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Their rooms were always booked. People staying there never felt like they were staying at a hotel; all of them felt that Chandar and Pummy were old friends whom they were visiting. It was Ruskin Bond’s favourite place as well. He visited once a month to narrate stories to children.

Chandar and Pummy didn’t adjust with the world but had created a new one of their own inside Musafir Café; one where they didn’t have to adjust with the world, the world adjusted itself to them.

Whenever someone visited Musafir Café, they left something or the other of their own behind. Last year, an American was so impressed that he signed his entire property and five lakh dollars to Musafir Café. After that Pummy and Chandar made stay free for all. People staying there only had to pay for the food.

They had figured out that no matter how much one chased money, it would never come back and embrace them. Maybe that’s why the world’s wealth becomes insignificant in front of the happiness one finds in an embrace. Many times, one burns up one’s life slowly and steadily, in order to earn money. That’s why when the money piles up, it loses its meaning quite early in the process.

Chandar still hadn’t completely understood what his passion was, but Musafir Café had given him a purpose in life.

One fine day, Pummy asked Chandar a question after getting drunk. In fact, she would ask him such questions only when she was high.

‘So, what do you think?’

‘About what?’

‘When you had come here ten years ago, you were looking for the meaning of life. You must have found your answer now, so tell me. What’s the meaning of life?’

‘There is no meaning to life as such, we have to put one in it. It is this meaning which differentiates our lives, despite mostly being the same.’

‘In these years, didn’t you feel like meeting Sudha even once?’

‘I do, every day.’

‘Then why didn’t you go?’

‘I didn’t fit in her meaning of life, that’s why. Now don’t ask any more questions after this. I have lost my high.’

‘What do you think about adopting a child?’

‘Nice thought, do it.’

‘Okay, Chandar, tell me something honestly. May I ask?’

‘Don’t ask about asking a question, just ask it.’ Chandar was immediately reminded of something that Sudha said once upon a time.

‘Didn’t you ever feel like we should have a child of our own?’

‘No, never did.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Sudha lied on the phone that day. She didn’t abort the baby. She was good at acting, but not so much that it could fool me.’

‘How long have you known this?’

‘Around ten years now. I had called up the hospital to confirm.’

‘Still you didn’t feel like meeting your baby?’

‘I did; I feel like it every day. When I am narrating stories to the children, I feel like my child is sitting somewhere among them. I can see the faint glimmer of his face.’

Pummy started to stroke Chandar’s head. As if she was trying to put the child inside him to sleep and was softly telling him that everything would be all right one day.

If there’s anything worth giving in this world, it is hope. The hope that says, ‘It’s going to be fine one day.’ Maybe this world carries on only because people still hand each other this very hope. Knowingly or unknowingly, one can’t say.

Every person carries so much buried within him that if he vents it out honestly one day, the listener would lose his mind. If you stay with someone for too long, that person becomes a stranger. Pummy realized it in that very moment, and felt it too.

‘Why do you lie?’