When I turned 36, neighbors used to murmur, “At that age and still without a wife? He’ll be a bachelor forever!”
When I turned thirty-six, I began to notice the way people’s voices changed when they talked about me. Not to my face, of course — but in the quiet hum of neighborhood conversations, at the corners of tea stalls, outside the local market, or on evening walks when curtains were half-drawn, the whispers found their…