Aisha Verma
Rohan Mehta did not believe in fate. He believed in laundry schedules, strong coffee, and Bluetooth headphones with decent battery life. Apartment 3R—third floor, right—had been his solo kingdom for the past eleven months, ever since he moved into the ageing but oddly charming Amar Residency in Indiranagar. It wasn’t love at first lease, but it was quiet, close to the metro, and—most importantly—his mother had approved of the vastu.
It was a Thursday morning, the kind where Bangalore pretends to be cold but isn’t really, when he noticed something odd. As he reached out to pin his usual boring set of shirts onto the shared clothesline that ran between his balcony and the one directly opposite—3L—he found a note. Folded neatly. Tucked under a purple sock with daisies.
It read, in slightly hurried cursive:
“Sorry for grabbing your red t-shirt by mistake last week! I only realised after I wore it for zumba. Washed and returned. Hopefully no hard feelings 🙂 — M”
Rohan blinked. Zumba?
He looked up instinctively. The 3rd floor left apartment had always been an enigma. Curtains drawn, occasional clinks of utensils, and once, a very passionate karaoke session that had scared his cat for days. He’d never seen the occupant properly, not even at the society’s New Year samosa party, where he’d ended up talking to Mrs. D’Cunha about turmeric farming.
He picked up the returned red t-shirt—yes, it smelled lemony—and chuckled. Then, before his logical brain could protest, he grabbed the back of an Amazon delivery slip and scribbled:
“No hard feelings. Though I do worry for the t-shirt’s trauma. Zumba, really? Also, thanks for the lemony scent. It’s an upgrade from my usual ‘mild detergent with existential dread’.” — R
He folded the note, pinned it next to a sock, and walked back in, unsure if he’d just done something charming or certifiably ridiculous.
The next morning, it was gone.
By Saturday, a new note appeared.
“The t-shirt says it enjoyed the cardio. And I’d suggest switching detergents—you sound like you need a hug in powder form.” — M
Thus began what would later be referred to as The Great Balcony Correspondence.
Their notes were never more than a folded paper clipped between a towel or hidden behind boxers. It started light. Rohan complained about the PG boys downstairs who sang Arijit Singh at 2 a.m. Meera (he had deduced her name by now) confessed she sometimes sang along. They argued over which chai stall near the corner served better cutting chai. Rohan tried to win her over with a doodle of a sad samosa. Meera responded with a full-blown haiku on soggy kachoris.
A month in, their notes grew longer.
“Do you ever think about how strange this is?” Meera wrote one breezy Sunday.
“Every single day,” Rohan replied, “but it beats awkward lift silences.”
“True. This way, I can insult your taste in music without worrying about your expression.”
“Ouch. My Coldplay playlist is iconic.”
“It’s basic.”
They never exchanged numbers. Never shared full names. It wasn’t deliberate—it just felt like too much reality. The notes lived in a parallel world, where love could be written in Courier New, underlined twice, and clipped beside a drying bra without shame.
Rohan, who’d never been particularly poetic, started buying fancier notepads. Meera, who often claimed to be “emotionally constipated,” began sharing little snippets of her day—how she’d spilled tea on a client Zoom call, or how her cat, Tofu, had decided to sleep inside her laundry basket for an hour.
One evening, he wrote:
“I don’t know what you look like. But I think I like the way your brain folds.”
She didn’t reply for two days.
Rohan wondered if he’d crossed some invisible line. Maybe it was too much. Maybe she thought he was getting serious, or worse, creepy. He even drafted a note of apology but didn’t send it.
Then, on the third evening, her reply came, wedged behind a polka-dotted handkerchief:
“My brain also folds my laundry poorly. But I liked that line. It made me smile while brushing my teeth. I think that’s pretty serious.”
Rohan read that note five times. Then he made himself toast he didn’t eat, and stared at the rain for forty-five minutes.
What was this?
They didn’t touch, didn’t text, didn’t even know if the other snored or liked pineapple on pizza. But somehow, their notes had built a world. A flimsy paper bridge between balconies. Between hearts?
The Amar Residency committee, however, had other plans.
The notice was put up on Monday: “Clotheslines to be removed for safety and visual aesthetic. Work begins Friday.”
