Now, sitting in the silence of his "successful" life, Arjun tapped .
The progress bar crawled. 12%... 45%... 99%...
He held his breath and set the file as his default ringtone. Then, he placed the phone on the wooden table, walked to the kitchen doorway, and pretended to just be arriving home, tired, shrugging off his bag.
He’d been looking for this specific sound for seven years. Not a flute, not a piano cover—the raw, breathy warble of a mouth organ. The kind his father, Mr. Sharma, used to play on an old Hohner while waiting for Arjun to come home from late tuition classes.
Not because he wanted to answer the call. But because he finally understood: some ringtones aren't for picking up. They're for remembering that someone was once waiting for you to come home.
Arjun had left for the city ten years ago. The calls became texts. The texts became emojis. And two years ago, when his father passed, Arjun hadn’t even been there. He’d been in a meeting, phone switched off. The last voice note from his father was a two-second recording of him clearing his throat before saying, "Beta, don't forget to eat."
He dialed his own number from his laptop.