Maya Dutta
Episode 1 – The Missed Train
The evening air of Kolkata carried the smell of coal-dust and roasted peanuts, that particular mixture that only Howrah Station seemed capable of holding together. The great iron ribs of the terminal arched above rows of restless passengers, each waiting for their escape or return. Ananya clutched the strap of her canvas bag tighter and quickened her pace, weaving between porters balancing luggage on their heads and families herding sleepy children. The announcement blared across the platform—her train had begun moving. By the time she reached the edge, breathless, the coaches were already sliding past, metal against metal, wheels shrieking as if mocking her delay.
She stopped short, chest heaving, watching the tail light of the train disappear into the tunnel of darkening tracks. Her fingers dug into her palm. She had missed it, the only train that would have taken her to Shantiniketan that evening. The college conference tomorrow, the paper she was meant to present—it all swam before her in one muddled disappointment. Around her, the station pulsed with indifference; people rushed past, announcing lives far more urgent than hers.
For a moment, she simply stood still, the din washing over her. Then, with a sigh that pressed deep into her bones, she turned toward the long iron bench where a half-empty water bottle and an abandoned newspaper rested. She sat down, pulling her dupatta close against the thin November chill. She had always believed in punctuality, in holding her life like a neat diary page with no ink smudges. And yet here she was—betrayed by a late taxi, by an obstinate traffic jam, by her own helplessness.
It was then she noticed the man seated at the other end of the bench. He was reading intently, head bent over a worn paperback, its cover faded, the spine cracked from use. His posture was unhurried, almost out of place in this carnival of motion. A lock of hair fell across his forehead, and every now and then, his lips moved slightly as if silently tasting the sentences. He did not look up even when a hawker shouted “Chai! Chai garam!” right beside them.
Ananya found herself staring longer than she should have. Something about his stillness pulled her. At last, he closed the book, slid a finger between its pages, and looked up. Their eyes met briefly. He gave a small nod, not quite a smile but a recognition, as though two accidental witnesses had acknowledged each other.
“Missed your train?” His voice was low, carrying no judgment, only observation.
She hesitated, then gave a half-laugh. “Yes. Watched it leave without me. Quite cinematic, really, if you remove the panic.”
He chuckled softly. “Happens more often than we like to admit. I once missed mine for an entire week.”
“A week?”
“I was supposed to go to Delhi. Instead, I kept postponing, telling myself tomorrow, tomorrow. By the time I finally went, everything had changed. Perhaps for the better.”
There was something odd in the way he said it—neither regret nor relief, just a tone that suggested life’s peculiar indifference to plans.
She glanced at his book. “What were you reading?”
He lifted it slightly. “Tagore. Short stories. This copy has been with me since school. My mother’s handwriting is still on the first page.” He turned it for her to see—the ink was faded, but a neat Bengali script still marked the inside cover.
Ananya felt an unexpected warmth. She thought of her own mother, who had carefully tucked handwritten notes inside all her school textbooks, notes Ananya never threw away. “Tagore at Howrah Station,” she said, smiling faintly. “Not a bad combination.”
The loudspeaker announced another train’s arrival, followed by the shuffling of feet as crowds reassembled. Somewhere a baby wailed, and the clatter of metal tiffin carriers echoed like cymbals. The station seemed an endless rehearsal of departures and reunions.
He tucked the book back into his satchel. “So, where were you supposed to go?”
“Shantiniketan. Conference. I’m presenting my paper tomorrow morning.” She shook her head, bitterness curling her words. “And now I suppose I’ll present it to myself in an empty hostel room.”
“Perhaps not. There’s a local train at ten tonight, isn’t there?”
She blinked. “It doesn’t stop directly at Bolpur.”
“But you can change at Bardhaman. I’ve done it before.”
His casual tone irritated her and comforted her at once. She hated being reminded of possibilities she had overlooked, and yet the thought that she was not entirely stranded steadied her. “I suppose I could try. It will be late, though.”
He shrugged. “Late trains sometimes take us where we’re meant to be, not where we planned to be.”
Ananya looked at him sharply. Who was this stranger with riddles in his sentences? She studied him now with more intent: the faint stubble on his jaw, the calluses on his fingers, the eyes that seemed older than his face. He was perhaps in his late twenties, not much older than her.
She realized she had not asked his name. “I’m Ananya,” she said finally, offering a cautious smile.
He paused, as though deciding whether to give away a secret, and then answered, “Arjun.”
They shook hands briefly, the gesture awkward amid the rush of the station. Yet something settled quietly between them, like the moment when rain begins with the faintest drop.
Minutes passed in companionable silence. Arjun broke it by saying, “Do you know why I like stations? Because they remind us we are never entirely stuck. Even when you miss one train, another waits. Perhaps not to the same destination, but somewhere.”
Ananya wanted to argue, to insist that not all destinations were replaceable, that some roads once missed were lost forever. But she found herself only nodding, watching the curve of his words as if they carried some truth she hadn’t learned yet.
The evening deepened, the great station lights flickering to life one by one, painting the iron arches gold. The air grew colder, and people pulled shawls tighter. Ananya checked her watch. Two more hours until the local. She should have felt impatient. Instead, she felt suspended in a strange calm, as though missing the train had opened not a void but a pause, a pocket of time where she could breathe.
Arjun leaned back against the bench, humming something under his breath. The tune was unfamiliar, gentle, unfinished, like the beginning of a song still waiting for its words.
She tilted her head. “What is that?”
He looked almost embarrassed. “A composition I’m working on. Nothing serious. Just a habit—I write music no one hears.”
“Letters never posted, songs never sung,” she said softly, more to herself than to him.
He smiled at that, a real smile this time, sudden and unguarded. “Exactly.”
And in that moment, Ananya realized the evening had changed. What began as failure—a missed train, a lost chance—was unfolding into something else entirely. She could not name it yet, but she felt the stir of it, like pages rustling before the story is read.
When the announcement finally came for the ten o’clock train, she stood up, her bag slung again across her shoulder. Arjun rose too, adjusting his satchel. Neither spoke the obvious: that they would board the same train, ride through the night, and perhaps part at different stops. But the silence between them carried the shape of a beginning.
Episode 2 – Shared Umbrella
The train lurched forward, its compartments rattling like old bones, the air inside thick with sweat, oil, and the faint tang of iron. Ananya found herself pressed against the window, the glass cool against her cheek as the night unfolded beyond—fields stretching into shadow, scattered lights of villages flickering like distant fireflies. Arjun stood near the aisle, holding a metal bar above his head, steady in the rocking movement, his satchel wedged between his feet. They hadn’t spoken much since boarding, but his presence felt curiously natural, as though the missed train had been a deliberate orchestration to bring them here.
