The sound of wind chimes stirred him awake.
Soft, delicate, glassy tones rang out like distant temple bells in a dream. Only, these were sharper, cooler—foreign. The light filtering through the window blinds was not the hazy orange of Mumbai but crisp and white, the kind you saw in movies set somewhere far away.
Raghav Malhotra opened his eyes and stared at an unfamiliar ceiling. Smooth. White. No cracks, no cobwebs, no paint peeling in streaks. The ceiling fan was gone—so was the yellowed paint, the buzzing of mosquitoes, and the comforting smell of agarbatti.
He blinked again.
Where was he?
He sat up.
The room was... pastel blue. Neatly arranged. A poster of a cartoon spaceship hung above a desk. The bedsheets were printed with race cars and dinosaurs. A digital alarm clock blinked 7:03 AM in red blocky numbers. The furniture was too big for a dollhouse but too small for an adult. His feet barely touched the floor.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
He jumped out of bed, wobbled a bit, and stumbled toward a full-length mirror on the closet door. What he saw made him freeze in place.
A small boy stared back at him. Seven, maybe eight. Dusky brown skin, wide eyes, and thick black hair falling onto his forehead. His features were unfamiliar but not entirely foreign—like someone had pressed copy and paste over generations. His body looked… healthy, small, and light.
He leaned closer. The boy copied him.
He opened his mouth. The voice that came out was soft. Young.
"Yeh… kya ho raha hai?"
What… is happening?
His child's voice startled him. He gripped the edge of the dresser for balance. Sweat bloomed on his palms.
Then, with a dizzying rush, the memories came flooding back—the rain-slick Mumbai roads, the truck, the screeching tyres, the impact. The crash. The silence.
The applause.
"Take Two," the voice had said.
---------------------------------------------------------
There was a knock on the door, then a pause. It creaked open, and A man stepped in—mid-thirties, tall, square-jawed. r. Tall, with dark circles under his eyes and a day's stubble. His shirt was tucked in too neatly. His posture is too stiff.
"Morning, Ayaan. You up?"
The man offered a polite smile, more habitual than warm. In his hand was a travel mug of coffee; a black leather briefcase swung from his shoulder.
"Eat something, yeah? I've got an early call. There's cereal on the table."
Raghav blinked at him. Ayaan?
The man waited for a reply, then sighed. "We'll talk later."
He left. Footsteps retreated down a hallway. A door opened and closed. An engine started. A car rolled out of the driveway.
Silence returned.
Raghav—no, Ayaan, as he now understood—stood motionless in the centre of the room.
He walked to the window. Beyond it stretched a quiet suburban street lined with identical houses, green lawns, and humming sprinklers. A white picket fence ran along the sidewalk—a mailman passed by, whistling.
This wasn't Mumbai.
This wasn't India at all.
--------------------------------------------------------
He padded barefoot into the hallway, exploring. The house smelled like detergent and toast—clean and unfamiliar.
He already missed his old apartment. There was no spice in the air from the neighbour cooking. No sounds of pressure cookers hissing through the wall. No faint echo of street vendors shouting from below.
He passed family photos on the wall.
One showed Ayaan's father—clearly the man from earlier—standing next to a striking woman in a bright red dress. She was blonde, with light eyes and a dazzling smile. His arm was around her waist, but their bodies leaned ever so slightly apart.
And between them stood a boy—this body—smiling awkwardly as if he didn't quite belong to either world.
The picture was dated 1995.
Raghav stared.
That woman—his mother in this life—was not Indian. Not even South Asian. She looked British. European.
A slow realisation crept in:
He had been reborn as a British-Indian boy—with a white, likely American or English mother and a father of Indian origin. And they had lived, at least recently, in California.
Ayaan Malhotra. Born of two cultures. Living in a third.
And now, carrying the soul of someone else entirely. Well, this is going to be interesting.
--------------------------------------------------------
The kitchen was sterile. White countertops, a silver fridge, and no spice rack in sight. On the table sat a plastic bowl of dry cereal and a note scribbled in neat capital letters:
"SORRY I LEFT EARLY. MEETINGS TODAY. CEREAL IS FINE. LOVE, DAD."
Raghav sniffed the cereal suspiciously. It crunched like paper and tasted like sugar. He poured in milk from the fridge, which chilled his tongue and sent a shiver down his spine.
He missed chai. Masala. Warmth. Something real.
He wandered to the fridge and found magnets from Disneyland, a few sticky notes, and a crayon drawing of a family of three. The mother had angel wings. The child had a sad face drawn with blue crayon tears.
Raghav stared.
The mother was gone.
Dead? No… left.
There was no mourning here—no framed photos with garlands. Just absence. It was like someone had erased her and told the family to carry on.
----------------------------------------------------------
That afternoon passed in a haze. Ayaan/Raghav flicked on the television and cycled through cartoons, commercials, and American news.
"President Clinton faces new questions over White House intern…"
"Titanic continues breaking box office records…"
1997.
The year before Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The year he had just turned 23 in his last life. Now he was 7.
Reborn in the past. A British-Indian-American child living in Los Angeles.
Raghav—Ayaan—sat cross-legged on the floor, watching Power Rangers with a sense of numb awe. It was strange how normal everything felt, even while his insides screamed.
Who Was Ayaan Malhotra?
He found a school folder in the corner of the room with a red plastic name tag:
"Ayaan Malhotra — Grade 2 — Willow Springs Elementary."
Inside were half-completed math problems, doodles of airplanes, and a letter to "Mum" that had been crumpled and left unsent.
"Dear Mum, I hate you for going. Dad says you loved us, but if you did, you wouldn't leave. I miss the way you used to make pancakes. I still remember the song you sang when I was sick. Why did you go? Why did you pick him instead?"
Raghav folded the note gently.
His new life wasn't just a blank page—it was a torn one.
This child, Ayaan, had been left behind by a mother who had traded her family for someone richer, someone newer. The father—his father now—wasn't cold by choice. He was a man trying to survive heartbreak by becoming invisible.
And now Raghav had stepped into this silent battlefield of a home, carrying the memories of a life that had already collapsed once.
-----------------------------------------------------------
That night, lying in the small bed beneath glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling, Raghav felt the weight of both lives pressing down on him.
His body was tired—genuinely tired in the way only children feel, heavy-limbed and sunken. But his mind was alight.
He remembered everything: the dusty balconies of Mumbai, the radio playing Kishore Kumar at 6 AM, the feel of monsoon rain on his face as he walked home from failed auditions. His mother's hand on his forehead when he had a fever. His father's silence after each rejection.
That man—his real father—would never know he was gone.
He felt tears rise, uninvited, and fall hot down his cheeks.
"Main abhi bhi yahin hoon, Ma," he whispered.
"Kahin aur. Kisi aur ke roop mein. Par main hoon."
I'm still here, Ma. Somewhere else. In someone else's form. But I'm here.
End of Chapter 2