Ananya Deshpande
Episode 1 – Across the Alley
The alley was barely wide enough for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder, yet to Rohit it felt like a border he could never cross. On his side stood a row of aging houses, their paint peeling in the damp Kolkata monsoon, their balconies strung with clothes that never quite dried. On the other side rose another line of buildings, just as worn, their windows facing his own. He had grown up here, in this tight pocket of the city where noise never really faded—vendors calling out, children playing cricket with broken bats, the bells of hand-pulled rickshaws jingling faintly as they passed. Life was packed into every corner. And yet, for all the closeness, there were walls invisible and immovable, thicker than concrete.
From his bedroom window, Rohit had a clear view of the Karim household. Their windows were always half-drawn with lace curtains, but he had glimpsed enough over the years to build an impression. He knew that the older woman who sat by the window in the afternoons, sewing steadily, was Aisha’s mother. He knew that Aisha’s younger brother often leaned out of the sill to watch boys play in the alley, though he rarely joined. And he knew, most of all, that sometimes, when the curtains swayed with the wind, he caught sight of Aisha herself—bent over a notebook, her dark hair falling over her cheek, her pen moving swiftly as though she was racing against time.
They had never spoken. Not once in all these years. Their fathers exchanged only brief nods when forced to meet at the market. Their mothers pretended not to notice one another at the grocer’s. The two families had lived parallel lives in the same space, divided not by bricks but by centuries of quiet suspicion. Rohit’s father, a retired government clerk, had once told him bluntly, “They are not like us. Remember that.” Aisha’s uncle, overheard one evening, had muttered something similar on his side of the alley. The words stuck in the air like smoke, hard to see, impossible to clear.
Rohit had never been comfortable with it. He was twenty now, an engineering student at Jadavpur University, and the city outside was a roaring, shifting place where young people argued about politics in canteens and protested in streets. He could not reconcile that restless freedom with the silence imposed in his own alley. Every time he looked across and saw Aisha bent over her notes, he wondered if she too felt the suffocation, if she too dreamed of a world where a boy and a girl on opposite sides of a lane could speak without consequence.
It was one evening in late August that something changed. A sudden blackout struck the neighborhood, plunging the alley into darkness. The city was no stranger to power cuts, but this one was complete—the fan above him stopped whirring, the hum of televisions ceased, even the streetlights flickered off. The rain had just ended, leaving the air damp and heavy. Rohit lit a candle and set it on his windowsill. A soft glow spilled across the gap. When he looked up, he found that Aisha had done the same. For the first time, their eyes met in the fragile circle of candlelight.
Neither looked away. The alley seemed to shrink, the invisible wall thinning, as though the darkness had stripped away the caution their families had built. Rohit felt his heart hammer with a nervous energy. And then, before he could stop himself, he lifted the candle slightly and raised it, a silent greeting. To his astonishment, Aisha smiled—small, quick, but real—and lifted hers in return. The gesture was nothing more than a flicker, gone the moment the power returned with a sudden buzz and the yellow light of the bulbs drowned the fragile glow. The curtains on her side drew shut swiftly. But the moment remained with him, branded deep.
That night, Rohit lay awake listening to the ceiling fan, replaying the smile again and again. It was absurd, he told himself. A smile meant nothing. They had not exchanged a word. And yet it was more connection than he had ever shared across that alley. He thought of how her eyes had caught the candlelight, how for a breathless instant the distance between their houses had collapsed. He felt both foolish and exhilarated, a boy dreaming of revolutions in a place where even greetings were forbidden.
The next day, he found himself glancing at the window more often. At first there was nothing—curtains drawn, the faint shadow of someone moving. Then, in the afternoon, as the alley filled with the shouts of children playing, he saw her again. This time she was sitting with a book in her lap. Their eyes met, briefly, before she looked down quickly. And then, as if reconsidering, she tore a scrap of paper from her notebook, scribbled something, and held it up against the glass. From his distance he could not read it, but he caught the curve of a single word: Hello. She lowered it quickly, as if afraid. Rohit’s pulse quickened. He rummaged for a pen, scribbled the same word on the back of his class notes, and held it up. Across the alley, her mouth curved into that small secret smile again.
They did not write more that day. The risk was too great—neighbors had sharp eyes, and parents sharper ones. But for Rohit, the wall had cracked, just a hairline fracture, enough to let in a thread of light. He felt the shift in his bones. Something had begun.
