The Window Facing West

For everyone else, it was an old apartment with cracked tiles and poor plumbing. For Mrs. Devika Rao, it was the only place where evenings still arrived properly...

She refused every offer from her son to relocate. The reason was a small west-facing window beside the dining table. Each sunset poured orange light across the wall exactly where her husband once sat reading newspapers aloud.

After his death, silence occupied the chair. But every evening, when sunlight reached it, Devika would place tea there anyway. Neighbours considered it sadness. She considered it manners.

One day, construction began opposite the building. A tower rose floor by floor, threatening to block the sunset. Residents complained of noise. Devika complained of theft.

“They are stealing my light,” she told the builder.

He laughed politely. Laws allowed the project. Progress rarely asks permission from memory.

As the tower climbed, the beam of evening light narrowed week by week. Devika began waking early, restless and angry. Then she did something surprising. She wrote letters to every resident in the new tower before it opened. She described sunsets, grief, tea, marriage, and why light matters.

Months later, on opening day, she was invited upstairs. The top-floor…