When the train screeched to its halt at Bardhaman, the crowd surged outward, jostling in impatience. Arjun guided her with a light gesture of his hand, carving a path through the noise and elbows. Outside, the platform lay under an indifferent drizzle, the lamps haloed in mist. The air smelled of damp earth and fried pakoras from a nearby stall.
Ananya hesitated, tugging her dupatta over her head. “I didn’t expect rain.”
Arjun opened his satchel, pulled out a folded umbrella, and without ceremony popped it open above them. It was black, slightly frayed along the edges, but it spread wide enough to cover them both. The rain struck it with a steady percussion, each drop echoing close to their ears.
“Shared umbrella, then,” he said lightly, as if announcing a pact.
They moved together across the slippery platform. She tried to keep distance, but the umbrella forced proximity, his shoulder brushing hers with every step. The rhythm of the rain drowned much of the station’s chaos. Beneath the small circle of shelter, a hush seemed to descend, a fragile intimacy.
Ananya found herself speaking before she planned. “When I was a child, I hated sharing umbrellas. My sister and I fought over it—who got the middle, who got the dry part. By the time we were done quarreling, both of us were soaked.”
Arjun chuckled. “My brother and I did the same. Though I think we fought more for the sake of fighting than for dryness.”
“Do you still?”
“We don’t meet enough to fight anymore.” His voice dipped, carrying something unspoken.
The drizzle thickened into a heavier rain, turning the platform into a mirror of trembling lights. A boy in a torn shirt ran barefoot, trying to gather scattered coins, while his younger sister watched from beneath the flimsy shade of a newspaper. Arjun slowed, watching them, and then without a word bent down, slipped a ten-rupee note into the boy’s wet palm, and walked on. Ananya followed silently, glancing at him. He didn’t look back at the children, didn’t wait for gratitude.
Something softened in her. “You do that often?”
“Sometimes. It doesn’t change their lives. But maybe it changes the hour.”
They reached the shelter of the waiting hall, water dripping from the umbrella’s edges. The crowd inside smelled of damp wool and hot tea. A group of students were playing antakshari in one corner, their voices rising above the sound of rain. Arjun closed the umbrella, shaking droplets onto the floor, and leaned it against the bench. They sat, still brushing off water from their sleeves.
“I suppose we’ll have to wait for the connecting train,” Ananya said, rubbing her hands together.
“It’s not due for another forty minutes.” He reached into his satchel again and pulled out a notebook, its pages swollen from use. “Want to pass the time with a game?”
“What kind of game?”
He opened it to reveal scrawled lines of poetry, some neatly written, some scratched over. “I write half a verse. You write the next. No rules. Just let the rain dictate.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I’m not a poet.”
“Neither am I. That’s the point.”
He wrote a line, then slid the notebook to her. The night carries letters it never posts.
Her heart stuttered at the echo of what she had said earlier on the bench at Howrah. She stared at the line, then, slowly, she wrote: And the rain smudges names we never call.
He read it, smiled. “Not bad at all.”
They continued like that—an odd duet of half-formed verses, awkward rhymes, words tumbling between them like marbles spilled on a floor. Some lines were tender, others clumsy, but the act itself was strangely binding. The world outside the waiting hall blurred into wet shadows, but inside, with ink and paper, they stitched together a fragile bridge of language.
When the whistle finally cut through the rain, they snapped the notebook shut, almost reluctant. Boarding the next train, they found seats opposite each other, the umbrella propped between them. The compartment smelled of damp wood and cardamom tea. Arjun tapped his fingers against the window frame, drumming some invisible tune.
“You’re a musician,” Ananya said.
“Trying to be.”
“What do you play?”
“Mostly guitar. Sometimes harmonium. But my real obsession is composing. I hear fragments of songs everywhere—in the sound of trains, in rain like this.”
“And do you finish them?”
“Rarely. Most stay fragments. Maybe they’re meant to be fragments.”
She wanted to tell him that sometimes fragments mattered more than the whole, that unfinished things carried their own kind of truth. Instead, she looked out at the blur of fields under rain, the lights smeared like brushstrokes.
Hours later, when they finally reached Bolpur, the rain had slowed to a fine drizzle, more mist than water. The station was quieter, smaller, a world away from Howrah’s tumult. Ananya stepped down carefully, adjusting her bag. Arjun followed, opening the umbrella again without asking, holding it above them as they walked toward the exit.
They paused at the gate. She turned to him. “Thank you—for the umbrella, the poetry, everything. I suppose this is where we part.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then handed her the notebook. “Keep it. Consider it… unfinished work. Maybe you’ll add more verses.”
She shook her head. “I can’t take this.”
“You can. I’ll write new ones. Besides, words don’t belong to the writer once they’re written.”
She held the notebook, the pages damp at the edges, the ink still smelling faintly of rain. It felt heavier than its weight.
They lingered, the silence stretching. Then a rickshaw puller called out, and Ananya reluctantly stepped away. She climbed into the rickshaw, holding the umbrella and the notebook close. As the vehicle rattled toward the dim streets, she turned once. Arjun still stood at the gate, hands in his pockets, the black umbrella hanging loose at his side.
For a moment, their eyes caught across the rain. Then the rickshaw turned a corner, and he was gone.
But the notebook lay in her lap, a quiet reminder that some meetings, however brief, had already left their ink upon her story.
Episode 3 – Songs on College Street
The morning after the rain smelled of red earth and wet leaves. Ananya stood outside the lecture hall in Shantiniketan, her paper clutched in one hand, the umbrella folded neatly under the other arm. The conference crowd buzzed with energy—professors in crumpled kurtas, students carrying files stuffed with notes, foreign scholars adjusting spectacles as though trying to decode Bengal itself. She delivered her paper with a voice steadier than she expected, though her mind wandered once or twice to the notebook in her bag, the pages still crinkled from rain.
By the time the conference ended two days later, she felt drained but relieved. She boarded the return train to Kolkata with no expectation of seeing Arjun again. He belonged to a passing storm, she told herself, the kind of stranger fate introduces only to make you wonder. Yet when she stepped out into the familiar chaos of Sealdah station, her phone vibrated. An unknown number.
She hesitated, then answered.
“You never added another verse,” said the voice, calm and familiar.
Her breath caught. “Arjun?”
“You’re back in the city. I can hear the rickshaw bells.”
She turned, almost absurdly expecting to find him behind her. “How did you get my number?”