When his mother called him for tea, he forced himself to act normal, to hide the thrill rushing through him. He sat at the table, sipped the sweet milky tea, nodded as his father complained about the rising price of rice. But inside, he was elsewhere, back at the window, holding up a paper scrawled with a single dangerous word: Hello.
And across the alley, Aisha too must have been feeling it—the tremor of a beginning neither of them fully understood, a beginning their families would never allow.
Episode 2 – Windows and Words
The next morning began like any other—tram bells faint in the distance, the hawker’s call of “machh, machh” drifting through the alley, the dull clatter of utensils from kitchens. Yet for Rohit, nothing was ordinary anymore. Every sound felt charged, every shadow across the opposite window tugged at his attention. He caught himself checking the curtain every few minutes, afraid of being caught staring yet unable to resist. Aisha’s smile from the blackout night had imprinted itself on his thoughts, stubborn and insistent.
By mid-afternoon, the alley was thick with noise again. Schoolchildren played cricket with a plastic ball that bounced unevenly against the cracked pavement. Rohit pretended to be buried in his engineering notes, though he absorbed nothing. His eyes kept drifting up. At last, the curtain twitched. Aisha appeared, notebook in hand. For a long moment, she only sat there, her face turned down toward the pages. Then, carefully, she tore out a slip of paper, wrote something in quick strokes, and pressed it against the glass.
This time, the words were larger, deliberate. Do you read Tagore?
Rohit’s heart leapt. He grabbed the back of an assignment sheet and scribbled: Yes. Favorite: The Postmaster. He held it up, angling it so the late sun lit the paper. Across the alley, her expression changed—amusement flickered, then a tilt of her head. Another scrap appeared: Mine: Kabuliwala. Always. She lowered it quickly, but not before he saw her grin.
They continued like this, trading scraps of paper pressed to glass, careful to keep their gestures small, almost invisible from anyone glancing up the lane. Their conversations were brief, fragmented, yet enough to kindle something alive. What do you want to be? she asked. He answered: Engineer. But sometimes poet. He dared to add a smiley face, awkwardly drawn. She laughed silently, covering her mouth. Her reply came soon after: Journalist. To tell stories people forget.
As days passed, the exchange grew bolder. Sometimes she slipped entire quotes onto the page—lines of Neruda, a verse from Jibanananda, phrases brimming with longing. He replied with fragments of equations twisted into metaphors, as if his world of machines could converse with hers of words. They spoke of exams, of city life, of dreams. Slowly, cautiously, they built a secret bridge, plank by plank, over the alley that divided them.
But the risk was constant. One afternoon, when he was about to hold up another paper, Rohit’s mother entered his room. He dropped the sheet quickly, heart pounding. She only frowned at his scattered notes, scolding him for neglecting chores. Yet his palms remained damp until she left. He realized then how fragile this ritual was—one wrong glance, one neighbor noticing, and the small world they had created would shatter.
Still, neither stopped. The danger itself made each word more precious. Every hello, every quote, every scribble was smuggled across an invisible border. They invented codes—drawing half a symbol one day, the other half the next, like puzzle pieces only they could complete. Once, she wrote, When the world sleeps, words are free. He carried that phrase with him for days, repeating it under his breath as if it were a mantra.
It was during one of these silent conversations that Rohit discovered something about her life that startled him. She confessed, with hesitant letters, that her family expected her to marry soon, perhaps within a year. The word marry was written small, as though ashamed to be seen. Rohit stared at it, a cold weight settling in his chest. He scribbled back only: But what about journalism? Her answer came slow: Dreams are not dowry. They don’t count. For the first time, their game of words carried pain heavier than the alley could hold.
That night, Rohit couldn’t sleep. He thought of her trapped behind those curtains, her ambitions pressed into notebooks never read. He thought of his own lectures, where professors spoke of innovation while outside the city simmered with protests, unemployment, frustration. Two young people in the same lane, yet separated by traditions older than themselves. He clenched his fists, wishing the invisible wall would crumble by sheer will.