Rohan read it twice. Then thrice. The committee—led by the over-zealous Mr. Gupta—had apparently decided that dangling innerwear did not suit their “modern living standards.” Rohan wanted to staple the word “colonial hangover” to the notice.
That night, he wrote the longest note yet.
“They’re cutting our thread, Meera. Literally and metaphorically. What now? Do we go back to awkward silences and stolen glances during Diwali pooja? Or should I finally knock on your door with a real note, not pinned to your chaddis? I’m game if you are.” — R
He clipped it onto the line with a clothespin that was slightly bent from overuse. Then he waited.
And waited.
Friday was three days away.
Meera stared at the note for a long time. Longer than she’d ever stared at a piece of paper that didn’t contain her rent bill or her cat’s vaccination reminder. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, wet footprints marking a trail from the bathroom to the balcony, and Tofu meowed impatiently by her feet, clearly offended that his dinner was being delayed because of some melodramatic man and his feelings.
“What now?” she whispered, rereading Rohan’s handwriting. She had always imagined him to be tall—not because of any actual evidence, but because his handwriting had that confident slant that tall people often had. Also, he once made a joke about ducking under ceiling fans.
She sat on the edge of her plastic chair, towel falling to her shoulders. It was one thing to flirt via socks and sarcasm. It was another to knock on someone’s door with a racing heart and no hiding place. But Rohan’s words were disarmingly honest. And it made her stomach feel oddly warm, like the first sip of rum in winter or the perfect middle bite of a toastie.
She thought about ignoring it. Playing it safe. But safety had never really brought her anything particularly memorable. And honestly, she was tired of the silence between action and regret.
So she replied.
“I vote for the knocking. But if you bring pineapple pizza, I reserve the right to slam the door.” — M”
She clipped it with a yellow plastic pin, double-secured it for the wind, and walked back inside before she could second-guess herself.
By evening, it was gone.
The next two days passed in strange anticipation. Every time the doorbell rang, she thought it might be him. Every time she passed her own front door, she imagined it opening to a tall, uncertain boy holding two mugs of chai and a hopeful smile.
On Thursday evening, while she was in the middle of watching a documentary about penguins who cheated on their mates (nature was wild), there was a knock.
A real one.
At her door.
She froze. Tofu jumped off her lap and darted under the sofa as if sensing that something unnatural was afoot.
Another knock. This time, lighter.
She tiptoed to the door, peeked through the peephole, and almost dropped dead.
Rohan. Sweater sleeves rolled up, slightly disheveled hair, and—bless his tragically romantic heart—holding a piece of paper in his hand like it was still the balcony.
She opened the door slowly. He looked up and smiled, awkward but earnest.
“You must be Meera,” he said.
“And you must be Rohan,” she replied, crossing her arms, but unable to hide the smile tugging at her lips.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I brought a note,” he said, raising the paper.
“Of course you did.”
He handed it to her. She opened it.
“Would you like to go on a date with me this weekend? Preferably not via balcony.”
She looked up. “Is this your version of a proposal?”
“No,” he said. “That would involve more glitter and at least one Bollywood background score.”
She laughed, the kind that made her feel seventeen and rebellious again.
“And what’s the date plan?”
“I thought you’d ask. So,” he cleared his throat, “how about we sit on either side of the clothesline one last time tomorrow evening before the committee brings in their aesthetic wrecking crew—and have chai? I’ll pass over the snacks with a clip.”
She blinked.
“That’s… kind of adorable.”
“I have my moments.”
“I was expecting something more dramatic.”
“I can wear a cape.”
“No capes. Just samosas.”
He grinned. “Deal.”
The next evening, as the sun began to dip and the sky turned a moody orange, Meera stepped out onto her balcony in a blue oversized hoodie and messy bun. Rohan was already there on his side, hair damp, sleeves rolled up again.
Between them, the clothesline still hung. For one more night.
“Presenting,” he said theatrically, “samosas—one potato, one paneer, and one… surprise.” He clipped a small tray to a coat hanger and sent it sliding down like a zipline delivery. It bumped halfway and had to be helped with a wooden spoon, but eventually reached her side.
She giggled as she retrieved it.
“And what do I offer you in return, kind sir?”
“A story,” he said. “Why haven’t we ever met until now?”
