Riyaan Chatterjee
Chapter 1:
The monsoon had arrived in Kolkata with its usual flair—abrupt, unpredictable, and theatrical. The sky over College Street had been clear just thirty minutes ago, laced with the buttery gold of a humid afternoon, and now it was dark, moody, and rumbling with the kind of threats only a Bengal monsoon could make. Shubhayan Ghosh was stuck under the tiny green-and-white awning of Paramount Sherbet House, his laptop bag hanging heavy from his shoulder, his formal shirt uncomfortably sticking to his back. He had just come out of a client visit at Dalhousie and, against his better judgment, decided to take a detour through College Street. The nostalgia of the area always tugged at him—old bookshops, chaotic lanes, and the ghosts of thinkers past. A soft drizzle had begun as he passed Katha-O-Kahini, but now, as the rain matured into a deluge, he found himself trapped in a corner, clutching a paper cup of lukewarm sherbet, glancing up at the sky and down at the flooded pavements with equal frustration. And then, amidst the blurred outlines of umbrellas and tram tracks, she appeared.
Sudipta Roy was standing near the edge of the pavement, animatedly arguing with a street bookseller over the price of a tattered, yellowing copy of The Discovery of India. Her navy-blue formal kurti was wet at the edges, and her office ID card hung limply from her neck. The strap of her handbag had slipped off her shoulder, but she didn’t care. Her voice was clear and sharp: “Dada, you can’t quote five hundred for this—look at the binding! And the last two pages are torn!” The bookseller shrugged, countering with something about it being an old print. Shubhayan watched her, bemused. She had an unfiltered honesty in her face, the kind that didn’t shy away from confrontation yet wasn’t hardened by the city’s roughness. She won the argument, obviously, and with the triumphant smile of a general after battle, she turned—only to realize that the rain had grown heavier. Her eyes darted around, calculating her next move. That’s when she noticed him standing awkwardly beneath the awning, holding his sherbet like it was the only warm thing in the world. Their eyes met briefly. She hesitated for just a second before walking over.
“Mind if I stand here for a bit?” she asked, brushing her damp hair away from her face. Her voice was assertive but not unfriendly. “I forgot my umbrella like an idiot.”
“Not at all,” Shubhayan replied quickly, adjusting his bag to make space. “I did too. Or maybe I chose to forget. Bad weather always finds me when I try to be nostalgic.”
She gave a half-laugh, then looked up at the sky as if to scold it. “Nostalgia has bad timing. Especially in this city.” Silence stretched between them for a few seconds, filled only by the sound of rain hammering the tin roof above. She glanced at his shirt collar and asked, “Office?” He nodded. “MNC,” he said. “You?” She lifted the soaked edge of her dupatta slightly like it were an official badge. “Insurance. Health claims. Eternal drama.” That made him smile, genuinely this time. Something about her tone made the mundane sound amusing.
It was then that the rain let up slightly, retreating from its downpour to a gentle drizzle, like a curtain being pulled back after the climax. Sudipta peeked around and said, “If you’re going that way, mind walking with me? My office is near Amherst Street.” He nodded, surprised at how easily he said yes. They shared an old, rusty umbrella one of the stall boys lent them. It wasn’t enough to cover both, so they had to walk close. Their strides were uneven at first, awkward, like two dancers stepping on each other’s feet. But soon it settled. He told her how he often walked this way to clear his head after intense pitch meetings. She shared how she loved stumbling upon forgotten bookshops during lunch breaks. They paused in front of Boi-Chitra, an old store with hand-painted signs, where Sudipta pointed out her favorite author while wrinkling her nose at self-help titles. When they reached the corner where she had to turn, she stopped. “Thanks for the company,” she said. “And the umbrella, of course.” He nodded, unsure of what to say. She took his phone gently and typed her number. “In case you ever want to argue over overpriced books,” she smiled and disappeared down the lane, leaving behind the scent of petrichor and unexpected beginnings.
Chapter 2:
The next few days unfolded like slow pages of an old diary, the kind with scribbled corners and coffee stains. Shubhayan found himself distracted during meetings, his PowerPoint slides filled with words he didn’t remember writing, his fingers hovering over the send button of a text that simply read: Hi, this is Shubhayan from College Street. Hope you reached safely that day. But he never sent it. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the strange vulnerability of a fleeting connection. Or maybe it was the quiet fear of ruining something that had felt… cinematic. In a city where everyone was constantly in a rush—to catch cabs, to meet targets, to buy groceries before it rained again—he strangely wanted time to stretch a little. Every time it drizzled, he thought of her. And every time he passed by the College Street crossing, he slowed down instinctively, half hoping she’d be standing under the same awning, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, arguing with another bookseller.