A week later, a new twist entered their ritual. Instead of only notes, Aisha slipped a slim book against the window: Stories from Tagore. The spine was frayed, the pages yellowed. She held it up, pointing to a passage. Rohit quickly searched his shelves for his own battered copy. When he found the page, his breath caught—it was Kabuliwala, the scene where the father watches his daughter grow, realizing time is slipping beyond his grasp. He looked up at her. Their eyes met, both caught in the ache of words written a century ago yet alive between them.
They began leaving books on the sill for one another to glimpse. She showed him her clippings from newspapers, half-written articles she never dared submit. He showed her scribbled poems in the margins of his math textbooks, embarrassed but relieved when she smiled instead of laughing. Through these exchanges, the alley transformed. The noise of cricket games and vendors faded. The real city lived between their windows, in the silent flutter of notes against glass.
One evening, as the light dimmed and the alley smelled of frying onions and rain-soaked earth, Aisha pressed a new message: Sometimes I think the wall is not real. Only fear is. Rohit read it again and again. He wanted to shout back, to say yes, yes, it’s only fear. But he restrained himself, scribbling simply: Then maybe we can break it.
She didn’t answer at once. For a long moment she only looked at him, her face shadowed, unreadable. Then the curtain fell closed. He was left staring at the darkened window, unsure whether he had gone too far.
But the next morning, the curtain opened again, and there was another scrap of paper waiting for him. Only three words, written large and clear: Words are windows.
Rohit smiled, folding the note into his pocket like a secret oath. The invisible wall was still there. But through their windows, cracks were widening.
Episode 3 – The Festival Clash
By late September, the air itself seemed to shift. The heavy dampness of monsoon lifted, and in its place came a crispness that carried the distant clang of dhaks and the faint smell of shiuli blossoms crushed under hurried feet. Durga Puja was approaching, and the entire city of Kolkata was stirring like a vast living organism waking from slumber. Bamboo pandal frames rose overnight in every lane, colored lights bloomed like fireflies above traffic-choked roads, and loudspeakers tested their crackling microphones with half-hearted announcements.
In their narrow alley, preparations were smaller but no less fierce. The local club boys had erected a makeshift gate of bamboo poles wrapped in red-and-gold cloth. Paper lanterns dangled precariously from the wires overhead, swaying every time a tram rattled by on the main road beyond. Rohit had grown up in this rhythm—the feverish energy of painting the clay idols, the smell of fresh-cut wood, the sound of conch shells that echoed even into his dreams.
But this year, something was different. From across the alley, he sensed tension like static in the air. Aisha’s family stayed behind their curtains. While neighbors rushed out to string fairy lights, her father quietly closed their windows. When the committee boys came around collecting chanda—contributions—Rohit noticed how they skipped the Karim household entirely. Their name was absent from the list pinned to the gate, as though they did not exist.
That evening, he heard raised voices outside. Slipping onto his balcony, he saw a small crowd gathered around the committee’s treasurer, arguing over the pandal layout. The loudest voice belonged to Mr. Bose, an elderly neighbor with a habit of turning every discussion into a sermon on “culture.”
“They don’t participate,” Bose was saying, jabbing his umbrella toward the Karim house. “So why should their side of the alley get decorations? It will look lopsided if we waste lights there. Let that end stay dark. It fits them.”
A few younger men snickered. Someone muttered about “keeping our traditions pure.” Rohit felt heat rising in his ears. It was absurd—fairy lights were not sacred, they were just wires and bulbs. But he also knew what Bose meant. The Karims were Muslim. Their darkness was being cast as deliberate, a refusal, an insult to the festival.
Before he could stop himself, Rohit spoke. “It’s still their home,” he said from the balcony. “Light isn’t anyone’s property.”
The men looked up, startled. A hush fell. Bose narrowed his eyes. “You study in university and think you know the world, ha? These matters are about community. Sentiment. Not your book logic.”
Rohit opened his mouth to argue, but his father’s voice cut across from behind. “Enough. Come inside.” His tone was low, tight with warning. Rohit hesitated, jaw clenched, then obeyed. Inside, his father closed the door hard.
“Don’t interfere,” he said flatly. “We keep peace by keeping distance. You want our name dragged in their fights?”
“They’re not ‘their’,” Rohit shot back. “They’re our neighbors.”
His father’s eyes flashed. “And they will remain neighbors, not family. Don’t forget where you belong.”