“Because I’m a ghost. Boo.”
“Convincing.”
“Fine. Truthfully? I moved in after a very public breakup with a boy who turned out to be a motivational speaker in disguise.”
“Oh god.”
“Yeah. He’d start every argument with, ‘This is a stepping stone.’”
“Brutal.”
“And you?”
“My ex was obsessed with silence. Like, monk-level. Every time I tried to talk about feelings, he’d play white noise and say ‘Let’s be still.’”
Meera laughed so hard she nearly dropped the samosa.
They talked for an hour like that—about love, bad flatmates, the weird fungus in their building’s water tank, and how neither of them knew whether Mr. Gupta actually had a day job.
At one point, Rohan reached into his hoodie pocket and said, “One last note.”
He passed it across the line, clipped with a purple duck pin.
She opened it.
“I’ve really liked falling in like with you.”
She looked up, surprised.
He looked nervous.
“Too much?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just enough.”
They stood there, smiling across 3rd floor balconies, two strangers no longer strangers, as the line between them swayed gently in the breeze—holding the last note of a love that started with laundry.
The next morning arrived with a vengeance. Construction workers, dressed in bright vests and carrying grim-looking cutters, swarmed the Amar Residency like they were auditioning for a dystopian musical. By 10 a.m., the residents of the third floor were treated to the sight of Mr. Gupta himself standing on a stool, waving his arms dramatically as he supervised the “Operation Declutter.”
Rohan stood at his balcony, arms folded, watching the workers unclip the sacred clothesline. One man tugged so hard at a knot, Rohan was tempted to shout, “That line holds a love story, you savage.”
On the other side, Meera stood too. She wore a grumpy expression and an old sweatshirt that said Don’t Talk to Me Unless You’re a Cat. Tofu sat beside her like a small, judgmental supervisor.
“You okay?” Rohan mouthed across.
She nodded. “It’s weird, though.”
“Yeah.”
Silence fell—not awkward, just thoughtful. The kind that grows when two people lose a small, silly ritual that had meant more than they’d realised.
Just as the final wire was rolled and carried away like evidence from a crime scene, Meera shouted, “Wait!”
Everyone stopped.
Mr. Gupta, annoyed, turned toward her. “Yes?”
“I dropped… my dignity on the balcony. I think it got tangled in the wire,” she deadpanned.
The workers laughed. Even Mr. Gupta cracked a reluctant smirk. Rohan, grinning like a fool, gave her a thumbs-up.
Later that day, Rohan knocked on her door again, this time with no paper, no socks, just a pack of lemon-flavored bourbon biscuits and two disposable cups of chai.
“Emergency delivery,” he said. “I believe you are grieving.”
Meera let him in for the first time.
Her flat was chaos in a charming way. A bookshelf bursting at the seams, fairy lights strung over windows like a clumsy afterthought, and framed posters of vintage Bengali films. The carpet had cat fur woven into its very fabric, and Tofu sat on a cushion like an emperor tolerating guests.
They sat cross-legged on the floor, sipping tea and passing biscuits.
“So,” she asked, “now that we don’t have the Line of Love™, are we normal neighbours?”
Rohan considered that. “Well, we could always use paper planes.”
“You really think your aim is that good?”
“Excuse you, I once came third in a paper plane competition in eighth grade.”
“Third?”
“The first two cheated. Used origami skills.”
She laughed and leaned back, watching him. “You’re weird.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t say it was a compliment.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He tossed her a biscuit. She caught it.
“So,” he said, voice a little softer, “what happens now?”
Meera sighed. “Now we pretend we’re mature adults. We go on dates. Hold hands. Possibly freak out and overthink everything.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
“Can we still write notes?”
“Only if you hide them in cat food tins.”
“Done.”
That night, he left her apartment with a strange feeling in his chest. Not nervousness, not even butterflies—something steadier. Like a quiet hum of possibility.
Over the next few weeks, the balconies faded into just… balconies. Meera and Rohan walked to the park together, shared headphones during auto rides, and once tried cooking Maggi in her kitchen while Tofu launched an assault on their ankles.
They didn’t post selfies. Didn’t text obsessively. But they slipped each other folded notes in lunch boxes. Meera once found a haiku in her cereal box. Rohan received a doodle of himself as a samosa superhero tucked inside his wallet.
