant …”

She raised her hand gently. “It’s alright. Maybe being aware of it is the first real change. And in marriages, things change quietly, sometimes over several years. Needs don’t always arrive with words. If you really decide to change, I’ll know. You don’t have to announce it.”

He sat there, speechless.

She leaned back, chuckling softly. “Though I must admit, I am impressed. You survived two weeks without me and discovered laundry, bedtime stories, and dal-chaval. That’s practically spiritual enlightenment for you.”

Rohan stared at her, then burst out laughing – partly in relief, partly because he knew she was right.

The candle flickered. The rain softened. And in that silence – and laughter – something subtle did shift.