It was a Thursday morning when the city surprised him again. He had stepped out for a quick tea break near his Salt Lake Sector V office when he spotted her—Sudipta—standing in front of a snack stall near the Axis Mall gate, her office lanyard swinging slightly in the wind. She was sipping tea from a clay bhaand, scrolling through her phone with the kind of practiced indifference typical of overworked professionals. He hesitated only a second before walking up, clearing his throat. She looked up. The recognition in her eyes was instant, followed by a smile that seemed to tug at something inside him. “Kolkata is small,” she said before he could speak. “Or maybe it just rains coincidence sometimes.” He laughed. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.” She gave him a look. “You gave me an umbrella and walked me halfway to my office. I’ve known colleagues for years who haven’t done that.” That broke the tension. They stood side by side, sipping their tea, watching the city move past them in cars and footsteps. He asked if she worked nearby. She pointed across the road. “Third floor of that glass cage. Health Claims. Every file looks the same after lunch.” He chuckled, nodding toward his own building. “Eighth floor of a different cage. Business pitches and dashboards.” There was something absurdly comforting in their shared corporate fatigue.
They decided to meet for lunch the next day. It wasn’t planned, but it happened. A tiny Bengali joint near Tank No. 5 where Sudipta insisted on ordering shukto, and Shubhayan grimaced through it like a child forced to eat greens. She teased him. “You can close million-dollar deals but can’t handle bitter gourd?” He retaliated by ordering double mishti doi, declaring himself a dessert nationalist. The lunch was peppered with gentle sarcasm, laughter, and surprisingly personal anecdotes. She told him how she had once spent three months writing poetry under a pen name for an online blog but gave it up after someone commented, “Nice try. Sounds like Jibanananda trying to do Instagram.” He shared how photography was once a dream until EMIs and reality made him fold up his DSLR into a cupboard he rarely opened. They were different—she liked control, he thrived in spontaneity. But something about the rhythm of their conversation felt like a match. Not perfect. But organic.
By the time the workweek ended, meeting Sudipta had become an unspoken ritual. Sometimes they met at the momo stall near Sector V gate. Sometimes they just walked during coffee breaks, mocking colleagues or exchanging stories about annoying clients and bizarre email signatures. One evening, as they stood under the dull orange streetlights near Karunamoyee, she turned to him and asked, “Do you always do this?” “What?” he said, surprised. “Get close. Then hold back.” He blinked, caught off guard. “I didn’t mean to.” She looked ahead. “I’m not asking for promises. Just… honesty.” That night, Shubhayan sat in his room, staring at the old DSLR on his shelf. He dusted it off and held it like something sacred. The first message he sent her finally wasn’t a hesitant ‘Hi.’ It was a photo—taken from his window—the rain blurring the lights of Salt Lake in soft smudges. Captioned only with three words: Still thinking rain.
Chapter 3:
The city was shifting seasons again. The sticky breath of monsoon was giving way to the first dry winds of October, rustling leaves across the pavements and sending Durga Puja banners flapping against old walls. For most Kolkatans, this time of year meant crowded pandals, new clothes, and late-night revelry. But for Shubhayan, this October felt unusually still, even as the world around him stirred. It had been a month since he’d met Sudipta under that damp awning in College Street. Now, she had become a part of his daily rhythm—like his 9 a.m. black coffee, or the way he checked news headlines first thing every morning. Their conversations had grown from brief lunches to long walks that often veered into territory neither of them expected. Once, in the middle of debating the best rosogolla in town, Sudipta had casually said, “Do you think we’re becoming something?” And before he could respond, she had laughed it off and changed the subject. But the question lingered like perfume on an old scarf—faint but unforgettable.
They had started taking auto rides together to the Karunamoyee Metro, often sitting in silence, watching the chaos of the city blur past in streaks of noise and honking. One such evening, after a particularly tiring day of back-to-back meetings and an Excel crash that had nearly ruined a week’s worth of work, Shubhayan found himself surprisingly comforted by Sudipta’s presence beside him. She didn’t talk much that evening. She didn’t have to. Her mere presence, her occasional sideways glances, the soft sound of her thumb nervously tapping her bag’s buckle—it was all strangely intimate. When they got off at their usual stop, he paused. “Want to walk a bit?” She hesitated—then nodded. They didn’t take the usual road. Instead, they wandered into the labyrinth of alleys behind City Centre, lit only by the flicker of street vendors’ lanterns and the distant jangle of Bengali rock music. Somewhere between the cracked pavements and yellowing lamp posts, they stumbled upon a tiny tea stall with faded posters of Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen plastered across the wooden counter. As they waited for their tea, he finally said, “About what you asked the other day… yes, I do think we’re becoming something. But I don’t know what yet.” She looked at him quietly, holding the steaming cup in both hands, her face unreadable. “Maybe we don’t need to name it,” she said softly. “Not yet.”
