Nandini Rao
Part 1: The Meeting
The streets of Bangalore pulsed with monsoon chaos that evening, headlights blurred by sheets of rain, the smell of roasted corn mixing with the damp asphalt. Somewhere in Basavanagudi, the old temple had strung marigolds along its towering gopuram, orange and yellow flames bright against the grey sky. A small crowd was gathering for the annual festival. Amid the drizzle and the scattered stalls selling jasmine garlands, a few young women rehearsed under the portico of the temple, their anklets chiming, faces streaked with raindrops and stubborn determination.
Meera Iyer stood at the center, the pleats of her practice sari clinging to her legs as she moved through the final poses of her Bharatanatyam sequence. She felt the familiar tightening in her calves, the balance between grace and strain, the eyes of curious strangers lingering on her. But she was used to it—art always demanded an audience, whether or not one was ready. The music playing from her phone’s tiny speaker was nearly drowned out by the rain, yet she danced on, aware of the story she carried in every gesture, the weight of tradition and her own unyielding hunger to live within it.
On the other side of the courtyard, Ayaan Khurana struggled to shield his DSLR from the sudden downpour. He wasn’t supposed to be here—he had been roped in by a colleague who wanted a few photographs of the temple festivities for a community blog. Ayaan wasn’t even religious. He believed in code, in data models, in logic that delivered predictable results. But the sight of the gopuram under lightning fascinated him, and he raised the camera instinctively, adjusting focus. That was when his lens found her—the dancer in wet silk, eyes blazing with concentration, palms opening like lotus petals against the storm. Something in the stubborn defiance of her stance made him pause longer than intended.
When the music stopped and the group dispersed for a quick break, Meera noticed the tall stranger fiddling with his camera. He had captured her without permission—she could tell from the awkward tilt of his shoulders, the guilty half-smile that flickered when she turned her gaze. She walked straight toward him, anklets jingling, rain dripping from her hairline to her jaw.
“Excuse me,” she said, her voice crisp. “Were you taking pictures?”
Ayaan blinked. Confrontation was not his strength. “I—uh—I was covering the festival. For a blog.” He held up the camera like evidence. “The performance was part of it.”
Her brows arched. “Performance or rehearsal?”
He winced. “Rehearsal. But it was—look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”
She folded her arms. “Then delete it.”
There was no softness in her tone, and for a second, Ayaan felt as if he were back in school being scolded for a late assignment. He scrolled quickly, found the photograph, hesitated. The image on his screen was striking: her figure against the temple pillars, raindrops suspended in motion, a story captured in accident. He almost wanted to keep it. But he pressed delete.
“Gone,” he said, showing her the blank preview.
Meera nodded, a small victorious smile tugging at her lips. “Good. Some things are not meant to be stolen. Especially when they’re unfinished.” She turned away, already slipping back into her group.
But her words lingered. Unfinished.
Later that night, as the aarti flames rose and conch shells echoed, their paths crossed again. Meera, carrying her damp practice bag, nearly collided with him at the stall selling sugarcane juice. He stepped back, apologizing before she could scold. This time she laughed—a light, unexpected sound that softened her earlier sharpness.
“You’re persistent,” she said.
“I’d say the same about you,” he replied, surprising himself. “Dancing in the rain until your phone drowned.”
She tilted her head. “And you? Standing with your expensive camera in a thunderstorm. That’s persistence or foolishness?”
He found himself grinning. “Both, maybe.”
The conversation might have ended there, two strangers exchanging banter under the shadow of a temple festival. But something tethered them, perhaps the way the rain refused to stop, forcing them to share the same tarpaulin shelter, or the way their silences seemed less awkward than expected. Meera sipped her juice, watching the crowd surge toward the chariot procession, while Ayaan adjusted the strap of his bag.
“So,” she asked at last, curiosity softening her tone, “do you always photograph things you don’t understand?”
He met her gaze, surprised. “Maybe I try to understand through photographing.”
“Then what did you understand today?” she pressed.
Ayaan hesitated, words balancing at the edge of honesty. “That movement can carry a story even without sound. That a person can be completely still and yet more alive than the whole crowd around them.”
The rain muffled the noises of the street, and for a second, her breath caught. Compliments usually came shallow—beautiful costume, graceful step. This was different. He had seen something she didn’t often allow strangers to see.
“Careful,” she murmured, eyes narrowing but lips betraying amusement. “You almost sound like a poet.”
“Trust me,” he said quickly, embarrassed. “I’m not.”
They parted soon after—she went to rejoin her troupe, he drifted toward the glowing chariot wheels. But when Meera lifted her eyes mid-performance, searching the crowd, she found him again, camera lowered, gaze steady. And when Ayaan packed his gear that night, rain still dripping onto the pavement, he realized he had deleted the photograph but carried an image sharper than any lens could hold.
Unfinished, yes. But perhaps not lost.