“You wrote it at the back of one of your verses. Didn’t realize?”
She flushed, remembering how she had once scribbled her number on the edge of a page for feedback on a line. “That wasn’t for you—” she began, then stopped.
“Well, I’m taking liberties,” he said. “Come with me tomorrow. College Street. I’ll show you where songs hide between books.”
She could have said no, could have chosen to leave the rain-born friendship behind. But something in his voice tugged at her. “What time?” she asked.
College Street stretched like a living archive—rows of bookstalls spilling onto pavements, yellowing pages rustling in the breeze, the smell of ink and chai blending with the smoke of passing buses. Students argued loudly about Marx and Derrida, professors haggled over rare editions, and old sellers dozed behind towers of books that seemed one gust away from collapse.
Arjun stood by the gates of Coffee House, guitar slung across his back. The sight startled her. In daylight, away from rain and stations, he seemed both more ordinary and more improbable. His shirt was loose, his eyes squinting against the sun, but the instrument strapped behind him transformed him into something else—a wanderer carrying his own weather.
“You brought the city’s chaos into tune,” she teased, nodding at the guitar.
“College Street has always been a rehearsal hall,” he said, grinning. “Every sound here is waiting to be borrowed.”
They strolled together past the stalls, pausing to flip through old books whose covers bore forgotten names. At one corner, a man sold slim notebooks bound in recycled paper. Arjun bought two, handed one to her. “In case the old one fills too soon.”
“You expect me to keep writing?”
“I expect you to keep listening. Songs often begin as sentences.”
They ducked into the shade of an alley where a group of young musicians sat on crates, strumming guitars and beating tablas. The air hummed with half-finished songs, voices layered over one another like conversations in multiple rooms. Arjun joined them with a nod, pulled his guitar forward, and began to play.
Ananya stood back, half-hidden by the wall, watching. His fingers moved easily, coaxing notes that curled like smoke, then broke into rhythm. The others followed, and suddenly the alley was alive with sound—an improvised song about rain, hunger, waiting. She felt it ripple through her, the words raw and unpolished but charged with life.
When the song ended, applause burst from a small crowd that had gathered. Arjun only laughed, brushing hair from his forehead. He walked back to her, eyes bright. “See? Even strangers can sing together if you give them a rhythm.”
“You belong here,” she said softly, surprising herself.
“Maybe. But belonging is temporary. Like trains.”
They left the alley and wandered to College Square, where the pond reflected the heavy clouds gathering again. They sat on the stone steps, children playing cricket behind them, vendors calling out jhal muri, cut mango. Arjun unpacked a small packet of muri and handed it to her. They ate in silence, the kind of silence that grows comfortable.
Finally, she asked, “Why music?”
He chewed thoughtfully before answering. “Because it refuses to stay caged. You can silence words, burn books, but a tune—once it’s out—it floats. It belongs to anyone who hears it. My father wanted me to study engineering. I did, for a year. But every equation I solved sounded like a missing chord. So I left.”
She turned to him. “And your family?”
“They don’t understand. Maybe they don’t need to.” He paused, eyes drifting across the pond. “I write songs I don’t publish, letters I don’t send. Perhaps one day they’ll find their way. Perhaps not.”
His words reminded her of the notebook resting in her bag, the verses they had scribbled together. She wondered if she had already become part of his unfinished archive.
A drizzle began, faint at first, then thickening. Children squealed, running for cover. Arjun simply opened the umbrella, the same black one with frayed edges, and held it above them. They sat close under its canopy, the pond rippling under raindrops, the city blurred into watercolor strokes.
“Do you always find rain waiting for you?” she asked.
“Or maybe I follow it,” he replied, smiling.
Something about the moment—rain, books, music, the faint smell of wet earth—wrapped around her like a net. She realized she had not thought of conferences or deadlines since she arrived. The city felt altered, as though every corner hid a verse he might show her.
When the rain slowed, they rose and began walking back toward the tram lines. He insisted on escorting her to the stop, though she knew her way perfectly. As they waited for the tram, he leaned on the pole, humming again.
“What song is that?” she asked.
“Not yet a song. Just a thread.”
“Will you ever finish it?”
“Depends. Some threads need another hand to knot them.”
The tram bell clanged, and she stepped up onto the platform. He didn’t follow, only waved, the umbrella folded under his arm once more. The tram pulled away, and she saw him shrinking in the distance, still humming, the crowd swallowing him slowly.
Back at her small apartment that night, she opened the notebook he had given her. The rain had left faint smudges on the pages, as though reminding her that nothing remains untouched. She uncapped her pen, hesitated, and then wrote: Today I found songs hiding between books, and rain humming through the strings of a guitar.
She closed the notebook, pressed her palm against its cover. The city outside buzzed with horns and shouts, but she felt as though she carried a small circle of silence inside her—an unfinished tune, waiting.
Episode 4 – Letters Left Unsent
The days slid into one another, as if the city itself had turned into a great notebook of unfinished verses. Ananya returned to her routine of lectures, assignments, and library hours, yet somewhere inside, the pattern felt loosened. The missed train had become a hinge; life now opened on a different axis. Sometimes, on the bus ride home, she would flip open the notebook Arjun had given her, tracing the lines of their rain-written poems. At night, before sleep, she caught herself listening for a hum in the dark, the echo of his voice turning fragments into rhythm.
One Sunday morning, restless, she walked down to the post office near College Street. The air was thick with the smell of ink and old wood; rows of counters hummed with murmured addresses, stamped papers, and the shuffle of clerks. She was there to post a letter to her mother—something dutiful and ordinary. But as she waited in line, she noticed a familiar figure at the far corner, leaning over a wooden desk.
Arjun.
He was bent over sheets of inland paper, his pen moving with steady urgency. A small stack of envelopes already lay beside him. For a moment, she thought he hadn’t seen her. She watched, curious, until he finally lifted his head and spotted her. Surprise flickered across his face, then a quiet smile.
“You again,” she said, walking over.
He moved his hand over the pile as if shielding them. “Ah, caught red-handed.”
“Writing letters in the age of WhatsApp?” she teased.
“These aren’t for sending.”
“What do you mean?”
He pushed one envelope toward her. It was sealed, neat, but the address field was blank. “Letters left unsent. A habit. Every week, I come here, write them out, seal them, and drop them into this box.” He pointed to a battered tin container at his side, filled with unposted envelopes.
She frowned. “Why write if you won’t send?”
“Because writing is sometimes more important than reaching. Some truths are too heavy to deliver, but too restless to stay silent. Letters hold them in place.”
Ananya touched one of the envelopes, feeling the thickness of its contents. “Who are they for?”
