Pooja "read the same paragraph four times".

The hostel room had two iron beds, two cupboards, one window and one fan that turned slowly and made a ticking sound. Pooja's roommate had not arrived yet. When her parents left at six, after her mother had made the bed twice and her father had checked the window lock three times, the room felt very large and very quiet.

She unpacked. She ate the theplas her mother had packed. She tried to read, and found that she had read the same paragraph four times. At nine she called home. Her mother answered on the first ring, and Pooja realised her mother had been holding the phone, waiting.

They talked about nothing for ten minutes: the food, the fan, the weather in Ahmedabad. Neither of them said they were sad. After the call, Pooja felt a little better and a little worse.

At ten there was a knock at the door. A girl stood there with a steel tumbler in each hand.

"I'm from the room next door," she said. "My name is Farah. I heard your fan ticking and thought you must be new. Mine ticks too. Do you want some hot milk? My mother says it helps on the first night."

They sat on Pooja's bed and drank the milk and compared their mothers' instructions, which were almost exactly the same. By eleven they were laughing. Pooja did not notice when the fan stopped sounding so loud.