The next day, they didn’t meet. A sudden audit had locked Sudipta into back-to-back claim evaluations while Shubhayan was caught in a client’s onboarding mess that exploded into a flurry of late-night Zoom calls. But something about the absence felt too loud. It made them realize how comfortable they’d become with the idea of ‘us’—even without the label. That Saturday, Shubhayan decided to do something impulsive. He called her and said, “Take the day off.” “Why?” she asked. “Because I want to show you something you probably haven’t seen in years.” Reluctantly, she agreed. Two hours later, they were walking through Kumartuli, the potters’ quarter, where artisans were shaping clay into goddesses. The narrow lanes were filled with the scent of damp earth and coconut oil. Sudipta, who hadn’t visited since her childhood, was visibly moved. “I used to come here with Baba,” she said. “Before he passed, this was our annual ritual.” Shubhayan didn’t say anything. He just handed her the DSLR. “Click something,” he said. “Something that feels like you.” She looked through the lens and captured an idol mid-formation—its eyes not yet painted, its arms still rough clay. “Incomplete,” she said. “Like us.”
That evening, as they sat on the ghats of Bagbazar watching the sun sink into the river, Sudipta rested her head against his shoulder for the first time. The world around them felt muted—the traffic, the bustle of pre-Puja markets, the distant honk of a ferry—all blurred into a haze. For a few moments, they were not office workers or tired commuters; they were just two people who had chosen to pause for one another. “I don’t believe in fairy tales,” she murmured. “But I do believe in detours—the unexpected kind that leads you somewhere better than you planned.” Shubhayan looked at her, wondering how someone who claimed to be practical could speak so poetically when it mattered. He wanted to tell her something—maybe how the city hadn’t felt this alive in years, or how she had unknowingly filled a quiet ache in his daily life—but the words stayed locked somewhere between thought and speech. Sometimes, he realized, unfinished sentences carry more truth than carefully crafted ones. They sat in silence, watching the river carry the last golden flecks of light, not knowing where this was going—but knowing, finally, that they were willing to find out together.
Chapter 4:
October melted into early November with the swiftness of an exhale, and Kolkata transitioned from festive chaos to a kind of post-Puja stillness that felt almost unnatural. Streets that once throbbed with sound now bore a quiet fatigue, like a dancer resting after the final curtain. For Shubhayan and Sudipta, it should have been a peaceful stretch. But it wasn’t. Work, that old relentless beast, had begun to rear its head again. Shubhayan had just been assigned a cross-country project pitch, and most of his days were now swallowed by travel, PowerPoint decks, and back-to-back virtual meetings with international teams. Sudipta, meanwhile, was deep into quarterly review season—staring at files until the printed text blurred into static. Their tea breaks became occasional messages. Their conversations were scattered, their meetups rarer. Even when they managed to see each other, exhaustion hung between them like a third person, uninvited and unkind. On one such evening, seated in their favorite momo stall behind Salt Lake’s swimming pool complex, Sudipta asked, “Do you think we’re getting used to not being around?” The question landed like a stone skipping water—gentle in tone, sharp in consequence.
Shubhayan paused, chewing slowly. “I think we’re just… stretched,” he replied. “It’s a phase.” She nodded, unconvinced. “Phases become patterns.” He looked at her, really looked—hair pulled back messily, kajal slightly smudged, voice low and uncertain. “Do you want to walk away?” he asked, not challengingly, but with a tired honesty. She shook her head. “I want to matter. Even when the calendar is cruel.” That night, when he got home, he sat with his laptop open, the corporate presentation glowing on one half of the screen. On the other, her photo. A candid one from Kumartuli—where she stood near the half-built goddess, her fingers dusted with clay, her smile not quite posed. He stared at it, then opened a blank email and began typing. It was a confession of sorts—not romantic, not dramatic. Just real. “I don’t always know what to say,” he wrote, “but I notice the little things. Like how you tug at your sleeves when nervous. Or how you smell the spine of a book before buying it. I don’t know where we’re heading, but I don’t want to back out before I find out.” He didn’t send the email. But it existed. Like a lighthouse that might one day help someone lost find their way home.
Sudipta, on her end, was navigating her own tangle of thoughts. She didn’t need grand declarations—never had. But she needed presence. Not constant, but consistent. In the smallest ways. Like a good morning message before a claim hearing. Or a photo of rain if she missed the downpour. She had built her life around independence, around being her own anchor, especially after her father’s sudden death five years ago. But loving someone—even possibly loving someone—was like learning to let go of that rigidity, to soften at the edges. And that scared her. One Friday, she waited outside his office at 8 p.m., unannounced. When he walked out, surprised, she said, “Let’s get coffee. I want to talk without you checking Slack every two minutes.” They went to a quiet café tucked behind Purbalok, where jazz music floated in the air like conversation itself. Over coffee, she told him how work was making her feel invisible. “People only notice when something goes wrong. Like I’m just a fixer, not a person.” He listened. Not half-heartedly, not distractedly. Fully. “You’re not invisible to me,” he said. “You’re the only constant in a life where everything else shifts weekly.” She smiled faintly. “I just needed to hear that. Once.”