“Sometimes people I know. Sometimes people I don’t. Sometimes versions of myself I can’t meet.” His tone was neither embarrassed nor boastful, but simple, like he was stating a weather fact.
She sat on the bench beside him, her own letter forgotten. The idea unsettled her and intrigued her all at once. “So this box is full of ghosts,” she said softly.
“Perhaps. Or futures. Or both.”
They sat in silence, the dusty air around them humming with the ceiling fan. Finally, she asked, “What would you write if you were to send one to me?”
He gave her a long look, his pen still in hand. Then, without a word, he pulled out a fresh sheet and began writing. She watched the movement of his wrist, the way his brows furrowed slightly. In less than a minute, he folded the paper, slid it into an envelope, sealed it. He placed it in front of her.
“For you.”
She reached for it, heart quickening, but his hand stopped hers. “But you can’t open it. Not now.”
“Then when?”
“When you miss a train again.” His smile was playful, but something in his eyes was grave.
Ananya slipped the envelope into her bag, its weight far heavier than paper should be. She felt as though she had been given a locked door without a key.
They left the post office together, the city stretching hot and loud outside. The sun hammered down on tram tracks, and hawkers shouted over piles of guavas. They walked without aim until they reached a quieter lane, shaded by peepal trees. A small tea stall leaned against the wall, its benches crooked but inviting. Arjun ordered two clay cups of steaming chai.
As they sipped, she asked, “Do you ever regret not sending them?”
He blew on his tea. “Maybe. But sending means risking silence in return. At least this way, the words remain alive.”
“Or trapped,” she countered.
He smiled faintly. “Perhaps trapped is another word for safe.”
A silence settled, broken only by the clink of cups and the rustle of leaves above them. She studied him—the curve of his jaw, the shadows under his eyes, the way his fingers tapped the clay cup as though it were another instrument. There was a gravity about him, a sense of someone always listening to a different frequency of the world.
When they parted that afternoon, she carried the sealed envelope like a secret flame. At home, she slid it into the notebook, pressing it between the pages of their verses. She tried not to think of it, but at night she would trace the outline of the paper, wondering what words waited inside.
The following week, she met him again, this time near the riverside. The Hooghly shimmered under late afternoon light, boats drifting lazily. They walked along the ghats, dodging children flying kites and women filling brass pots. Arjun carried his guitar, though he didn’t play it. He seemed quieter that day, his eyes searching the water as if waiting for an answer.
“You’re different today,” she said.
“Some days weigh more than others.”
He sat on the stone steps, pulling his knees close, and she joined him. After a long silence, he spoke. “I wrote a letter to my father last week. Told him everything—why I left, why music is all I can hold onto. But of course, I didn’t send it.”
“Why not?”
“Because his silence would crush me. And because maybe he already knows. Some words are only mirrors; speaking them doesn’t change the reflection.”
She wanted to reach for his hand but hesitated. Instead, she asked, “And your mother?”
His lips curved slightly. “She writes letters too. Only hers reach. Every month, without fail. Recipes, prayers, fragments of her garden. She doesn’t ask questions. Just writes.”
The river lapped at the steps. Ananya thought of her own mother, her careful notes tucked inside books, her constant belief that Ananya’s world was neatly aligned. Would she understand this side of her life, this stranger with a satchel full of unsent letters?
When the evening lamps lit up along the ghats, painting the river in trembling gold, Arjun finally strummed a few notes on his guitar. They floated into the air, thin and fragile, yet filled with ache. She closed her eyes, listening. For the first time, she felt that music might be nothing more than letters left unsent—messages carried not by postmen but by air itself, vanishing yet heard.
That night, alone in her room, she opened her notebook again. She placed her pen on the blank page and wrote: Some letters never reach, yet they arrive all the same. Some words speak even in silence. Today, I found myself waiting for rain, and for you.
She didn’t show it to him. She didn’t need to.
But she kept the sealed envelope between the pages, its edges pressing faintly against her palm, reminding her that some beginnings arrive disguised as secrets.
Episode 5 – Durga Puja Nights
Kolkata in October becomes a different city, as though it sheds its weary skin and dons a luminous costume of sound and color. For days leading up to Durga Puja, the air grows heavier with anticipation—bamboo frames rising on street corners, cloth stretched taut, lights woven like constellations across narrow lanes. Ananya had always loved this season, the way even strangers on trams and buses smiled a little more, the way every para turned into its own small universe of worship and wonder. Yet this year felt different. Every pandal she passed seemed charged with a hidden promise, as though the goddess herself carried a secret meant for her alone.
On Shashthi evening, her phone buzzed. A single line from Arjun: Meet me at Maddox Square, seven o’clock.
She dressed carefully, though she told herself it was only for the festival. A cream kurta with indigo prints, silver jhumkas, hair left loose. The streets pulsed with drums and shouts as she made her way through the throng. Maddox Square was already ablaze with lights, the vast pandal glittering like a golden ship anchored on grass. Children darted with balloons, couples posed against backdrops of chandeliers and idols. Amid all this noise, she spotted him leaning casually against a barricade, guitar still slung across his back, as though it were an extension of his spine.
“You’re late,” he teased when she reached him, though his smile betrayed relief.
“Crowds,” she said breathlessly.
They entered together, swept along by the tide of people. Inside, the goddess towered, eyes wide with benevolence and fury, her face glowing under a thousand bulbs. Ananya felt her throat tighten—every year, this moment returned her to childhood, when she first believed that Ma Durga truly descended from the Himalayas for a few stolen days. She turned slightly, saw Arjun gazing upward too, his expression unreadable.
“Do you believe?” she asked quietly.
“In gods?” He paused. “I believe in moments. Maybe that’s the same thing.”
They circled the pandal, then stepped outside where food stalls sprawled across the grass. The smell of fried luchis, egg rolls, and phuchkas clung to the air. Arjun bought them two paper plates of chowmein, and they sat cross-legged on the grass. Around them, laughter rang like bells, the night thick with incense and possibility.
Between mouthfuls, she asked, “So, no concerts for you during Puja?”
He shook his head. “Crowds don’t listen during Puja. They only celebrate. My songs aren’t for noise. They’re for silences that don’t know they’re waiting.”
She thought of his letters, sealed and unsent. Words held captive, songs half-breathed. And yet here he was, amidst the city’s loudest festival, eating chowmein with her under the goddess’s gaze.
