I land in Delhi after two years. I wonder what is lost in the time I lost, of visiting my other home. The city feels haunted by moments I did not see. I go to the Lodi Road post office, a quaint red and white building, probably for the last time. 

I first went there almost 20 years ago with my father who was very keen that I open a PPF account—a desire that housed his anxiety about my dubious career choices, my worryingly uncertain future. The relief of my succumbing to this sensible behaviour was brief. I would always remember I had to put money in it on March 30 and then call my dad to do it, making him “run around at the eleventeenth hour!” as he would say.  After my father died, I should really have moved the account to Bombay. But it was one of those meaningless, impractical ways I held on to the memory of him. The result, as my father could have foretold with irritation, was that the account matured past its renewable date.