The next few days crawled by in a silence so suffocating that even the walls of the old haveli seemed to have forgotten what laughter sounded like. No one argued anymore. No one smiled either.

The house continued to function exactly as it always had...tea was prepared before sunrise, the cattle were fed, meals were cooked, utensils clinked in the courtyard, clothes were washed and spread beneath the warm sun but every movement had become mechanical, stripped of the warmth that had once made the bustling home feel alive.