They built a rhythm. A quiet, funny, unshowy rhythm.
Until the incident with the new neighbour.
It began innocently enough. One Saturday morning, as Rohan stepped out to get milk, a woman from apartment 3L—Mrs. Iyer’s old flat—waved at him cheerfully.
“Hello! You must be Rohan, right?”
He nodded, polite. “Yes. And you just moved in?”
She smiled. “Yesterday. I’m Devika.”
He returned the smile. “Nice to meet you.”
Unfortunately, Meera chose that exact moment to peek from her window, toothbrush in mouth and toothpaste foam very visible, and misread the entire situation.
Later that evening, she didn’t reply to Rohan’s knock. Or his paper plane that landed on her balcony with “Date night?” written in blue ink.
Rohan stood outside her door, mildly baffled. “Meera?” he called. “I brought popcorn and passive-aggressive comments for the romcom marathon.”
No response.
Tofu, from inside, gave a meow that sounded like judgment.
Rohan sighed, slid a note under the door, and left.
It read:
“If I accidentally offended you by saying hi to a stranger, I would like to remind you that I still only write haikus for you. Not even my building’s milkman gets that treatment. Call me?”
The next morning, Meera replied.
A note stuck to his door.
A drawing of herself, complete with toothbrush foam, glowering from the window. Captioned:
“Me? Jealous? Pfft. I only get irrationally territorial before breakfast.”
Underneath:
“Pick me up at 6. And bring garlic bread. I forgive you.”
By the time Rohan arrived at 3L that evening, garlic bread in one hand and a playlist of “apology songs that don’t sound too desperate” in the other, Meera had already set up the living room like a blanket fort battle zone. Cushions flanked them like loyal soldiers, fairy lights blinked apologetically from the bookshelf, and a suspiciously large bowl of popcorn sat in the middle, threatening spillage.
“Truce?” he asked, holding up the garlic bread like a white flag made of carbs.
“Depends,” she said, inspecting it. “Is this the extra-butter kind?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Truce accepted.”
They settled in, socks brushing under the blankets. The TV glowed in the background, playing some indie romcom with characters who were somehow both heartbreakingly beautiful and entirely unemployed.
“So,” Meera said halfway through the movie, “are we officially dating now?”
Rohan turned to her. “We’ve been on five walks, three awkward elevator rides, and I’ve seen your cat sneeze into your tea. I’d say yes.”
She grinned. “Okay. Just checking. I like definitions.”
“Are we doing labels now?”
“Why not?”
“Alright. You’re my… note-buddy-turned-girlfriend-who-can’t-cook-Maggi.”
She threw a pillow at him. “I can cook Maggi. I just… get distracted.”
“By your own monologue about feminism and processed noodles.”
“It was an important conversation!”
He caught the pillow and held it to his chest. “So what do I get labeled as?”
“Hmm,” she said, dramatically thoughtful. “You’re my emotionally-repressed, secretly-sappy, part-time poet with bad taste in movie trailers.”
“That’s… disturbingly accurate.”
“Thank you.”
The movie played on, but they weren’t really watching anymore. Meera leaned her head on his shoulder, and he rested his cheek against her hair.
“Did you ever imagine,” she murmured, “that you’d fall for someone via socks and sarcastic paper notes?”
“I once imagined falling in love with my college lab partner,” he said, “until she told me bacteria were more emotionally available than I was.”
Meera snorted.
“But no,” he continued, “this? This was completely unexpected. Like an extra samosa in the paper bag.”
“Or an email saying your parcel is out for delivery even though you never ordered anything?”
“Exactly. A glitch in the system. A good glitch.”
Outside, it began to drizzle. The soft kind of rain that makes city noise sound like ocean waves. Meera closed her eyes and whispered, “I used to think love needed drama. Grand gestures. Tears. Rain-drenched monologues.”
Rohan smiled. “You just described the entire plot of Kabir Singh.”
“I know. I’m recovering.”
They chuckled. Then sat there quietly, as the movie played on and the rain drummed against the glass. Two people who had never touched each other on purpose before were now close enough to feel each other breathe.
Later that night, as he was putting on his shoes at her doorway, Meera looked at him and asked, “Will you still write me notes?”