Part 2: Two Worlds
The rain had cleared by morning, leaving Bangalore washed and gleaming, its trees dripping and its streets littered with fallen gulmohar petals. Ayaan sat at his usual café table near MG Road, laptop open, earphones in, eyes fixed on columns of code. The world shrank for him in such moments—no temple bells, no dancers, only clean algorithms and the quiet hum of logic. Yet that evening at Basavanagudi clung to him like damp air. He remembered the girl’s sharp eyes, her stubborn grace. Unfinished. The word echoed like a line of incomplete syntax waiting to be closed.
He shook himself and went back to debugging. He had a presentation due the following week, a predictive model for traffic flow that his company hoped to pitch to the municipal board. Bangalore’s traffic was chaos incarnate; if he could tame it even slightly, he’d earn not just recognition but the leadership role he had been quietly eyeing. Work was the one arena where he felt control. People, emotions—they always broke his neat calculations.
At almost the same hour, across the city, Meera wrapped her ankle bells around her feet in the rehearsal hall of her university’s cultural wing. The wooden floor still carried yesterday’s scent of incense. She checked her reflection in the long mirror, the curve of her arms, the line of her spine. Her professor’s voice echoed in her head: precision is devotion. Every mudra was a prayer, every rhythm a heartbeat. Yet she thought of that stranger with the camera, the one who had said she looked alive without moving. She hated that the compliment still warmed her.
The rehearsal began. As mridangam beats filled the air, Meera let her body tell stories older than her. Love, war, longing—all enacted through the tilt of a head, the flick of a wrist. When the practice ended, sweat dampening her blouse, she checked her phone. A message blinked from her childhood friend Rachita: Coffee tonight? MG Road? Meera agreed, craving noise and chatter after hours of disciplined solitude.
That evening, fate braided their worlds again. The café was crowded, students and professionals tangled in conversations. Rachita waved from a corner, and Meera threaded her way there. Just as she sat down, she noticed him. The man from the temple. Laptop open, brows furrowed, completely unaware of the world.
“Ayaan!” someone called from another table—his colleague, perhaps—and the name stuck. Meera’s lips curved. Now the stranger had a name.
It was Rachita who insisted they all join tables, Bangalore’s small-town heart collapsing distances. Soon Ayaan and Meera were face-to-face again, this time without rain or confrontation.
“You’re the dancer,” he said, surprised.
“And you’re the photographer who deletes evidence,” she shot back, her smile edged with mischief.
Rachita laughed, sensing sparks. “Oh, so you two already know each other?”
“Barely,” Meera corrected. “He doesn’t understand what he saw.”
Ayaan closed his laptop slowly, intrigued. “Then explain. What do you want me to see?”
Her eyes glittered. “Not today. But come to my rehearsal tomorrow. If you have patience beyond your algorithms.”
He almost refused—his schedule was tight, his model unfinished—but something in her challenge pulled him. “Fine. If you’ll, in return, come to my seminar. On data models.”
Meera nearly choked on her chai. “Seminar? Data models?”
“Traffic prediction,” he said seriously. “Not as romantic as dance, but it matters.”
She laughed outright. “Romantic? Dance is discipline, not just twirling in silks.”
Their sparring drew stares from nearby tables. To others it looked like flirtation, but to them it felt like a duel—art against science, tradition against technology. Yet beneath the clash lay a current neither named.
The next day, true to her word, Meera found Ayaan leaning awkwardly against the rehearsal hall door. His formal shirt made him look like he’d wandered into the wrong universe. She made him sit cross-legged with the students, and when she began her sequence, she didn’t soften it for him. She wanted him to see the rigor, the sweat, the hours hidden beneath performance.
Ayaan watched, first bored, then oddly moved. Her feet struck the ground in sharp rhythms, arms slicing the air, eyes blazing with stories no code could capture. For once, he didn’t try to analyze. He simply saw.
Afterward, as she loosened her ankle bells, he admitted softly, “It isn’t just movement. It’s…language.”
Meera smiled faintly. “Finally, you get a glimpse.”
And two days later, she found herself in a fluorescent-lit seminar hall, surrounded by men in formal wear, while Ayaan clicked through slides about traffic density, predictive algorithms, and urban chaos. She expected boredom. But as he explained how data could almost predict human impatience at signals, how small choices shaped entire cities, she felt something unexpected—respect. There was art here too, buried in numbers.
When the lecture ended, Ayaan sought her in the crowd, nervous. “Still think it’s lifeless?”
She shook her head slowly. “Different. But not lifeless. Maybe…another rhythm.”
For the first time, silence settled between them not as hostility but as recognition. Two worlds, clashing yet strangely aligned, like two ragas played in counterpoint, waiting to discover if harmony was possible.
Part 3: Shared Secrets
Bangalore at night was another city altogether. The day’s roar of traffic softened into a restless hum, streetlights glowed through branches heavy with rainwater, and the air smelled faintly of filter coffee and wet mud. Meera walked along Church Street with her dupatta pulled close against the drizzle. She had agreed to meet Ayaan after his endless insistence—not rehearsal, not seminar, just a walk. She told herself it wasn’t a date, just curiosity stretched into another evening. But her heart betrayed her when she spotted him waiting near the old bookstore, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, looking like he belonged anywhere but here.
