P3 My Balcony Pigeons
8/2/2026
I don’t know how long I remained there.
The market below had finally surrendered to the night.
The tea stall closed.
The vegetable carts disappeared one by one.
A lone dog wandered into the middle of the road and curled up beneath a streetlight.
Even the unfinished buildings looked softer under the moonlight.
The steel rods, which always reminded me of broken bones during the day, now stood quietly against the sky like hands still praying for another chance.
The apartment next door had become unbearably silent.
Silence has weight.
That night, I could feel it pressing against the walls.
A few minutes later, I heard the sliding door of the neighbouring balcony.
Small footsteps.
Then another pair.
Diya.
And Rajat.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
I imagined them sitting exactly as I was.
One small plastic basket was dragged across the floor.
Tiny blocks spilled over the tiles.
The familiar click…
click…
click…
of plastic pieces joining together filled the night.
Diya had begun building.
Children have an astonishing faith in broken things.
Give them scattered pieces and they will imagine a house.
Give adults a broken house and they spend years imagining the pieces.
“This is our house, Papa.”
Her tiny voice floated across the gap.
“And this road…”
Another click.
“This shop.”
Another click.
“This is Mummy’s office.”
Another click.
“And this is the roof.”
She giggled.
“No… no…”
“This blue one will be the roof.”
More clicking.
I closed my eyes.
I could see everything without seeing anything.
A little girl sitting cross-legged.
Tongue slightly out in concentration.
Curly hair falling over her forehead.
Her father watching her with tired eyes.
Watching someone else build what he couldn’t.
A soft crash.
Plastic pieces scattered over the floor.
“Oooohhh…”
Diya exclaimed.
The innocent disappointment of a child whose little world had just fallen apart.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Only the faint sound of blocks rolling across the balcony floor.
Then Rajat called softly.
“Diya…”
“Haan, Papa?” (Yes, Papa?)
“Idhar dekho, beta.” (Look at me, dear.)
“Haan…” (Yes…)
There was a pause.
Long enough for me to hear my own heartbeat.
Then he spoke.
“Papa… sorry.”
“It’s okay, Papa.”
“You know what Papa is saying sorry for?”
“For breaking the blue roof?” she asked innocently.
He didn’t answer.
A few seconds passed.
Then I heard him break.
Not the blocks.
Him.
A muffled sob escaped.
Then another.
I knew he had pulled Diya close and buried his face against her tiny shoulder.
She didn’t ask him why he was crying.
She simply hugged him back.
After a while, I heard her little voice again.
“It’s okay, Papa.”
“We’ll make another house.”
That was all.
No questions.
No complaints.
Just a little girl who believed every broken house could be built again.
I felt something tighten inside my chest.
Suddenly every memory returned.
The grocery bags.
The faded shorts.
The torn T-shirt.
The sleepless eyes.
The bowl of payasam sitting untouched in my refrigerator.
The way he never argued.
The way he quietly waited whenever I blocked the staircase.
How quickly I had decided what kind of man he was.
Lazy.
Useless.
Rude.
I had mistaken silence for arrogance.
Maybe it had only been shame.
Maybe every unanswered greeting came from a man who no longer knew how to introduce himself after failing so many times.
Maybe he wasn’t avoiding conversations.
Maybe he was avoiding one simple question.
“What do you do?”
I remembered Neha’s words.
“He’s a good man.”
“So good…”
“…that he doesn’t know how to survive.”
The city continued as though nothing had happened.
A metro rumbled somewhere in the distance.
A motorcycle passed below.
Someone laughed from another building.
Life went on.
Only I wasn’t the same man sitting in that balcony anymore.
I couldn’t see Rajat.
I couldn’t see Diya.
The wall still stood between us.
But for the first time…
I saw them.
A father who kept losing every house he tried to build.
A daughter who believed there could always be another one.
The pigeons landed once again on the rusted steel rods of the unfinished building opposite mine.
They sat there peacefully.
On incomplete things.
Perhaps hope has always been like that.
It doesn’t wait for things to be finished.
It simply finds somewhere to sit.
I looked at those unfinished buildings.
At my little rose plant swaying in the night breeze.
Then I lowered my head.
Very quietly…
so quietly that only I could hear it…
I said,
“I’m sorry too.”