When I meet him a few months later, however, Piku doesn’t cut a picture of poise but anxiety. Pacing his 17th floor office in Gurgaon, he tells me, “She hasn’t replied. It’s been weeks!” She who? Priyatama (name changed to protect her identity), a renowned figure in the Delhi lit circle—or, as Piku calls it, “the wine sippin’, culture drippin’” crowd—whose literary novels have brought her as much fame as her fierce activism. Piku first saw her at a book launch—he hates such events; he was only there to network with the Walrus folks—and since then, life has not been the same. “It felt like,” he tells me, “someone added three more slides to my deck.” He wanted to impress her the old way, the ‘pure’ way. So Piku Mhatre wrote a letter—a love letter.