“On time,” she teased, joining him. “Impressive for a man who worships deadlines more than deities.”
He smiled, small but genuine. “Deadlines I can manage. People, less so.”
They fell into step, weaving through the weekend crowd. Bookstores spilled yellow light onto the pavement, music floated from cafés, auto rickshaws darted like restless insects. It was Meera who broke the first silence.
“So, Mr. Data Scientist, what do you do when you’re not predicting traffic or crashing my rehearsals?”
He hesitated. “I draw.”
She blinked. “Draw? Like sketches?”
Ayaan nodded, embarrassed. “Nothing serious. Just…patterns, structures, cityscapes. It helps me think. But I don’t show them to anyone.”
“Why not?” she asked, curiosity piqued.
“Because they’re unfinished,” he said, echoing the word that had first bound them.
Meera smiled faintly, remembering the temple rain. “Maybe unfinished things carry their own beauty.”
They turned into a quieter lane where neon lights gave way to old stone walls. The drizzle thickened, and they ducked under a tin awning. Drops drummed above them like impatient fingers. For a moment, they just listened.
Meera spoke softly, almost to the rain. “My mother used to say rhythm is the one truth that never lies. She was a singer. Before she passed, she’d sit by the window during storms and hum until the thunder gave up competing.”
Ayaan glanced at her. “You never mentioned—”
“I don’t usually,” she cut in, then sighed. “She died when I was sixteen. Since then, dance has been more than art for me. It’s…keeping her alive.”
The words fell between them, raw and unpolished. Ayaan didn’t rush to console. Instead, he offered something of his own. “I was engaged once.” His voice was steady, though his hands curled inside his pockets. “Three years ago. She left a month before the wedding. Said I was too distant, too practical, too…everything she couldn’t live with.”
Meera turned to him, surprised. “And was she right?”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “I build walls. Equations make sense, people don’t. Losing her felt like proof that I shouldn’t try.”
The rain softened, tapering into mist. They stepped out again, feet splashing through shallow puddles, their confessions hanging like invisible threads between them. Neither had planned to share so much, yet the night seemed to demand honesty.
At Cubbon Park’s edge, they paused. The trees loomed dark, their roots twisted like secrets themselves. Meera leaned against the railing, her eyes distant. “Funny, isn’t it? We spend our days performing—me on stage, you in boardrooms—but when it matters, we hide.”
Ayaan studied her profile, the curve of her jaw outlined by streetlight. “Maybe hiding feels safer.”
“Or lonelier,” she countered.
A rickshaw sputtered past, its horn shrill. Somewhere in the park, a stray dog barked. Yet in the small silence that followed, something shifted—less confrontation, more recognition.
Meera glanced at him, a half-smile tugging her lips. “You know, Ayaan, you might be the only man I’ve met who compares feelings to unfinished code.”
“And you,” he said, surprising himself with the boldness, “might be the only woman who can make silence feel like music.”
She laughed then, the sound quick and bright, scattering the heaviness. “Careful. You’ll start sounding like a poet again.”
They walked back slowly, neither rushing the end of the evening. At her gate, Meera lingered, rain-dark leaves rustling above them.
“Goodnight,” she said, fingers brushing her anklet bells through the cloth bag slung across her shoulder. “Thanks for the secrets.”
Ayaan nodded, voice quiet. “Goodnight. And…thank you for yours.”
As she stepped inside, closing the gate, he realized this was the first time in years he hadn’t felt the urge to retreat after confessing something raw. Instead, he felt lighter. And as Meera climbed the stairs to her room, she found herself humming an old tune her mother used to sing, the kind that made storms feel less lonely.
Neither of them noticed how, slowly, the distance between their two worlds was already shrinking—measured not in steps, but in secrets shared under the Bangalore rain.
Part 4: Conflict
The week rolled on with Bangalore’s unrelenting rhythm—traffic snarling at Silk Board, metro trains sliding past glass towers, sudden rainfalls scattering office-goers under one umbrella. For Ayaan, the days blurred into long hours of fine-tuning his predictive model. The municipal pitch was coming up, and his manager had all but confirmed: if this worked, a leadership role awaited. It meant more money, more responsibility, more proof that he wasn’t just another cog in the tech machine. Yet even as he stared at graphs on his screen, his thoughts drifted elsewhere—to anklet bells, to laughter breaking through drizzle, to confessions shared under tin roofs.
Meera, meanwhile, buried herself in rehearsals for an upcoming performance at the Alliance Française. The stage mattered—funders, professors, critics, all would watch. Dance was not just art to her; it was survival, proof that her mother’s voice hadn’t gone silent in vain. But when she received the email, her heart skipped: Congratulations, Ms. Iyer. You have been shortlisted for the Cultural Fellowship at the University of Leiden. Kindly confirm your availability for the next academic year.
