The Photocopy File

By the second morning of the year, the fog behaves like someone who has overstayed—still present, but thinner at the edges, pretending it always meant to leave.

Priya stands at the stove turning yesterday’s aloo sabzi with a spoon that is slightly bent from old arguments with pressure-cooker lids. The kitchen window is beaded with moisture. When she leans close, she can see the courtyard through it in soft focus: the neem tree, the hand pump, and a patch of pale sun that looks unsure of itself.

Her phone sits on the counter beside the salt box, face down like a child sulking. She flips it over with the back of her fingers so her hands don’t pick up the cold of the screen.

Two missed calls from Sana. Then a voice note, timestamped early.

Priya presses play and holds the speaker to her ear. Sana’s voice comes out bright and impatient, as if mornings should move faster out of respect for her plans. “Aaj nikaal lena, yaar—form ka kaam. Baad mein phas jaayegi.” Today, get it done, yaar—hey, friend—the form work. Later you’ll get stuck.

The sentence lands in Priya’s stomach like a coin dropped into a tin: small, metallic, loud in a quiet room.

She keeps the flame low and listens again, not because she didn’t hear it, but because repetition makes tasks feel more real. In the background of Sana’s message there are other sounds—an iron hissing, someone calling for a towel—evidence that even other houses have their own lists.

“Sunita,” Rakesh says from the room, voice thick with sleep. He has woken for water, not conversation.

Sunita answers from the courtyard, where she is shaking a bedsheet with short, efficient snaps. “Haan?”—yes?

Priya hears the steel tumbler clink. A swallow. A sigh. The house rearranges itself around the fact that her father is awake.

On the shelf above the trunk is the plastic folder where Priya keeps papers the way other people keep jewelry: carefully, with a kind of respect. She takes it down and opens it on the bed.

The folder exhales a smell of ink and old photocopies.

Inside are her admit cards in their own sleeve, her Class 12 marksheet in another, an Aadhaar photocopy with the corners curling, and a couple of passport-size photos that are slightly too glossy and slightly too old. In the photos, her hair is longer and her face is the same but also not—the way faces change quietly when you stop looking at them every day.

She taps the photos with her nail. There is always a question with forms: will this be acceptable, or will someone in an office decide to make you redo the whole thing for the sake of a rule they didn’t even write?

Arjun wanders in, rubbing his eyes, wrapped in the blanket like a reluctant monk. He looks at the open folder and immediately looks away, as if paperwork is contagious.

“Again forms?” he asks.

Priya keeps her voice light. “Just two photocopies. Don’t panic.”

“Not me,” he says, and yawns so widely it looks like an opinion.

In the courtyard, Sunita steps into the patch of sun and holds her palms out, as if bargaining with warmth. Priya watches her for a second and then makes her decision. Waiting feels easier than doing, but it always charges interest.

She carries the folder to the courtyard and slides it into her cloth bag the way people hide money: close to the body.

Sunita follows her with her eyes. “You’ll go now?”

Priya nods. “I’ll come back before lunch.”

Sunita doesn’t say be careful—that is not their style. Instead she says, “Take a sweater,” as if sweaters are the true protection.

The lane outside still smells like wet dust. In winter, even familiar smells become sharper, as if the cold polishes them. Priya walks toward the bus stand with the plastic folder bumping gently against her hip, a steady reminder that she has chosen movement.

At the chai stall, Chai Uncle is pouring tea with the calm authority of someone who has done this through every season and every kind of news.

He sees her bag and lifts an eyebrow. “Paper day?”

Priya smiles. “Paper day.”

He pours a small cup without asking, the way he would for someone he has watched grow up in portions. She wraps her hands around it. The cup burns in the good way.

“New year started with milk,” he says, as if he has read the first chapter of her life out loud. “Now it starts with photocopy.”

Priya snorts. “It always starts with photocopy.”

He laughs, pleased, and points his chin toward the road. “Go early. Sharma Ji becomes less human after eleven.”

The bus stand is awake in layers: first the men with newspapers tucked under their arms; then the women with vegetable bags and children; then, later, the students who arrive like a sudden flock. A shared auto honks with optimism. A bus idles and coughs.

Priya chooses the market lane instead of Lucknow proper; the cyber shop is close enough to walk, and today she wants the comfort of familiar corners. The market is opening one shutter at a time. A vendor is arranging guavas like green eggs. Somewhere, a radio insists on an old film song, tinny but determined.

Sharma Ji’s shop sits between a stationery shelf and a display of phone covers that are brighter than anyone’s mood at nine in the morning. The signboard says photocopy and online forms, but the shop itself always looks like it is busy being something else.

Inside, the air is warm with the smell of toner.

Sharma Ji is there, already irritated at the idea of customers, which is impressive for a man whose business depends on them.

He looks up when Priya steps in and then, as if recognizing her papers, lets out a sigh that is almost permission.

“Form?” he asks.

Priya sets the folder on the counter and opens it carefully. “Just print and two copies. And… maybe you can tell me what else they’ll ask.”

He makes a small noise—half complaint, half pride—and pulls the folder toward him.

“Everyone comes like this,” he says, flipping through her documents. “No login, no password, only tension.”

Priya laughs because it is true.

He points at the old photo with his pen. “Photo is old. They might reject.”

“Really?” Priya says, even though she already suspects it.

“They like fresh faces,” Sharma Ji says. “As if you can change your face according to the form.”

He gestures to the plastic stool in the corner. “Sit. Network is slow. Printer is… moody.”

