“Diya had died when she was nine. Leukaemia. The kind that starts slow and ends: fast. The diagnosis at PGI Chandigarh — the trip down the mountain, the hospital corridors, the doctors who said "treatable" and meant "we'll try" — had been the event that divided my life into: before and after. Before Diya, I was a kid who did gymnastics because it was fun. After Diya, I was a kid who did gymnastics because the physical pain of training was preferable to the other: pain. The pain that sat in the chest and expanded on quiet nights and made breathing feel like: work.”