A fellowship abroad. Prestigious, rare. A chance to study dance history at one of Europe’s oldest universities, to live inside archives and museums that most students only dreamed of. Her pulse raced with excitement. And then, almost instantly, a shadow crept in: leaving behind her city, her father, her troupe, her…what? Friendship? Connection? Something unnamed but restless, something that began with unfinished glances.
That evening, she found Ayaan waiting near the temple steps, where they had promised to meet for chai. He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, but when he saw her, he straightened.
“You look like you won the lottery,” he said, half-smiling.
“Almost,” she admitted, showing him the email. He scanned it quickly, whistling low.
“Impressive. Europe, huh?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “But it’s a year away from here.”
He nodded, his face unreadable. “That’s…big.”
They sipped chai in silence, the steam curling into the humid air. Finally, Ayaan spoke, his voice low. “Funny timing. My manager hinted today—I might get the lead on the traffic project. If it goes through, I’ll have to stay grounded here for at least two years. Can’t move, can’t take risks.”
Meera looked at him, their situations mirroring each other like two dancers caught in different halves of a pose. Opportunity, ambition, distance.
“So,” she asked carefully, “are you happy?”
“I should be,” he replied. “This is what I wanted. Stability. Recognition.” He paused, searching the night sky as if answers might be hidden between stars. “But when I think of being stuck in meetings while you’re in Europe performing in some grand hall…” He trailed off.
She set her cup down, her voice sharper than intended. “Don’t make it about me, Ayaan. This is your career.”
“I’m not making it about you,” he said quickly. “I’m just—”
“You’re just what?” she pressed, her heartbeat loud in her ears.
“Afraid,” he admitted, the word falling heavy. “Afraid that by the time you come back, there won’t be a place for me in your world.”
The confession cut deeper than either expected. Meera turned away, blinking against the sting in her eyes. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe our worlds were never meant to align.”
The silence that followed wasn’t like the ones they had shared before. This one was jagged, filled with unsaid things.
Later that week, during her performance, Meera spotted him in the audience. For a fleeting moment, their eyes locked—his gaze steady but distant, hers fierce with something close to defiance. Every rhythm she struck felt like an argument: I belong to this stage, to this art, to my dream. And yet, beneath the rhythm, she wondered if she was dancing him away.
After the show, he slipped out without a word. She pretended not to notice, though her chest ached with the emptiness his absence left.
In the days that followed, messages grew shorter. Meetings became excuses. Bangalore felt larger, lonelier, as if the city itself had chosen sides. She clutched the fellowship letter at night, proud but torn, while he buried himself in spreadsheets, convincing himself that walls were safer than bridges.
Conflict had always been inevitable. Love—or whatever name they hadn’t dared give it—was now balanced on the fragile line between ambition and belonging. And neither knew which would break first.
Part 5: The Turning Point
The Alliance Française stage glowed golden under the spotlights, its polished wooden floor ready to echo the beat of bells and drums. It was Meera’s farewell performance before leaving for Europe, though few in the audience knew. She had told almost no one—the thought of farewell weighed too heavily. Better to let the dance speak.
Outside, the August night pressed damp against Bangalore, rain clouds threatening but holding back. Inside, the hall filled steadily: professors, students, patrons of the arts. And somewhere near the back, unnoticed at first, sat Ayaan. He hadn’t intended to come. His project deadline loomed, his calendar was crammed with meetings, his chest still sore with unspoken distance. Yet when he saw the poster online—“Meera Iyer: Bharatanatyam Recital”—something inside him refused logic. He arrived late, slipped into a chair, and for the first time in weeks let himself simply watch her.
The mridangam began, slow and reverent. Meera entered, sari pleats fanned perfectly, anklets chiming, her face transformed by kohl and conviction. Every gesture told a story: gods and mortals, lovers and partings, longing and return. She danced not for the audience, not even for her professors. Tonight she danced for herself—for the little girl who had watched her mother hum by the window, for the teenager who had fought for late-night rehearsals, for the woman who was leaving behind one city to chase a dream.
And yet, as her gaze swept across the hall, she found him. Ayaan, seated stiffly, his eyes locked on her. Her pulse faltered, then steadied into a sharper rhythm. If this was to be the last time, she wanted him to see all of her—not unfinished, not uncertain, but alive.
The sequence quickened. Her feet thundered against the stage, sweat beading her temples, arms slicing air with precise defiance. The story was of a heroine torn between duty and love, between family and heart. As the crescendo peaked, Meera’s body stilled into a final mudra, her chest heaving, her eyes shining with tears she didn’t allow to fall. The hall erupted in applause, but she heard only silence—the silence of one pair of eyes seeing her not as performer or prodigy, but as woman.
Backstage, garlands piled in her arms, she half-expected him to leave again. But when the crowd thinned, he stood waiting near the exit, awkward in his formal shirt, camera bag slung across his shoulder.