The weekend brought a strange sort of intimacy—not physical, but deeper. They spent an entire Sunday doing nothing grand. Just reading side by side in Rabindra Sarobar, walking barefoot on the grass, arguing over whether mishti doi should be served chilled. There were no big declarations, no sudden kisses, no cinematic gestures. Just hands brushing unintentionally. Shared glances. Quiet laughter. On their way back, as the metro snaked through the underground tunnels, the air between them finally felt settled. Not perfect. Not defined. But warm. When they reached Kalighat station, she turned to him and said, “Don’t let the world make you forget why you looked for me in the first place.” He didn’t reply. He just gently took her hand. It wasn’t an answer, but it was a promise—a promise not of forever, but of effort, of showing up when it mattered. And sometimes, in cities like Kolkata, where streets whisper old stories and even silence has a memory, effort was more powerful than words.
Chapter 5:
Winter crept into Kolkata with subtlety, like an old friend who doesn’t knock but quietly settles into the corners of a home. The mornings were crisp now, with the sky a pale blue and the sun lazily crawling out from behind buildings. For Shubhayan, December brought with it a rare slowdown—fewer meetings, fewer emails, and just enough quiet time to notice how the world changed its colors. The leaves on the trees near his Lake Gardens apartment had browned at the edges, and the roadside tea stalls were now serving steaming lal cha in slightly bigger bhaands, knowing people lingered longer in the cold. Sudipta, meanwhile, was caught in a year-end avalanche of paperwork. Her office was frantically clearing backlogs, trying to close every pending claim before the calendar flipped. Their schedules misaligned again. And yet, strangely, they never felt apart. Each night, before sleep wrapped the city, Shubhayan would message her one line—sometimes a thought, sometimes a joke, sometimes just a song lyric. She’d reply in emojis, voice notes, or just a “hmm” that still felt enough.
But even in the comfort of those small routines, doubts began to sprout—quietly, like weeds in a garden no one tended. It began one evening when Shubhayan was at a friend’s birthday party in South City. Loud music, laughter, and acquaintances surrounded him, yet he found himself staring at his phone, waiting for Sudipta’s response to a voice note he had sent two hours ago. It wasn’t the delay. It was the silence that followed. No emoji. No follow-up. Just nothing. And suddenly, he felt a strange chill—not from the weather, but from the hollow space between expectation and reality. He told himself she must be tired, or busy. But a voice in his head whispered: Are you still a priority? Or just a part of her daily checklist? That night, he didn’t text her first. She didn’t either. The silence, though accidental, felt deliberate. And in that silence, both of them folded into their own anxieties. Sudipta stared at her phone too, thumb hovering over his name. She wanted to reply. But work had drained her, and the thought of another emotionally loaded conversation exhausted her. And so, she let it be. One unread message. One unspoken worry. One small crack.
Days passed. They met briefly—hurried coffees, lunch near Tank No. 8, a quick walk through Vivekananda Park—but something had shifted. Their jokes were still there, but the laughter felt edited. Their stories were still shared, but shorter. The easy rhythm they once shared now stumbled over hesitation. One Sunday, while sitting on the green benches outside the Indian Museum, Sudipta finally asked, “Do you think we’re trying too hard?” Shubhayan didn’t respond immediately. He looked at the children running across the marble courtyard, at the sun slanting through the old trees, and then back at her. “No,” he said softly. “But I think we’ve stopped trying for the right things.” She raised an eyebrow. “Like?” “Like talking about what actually bothers us. Like admitting when we miss each other. Like saying, ‘I need you,’ without sounding clingy.” She sighed. “You say that so easily. I’ve never known how to ask for someone.” That sentence hit him harder than she knew. Because in her honesty was the truth he had sensed all along—Sudipta was used to standing alone, not because she wanted to, but because life had made her. To let someone in was both desire and threat.
And so, in the heart of winter, amid the rustling of dry leaves and old fears, they made a new kind of promise—not of certainty, not of forever, but of honesty. “Let’s be messy,” Shubhayan said one evening as they stood in front of a sugarcane juice cart near Esplanade. “Let’s fight sometimes. Let’s tell each other when we’re pissed. But let’s not guess what the other is feeling. Guessing hurts more than hearing the hard truth.” Sudipta smiled, a small, worn smile. “Deal,” she said. That night, as they parted ways at Park Street Metro, she kissed him lightly on the cheek—not with drama, but with quiet assurance. It wasn’t the beginning of a grand love story. It was the middle of a real one. With cracks and colors, pauses and poetry. A story that whispered more than it shouted. And in a city like Kolkata, where every tramline hides an old memory and every street hums with nostalgia, they chose to keep walking—together, uncertain but unafraid.
