The rain was a relentless curtain, blurring the neon glow of the chai stall across the street. He sat hunched over a chipped ceramic cup, the steam doing little to warm his face. The air smelled of wet concrete, jasmine, and something faintly medicinal. Around him, the bustling marketplace had thinned to a trickle of hurried figures, their umbrellas bobbing like dark mushrooms. He wasn’t looking at them, though. His gaze was fixed on a single, flickering gas lamp, its light struggling to pierce the gloom. A half-smoked cigarette lay forgotten in the ashtray beside him, its ember a tiny, defiant spark against the encroaching darkness. He kept swirling the lukewarm liquid in his cup, a slow, repetitive motion, as if searching for an answer at the bottom. The silence, punctuated only by the drumming rain and the distant rumble of traffic, felt heavy, suffocating.