Later, they drifted along the streets, pandal-hopping. At Ekdalia, the idol was framed in shimmering mirrors; at Ballygunge, the goddess stood in minimalist white. At each stop, they pressed forward with the crowd, shoulders brushing, sharing glances when the lights overwhelmed. At last, exhausted, they found themselves on a quieter lane where the pandals gave way to dark houses.
The sudden silence startled her. “Strange, isn’t it? One corner is all drumbeats and lights, and the next is just… shadows.”
“That’s Kolkata,” he said. “Contradictions in every step.”
They walked slowly, his hand brushing hers once, then again, until finally it stayed. She didn’t pull away. The streetlamp above flickered, casting their shadows briefly together, briefly apart.
When they reached Lake Market, the crowd swelled again. Hawkers called, “Ghugni! Jhal muri!” Drummers beat rhythms that seemed to climb into the stars. A group of young people were dancing wildly, sweat and joy mingling. Arjun pulled her gently forward.
“No,” she protested, laughing. “I don’t dance in public.”
“Neither do I. But we can pretend the street is ours.”
And somehow, without thinking, she let him spin her once under the streetlight, his guitar thumping against his back. She laughed louder than she had in months. For a moment, the city fell away; there was only his hand warm against hers, the scent of incense and frying oil, the goddess’s smile echoing across the night.
When they finally stopped, breathless, they found a tea stall and sipped from earthen cups. The clay felt warm in her hand, the tea sweeter than usual. She caught him watching her, eyes softer than she had ever seen them.
“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Just… sometimes it feels like Puja is less about gods and more about people. The way we allow ourselves to be different for a few nights. Kinder, braver, more alive.”
She held his gaze. “And when Puja ends?”
He shrugged. “We go back. But maybe we carry something forward too. A fragment.”
The night grew heavier, and the streets slowly thinned as families returned home. They walked together toward her lane, the air cooling. At her door, they lingered. She wanted to thank him, to say something precise about the strangeness of finding comfort in chaos, about how the night had folded into memory even before it ended. Instead, she said simply, “Good night.”
“Good night, Ananya.”
He turned, disappearing into the dark. She stood for a long time, listening to the distant drums, clutching the clay cup he had insisted she keep. Inside her room, she placed it beside the notebook, next to the sealed envelope. Together they seemed like relics of a story not yet written.
On Dashami, the last day of Puja, the air filled with sindoor and conch shells. Women in red-bordered sarees smeared vermilion on the goddess’s cheeks, then on each other’s faces. Ananya stood at the edge of the crowd, watching the idol carried toward the river. The chants of Bolo Durga Mai ki joy! rose like thunder. The goddess was leaving, returning to her mountain home, but the city seemed to throb with both joy and grief.
Arjun stood beside her, silent. When the idol slipped into the water, he whispered, “Everything beautiful is temporary. That’s why it stays beautiful.”
She looked at him, words caught in her throat. The river swallowed the goddess’s face, the drums slowed, and the night folded into the inevitability of endings. But as they walked away from the ghat, shoulder to shoulder, she realized something had changed. The missed train, the umbrella, the notebook—each had been fragments. Tonight, they had begun to weave into something more continuous.
A story that, for once, felt like it wanted to be told.
Episode 6 – The Secret
The days after Puja felt muted, as though the city had exhaled all its brilliance and returned to its weary self. The pandal lights came down, leaving behind bamboo skeletons and damp cloth. The streets smelled of fading incense and crushed marigolds, the remnants of celebration scattered like unanswered questions. For Ananya, however, the glow lingered. Her evenings were no longer solitary; sometimes Arjun’s number appeared on her phone with a brief, cryptic message—Come to the river, College Street needs your footsteps, Songs sound better in the rain. She found herself going, almost without thought, as though he had tuned some hidden frequency inside her.
One evening, they met near the small tea shop by the tram depot. The air smelled of roasted peanuts, and the traffic hummed like a tired orchestra. Arjun was already seated, his guitar case at his side, fingers tapping an uneven rhythm on the table. He looked up when she arrived, smiling faintly, but his eyes seemed clouded.
“You look different today,” she said, sliding into the bench.
“Do I?”
“Yes. Restless.”
He stirred his tea, watching the leaves swirl. “Maybe I am. There are things I should tell you. Things I’ve been carrying.”
Her stomach tightened. For a moment, she wanted to tell him not to speak, to leave their story in its delicate balance. But his tone demanded listening.
He exhaled. “You know I left home after that one year of engineering. What I didn’t tell you is… it wasn’t just rebellion. It was escape.”
She frowned. “Escape from what?”
“My father. He’s not a cruel man, not in the way some fathers are. But he has expectations that choke. Every step of mine was weighed against what I was supposed to be—marks, degrees, a career polished to perfection. Music was a stain he wanted washed off.”
She reached for his hand, but he pulled it back, fingers tightening around the cup. “The day I left, I didn’t tell him. I just packed my guitar, my books, and walked out. He hasn’t forgiven me. We don’t speak.”
Ananya’s chest ached. “And your mother?”
“She writes still. But only small things. Recipes. Weather. Never mentions him, never mentions me leaving. As if she’s stitching words across a wound but not daring to lift the bandage.”
He rubbed his forehead, weary. “Sometimes I wonder if I was selfish. Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed, studied, lived the life he wanted. At least then the silence at home wouldn’t stretch so wide.”
Her instinct was to say you did right. But she hesitated. She saw in his eyes not a man craving approval but one wrestling with shadows. Words of comfort would only skim the surface. So she said quietly, “Maybe some silences are necessary. So that the music can breathe.”
He looked at her, and for a moment the clouds in his gaze lifted. “You sound like you believe that.”
“I don’t know if I believe it. But I believe in you.”
The words startled her as much as him. They hung between them, fragile, trembling.
He smiled then, small but real, and reached into his satchel. From inside, he pulled another envelope, sealed and blank like the others. He placed it on the table.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A letter I wrote yesterday. It’s for you too. But like the other, you can’t open it yet.”
Her pulse quickened. “Then when?”
“When the time is right. You’ll know.”
She tucked it into her bag, beside the first. Two sealed voices now pressed against her, growing heavier by the day.
Over the next week, Arjun’s restlessness deepened. He would call her suddenly, his voice urgent: Come, let’s walk, or Meet me near the bridge. She never refused. They walked long stretches of the city—through lanes that smelled of old books, past shuttered markets, along the river where fishermen lit small fires. He spoke less, but when he did, the words came heavy, like stones pulled from a deep well.
One night, standing on Howrah Bridge, he said, “Do you ever feel like the city is listening to us? Every horn, every footstep, carrying fragments of our story?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And I’m afraid sometimes. Because if the city listens, it might also repeat.”