Chapter 6:
The final weeks of December arrived like the ending notes of a slow song—soft, nostalgic, and slightly melancholic. The city had pulled out its woolens. Stalls selling roasted peanuts and woollen monkey caps popped up across every corner. Kolkata, now wrapped in its mild winter chill, seemed to move a little slower, breathe a little deeper. And in this quieter tempo, Shubhayan and Sudipta found their own rhythm once again. There were no grand gestures—just little acts that brought warmth. He would leave a note tucked inside a book she once said she wanted to read. She would order his favorite biryani from a small Behala joint on a random Thursday. They didn’t call it love. Not yet. But it was something rooted and real. Still, beneath this shared affection lay questions they hadn’t dared to answer. “Where is this going?” was a thought they both carried in the backs of their minds like a hidden envelope—sealed, waiting, feared. But as long as the everyday moments were filled with comfort, neither was in a rush to open it.
It was during one of their quiet walks near the Prinsep Ghat—just as the sun dipped behind the Vidyasagar Setu—that Shubhayan brought it up, almost involuntarily. “Would you ever leave Kolkata?” he asked, skipping a stone across the water. Sudipta paused, her breath visible in the chilly air. “Why would I?” “Because sometimes, dreams live elsewhere.” She turned to him, lips pursed. “Whose dreams?” He hesitated. “Mine. Maybe.” The confession hung there for a moment, longer than either of them expected. She knew his work at the MNC had opened doors. A regional role in Singapore. A training opportunity in Frankfurt. He’d mentioned them casually before, like someone describing scenery through a train window—beautiful, distant, undecided. “And you? Would you go?” she asked finally. “If I knew you’d be with me… maybe.” Her gaze dropped to the stone path. “That’s a lot of maybes, Shubhayan.” And suddenly, the breeze felt colder. They walked back in silence that night, their fingers brushing but never holding, their closeness marred by the first signs of differing destinations.
Over the next week, the conversation they hadn’t resolved echoed louder in their minds than the ones they actually had. Sudipta was quieter than usual. She hadn’t said no. But she hadn’t said yes either. It wasn’t just about cities and careers. It was about roots. Sudipta had her mother to care for. Her office—though modest—was familiar, dependable. Her life was not just her own. Shubhayan, on the other hand, felt the creeping ache of unfulfilled ambition. His job at the MNC had always been demanding, but now it began to feel constricting, as though something bigger was waiting. Yet every time he considered applying for that overseas role, he’d remember her—her voice, her laugh, the way she absentmindedly held his arm during metro rides. On New Year’s Eve, they met near the Victoria Memorial, where fairy lights were strung across trees and distant laughter rang like windchimes. They sat on the steps, among strangers, watching the sky bloom with fireworks. “Promise me something,” Sudipta said, her eyes fixed on the exploding colors. “Promise me that if you go, you won’t leave unfinished words behind. Say what you feel. Even if it’s messy.” He turned toward her, face lit in bursts of red and gold. “Then let me start now—I’m scared to leave, because I don’t want to lose you.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder, saying nothing at first. Then quietly, “I’m scared you’ll stay and resent me for it.” It was the most honest exchange they had ever had. Neither romantic, nor accusatory. Just two people afraid of the price love might demand. And as midnight crept into the city and 2026 was welcomed with noise and neon, they sat holding hands, uncertain yet present. In a world that often celebrates perfect alignments, theirs was a story of delicate negotiations and unfinished certainties. But Kolkata—forever brimming with rain-washed alleys and stubborn nostalgia—had taught them that love, too, could exist in pauses. In “not yets” and “let’s see.” They didn’t need to decide that night. They just needed to be there. Together. For now, that was enough.
Chapter 7:
January in Kolkata is a city painted in sepia—mornings smudged with fog, afternoons golden, and evenings wrapped in a hush that settles over rooftops like an old shawl. For Shubhayan, the beginning of the year brought clarity he hadn’t expected. He got the official offer letter for the regional posting in Singapore. It was a twelve-month assignment, extendable based on performance. The kind of opportunity his colleagues envied. The kind of move that fast-tracked promotions. He should’ve been thrilled. But all he could think about was how Sudipta would take it. For two days, he didn’t tell her. Not because he wanted to lie—but because he didn’t know how to place it into their story. On the third evening, they met at Deshapriya Park, where the grass was still dewy from the retreating mist. She was wearing a navy-blue shawl, her hair tied in a loose braid, hands warmed by the kulhad of hot coffee she clutched. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he began. She looked up at him, a quiet brace in her eyes. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
The words cut sharper because she said them first. He nodded. “It’s not permanent. A year, maybe less. But yes, I got it.” There was no outburst. No tears. Just a long silence. She sipped her coffee, then said, “When?” “End of March.” That gave them ten weeks. Ten weekends. Ten chances to rewrite—or relive—whatever they meant to each other. “You should go,” she said after a pause. “I know how much this means to you.” Her voice was steady, but something in it had hardened, like a surface that doesn’t break but bends under quiet weight. “I don’t want this to be the end,” he said, reaching for her hand. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t hold on either. “It’s not about endings,” she whispered. “It’s about what survives the silence between two time zones.” Over the next few days, their interactions became strangely tender, almost as if they were both afraid to hurt what was left. They planned little things—visits to favorite places, shared meals, promises to write letters. They didn’t call it a countdown. But they both felt it ticking.