“You danced like—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I don’t have the words.”
“You don’t need to,” she replied softly.
They walked out together, into the night where rain had finally begun to fall, fine and silver. The air smelled of earth, thunder distant. For a while they said nothing, letting the drizzle soak them. Then Ayaan stopped, voice low but urgent.
“Meera, I used to think control was everything. That if I kept my life within neat lines, I wouldn’t lose anything again. But watching you tonight—” He swallowed, searching for courage. “You don’t live in neat lines. You leap. And maybe that’s what I need. Not to control, but to…to risk.”
She stared at him, the rain dripping from her lashes. “And if risk means losing?”
“Then at least I lost trying,” he said, almost fierce. “Not hiding.”
The words pierced her, because they echoed her own doubts. She was leaving in a week. Europe was calling, her fellowship waiting. But here was something she hadn’t planned for—a man who saw rhythm in silence, who made confessions feel lighter, who made the thought of distance ache like an open wound.
“Why are you telling me this now?” she whispered.
“Because,” he said simply, “I don’t want to miss the chance again. If you leave, and I never told you—” He faltered, then finished. “I’ll regret it more than anything.”
Rain pattered on the empty street around them, soft applause from the city itself. Meera exhaled, her chest tight. She wanted to reach for him, to close the distance, to anchor herself in this moment. But her path was already drawn: the fellowship, the promise she had made to herself and to her mother’s memory.
She touched his arm lightly, a gesture both tender and restrained. “Ayaan, I can’t stay. Not now. This dream—it’s part of me. But maybe…” She hesitated, searching his eyes. “Maybe leaving doesn’t have to mean ending.”
Something flickered in his gaze—pain, yes, but also resolve. “Then go,” he said softly. “Go chase it. But know that when you come back, I’ll still be here.”
For the first time, the fear in his voice wasn’t of losing her, but of holding true. And for the first time, Meera believed that distance might not destroy them, if they chose otherwise.
They stood together under the rain, not kissing, not promising forever. Just two people acknowledging a turning point: that love was not about possession but about courage, about letting each other leap and still daring to remain.
The rain fell harder, and the city lights blurred into gold.
Part 6: Resolution
Kempegowda International Airport at dawn was a blur of trolleys, hurried footsteps, and muffled announcements echoing through the cavernous halls. Outside, the monsoon sky was a dull slate, the first light filtering through restless clouds. Meera walked slowly, her suitcase wheels rattling against the polished floor, anklets packed deep within, as if carrying a piece of her own heartbeat across oceans. Her fellowship letter rested in her bag, heavy with both pride and dread.
Her father had hugged her at the gate, whispering blessings and instructions in the same breath. Friends had called the previous night, their voices bright with envy and encouragement. But there was one voice she hadn’t heard since the recital. Not because it was absent, but because it had become too close, too raw. Ayaan hadn’t called. She hadn’t either. Their last conversation—standing in the rain, trading courage for distance—lingered between them like an unfinished melody.
As she queued for check-in, the memory of his words pulsed through her: Go chase it. But know that when you come back, I’ll still be here. She wanted to believe him, but life had a way of erasing promises across continents.
Meanwhile, in a cab speeding along the expressway, Ayaan tapped his foot against the floor mat, restless. Logic told him there was no point—she was leaving, and grand gestures belonged in films, not real life. But another voice, quieter and stronger, pushed back: unfinished things deserve at least a chance to finish. He clutched the folder in his lap—inside it, a sketch he had drawn the previous night. Not code, not data. Just pencil lines of her mid-dance pose, rain streaking down a temple pillar behind her. His first attempt at capturing not structure but feeling.
He reached the airport just as she was moving toward security. “Meera!” His voice carried across the hall, startling travelers and turning heads. She froze, heart racing, then turned. There he was—damp hair, wrinkled shirt, breathless from running, but eyes steady.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, half-scolding, half-shaken.
“Finishing,” he said simply, thrusting the folder toward her. She opened it with trembling hands, saw the sketch, the rough lines alive with the defiance she had felt that night at the temple.
Her throat tightened. “You kept this hidden?”
“I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid it wouldn’t be enough. Afraid you wouldn’t see what I saw.” He paused, drawing breath. “But you deserve to carry more than my silence.”
For a moment, the noise of the airport faded—the announcements, the trolleys, the chatter. It was just them, standing on the edge of distance.
“I can’t stay,” she whispered, voice breaking.
“I know,” he said. “I’m not here to stop you. Just to tell you that waiting isn’t weakness. It’s choice. And I choose it—for you.”
Her eyes filled, not with regret but with a strange, fierce calm. She stepped forward, closing the gap, and hugged him tightly, the sketch crushed between them. No kisses, no dramatic declarations, just the solid truth of two bodies anchoring each other one last time.