He laughed softly. “Then let it repeat. Maybe stories deserve echoes.”
The wind tangled her hair across her face. He reached to brush it back, fingers grazing her cheek. The touch was brief, but it felt like a truth neither could unsay.
But secrets don’t stay still.
It was a Sunday when Ananya first saw him across the street near College Square, talking to a woman she didn’t recognize. The woman was tall, wrapped in a maroon shawl, her face stern, her hands moving as if in argument. Arjun stood silent, head bowed. The sight unsettled her. She wanted to cross over, to ask, but by the time she reached, they were gone.
That night, she messaged him. Who was she?
For a long while, no reply. Then finally: Someone from before.
Before what? she typed.
Before you.
She stared at the screen until the words blurred.
When they met the next evening, she couldn’t hold it in. “You should tell me. Whoever she was, whatever this is. Don’t make me guess.”
Arjun looked exhausted, as though he hadn’t slept. He rubbed his eyes. “Her name is Riya. We… were together once. Before I left home. Before music became exile. She wanted me to stay. I couldn’t. I left her too.”
Ananya’s throat tightened. “And now?”
“She found me. Said she wanted answers. Said she deserved them. Maybe she does.”
Ananya felt the ground shift beneath her. All the fragments—the missed train, the umbrella, the notebook, the festival—suddenly seemed fragile, like paper in rain. She wanted to ask if he still loved Riya, if she was just a pause in his unfinished song. But the words tangled in her chest.
Instead, she said, “Do your letters tell her what you can’t?”
His eyes darkened. “Some of them.”
The silence stretched between them, sharper than any argument.
When she finally turned to leave, he caught her wrist, desperate. “Ananya, don’t walk away. Please. I don’t know what this is between us, but it’s real. Riya belongs to yesterday. You… you feel like tomorrow.”
She looked at him, his eyes raw, his grip trembling. And she knew this was not the end. But it was no longer the simple beginning either.
That night, she opened her notebook again but didn’t write. Instead, she slipped both envelopes inside, pressing them shut with her palm. Secrets had weight. And now, she carried them too.
Episode 7 – Separation by Silence
Silence has many shapes. Sometimes it is sharp, like a door slammed before you can explain. Sometimes it is slow, like mist settling on a river at dawn. For Ananya and Arjun, silence arrived as a shadow stretched between them, not sudden but steady, gathering weight until words found no way across.
After that evening when Riya’s name had slipped into their story, Ananya began measuring her days differently. The phone that once buzzed with his brief, luminous messages now lay still, days at a stretch. She resisted calling first, pride tangling with hurt. When she did, his replies came delayed—short phrases, incomplete, as if typed while half-asleep or distracted. She tried to tell herself he was busy, lost in rehearsals, but the truth pressed harder: something had shifted.
At the university, her friends noticed her distraction. “You’ve been floating,” one of them teased. “Like you’re here and not here.” Ananya laughed it off, but she knew they weren’t wrong. In lectures, words blurred into noise; in the library, her eyes drifted from the page. All she saw was the sealed envelope inside her notebook, its unbroken edge whispering louder than any spoken sentence.
One evening, restless, she walked down to the ghats. The river stretched dark, the lamps along the banks flickering uncertainly. Couples sat scattered on the steps, whispering. She half-expected Arjun to appear, guitar slung as always, but the night remained stubbornly empty. She took out the envelope, ran her thumb along its seal, tempted to tear it open. But she didn’t. Some part of her feared that once the secret was read, whatever fragile bond remained would collapse.
The silence grew heavier.
When Arjun finally called, his voice was thin, as though carried from far away. “Can we meet?”
They met at College Square, near the tea stalls where students debated politics over biscuits. The evening air smelled of wet leaves, the pond rippling with the last of the monsoon breeze. Ananya arrived early, waiting with arms crossed, her notebook heavy in her bag.
When he came, he looked worn—hair unkempt, eyes rimmed red. For a moment, she forgot her anger, but then the memory of days waiting returned.
“You disappeared,” she said flatly.
“I know.”
“You could have said something.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
Silence again, this time jagged. She wanted him to fight for her presence, to insist she mattered more than the shadows of his past. But he only stared at the pond, his hands restless on his knees.
Finally, he said, “Riya left again. Back to Delhi. She said all she wanted was closure.”
“And you gave it to her?”
“I tried.”
The word lodged in her chest like a thorn. Tried. Not did, not could, but tried. She realized how fragile trust was when stretched across unspoken truths.
She stood abruptly. “I should go.”
“Ananya—”
“No.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know where I stand in your story. A verse? A pause? I can’t keep guessing.”
He rose too, eyes desperate. “You’re more than that. You’re the song I haven’t dared to finish.”
But she was already walking away, each step heavy, each breath breaking.
The days that followed were colder. She avoided the places they had wandered together—College Street, the ghats, the alleys where music spilled from young voices. She buried herself in her work, drafting essays with mechanical precision, but every sentence seemed hollow. Her friends dragged her to cafés, to movie screenings, but she sat detached, eyes drifting to the window, listening for a hum that never came.
One afternoon, unable to bear the weight of the envelopes anymore, she opened her notebook. The two sealed letters lay like mute witnesses. Her fingers trembled, but she resisted still. Instead, she picked up her pen and wrote: Silence is also a language. But it cannot be the only one. She closed the notebook with a sharp snap, as though shutting out her own heart.
Weeks passed. Durga Puja had felt like a festival of beginnings; now, Kali Puja loomed, the city lit in fierce blue lights, firecrackers scattering sparks across the night. Ananya stood on her balcony, watching children run with sparklers. The air smelled of smoke and sweetened khichuri. She thought of Arjun somewhere in this city, maybe strumming his guitar in some crowded lane, maybe writing another unsent letter. The ache was dull now, not sharp, but it was everywhere.
Her phone buzzed. A message from him: I’m playing at a small gathering tomorrow. If you come, don’t come for me. Come for the music.
She read it twice, then deleted it without reply. But all night, sleep refused to come.
The next evening, she found herself standing outside the courtyard where the gathering was held. Lanterns swung gently from trees, voices drifted in waves. She stayed hidden by the gate, unseen, listening. His guitar rose above the murmur, steady, aching. The song was unfamiliar yet painfully known. Every chord carried something of their story—rain, silence, unfinished lines.
Her eyes burned. She wanted to step inside, to let him see she had come. But she couldn’t. Instead, she turned and walked back into the dark streets, her shadow long under the streetlamps.
In the days that followed, they didn’t meet. The silence became their only companion, stretched thin but unbroken. She carried on with her life, lectures and libraries, but inside, a hollow space remained.