February brought in Saraswati Puja, and with it, a hint of nostalgia. Sudipta invited him to her office celebration—just a simple gathering with yellow sarees, homemade sweets, and paper decorations. Watching her laugh with her colleagues, wearing that mustard-yellow cotton saree and gold-studded earrings, Shubhayan felt something swell in his chest. It wasn’t regret. It wasn’t guilt. It was longing. A desire to press pause. Freeze time. But reality, like the trains that thundered through Kalighat station, waited for no one. That evening, as they sat on the rooftop of her building in Jodhpur Park, surrounded by clay pots of marigolds, he asked, “Would you come with me?” The question wasn’t casual. It was loaded with hope, risk, and the fragile weight of uncertainty. She looked at him, startled. “To Singapore?” He nodded. “Even if just for a few months. I can arrange a visa. You can talk to your office…” She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she stared at the streetlights below, glowing like tired fireflies. “I don’t know, Shubhayan. My mother, my job… this life. I’ve built everything brick by brick.” He didn’t press further. Because he knew—sometimes, the harder thing than asking someone to leave is asking them to let go.
The next few weeks were filled with moments suspended between joy and ache. They still laughed, still kissed under fairy-lit cafés, still argued over silly things. But the approaching goodbye hung over them like smog, dimming even the brightest of moments. On the last weekend of February, they took a day trip to Shantiniketan—a place she had long wanted to revisit. Amid the red-earth paths and rustling sal trees, they found brief solace. They listened to bauls sing by the riverside. They shared oranges on a sunlit bench. And for a moment, time did slow down. That evening, as they returned on the train, their fingers intertwined quietly, she said, “I don’t have the answers, Shubhayan. But I’m not ready to lose what we have.” He leaned in, kissed her forehead, and replied, “Then let’s not lose it. Let’s protect it, even if it changes shape.” The train rattled on, and Kolkata waited at the end of the line. And though their future remained uncertain, one thing was clear—they were no longer afraid of asking the hard questions. And maybe, just maybe, love began there.
Chapter 8:
March unfolded slowly, like the last few pages of a favorite book. The days grew longer, but every morning felt shorter for Shubhayan and Sudipta—as if time, aware of its impending scarcity, was slipping faster through their hands. The city was changing again. Trees along Southern Avenue wore new leaves. Mango blossoms filled the air with a quiet fragrance. Basanta had arrived, yet for them, it didn’t bring celebration—it brought the sound of packing tape, the scent of freshly ironed formal shirts ready to be flown to another continent, and the strange ache of trying to say everything before goodbye. They met almost every evening now. Sometimes for dinner, sometimes just to sit silently near the Lake. Sudipta had started journaling again, quietly noting memories they made—his laughter over a spilled cup of tea, the way his eyes crinkled when she recited old Rabindrasangeet lines, how his thumb absently brushed the inside of her palm while they sat on park benches. Each entry was titled by date. She didn’t call them love notes. But they were.
For Shubhayan, these days were bittersweet. Every morning, he received emails from the Singapore team—onboarding instructions, accommodation options, HR formalities. Every evening, he tried to freeze the life he was about to leave behind. He found himself watching Sudipta more than usual. The way she leaned forward when something made her laugh. The way she bit her lower lip when thinking too deeply. These weren’t just habits. They were his landmarks—places he’d always return to in memory. One day, as they walked through the flower markets near Gariahat, he stopped and bought her a red hibiscus. She smiled, surprised. “This doesn’t even have fragrance.” “It doesn’t need to,” he said. “You’ll remember it anyway.” Her eyes welled up then, and she quickly turned away, hiding behind her usual wall of composure. That night, she left him a message: “I wish I could carry you in my pocket. Fold you into paper and hide you inside a book I read every day.” He read it five times before replying with a single line—“Maybe I already live there.”
With just ten days left, they made a list—not of things to do, but of things to say. Honest, unfiltered, silly things. “What would you do if we met ten years ago?” she asked. “I’d marry you in college,” he smiled. “And get divorced after two years because we’d fight about the kind of curtains we want.” She laughed so hard, her nose crinkled. “And now?” “Now,” he said, “I’d choose you. Every single day. Even if we fight. Even if we drift. I’d still find my way back to you.” Her voice dropped then. “What if I don’t find my way back?” That silence was the longest one yet. “Then I’ll wait,” he whispered. “Even if I don’t know when you’ll return.” On Holi, they avoided crowds and instead stayed in—on her terrace, playing songs from old Bengali films and sipping Thandai. She smeared a dash of red on his cheek, and he did the same, their faces marked by both celebration and sorrow. He wanted to freeze that moment. But life, as always, kept ticking.