“Every week. Non-negotiable.”
“Good. Because I’m starting a scrapbook.”
“A what?”
She grinned. “Every note. Every doodle. Even the samosa superhero one.”
Rohan groaned. “I was young. I needed creative release.”
“You were twenty-eight.”
“Details.”
She leaned in, closer than she’d ever dared before, and kissed him on the cheek. Just a whisper of warmth and citrus shampoo.
“Goodnight, note boy.”
He walked down the corridor with a grin so wide it nearly cracked his jaw.
The next few weeks passed like a montage—just without the annoying fast-forward music.
They explored new bakeries, took pictures of pigeons with “personality,” and left notes in public spaces for each other to find. Once, Meera mailed Rohan a postcard with a single line: “You looked especially dateable last Tuesday.”
He never figured out what was so special about that Tuesday. But he kept the card in his wallet anyway.
They began to learn the unglamorous details too. Rohan’s habit of reorganizing the fridge every Sunday like it was a spiritual cleanse. Meera’s refusal to switch off lights, claiming, “Darkness encourages sad thoughts.” Her tendency to cry during furniture ads. His fear of balloons.
It was messy, warm, and wonderfully ridiculous.
Until Meera’s job threw in a plot twist.
One Friday evening, as she returned home holding two cups of filter coffee and a bag of murukku, she found a letter slid under her door. Official. Cream-colored envelope. Her fingers trembled as she tore it open.
It was a job offer.
A one-year posting in Mumbai.
Creative Director role. Her dream gig.
Double the pay. Triple the exposure.
She stared at the letter like it was a bomb that had landed too quietly.
That night, she didn’t tell Rohan.
She cooked pasta with too much pepper, distractedly laughed at his jokes, and hid the envelope under a cushion. But Rohan noticed something had changed. She didn’t doodle on the napkin. She didn’t steal the last garlic bread.
He knew something was up.
As he walked back to 3R, he paused at her door, debated, then walked on. Maybe she just needed space.
But space, as they both would soon discover, can become a gap.
And the longer it’s left unsaid, the harder it is to write the next note.
On Saturday morning, Rohan knocked on Meera’s door holding his most prized possession: a new pack of sticky notes in pastel shades. He had a plan—a silly one, the kind she usually liked. He would write her one note in every color, stick them across the walls of her living room, and read them aloud like vows at a wedding only they knew about.
But when she opened the door, she didn’t look like the girl who laughed at pasta disasters and wrote haikus about rainwater. She looked… distant. Polite. Like someone visiting their own apartment.
“Hey,” she said, stepping aside to let him in. “You want coffee?”
“Always,” he replied, holding up the sticky notes like a peace offering. “I come bearing nonsense.”
She smiled weakly. “Raincheck on the nonsense?”
He hesitated. “Sure. Everything okay?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Just work stuff. Deadlines. You know.”
But Rohan knew that wasn’t it. The cushions were rearranged. The scrapbook from their notes wasn’t on the coffee table anymore. And Tofu, who normally leapt onto his lap like a welcome committee, sat silently on the windowsill, tail twitching.
They sat in near silence, sipping lukewarm coffee.
“Meera,” he said finally, “you’re allowed to tell me things, you know. Even if they’re not sticky-note material.”
She looked at him, startled. Then slowly, she nodded, walked to the side table, and handed him the cream envelope.
He read it.
Twice.
Mumbai.
One year.
Creative Director.
He looked up, the note trembling slightly in his hand. “When did this arrive?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me?”
“I was. I am. I just—needed to figure it out first.”
“And now?”
“I’m still figuring it out,” she said, voice small.
Rohan stared at the paper. He hated it. The font. The tone. The way it casually offered her a whole new life while his was still tied to the third floor, right side.
“I don’t want to be the reason you don’t go,” he said.
“That’s not fair,” she snapped. “You don’t get to noble-sacrifice me like a character in a bad indie film.”
“Well, you’re the one hiding letters under cushions!”
“And you’re the one pretending like everything’s still made of notes and doodles!”
They stood there, stupidly, facing each other across the kitchen tiles, their argument echoing with the weight of everything unsaid.
“I thought we were building something real,” Rohan said quietly.
