Pooja inhaled sharply. “This isn’t just factory photography.”
Yamini didn’t say anything.
The next frame was black-and-white, showing only hands. Hands shaped by years of skilled work. Callouses earned through handling tools and machinery every day.
A thin gold ring. And a faded thread bracelet.
Behind the hands, blurred softly, sat a child’s drawing taped to steel.
Pooja stared, looking speechless.
Yamini took it as a compliment because it really did take a huge effort to make someone like Pooja speechless.
Pooja then walked toward the final photograph, standing alone near the window.
Female workers stood together after shift change with helmets tucked beneath their arms. Sweat dripped down their faces as they laughed. They looked unapologetically alive.
“Yamini,” Pooja said slowly. “Do you know what you did?”
“They're documentary photographs,” Yamini said.
“No.” Pooja turned. “These make people feel something.”
Pooja turned to look at her. “These deserve an exhibition.”
Pooja pointed at the laughing woman. “This one alone. The light, the expression, the furnace behind her. I have seen award-winning work that does less than this photograph does.” She moved along the wall slowly. “This is your best work. You know it is.”
Yamini looked at the photographs.
She did know. She had known when she was taking them that particular feeling of the camera becoming an extension of something rather than a tool, of seeing something real and catching it before it disappeared. She hadn't felt that way about work in a long time.
“Tell me you’ll think about it,” Pooja insisted.
Yamini wasn’t sure right then. But looking at Pooja’s determined look, she nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good! Now let’s eat. I know you must have skipped lunch, just like you always do when you get into your work mode and lose track of time.”
Yamini smiled faintly and sat across from Pooja on the tall table.
Pooja narrowed her eyes immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Yamini replied.
“That is not a nothing face. You have been staring at the samosa and haven’t even taken a bite.”
Yamini looked away. “I’m not hungry.”
She was too angry to eat.
She had spent most of the day furious at Bharat Jogra. And at herself.
Bharat Jogra had forced emergency contraception, blood tests, contract rules, and heir timelines onto her as though she were discussing project milestones instead of children.
And yet, despite all that, when midnight came again, she had not locked the connecting door.
She had not told him to get out.
Because she didn’t want him to think her feelings got hurt. Or that she considered their marriage more than just a contract. She had allowed him to touch her.