When the boarding call echoed overhead, she pulled away reluctantly, her palms lingering against his. “When I come back…”
He nodded, finishing for her. “Seven steps apart won’t feel like distance anymore.”
She smiled through her tears, turned, and walked toward security. He stood rooted, watching until she disappeared beyond the glass doors, the anklet bells in her luggage faintly echoing in his imagination.
As the crowd swallowed her, Ayaan exhaled deeply. For the first time, he didn’t feel abandoned. He felt steady, like the city itself—messy, flawed, chaotic, but waiting with arms wide for her return.
And on the plane, as Meera settled into her seat, she unfolded the sketch again, tracing the lines with her fingertips. For the first time since the fellowship news arrived, she felt no guilt, no fracture. She was leaving to chase her dream, yes. But she was also carrying something back with her—a promise not erased by oceans, but etched in unfinished pencil strokes that, someday, they would complete together.
The engines roared, the runway blurred, and as the aircraft lifted into the grey morning sky, both of them—on different sides of the glass—carried the same thought: sometimes love wasn’t about holding back or holding on. Sometimes it was about letting go with the certainty of return.
Part 7: Across Oceans
Autumn in Leiden arrived in a sweep of gold and rust, leaves piling against cobblestone streets, the canals catching light like glass. Meera adjusted the strap of her satchel as she hurried across the bridge to her first seminar at the university. The air was crisp, sharper than Bangalore’s humid monsoons, but she carried warmth within—anklets tucked carefully inside her drawer, the sketch folded in the back of her notebook. It was not just paper. It was proof of a promise she hadn’t dared make out loud.
Life in Europe dazzled and overwhelmed. Archives opened their doors to her—dusty manuscripts of temple rituals, treatises on classical forms, photographs of dancers long gone. Professors spoke with passion, students argued over history and modernity. She soaked it all in, her nights filled with rehearsals in dimly lit studios, her mornings with essays typed on borrowed coffee. Yet in the quiet hours, loneliness crept. No familiar drizzle against the window, no filter coffee stall, no impatient voice reminding her that not all walls needed building.
That was when her phone buzzed—midnight in Leiden, early dawn in Bangalore. Ayaan.
His messages were practical at first. Reached office early. Traffic prediction model passed trial run. Or Dad sent mangoes from Delhi. Shared with team. But soon, his words softened, carrying fragments of the everyday that connected them: Your recital poster is still up on Church Street. Thought of you. Or Rain here today. Not the same without your anklets on the pavement.
She replied in kind. Found a manuscript of a forgotten temple song. Would’ve loved to show you the rhythms. Or Every canal here reminds me of the temple courtyard that night. Their conversations spanned time zones, woven through odd hours, stitched by persistence.
Yet distance was not always tender. One evening, after a grueling rehearsal, Meera saw a photo online—Ayaan at a company dinner, surrounded by colleagues, a woman’s hand casually on his shoulder as they laughed. Something sharp pricked inside her. She typed: Looks like you’re having fun. Then erased it. Jealousy felt foolish, childish. Still, the silence between their next messages stretched longer than usual.
Ayaan, on his part, wrestled with his own storms. His project had indeed taken off—the municipal board approved the pilot, his manager praised his leadership, and suddenly his calendar was crowded with expectations. At night, he stared at his sketches, half-finished cityscapes that looked emptier without her. When colleagues teased him about being distracted, he shrugged it off. But in truth, her absence gnawed, her silence sometimes louder than her words.
One night, he finally called instead of texting. The line crackled, the distance tangible. “Meera?”
Her voice came through, soft and tired. “I’m here.”
“I saw your paper abstract online,” he said, forcing brightness. “Something about devotional geometry?”
She laughed faintly. “Yes. It’s boring to you.”
“Not boring,” he corrected. “Confusing. But worth hearing from you.”
She paused, then admitted, “Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice. Leaving.”
The honesty startled him. “Why?”
“Because even when the stage here feels grand, I still miss the small things. My father’s voice calling at dinner. The smell of jasmine from the market. The way Bangalore rain sounds against tin roofs.” She hesitated. “And you.”
The last two words slipped out before she could stop them. Silence followed, thick, alive.
“Me too,” Ayaan said finally, his voice rough. “Every day.”
They let the confession settle, no need to decorate it further. Across oceans, in different beds, they closed their eyes that night with the same thought: perhaps love wasn’t weakened by distance but carved sharper, like a river cutting through stone.
Months passed. Winter draped Leiden in snow, the canals frozen like mirrors. Meera danced at small cultural festivals, her name slowly whispered among scholars. In Bangalore, Ayaan’s project expanded, his team growing under his lead. Success touched them both, but always accompanied by a hollowness that no accolade filled.
One evening, after a particularly cold rehearsal, Meera opened her drawer, fastened her anklets, and let them ring against the studio floor. Alone, she danced—not for professors, not for stages, but for a pair of eyes an ocean away. When she was done, breathless and smiling, she filmed a fragment and sent it to him.