“So did I,” Meera replied, equally soft. “But sometimes real things take you to different cities.”
He ran a hand through his hair, stepping back. “Right.”
She wanted to say something. Anything. But she didn’t.
And he walked out, pastel sticky notes still in his hand, colors unread.
They didn’t talk for a week.
No texts. No notes. No knocks. Only a distant silence between two doors that had once known every echo of laughter.
On Wednesday, Rohan opened his fridge and found a paper plane folded neatly between the milk cartons.
It read:
“I didn’t apply for the job. Yet. I wanted to tell you. I want to tell you everything. But I’m scared. And this time, not even Tofu has advice.” — M
He read it ten times. Then crumpled it.
Then uncrumpled it and tucked it into his wallet.
The next day, he taped a note to her door:
“We’ll figure it out. Whether it’s Mumbai, Mars, or Malad. Just don’t shut me out. I’m better at compromise than you think. And worse at moving on than I’d like to admit.” — R
No reply came.
At least, not immediately.
But the next morning, a delivery boy rang Rohan’s bell with a large box.
Inside: a scrapbook.
Their scrapbook.
With a note on the first page:
“Maybe we start with long weekends and end with a permanent pin on the map. Maybe we write new notes in new cities. I don’t know. But I want to try. Because your silence is louder than any job offer. — M”
He smiled through damp eyes and dialed her number for the first time ever.
“Hello?” she said, cautious.
“I miss you,” he said.
“I miss us,” she whispered.
“So come over.”
“I’m already at the door.”
He opened it to find her standing there with a paper plane in one hand and a samosa in the other.
“Peace offering?” she asked.
“I’ll take both,” he grinned.
They sat on his floor, shared the samosa, and unfolded the paper plane together. This one had no words, just a sketch—two balconies, a dotted line between them, and a sun in the corner with a ridiculous smiley face.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“It means,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder, “we still write the story. Just without a clothesline.”
By the time August rolled around, the monsoons had turned Amar Residency into a damp, floral-smelling maze. Balcony pots overflowed, tiles remained perpetually wet, and power outages became the new Friday night tradition. But despite it all, Rohan and Meera found their rhythm again—not quite as quirky as paper planes and socks, but steady, warm, and real.
They began to treat each other’s flats as annexes of their own. Rohan kept a toothbrush at 3L. Meera installed a coffee mug at 3R labeled “CEO of Dramatic Exits.” Tofu, diplomatic as ever, split his nap times equally between both households.
And on days when everything felt too quiet, they still wrote notes—this time passed in tiffin boxes, book jackets, and once, on a roll of toilet paper during a particularly long power cut.
“I love how you make stormy evenings feel like background music,” Meera had written once, tucked under a packet of masala peanuts.
Rohan responded by recharging her WiFi when hers ran out.
But real life, as it tends to, started creeping back in.
Work deadlines piled up. Clients grew irritating. The honeymoon haze lifted. They argued about who had left the bathroom light on, who kept misplacing the keys, and whether Tofu was deliberately pooping in Rohan’s sneakers out of spite.
And always, in the background, was the letter.
Meera had accepted the Mumbai job. But deferred it. She now had three months before the move.
Some days, she was excited. Other days, she’d stare at her packed duffel bag and feel like she was betraying something sacred.
Rohan never once asked her to stay. But his silences grew heavier.
One evening, after a fight about which pizza place to order from (thin crust or betrayal?), Meera blurted out, “Why don’t you just say it?”
“Say what?”
“That you hate me going. That you wish I’d turn it down.”
Rohan looked at her, eyes steady. “I don’t hate that you’re going, Meera. I hate that I can’t follow. Yet.”
She softened. “I know.”
“I want you to go,” he added, “but I’m scared of what distance does to silly people like us. We communicate in socks, not FaceTime.”
“I’ll still send you socks,” she smiled sadly.
They sat on the kitchen floor, eating lukewarm pizza and trying not to fall apart.
Two days later, Meera gave him a box.
“What’s this?”
“Open it later,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Not now.”
He obeyed.
That night, alone on his balcony, he opened it.
Inside was a map of India, hand-drawn. A tiny thread ran from Bangalore to Mumbai. Attached were ten folded notes, each labeled with a number and a small drawing. A cat. A teacup. A samosa. A pair of mismatched socks.