Priya sits, balancing her bag on her lap. On the wall above her is a list of services handwritten in thick marker: Aadhaar update, PAN apply, exam form, railway ticket. It reads like the entire country squeezed into one counter.

Sharma Ji clicks his mouse, waits, clicks again. The old computer fan makes a sound like a distant train.

Outside, someone drags a metal shutter up with a screech. A child laughs. The market wakes a little more.

After ten minutes, the screen finally loads the page Sharma Ji wants. He types with two fingers, stabbing each key as if it has insulted him.

“You have email?” he asks.

Priya gives him the one she uses for everything—an old account she made years ago because someone said forms need email. She doesn’t check it unless a form forces her.

He asks for a phone number. She gives it. Then, as he scrolls, he starts listing requirements in a rhythm that feels too rehearsed to be casual.

“Aadhaar copy. Marksheets. Photos. Fee receipt. And signature.”

“Signature of who?” Priya asks.

“Your father, for some declarations,” Sharma Ji says, already bored by the question. “Sometimes they don’t ask. Sometimes they enjoy asking. Depends on mood.”

Priya imagines Rakesh’s tired handwriting. She imagines waking him up again, handing him forms, asking him to be awake in an office way.

Sharma Ji’s printer whirs, then stops with a sulk. He opens it, pulls a paper out, and holds it up. The sheet has eaten the ink in one corner like a goat with a newspaper.

“See?” he says, vindicated. “Moody.”

Priya leans forward. “Is there ink?”

Sharma Ji looks offended. “Ink is there. Electricity’s love is not there.”

As if on cue, the shop light flickers. The computer screen dims and then steadies. A small power cut—just enough to make everything feel threatened, not enough to fully fail.

Priya waits with her hands clasped, feeling the familiar mixture of helplessness and irritation. The task is simple; the system makes it complicated; your emotions are not invited to the discussion.

The bell above the door jingles, and Irfan steps in.

He pauses when he sees Priya on the stool. For a second his face does that polite calculation—should I pretend I didn’t see her and come back later?—and then he chooses the easier truth.

“Hi,” he says, softly, as if he is not trying to disturb the shop’s temper.

Priya’s ears warm. “Hi.”

Sharma Ji glances at Irfan. “You also form?”

Irfan holds up his phone. “Just print a ticket. If the printer agrees.”

Sharma Ji grunts and goes back to muttering at his machine.

Irfan sits on the edge of the stool beside Priya, careful not to touch her bag, careful with the space between them. His jacket smells faintly of winter air and laundry soap.

“Deadline?” he asks.

Priya nods. “Sana is scaring me.”

“She has talent,” he says, and Priya laughs despite herself.

They sit through another stretch of waiting. Priya watches Sharma Ji’s mouse hand—quick, impatient. Irfan watches the screen with a kind of calm attention that makes it seem like the page will load faster out of respect.

When the printer finally coughs out a clean page, it feels like a small victory. Sharma Ji pulls it out, slaps it on the counter, and then makes two photocopies without ceremony.

“Photo you will do,” he says, sliding the papers toward her. “There’s a studio two shops down. Go now, come back, I’ll attach.”

Priya gathers the papers, careful not to crease them. She pays—cash, because she doesn’t want to argue with network today—and tucks the receipt into the folder.

Outside, the sun has grown braver. The market lane is brighter, as if someone has turned up the contrast. A man is selling peanuts from a red cloth. A dog sleeps in the middle of the road, fully trusting the world to steer around it.

Priya walks to the small photo studio, gets two fresh photos taken under a harsh white light that makes her look more serious than she feels, and returns with the strip still warm from the machine.

Back at Sharma Ji’s counter, she slides the photos across like proof of obedience.

He nods once, satisfied, and staples them where they are supposed to go.

When Priya steps out of the shop again, her bag is heavier by only a few papers, but the weight feels different—organized, purposeful.

At the bus stand, she calls Sana back while waiting for the shared auto.

“Done,” Priya says.

Sana’s sigh is loud enough to travel through the phone. “Thank God. Now don’t lose it. Put it in that plastic file like you’re keeping gold.”

Priya looks down at the folder in her bag and smiles. “Already.”

She reaches home before lunch, the way she promised. Sunita is kneading dough, elbows moving like she’s shaping time.

Rakesh is sitting on the charpai, hair still messy, drinking tea. He looks at Priya’s bag and understands immediately. Papers have their own smell.

Priya pulls out the folder and opens it on the bed. The new photocopies sit on top, bright and clean. The fresh photos look like a stranger who knows her name.

“Need your signature,” she says, trying to sound casual.

Rakesh takes the pen without drama. He signs where she points, his hand steady despite sleep and night shifts.

Then he taps the folder with two fingers. “How much fee?”

Priya tells him.

He doesn’t answer right away. He looks past her shoulder, toward the courtyard where the patch of sun has shifted to a new spot. Then he says, “I’ll bring it after tomorrow’s shift. You keep everything ready.”

It is not a promise wrapped in poetry. It is a practical sentence. But it makes the knot in Priya’s stomach loosen.

After lunch, she sits with her squared-page notebook and writes a new list beneath yesterday’s:

• Fee money.
• Submit.
• Make one extra copy.

The sun warms the edge of the paper. Somewhere outside, someone’s pressure cooker whistles. Arjun complains about a school assignment in the next room as if it is a personal betrayal.

Priya closes the folder, slides it back onto the shelf, and presses her palm against it for a second—an odd, private gesture, like blessing.

The day settles around her. The year, for now, feels possible in the way a neat stack of papers feels possible: not because it guarantees anything, but because it is finally in order.