The day before his flight, Sudipta came to see him off at his Lake Gardens flat. His suitcase stood in the corner, zipped and ready. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to. She helped him clean out his bookshelf. He gave her one—Kafka on the Shore, bookmarked at the chapter he once said reminded him of her. “There are some things that fate allows you to lose, only to make you remember how much you want them back,” he said. “Then remember me,” she replied, her voice cracking. “Even when I forget myself.” At the door, she hugged him tighter than ever before. “Don’t write me sad letters,” she murmured into his shoulder. “Write about rain and biryani and yellow taxis and mishti doi.” He smiled, holding her face. “I’ll write about home. And home looks a lot like you.” When she left, she didn’t turn back—because if she did, she feared she wouldn’t be able to walk away. That night, under the quiet Kolkata sky, they both wept—separately, silently. Love hadn’t ended. It had simply paused, written in ellipses instead of full stops.
Chapter 9:
The airplane that carried Shubhayan away from Kolkata took off quietly in the early hours, as dawn hovered beyond the city’s smoky skyline. Sudipta watched the last message he had sent her—“I’ll wave to the moon tonight. Wave back.”—and didn’t respond. Not because she didn’t want to. But because she was afraid her reply would unravel her again. In Singapore, Shubhayan was thrust into a new world—efficient, clean, fast-paced. His new team welcomed him. The skyline outside his apartment was sleek and bright, and the air smelt of opportunity. But even amid success, he felt the ache of absence. He often found himself standing on his balcony at night, searching the sky for that same moon. Sometimes, it felt like the only thing connecting him back to the city of yellow taxis and the girl who spoke in pauses and poetry. They didn’t call each other much—timings never aligned. But they wrote. Long letters. Digital at first, then scanned pages of real handwriting. And with each one, they kept a fragile bridge alive between two distant shores of the same emotion.
Sudipta’s life hadn’t changed much. Office. Home. Taking care of her mother. But something within her had shifted. She was still her dependable, steady self—but now, she walked through her days with a quiet hum inside her, a song unfinished. She would check her mailbox every evening. A week after Shubhayan left, the first letter arrived. A proper one—brown paper, his handwriting neat and slanting. “Dear Dutta,” it began, using the silly nickname he’d given her once after mistaking her for someone else on a work call. The letter spoke of a rooftop garden, of strange noodle dishes he couldn’t pronounce, of missing the chaos of Kolkata and the comfort of mishti doi from a corner shop near her house. He wrote about her smile. About how he replayed their last hug every night before sleeping. And how the silence in his flat echoed with her voice. She cried reading it, but not out of sadness. It was the kind of ache that reminded her she was loved—even in absence, even across oceans.
They began exchanging stories from their separate lives. Sudipta wrote about a new client she couldn’t stand, about a pigeon that had made a home in her balcony plant, about how her mother had started asking when she’d settle down. She didn’t mention how some nights felt hollow. How sometimes she forgot the sound of his voice. Or how she still hadn’t washed the shawl that carried his scent. Shubhayan, in return, wrote about the pace of life in his new world—coffee that tasted like cardboard, offices with glass walls that reflected his loneliness, and how no one there knew the joy of cutting chai. But in between it all, there were plans. “Let’s go to Kalimpong together when I’m back,” he wrote once. “Or get lost in North Kolkata’s book lanes.” She’d reply with things like, “Only if you agree to get soaked in the rain with me.” These weren’t promises. Just sketches of hope—drawn lightly, like pencil on fogged glass. They both knew that distance had a way of testing even the strongest threads.
But the real shift happened one April night. A storm hit Kolkata. Thunder, lightning, the kind that shook windowpanes and rattled hearts. Sudipta stood by her window, watching the sky crack open. She thought of him. Of the time he once held her hand as they got drenched near Rashbehari. On impulse, she picked up her phone and dialed his number, despite the time difference. He picked up on the third ring. “Dutta?” he said, sleep in his voice. She didn’t speak for a few seconds. Then: “It’s raining.” He smiled softly, though she couldn’t see it. “I know. I heard it here.” Silence, again. But this time, not uncomfortable. Just filled with longing and the sound of shared weather. “Do you still think about us?” she asked, finally. He replied, “I never stopped.” The line crackled slightly, like the clouds above her. “Me too,” she whispered. That night, something shifted again. Not everything needed to be decided. Not yet. But in that call, they reaffirmed that love—real love—could stretch across miles, ride through time zones, and still arrive home.