Each note began with “Open when…”
Open when it rains and you miss me.
Open when you forget why I left.
Open when you think we’re not meant to make it.
Open when you find a new clothesline.
Rohan sat there until midnight, holding the box like it was the last soft thing in the world.
The next morning, he knocked on her door with an envelope.
“What’s this?” she asked, suspicious.
“Your turn.”
Inside was a boarding pass. A fake one. From Mumbai to Bangalore. Date: exactly one year from now.
He’d scribbled in blue ink:
“Return flight. Just in case. But no pressure. Only possibilities.”
Meera looked up at him. “You always did like planning ahead.”
“And you always did like running away from decisions.”
She smiled. “Maybe we’re perfect.”
“Or perfectly unprepared.”
They kissed on the landing. Just once. Slow. Full of quiet panic and reluctant hope.
Then they went back inside and made tea.
It would never be the same as before.
But maybe that was the point.
The day Meera left, the building felt unusually loud. Every neighbour suddenly had opinions about traffic, gas cylinders, and “young people leaving the city.” Rohan stood in the corridor pretending he wasn’t glaring at the back of Mr. Gupta’s bald head while holding Meera’s suitcase.
It was a medium-sized roller bag, bright orange, with a faded sticker that said Not All Who Wander Are Lost. Except this one was.
They hadn’t planned a big farewell. No dramatic airport hug. Just a cab booked for 7:45 a.m., and a quiet agreement to keep it “light.”
“I hate light goodbyes,” Meera mumbled, tugging at her hoodie string.
“You also hate heavy ones,” Rohan pointed out.
“I’m a balanced disaster.”
“I like disasters.”
Tofu meowed from the doorway, tail flicking with disapproval. He wasn’t allowed to travel, and Meera had given Rohan custody with a handwritten note that said “Feed twice daily. Do not psychoanalyze.”
The cab honked. A ridiculous little honk, like a clown car trying to be taken seriously.
“Okay,” Meera said, taking a deep breath.
“Okay,” Rohan echoed.
They hugged. The kind where you don’t want to let go but do, just slow enough that it hurts less.
As she rolled the suitcase down the hallway, she paused, turned, and said, “I left something for you. Check your balcony.”
Rohan nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
She waved once, got into the cab, and was gone before the second honk.
Back in his apartment, the silence was immediate. No sound of kettle boiling in 3L. No faint hum of old Bengali songs. No Tofu crashing into things. Just Rohan and the weight of quiet.
He walked to the balcony.
There, clipped with a golden pin to a makeshift wire she’d tied between two potted plants, was a note.
Folded once. Slightly creased. Smelled faintly of her lavender shampoo.
He opened it.
“Dear Note Boy,
I’ve hated airports ever since my parents divorced in one. But this time, I’m trying to rewrite what departure feels like.
Thank you for being my unexpected chapter.
Don’t wait for me. But don’t forget me either.
Yours — maybe, someday, again —
M.”
He stood there for a long time, note in hand, the city waking up behind him.
And then, because he couldn’t help it, he grabbed a pen and wrote back.
“Dear Note Girl,
This balcony will wait.
I will wait.
But I’ll also live, and laugh, and feed your dumb cat.
And if someday becomes today, I’ll be here—still folding paper like prayers.” — R
He folded the note and clipped it next to hers.
Then he went inside and started making tea for one.
Months passed.
October rolled in with Durga Puja banners, distant drums, and the smell of frying oil. Amar Residency was noisier than usual. New tenants came. One tried to befriend Tofu and got slapped for his efforts.
Rohan worked longer hours. Took to writing short stories again. Sometimes he’d pause at 3L’s door, out of habit, as if she might suddenly swing it open and complain about how Bangalore doesn’t “respect humidity properly.”
But she didn’t.
She texted sometimes. Voice notes that arrived at midnight. Random pictures. A poem scribbled on a tissue.
They didn’t do long calls. They didn’t promise anything.
Still, they wrote.
He sent her a letter on Diwali, folded into a paper diya.
She mailed him a tiny sock from her Mumbai balcony. “Just in case our clotheslines ever align again.”
December came. Then January. And on a quiet Sunday, his doorbell rang.
