The Correct Posture at the Desk

You go. You buy the gift at the general store two streets over because the bigger shops are closed—a coloring book of zoo animals and a pack of four-sided crayons. It costs one hundred and twenty rupees. You knock just after nine. Their daughter, Riya, answers in a rumpled nightdress, her hair damp. Her mother, Anjali, calls from the kitchen, her voice warm over the sizzle of evening tadka. You hand over the gift. Riya stares. Anjali appears, wiping her hands on a towel, and gently prompts the thank you. You are back in your flat in under four minutes. The interaction is a neutral success. You eat dinner watching an old match replay.

Two days later, Mr. Iyer stops you in the shared courtyard. He mentions, almost offhand, that his company’s IT department needs someone for a special project—a migration with a brutal deadline. The pay is a significant bump. He says he thought of you because you seem like a reliable man. You apply. You get it. The project requires perfect posture, long hours, and a dedicated focus you’ve never needed to sustain. You buy a proper office chair with lumbar support. You stop your evening walks along the quiet lane behind the building because by the time you log off, your eyes ache and the light is gone.

The project lasts eight months. You do well. They offer you a permanent role leading a small team. It is not a question. You accept. The new salary means you can look at a bigger flat in a quieter complex. You do not look. You stay. You buy a better chair. You see Riya sometimes, coming home from school. She is taller. She does not say hello. You exchange polite, functional nods with the Iyers about building matters—the leaking gutter, the new security guard’s hours.

Five years in, you lead three teams. Your lower back has a permanent, low-grade stiffness that your physiotherapist in Ulubari calls an occupational inevitability. You schedule the appointments for Saturdays at ten. You have the correct posture. You are praised for your diligence. At a company dinner, a junior engineer asks how you got your start. You mention the project, the migration. You do not mention the coloring book. You do not remember the zoo animals. The Iyers moved to Pune two years ago. The new tenants are a young couple who both work in finance. You have never spoken to them.

Your old chair is in the storage room, beneath a stack of monsoon tarps. The cushion is permanently dented in the shape you no longer hold.