Minutes later, his reply came: Unfinished. But alive. Just like you.
Her heart swelled, the distance folding into something smaller, like a step she could almost cross.
Part 8: The Strain
Spring came to Leiden with tulips blooming in precise rows, their colors painting entire fields like woven sarees. For Meera, it was supposed to be a season of lightness. Her professors praised her research; one even hinted at recommending her for a second year. Invitations arrived for her to perform at European festivals. Her calendar swelled, but so did the weight in her chest. Because every triumph here widened the distance between her and the city she still called home.
In Bangalore, summer scorched the streets. The traffic model had won contracts in two more districts, and Ayaan was now officially leading a team of fifteen. His days were filled with meetings, deadlines, endless calls. Success, once his only goal, now felt oddly hollow. Each night he reached for his phone, eager for Meera’s messages. Sometimes they came: a photo of her drenched rehearsal clothes, a voice note of laughter with new friends. Sometimes they didn’t. And when silence stretched for days, doubt crept in.
It began with small cracks. One evening, Meera called, her face pixelated on the screen. She was in a crowded café, voices buzzing behind her. “Sorry, I can’t talk long. We’re rehearsing for a festival in Paris. It’s…a big deal.”
“That’s great,” Ayaan said, smiling tightly. “But you sound—different.”
“Different how?” she asked, distracted, waving to someone off-screen.
“Like I’m interrupting.”
She frowned. “You’re not. Just busy.”
But when the call ended quickly, the unease lingered.
Another week, Ayaan texted late at night: Rough day. Couldn’t present well. Wish you were here. Hours passed before her reply came: Sorry, was on a train. You’ll be fine—you always are. He read it twice, the brevity cutting deeper than she could know.
Meanwhile, Meera wrestled with her own demons. She saw photos of Ayaan at office parties, always surrounded, always smiling. Women colleagues leaned close in some frames, and though she trusted him, a pang of fear struck. What if the city that had once felt incomplete without her was now learning to move on?
The strain peaked one evening in June. Ayaan had stayed up past midnight for their call. When she finally answered, exhaustion lined her face.
“You forgot?” he asked quietly.
“I didn’t forget,” she said sharply. “I was performing. Time zones, Ayaan—you knew this.”
He sighed. “Sometimes I feel like I’m chasing you through clocks.”
“And sometimes I feel like you don’t understand how hard this is,” she shot back. “I’m not here on vacation. I’m fighting for something real, something that could shape my future.”
“And I’m not?” His voice rose, surprising them both. “Do you think I sit here twiddling my thumbs? I’m building something too. But when I reach for you at the end of the day and you’re just…gone—” He broke off, the words jagged.
Meera’s eyes flashed, hurt layered with anger. “So what do you want, Ayaan? That I give it up? That I come running back just to soothe your loneliness?”
The silence after that was brutal. She blinked hard, fighting tears. He pressed his palms against his temples, ashamed of his outburst.
“No,” he said finally, voice hollow. “I don’t want you to give it up. I just want…” He trailed off, unable to finish.
“What?” she whispered.
He met her gaze through the pixelated screen. “I just want to know if I still matter.”
Her throat tightened. She opened her mouth, but no words came. The call dropped in that silence, leaving them both staring at dark screens, heavy with things unsaid.
Days passed without contact. Meera buried herself in rehearsals for Paris, dancing with a fierceness that felt like both escape and punishment. Ayaan threw himself into work, his sketches gathering dust on the corner of his desk.
Across oceans, both told themselves the same lie: that ambition required sacrifice, that maybe this love was just a fleeting season. Yet at night, both reached for their phones, their fingers hovering, their hearts betraying the truth—that distance had not erased longing, only sharpened it into ache.
The strain was real now, taut as a thread pulled too tight. And neither knew if it would snap or survive.
Part 9: The Break & The Realization
Paris was supposed to be triumphant. Meera’s troupe had been invited to perform at a heritage festival—an opportunity dancers dreamed of, a stage that shimmered with prestige. Under the bright lights, she delivered her sharpest rhythms, her eyes fierce, her body a vessel of centuries-old stories. The applause thundered, critics praised, professors nodded with pride. Yet when the curtain fell, she felt strangely hollow, as if the ovation had echoed into an empty chamber inside her chest.
Backstage, her phone buzzed—twenty missed calls. Ayaan.
She froze. Her stomach tightened as she listened to his single message, his voice urgent, almost breaking: Dad’s been admitted. Heart trouble. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I needed you.
Meera’s knees buckled. In her pursuit of the stage, she hadn’t checked her phone all day. By the time she called back, the line rang and rang before disconnecting. Hours later, a short text arrived: He’s stable now. Don’t worry. Focus on your show.
But she could hear the distance in every word.
Days passed in uneasy silence. Meera sent long messages—apologies, explanations, promises. Ayaan replied with one-liners. Fine. Busy. Talk later. She knew his walls had returned, taller than before.