Not a delivery.
Not Mr. Gupta.
Meera.
Wearing a yellow scarf. Holding a suitcase.
And beside her, the orange roller bag.
“I took a weekend off,” she said, as if she hadn’t just rearranged the weather in his chest.
He stared. “You came back.”
“For now,” she smiled. “Turns out, even Mumbai doesn’t have a clothesline like ours.”
Tofu, upon seeing her, trotted over and casually bit her shoelace in revenge.
They laughed.
Later that evening, they sat on the balcony again, sipping tea, watching a new wire strung up between two chairs.
Meera handed him a folded note.
He unfolded it.
It read:
“Let’s stop writing goodbyes. Start writing recipes.”
Three months later, there was a new clothesline. Not between balconies—those had been banned, policed, and photographically documented by Mr. Gupta—but across Rohan’s living room. It stretched diagonally from the bookshelf to the curtain rod, with small wooden clips Meera had ordered online under the description “For emotionally unstable scrapbookers.”
Each day, they pinned something to it. Not laundry—memories.
A movie ticket stub from a film they both hated but couldn’t stop quoting.
A photo booth strip where Meera blinked in all four frames and Rohan pretended to sneeze.
A scribbled recipe for “Almost-Burnt Garlic Bread” with notes like: Add less drama next time.
A pressed marigold from Holi.
The paper plane that had first carried the word “maybe.”
Visitors found it confusing. “Why don’t you just get a photo album?”
But they liked it better this way. It was less about display, more about orbit. Their days looped around this quiet thread, a timeline of who they were becoming—together, apart, weirdly folded.
By now, Meera had restructured her job. Split time between Mumbai and Bangalore. She called it “the hybrid relationship between ambition and affection.” Rohan just called it “the best surprise of my adult life.”
They still fought—especially when one of them finished the last bourbon biscuit without warning. But their fights had punctuation now. They began with words, ended with silence, then settled into doodles on napkins.
One Thursday evening, Meera walked into the living room holding a box.
Rohan looked up from the floor where he was assembling a flat-pack bookshelf with the intensity of a heart surgeon.
“Another box?” he asked.
“It’s not from Amazon,” she said.
That got his attention.
She opened it carefully and pulled out their old scrapbook. The one she had sent back when she left. She had added to it.
He flipped through the pages. Now it included:
- The fake boarding pass.
- A napkin with lipstick and the words “First fight. Survived.”
- A photo of Tofu sitting inside Rohan’s laundry basket looking suspiciously pleased.
- A screenshot of their first awkward video call.
- A receipt for two cups of chai and one stolen glance.
At the end of the scrapbook was a folded note.
Rohan opened it.
“I used to think love had to be this chaotic, tragic, all-consuming fire.
But I was wrong.
It can be notes on a line.
And tea.
And two people who never needed fireworks to know they were already lit.” — M
Rohan looked up. “You wrote me a poem.”
Meera mock-shrugged. “Mildly poetic. Blame the rain.”
He pulled her close. “I’m pinning this on the line.”
“You better.”
Later that night, they lay on the sofa, legs tangled, cat snoring gently on Meera’s stomach. The rain came down, soft and steady.
“Hey,” Rohan said suddenly, “did you ever write a note you never gave me?”
Meera blinked. “You mean like a secret one?”
“Yeah. From the early days.”
She smirked. “Plenty. But one in particular.”
“Tell me.”
She reached into the side drawer of the couch—her designated chaos drawer—and pulled out a small, folded piece of notebook paper.
Rohan opened it slowly.
“Open only if you fall for me.”
He looked at her. “I guess I qualify?”
“Do you?”
He grinned. “I’ve practically moved into the category.”
The note inside was short. Just five words.
“Don’t go. Stay. Choose us.”
Rohan folded it back, tucked it into his chest pocket. “You never gave me this.”
“I was scared.”
“And now?”
She looked at him. “Now I know we’re not about running. We’re about folding.”
He nodded. “Folding?”
“Like notes. Like socks. Like corners of pages you never want to forget.”
Outside, thunder grumbled gently, and the lights flickered once.
Tofu stretched. The clothesline swayed.
Rohan closed his eyes and whispered, “Third floor left. Best wrong turn I ever took.”
[The End]