Chapter 10:
Monsoon came early that year in Kolkata. By the second week of June, rain lashed against windows, rickshaw wheels splashed through shallow pools, and every street corner smelt of wet earth and tea. Sudipta stood under the awning of a bookshop near College Street, watching paperbacks curl at the edges from the damp, and thought about how time has a way of circling back. It had been almost four months since Shubhayan left. Their letters continued, phone calls became more regular, and somewhere between distant conversations and subtle reassurances, something became clear to her—not in a grand, cinematic moment, but like a slow sunrise after a long fog. She missed him. But more than that, she wanted to build with him. A future, however uncertain. A partnership, however imperfect. One evening, after returning home, she sat across her mother and quietly said, “There’s someone I want to wait for.” Her mother didn’t say much—just placed a hand on hers and smiled, the kind that understood more than words ever could.
Meanwhile, in Singapore, Shubhayan’s life began to feel more structured. His work had picked up speed, his colleagues admired his efficiency, and his seniors already discussed extension. But even as he stood on the 23rd-floor balcony of his corporate apartment, watching the skyline twinkle, he knew he didn’t belong there. He belonged in the smell of mustard oil from Sudipta’s kitchen. In the sound of street vendors yelling “phuchka!” near Lake Market. In the way Sudipta’s eyes softened when she forgot the world around her. One day, on a routine morning video call with her, he said, “I’m coming back in August. I’ve told the company I won’t extend.” She looked stunned. “Are you sure?” He nodded. “Yes. I came here to find something. But everything I truly want is in Kolkata. In you.” Her eyes blinked, and in them was that old spark he’d fallen for—surprise, emotion, belief. “Then come home,” she said simply. That night, he sat by the Marina Bay waterfront and penned his final letter to her. He didn’t mail it. He tucked it inside his wallet. Some things, he realized, are meant to be read in person.
When August arrived, so did Shubhayan—under heavy clouds, with his suitcase and heart both full. He didn’t tell her the date of his arrival. Instead, he made his way straight to the insurance office in Park Street where she worked. Wearing a white shirt, holding a yellow umbrella, he waited outside. When she stepped out, exhausted from a long day of fieldwork, she froze. For a second, the city silenced itself. Then, slowly, she walked toward him, as if confirming he wasn’t a mirage. “You look thinner,” she said, blinking hard. “You look exactly the same,” he replied. “Except I’ve missed you more than I thought possible.” “You didn’t write this week.” “I was saving something for now.” He took out the folded letter from his wallet and handed it to her. She opened it carefully, rain drizzling lightly now. It read: “I left looking for a dream. I came back to live in one—with you.” She didn’t say anything, just leaned forward and held him. The umbrella tilted, the paper wet, but they didn’t care. Love, after all, is not always in words—it’s in the holding on, despite storms.
They didn’t rush. There were no sudden engagements or dramatic announcements. Just shared evenings, now with the certainty that they both had chosen this—again and again. They began house hunting in South Kolkata, somewhere between Ballygunge and Gariahat, a space with enough room for books, fights, tea mugs, and silences. They still argued—over curtains, over fish curry, over who gets to keep the umbrella on rainy days. But now, every fight ended with the same sentence: “Let’s not waste time. We’ve already lost enough.” Sometimes, they’d return to that old chai stall near Marine Drive, just to sit in memory. And sometimes, without planning, they’d meet in the rain under yellow streetlights, lips tasting of nostalgia and thunder. Life didn’t get easier. But it felt fuller. Their story didn’t end at goodbye. It had only paused—and then continued, stronger. Rain would come and go. But some monsoons stayed. And theirs? It never really left.
Years later, when people asked Sudipta how she knew it was real, she never mentioned the grand things. Not the letters. Not the surprise visit outside her office. Not even the long-distance pain they had endured. She always spoke of one moment—a quiet evening when they were sitting on their tiny balcony in their South Kolkata apartment, sipping lemon tea during a drizzle. The power had gone out. The fan had stopped. And yet, neither moved. “That silence,” she would say, smiling softly, “felt like home.”
Shubhayan had returned not just to her, but to the soil that knew his steps, to the language of his dreams, to a city that had memorized his longing. He took up a role in a smaller company, one that paid less but gave him evenings free. He wrote more—short stories, film scripts, poems scrawled on the back of bills. Sudipta, on her part, stayed the same in many ways. Efficient. Grounded. Bright-eyed on Sundays. But she now cooked more than before—especially the dishes he once told her reminded him of home. “I didn’t know I’d be cooking for two hearts,” she’d tease. They didn’t need perfection. They had rhythm.
Some evenings, they still took long walks around Southern Avenue. Other days, they played antakshari in the rain like teenagers. Their love wasn’t loud. It was lived. In shared umbrellas. In the way he remembered her insurance renewal dates. In the way she knew when to leave him alone after a rejected manuscript. They framed the first letter he ever sent from Singapore and hung it near the shoe rack—because, as Sudipta often said, “A good journey always begins at the door.”
Rain continued to return, season after season. And with every shower, they’d pause—just a little—to remember where it all began. Not in love at first sight. But in love at first conversation. In a moment when chai met rain, and two strangers found something familiar in each other’s laughter.
End
