Evening crept over the NCR skyline, cloaking the city in a dusky veil tinged with melancholy. Clouds brooded above like unspoken griefs, and a silken drizzle softened the honking hullabaloo of rush hour. Neon lights flickered uncertainly, like wavering hopes in a city that rarely paused.

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As Nalini stood at the far end of the street, her maroon saree clinging damply to her ankles, her father’s voice echoed in her memory—a line he had often quoted in his quiet, chalk-dusted study:

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“The city hung like a garland of lights, blurred by mist…”

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He’d murmured Anita Desai’s words with the same reverence others gave to scripture. A professor of English, he had taught her how to see poetry even in pedestrian chaos.

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But tonight, the city didn’t seem poetic. It felt punishing. The pedestrian light blinked red—again—a cruel metronome to her rising anxiety. She glanced at her phone. No cab confirmed. The apps offered vague reassurances and sky-high surge prices.

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Each minute carved deeper into the worry lodged in her chest. Her three-year-old, Nayan, waited alone in the daycare across town. Most children had already been swept away by warm parental arms. Only her little boy remained—likely curled in the caregiver’s lap or staring out the window, waiting for the rhythm of footsteps he knew by heart.

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She had stayed up late. A deadline, a demanding client call, a presentation that could determine her promotion. Her job wasn’t ambition—it was survival. Since Arun had walked out three years ago, leaving behind half-hearted apologies and a smug message— “I’m not cut out for this life. Don’t hate me.” Nalini had learned to live with both silence and self-reliance.

Trust had become brittle. Even casual kindness felt counterfeit in a metropolis spinning on its own ruthless axis.

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Rain drizzled down, blurring her glasses. It couldn’t blur the ache in her chest. Was it the weather or worry that misted her eyes? She pressed her palms together, whispering a half-formed prayer into the grey dusk.

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Then came a voice. Quiet, unassuming, yet oddly steady. “Madam... need help?”

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Startled, she turned. A Zomato delivery boy stood beside her, helmet in hand, scooter idling at the curb. Rain clung to his stubble like dew on dawn grass. He was young—late twenties perhaps—with eyes that bore both storm and sunrise.

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“I... I need to get home. My son’s waiting. But no cab is showing up.” He nodded, unfazed. “I can take you. I’m headed that way.” She hesitated. “But you must have deliveries. I can’t—” He shrugged gently. “Food can wait. Family can’t.”

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There was something in his tone—firm, unflinching—that made her pause. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone, showing her a photo. A beaming five-year-old, dimples deep, stood holding a paper crown.

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“My son. Ayush. We adopted him from a shelter two years ago. Before that, life was... different.” His voice softened, shaped by memory. “My father died in a hit-and-run. We had no savings. No support. I left Bareilly with a tiffin box and a torn bag of dreams. Slept on station benches. Delivered flyers, milk, eventually food. On Diwali, Holi, even New Year’s—I worked all night. Ayush would say on video calls, ‘It’s okay, Papa. Come when the sky smiles again.’” He looked away briefly, as if to unclench something inside. “I always told him, ‘Soon.’ But I knew sometimes... soon is a story we tell the ones we love.”

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A silence settled—not awkward, but solemn. Nalini blinked. This wasn’t just a delivery boy. He was a bearer of brokenness moulded into quiet grace.

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She climbed onto the back of his scooter, unsure what moved her more—her desperation or the dignity in his eyes. As they zipped through shimmering streets, her saree fluttered like a torn flag of surrender. Rain drummed gently on her back. He drove steadily, navigating puddles and potholes with practiced empathy.

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“When I was ten,” lost in a pool of thought he recalled, “I saw my father give his umbrella to an old man in the rain. We walked home soaked. Amma scolded him. He just smiled and said, ‘Some shelters don’t need roofs—just hearts.’” “That night I learned: kindness isn't a virtue. It’s a vow.”

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Nalini sat quietly, her fingers gripping the scooter’s railing, her heart thawing in tandem with the clouds. Arun’s abrupt departure had left more than unpaid EMIs. It had left Nayan fatherless—and her, faithless. She had stopped trusting people. Stopped believing in morning miracles.

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Until now.

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At the daycare, a flickering tube light buzzed near the glass door. Nayan stood there, tiny fingers pressed against the pane, eyes wide with worry and wonder. The moment he saw her, he bolted—arms flung open like petals sensing spring.

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“Mamma!” he cried.

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Nalini dropped to her knees, enveloping him in a hug so fierce, even the rain seemed to pause in reverence. Behind them, the scooter idled—a soft lullaby on wheels.

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The delivery boy, still nameless, smiled. Then, wordlessly, he pulled out a crisp ₹100 note and slipped it into Nayan’s small hand. “For him,” he said, voice husky. “Tonight, I didn’t just deliver dinner—I delivered a mother to her son.”

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Nalini opened her mouth to thank him, but her throat swelled shut with emotion. When she looked up again, he was already gone—melting into the monsoon mist like a kindness the city might forget.

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But she wouldn’t. She stood there for a moment, smudged with rain and stillness, the world narrowing into that vanishing tail light and the soft warmth of her son’s breath against her neck. “Another world is not only possible; she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” Nalini hummed Arundhati Roy’ words spoken by her when she had attended a lit fest sponsored by their organization.

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She carried Nayan home, her arms aching but her spirit strangely light. As she tucked him into bed, he looked up with sleep-drenched eyes and asked, “Mamma, who was that man?” She smiled through the blur of grateful tears. “An angel with a red bag.”

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Later, standing on her rain-kissed balcony, the world felt hushed. Somewhere beyond the clouds, a silver slit had opened. A sliver of moonlight tiptoed through—hesitant, but hopeful. She folded her hands, murmuring into the soaked silence the words of Tagore:

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“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

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And for the first time in years, Nalini believed again—

in people,

in poetry,

and in the promise that even in the deepest drizzle,

deliverance would find its way.