Sometimes she wondered if this was what all love stories became—fragments scattered by silence, waiting for someone brave enough to stitch them together. Sometimes she feared theirs had ended already, not with a storm but with a hush.
Yet each night, when she opened her notebook, she couldn’t bring herself to remove the envelopes. They remained there, sealed and waiting, like doors in a house she wasn’t ready to enter.
Perhaps one day she would tear them open. Perhaps one day silence would break. But for now, she lived in the space between—where absence spoke louder than presence, where letters unsent weighed heavier than those received, where love lingered as possibility, not certainty.
Episode 8 – The Bridge Between
Winter crept into the city slowly, like a shawl draped across reluctant shoulders. The mornings grew misty, the tramlines glistening with dew, the air carrying the faint scent of roasted chestnuts and smoke from coal stoves. For Ananya, the season felt heavier, as though the silence between her and Arjun had condensed into the fog itself. They had not spoken in weeks. She told herself she was moving on, yet every sound—the strum of a street musician, the whistle of a late-night train—pulled her back.
One evening, after a particularly long day at the university, she boarded a bus across Howrah Bridge. The city lights shimmered in the river below, fractured and restless. She pressed her forehead against the glass, trying to steady her thoughts. But when the bus stalled in traffic midway across the bridge, something made her step off. She walked slowly along the pedestrian lane, the river breathing quietly beneath her, the winter wind sharp against her cheeks.
And then she saw him.
Arjun stood leaning on the railing, guitar case at his feet, head bent against the wind. For a moment, she thought her mind had conjured him from longing. But then he looked up, eyes widening as recognition struck. The city’s chaos blurred into a hum; only the bridge stretched between them, vast and trembling.
Neither spoke at first. They simply stood, the noise of buses and lorries thundering past, the lamps casting pools of pale light. Finally, he said, “I didn’t expect the city to send you here.”
“I didn’t expect it either,” she replied softly. “But here we are.”
He picked up his guitar case, walked closer, stopping just a step away. His face looked older somehow, wearier, but when his eyes met hers, they carried the same unguarded honesty she remembered from their first missed train.
“Ananya,” he said, voice low, “I’ve written a hundred letters since you walked away. None of them reached you. But you’ve been in every note I’ve played.”
Her throat tightened. “Then why the silence?”
“Because I didn’t know how to keep you without hurting you. And I didn’t want you to be another letter left unsent.”
She shook her head, the anger and ache of the past weeks rising. “You can’t decide for both of us. Silence isn’t protection. It’s just absence.”
The river roared below, carrying their words away. He reached into his satchel and pulled out another envelope, sealed like the others. He placed it gently in her hand.
“This one you can open,” he said.
Her fingers trembled as she tore the seal. Inside was a single page, handwritten in his uneven scrawl:
I don’t know how to love quietly. I only know how to love in fragments—songs unfinished, letters unsent. But every fragment leads to you. If you walk away forever, know that I’ll still be writing. If you stay, know that the story is already yours.
She looked up, eyes stinging. “And Riya?”
He exhaled, the name heavy. “Gone. Not just to Delhi. Gone from my heart too. I thought I owed her closure, but what I really owed was honesty—to her, and to myself. And that honesty is you.”
The bridge trembled under passing trucks, but between them, stillness grew. She wanted to believe him, wanted to step into the fragile promise of his words. Yet the wound of silence hadn’t healed fully.
“You hurt me,” she whispered.
“I know. And I may again—not because I want to, but because I’m flawed. But if you’ll let me, I’ll spend every song trying to make it right.”
She closed her eyes, letting the wind lash against her skin. When she opened them, she saw not perfection but a man standing raw, uncertain, yet unafraid to offer his imperfection. Perhaps that was love—not certainty, but the courage to continue.
She stepped closer. Their shoulders touched, the warmth startling against the winter chill. Neither moved away.
“Do you still have the first envelope I gave you?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes.”
“Don’t open it yet. Not until the last chapter writes itself.”
She nodded, slipping his latest letter into her bag alongside the others.
They stood together, leaning against the railing, watching the river carry away fragments of light. The silence now was different—not absence, but presence. The kind of silence that holds rather than erases.
After a long while, he lifted his guitar, strummed a few chords. The sound rose fragile above the traffic, a tune unfinished but alive. She listened, her heart beating in time with each note.
When the bus engines growled again and the traffic began to move, she finally said, “This bridge—it feels like it belongs to us now.”
He smiled. “Then let it. Every city needs its bridges. Maybe this is ours.”
As they walked side by side across Howrah Bridge, the lamps flickering above, Ananya realized the story wasn’t healed, nor complete. But it was alive. And that was enough—for now.
Episode 9 – The Confession
Winter had tightened its grip on Kolkata, and the nights turned brittle, the stars sharp as glass. Ananya found herself walking slower these days, wrapped in a shawl, her breath rising in pale clouds. The silence between her and Arjun had shifted again—not gone, but thinner, as though it waited for something decisive to break it. She still carried the envelopes inside her notebook, now three in total, each like a sealed pulse.
One evening, after a seminar at the university, she found him waiting at the gate. No text beforehand, no warning. He stood with his satchel and guitar, his face drawn but determined.
“Walk with me?” he asked.
She hesitated, then nodded.
They moved through the narrow lanes behind College Street, the smell of frying fish and damp paper lingering. Neither spoke at first. When they reached a quieter stretch near the old cemetery, he stopped.
“There’s something I’ve been holding back,” he said, his voice unsteady. “If I don’t tell you now, I’ll lose whatever chance is left.”
She looked at him, her chest tightening. “Then say it.”
He drew a long breath. “I’ve been in love with you from the first night at Howrah Station. I didn’t know it then—not fully—but every step since has only led me deeper. The umbrella, the notebook, the festival, even the silence… all of it was me trying to find the courage to say this. I love you, Ananya.”
The words hung in the cold air, trembling. She felt the ground tilt beneath her. For weeks she had waited, longed, feared. Now the confession was here, raw and unpolished, and it stole her breath.
She looked down, clutching her shawl. “You kept me waiting in silence for so long. I thought maybe you didn’t feel the same. Or worse, that you still belonged to someone else.”
His eyes softened. “Riya was my past. You are my present, my only future. The silence wasn’t distance—it was fear. Fear that I would break this before it began.”
Her heart surged with anger and tenderness all at once. “And what about your letters? The ones you never send? Am I just another page in that box?”
