Hema sat alone on the edge of her bed in the dim room of the joint-family house. The power cut had hit suddenly after dinner, plunging the entire old haveli into darkness. Outside her door she could hear distant voices of the elders calling for candles and matches, the usual scramble of a big household adjusting to no electricity. Her own lantern was not yet lit. She had been about to change into her night clothes when the heavy knock came.

The door opened before she could answer. Four figures stepped in, the glow of a single kerosene lantern casting long shadows across the walls. Ankit held the lantern high, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. Behind him came Rohit, Tarun and Mohit, all of them her cousins, all of them men who had grown up under the same roof, sharing the same courtyard, the same family name.