The breaking point came a week later. She called in the middle of her night, desperate to hear him, to pierce through the growing frost. The video connected, showing him in his apartment, shadows under his eyes, sketches strewn on the desk.
“Ayaan,” she whispered. “Please don’t shut me out.”
He stared at her, voice clipped. “When I needed you, you weren’t there. Not even a word. And now you want me to just forget it?”
Tears pricked her eyes. “I didn’t know—”
“You didn’t check,” he cut in. “That’s the difference.”
Her breath caught, guilt heavy as stone. “I was performing, I—”
“Yes, I know. Your stage. Your fellowship. Your dream.” His bitterness was a blade. “And where do I fit in that dream, Meera? A sketch in your drawer? A call when you’re free?”
She flinched, words faltering. “That’s not fair. I love—”
“Don’t,” he said sharply, his eyes flashing with pain. “Don’t say it if it’s just going to be unfinished again.”
The call ended with silence, both staring at black screens, hearts pounding as if they’d run marathons. For the first time since the temple rain, they felt not distance but rupture, a fracture that might not mend.
For days, Meera wandered Leiden’s canals in a daze, her fellowship papers clutched but meaningless. Every song, every rehearsal felt thin. She replayed his words endlessly: Where do I fit in your dream? The truth gnawed—she had been so consumed by proving herself that she had forgotten the simplest act: showing up.
Meanwhile, Ayaan drowned himself in work, his team startled by his sudden coldness, his once-lively sketches abandoned in drawers. At night, he walked the Bangalore streets alone, rain dripping from neon signs, remembering how she had laughed that first evening over sugarcane juice, how she had said silence could be music. Now the silence was deafening.
And then, one night, clarity struck them both. For Meera, it came while watching an old Dutch couple hold hands by the canal, their steps slow but steady. Love, she realized, was not about grand stages or accolades—it was about presence, about showing up even when the world demanded otherwise. For Ayaan, clarity arrived when he stumbled upon the sketch he had given her at the airport, half-crumpled but still vivid. He realized anger was a mask; beneath it was fear, and beneath fear was love that hadn’t faded, no matter the hurt.
They were both wrong, both right, both flawed. But one truth remained: unfinished did not mean broken. It meant there was still something worth returning to.
Meera typed a message that night, her hands trembling: I booked a ticket. I need to see you. Not later, not when the fellowship ends. Now.
In Bangalore, as the rain hammered against his window, Ayaan read it, heart pounding. For the first time in weeks, he let himself hope.
Part 10: The Reunion
The arrival hall at Kempegowda Airport pulsed with chaos—families clutching garlands, drivers holding placards, weary travelers dragging suitcases across polished floors. Outside, monsoon rain lashed the glass walls, streaking the city in silver. Ayaan stood near the barrier, heart drumming harder than the rain. He had told himself not to expect anything—not apologies, not promises. Just her. Just Meera, walking back into his city, unfinished no more.
When she emerged through the glass doors, he almost didn’t recognize her. The months had etched new lines in her face: sharper confidence, tired eyes, a glow born of stages and long nights. She wore a simple kurta, hair tied back, a satchel slung across her shoulder. Yet the moment her gaze found him, the airport dissolved—the noise, the lights, the strangers—all faded until there was only the two of them, standing across a thin railing like the first time at the temple portico.
For a breathless second, neither moved. Then she slipped through the gap in the crowd, dragging her suitcase recklessly, until she stood before him, rain-soaked air curling around them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice raw. “For not showing up when you needed me. For making you feel unfinished.”
Ayaan’s throat tightened. “And I’m sorry for letting fear sound like anger. For forgetting that love isn’t about perfect timing.”
The words trembled between them, fragile yet unbreakable. Then, slowly, Meera reached into her satchel and pulled out a folded sheet—the sketch he had given her. The paper was creased, edges worn from being touched too often. She held it up with both hands. “This kept me grounded. Even when I was dancing for strangers, I felt you here. And I realized—I don’t want a dream that doesn’t have you in it.”
The tightness in his chest cracked open. He stepped forward, rain drumming harder against the glass behind them. “And I don’t want a life measured only in models and meetings. Not if it means losing you.”
For the first time, there was no distance left to protect, no unsaid walls between them. He dropped his bag, she let the sketch flutter against her chest, and they closed the space. Arms wrapped, breaths mingled, the hum of the city folding around them like blessing. It wasn’t cinematic—not a kiss drowned in applause—but something quieter, fiercer. Two people who had circled each other through oceans and storms finally standing still, together.
Later, when they left the airport, the rain still falling, they walked side by side under a single umbrella. Their steps aligned, not rushed, not hesitant—measured, deliberate. Seven steps apart once, now seven steps together.
As they reached the car park, Meera glanced at him, eyes shining. “Do you think love survives distance?”
Ayaan smiled, squeezing her hand. “No. Love doesn’t survive distance. It bridges it.”
And with that, they stepped out into the Bangalore night, unfinished no more.
END