He shook his head, stepping closer. “No. You’re the letter I want to send every day, but I don’t trust the world to deliver you safely. That’s why I write, why I seal them. But you—you’re the only one I want to open them.”
Her throat burned. “Then let me.”
From his satchel, he pulled out one of the older envelopes—creased, edges worn. He placed it in her palm. “Open this. Not later. Now.”
Her fingers trembled as she tore the flap. Inside, a single line:
If I lose you, I lose the only song worth finishing.
Her eyes blurred. She pressed the page against her chest. “Arjun…”
He reached for her hands, holding them between his. “I don’t know what tomorrow looks like. I’m not rich, I’m not stable. I’m just a man with unfinished songs. But every one of them leads back to you. Will you let me try? Will you walk with me, even if I falter?”
For a long moment, she could only listen to the thrum of her own heartbeat, the hiss of a passing bicycle, the distant call of a chai-seller. And then she whispered, “Yes.”
The word felt like fire in her mouth, fierce and terrifying, but true.
He exhaled, relief breaking across his face like dawn. He pulled her gently into his arms. The embrace was hesitant at first, then certain, her cheek pressed against his chest, where his heart hammered with wild rhythm. The world seemed to pause—the cemetery walls, the misty trees, even the street lamps dimmed into stillness.
They parted slowly, their eyes holding what words could not.
“This doesn’t fix everything,” she said, her voice shaking. “There’s still hurt, still silence to undo.”
“I know,” he said. “But at least now it’s spoken. At least now we can begin.”
Later that night, back in her room, she opened her notebook again. The three envelopes lay side by side. One had been unlocked at last, its truth revealed. She placed it carefully back between the pages and began to write.
Today he confessed. Not in music, not in riddles, not in silence—but in words that carried their own weight. I said yes, though fear still lingers. Perhaps that’s what love is—not the absence of fear, but the choice to step into it together.
She closed the notebook, her hand lingering on the cover. For the first time in weeks, she felt the silence ease. Not gone, but transformed—less like absence, more like rest.
Outside, the city slept under a cold sky. The river moved quietly, the bridges held their lamps steady. Somewhere, perhaps, Arjun strummed his guitar, weaving their confession into song.
Episode 10 – Letters Across the Sky
The winter deepened, and with it came a clarity Ananya had not known in months. She carried his confession like a flame, fragile but warm. Some nights she still turned over in bed wondering if it had been real—if words spoken under mist and moonlight could withstand daylight. But every time her phone buzzed now, it wasn’t silence. Arjun’s messages came like soft knocks: Have you eaten? Found a new chord today. This city feels lighter when you walk in it. They weren’t declarations, but they were presence.
They met often, sometimes in crowded cafés where students argued politics, sometimes on trams rattling past shuttered shops, sometimes in quiet lanes where booksellers called half-heartedly. He carried his guitar as always, though sometimes he never played a note. It was simply there, the way his satchel was there, the way she was there. Their story no longer felt like fragments scattered by chance—it had begun to stitch itself, letter by letter.
One afternoon, as they sat by the river watching boats drift like tired commas, he said, “Do you ever think about the first train we missed?”
“All the time,” she admitted. “I used to think it was a mistake. Now I think it was a beginning.”
He smiled faintly. “Maybe the goddess of trains was kinder than we gave her credit for.”
They laughed, and for a while no more words were needed.
But life doesn’t pause for love. Exams came for her, small concerts for him. They slipped back into their separate orbits, meeting less often, but holding each other through late-night calls. There were still silences—days when his voice seemed distant, days when her words came sharp with worry—but now those silences weren’t voids. They were pauses, breaths between verses.
One evening, after her last exam, she went to his small rented room near Lake Market. The place was cluttered—sheet music scattered, books piled against the wall, a kettle whistling on a single stove. He opened the door, smiling wearily.
“You live like a hurricane,” she teased, stepping inside.
“And you walk into it like it’s calm,” he replied.
On his desk lay another box, not the battered one from the post office, but smaller, newer. Inside were envelopes, dozens of them, all blank on the outside. She picked one up, then another.
“You’ve been writing again,” she said.
“Every day,” he admitted. “But these… these are different.”
“How?”
“They’re not unsent letters anymore. They’re drafts. Because now I know who they’re meant for.”
Her chest tightened. “For me?”
He nodded, his eyes steady. “Every one of them.”
She placed the envelope back carefully, afraid even her breath might disturb them. “Then why not give them to me?”
“Because some things need time. You’ll get them, one by one. When the moments arrive.”
She didn’t argue. She understood now that patience was part of loving him. Instead, she reached for his guitar. “Play me something,” she said.
He strummed gently, a tune she hadn’t heard before—slow, searching, but carrying within it a quiet resolve. When he finished, he looked at her and said, “It’s called Letters Across the Sky.”
The title lodged itself in her heart. “Why that?”
“Because some letters don’t need posts or pages. They travel in songs, in silence, in the space between two people who keep choosing each other.”
She felt tears sting her eyes, though she smiled. “Then keep writing them. I’ll keep listening.”
Spring arrived with sudden heat. The city shed its shawls, the air buzzing again with vendors and buses, impatient horns. Their lives pressed forward, but the rhythm of their story held. They quarreled sometimes—over small things, like her impatience with his lateness, his frustration with her insistence on plans. But every quarrel folded back into forgiveness, stitched by laughter or music or the simple act of walking together until words returned.
One evening, as they sat on the tram rattling toward College Street, he handed her another envelope. “This one you can open now,” he said.
She tore it gently. Inside was a single sentence: When you read this, know that I have already chosen you a hundred times over.
She looked up, her throat thick, and he was watching her not with expectation but with certainty. She slipped the letter back into the notebook, pressing her hand over it like a seal.
The months turned, the city shifted, and still they walked together. One monsoon night, as rain pounded against the glass of a café, she asked, “Do you ever wonder how this ends?”
He shook his head. “No. Because it doesn’t. Stories don’t end when letters run out. They end when we stop writing. And I don’t plan to stop.”
She smiled through the steam of their tea. “Then keep writing. I’ll keep replying.”
And so the story stretched forward—across seasons, across silences, across the fragile bridges of trust. The missed train had become a chapter, the umbrella a refrain, the festival a chorus, the sealed envelopes a refrain of faith. They were not perfect, not certain. But they were real.
On their last walk that winter, as they stood once more on Howrah Bridge, he took her hand, pointed toward the stars trembling above the river, and whispered, “Look. Letters across the sky.”
She followed his gaze. And for the first time, she didn’t think of what might be unsent, unfinished, undone. She thought only of the story still being written, one fragment at a time, each line carrying her name.