Rohit went to his room, his hands trembling. He stood at his window long after, staring across the alley. Aisha’s curtain was drawn. He wondered if she had heard the argument, if she knew how he had tried to defend her. Guilt gnawed at him—not guilt for speaking, but for how small his voice had sounded, how easily silence had swallowed it.
The next day, the lights went up on every balcony except the Karims’. Their end of the alley lay in shadow as evening fell, while the rest glittered. Children danced under the colored bulbs, their laughter ringing. Rohit saw Aisha’s little brother, Imran, watching from behind their curtain, eyes wide and sad.
Late that night, when the crowd had dispersed and the lane lay still, Rohit noticed movement. Aisha had slipped out onto her balcony, just a pale figure against the dark. She lit a single diya and set it on the ledge. Its small flame wavered alone in the emptiness, fragile yet stubborn.
Rohit’s breath caught. Quietly, he fetched a candle, lit it, and placed it on his own sill. Across the gap, Aisha looked up. For a moment, their two tiny flames glowed like defiance against the dark stretch of alley. Neither smiled, but something unspoken passed between them—a pact of quiet resistance.
But resistance has its cost. The next morning, their mothers faced each other at the grocer’s for the first time in months. Words were few, clipped. Rohit’s mother returned tight-lipped, muttering about “unnecessary attention.” Whispers curled through the lane—about impropriety, about rebellion, about what was and wasn’t allowed.
As the festival days approached, the tension deepened. The sound of dhak grew louder each night, drums echoing like heartbeats, while the invisible wall in their alley grew thicker, not thinner.
On the evening of Saptami, when the idol finally arrived with the beating of drums and the swirl of incense, the whole lane flooded with noise and color. Rohit stood in the crowd, watching Aisha’s window. It stayed dark. And he thought of the two small flames they had lit in secret, twin stars hidden from a sky too loud to see them.
He felt, for the first time, not just longing—but anger.
Episode 4 – A Lost Brother
The air was heavy even before the shouting began. That Thursday morning carried a strange stillness, like the city was holding its breath. Rohit sensed it on the tram to college—the way hawkers spoke in clipped tones, the way the usual morning honks seemed muted. He overheard two men whispering about a rally planned near Esplanade, a protest that had swelled overnight into something larger, angrier. “Keep your head down,” one warned the other. “Today the city may burn.”
By noon, classes were dismissed. Rumors flared like sparks: clashes at College Street, tear gas at Park Circus, police vans overturning. The streets around campus filled with students hurrying home. Rohit tried to call his mother but the lines were jammed. He boarded a crowded bus, heart hammering as slogans drifted from distant megaphones. The city outside blurred—closed shutters, people rushing, police barricades sprouting at intersections like iron weeds.
When he reached the mouth of their alley, the tension was thicker than the heat. Groups of young men loitered near the main road, faces flushed, voices raised. Broken glass glittered on the pavement. The red-and-gold festival gate at the alley’s entrance hung half-torn, its cloth trampled in the dust. A few neighbors stood at doorways whispering. Rohit slipped past them, head low, his stomach knotted.
At his doorstep, his mother caught him in a crushing embrace, scolding and trembling at once. His father paced the veranda, muttering about “lawlessness.” From somewhere deeper in the alley came the thin wail of a child, abruptly cut off.
Then Rohit saw Aisha. She stood at her gate, eyes frantic, her dupatta slipping from one shoulder. When their eyes met, she rushed toward him, words tumbling out. “Imran is gone—he went to buy bread just before it started—he hasn’t come back—”
Rohit froze. The name hit like a stone. Imran—her twelve-year-old brother, shy and curious, who watched cricket but never joined. He pictured the boy’s thin frame swallowed by the chaos of the city beyond.
“Have you checked the shops?” he asked.
“All closed. Nobody saw him. Baba is out looking—” Her voice cracked, eyes brimming. “Please—if anything happens—”
Before she could finish, a crash echoed from the main road. The smell of burning tires wafted in. Rohit’s father barked from the doorway, “Inside, now!”
But Rohit didn’t move. Something hot and defiant flared inside him. He could not watch her crumble. He couldn’t stand safely behind their walls while her little brother vanished into fire.
“I’ll find him,” he said.
Aisha stared at him, stunned. “You can’t—”
“I can.” His voice was steady though his hands trembled. “Tell your father to stay near the police post. If I find Imran, I’ll bring him there.”
Before anyone could stop him, he slipped into the alley’s mouth and out onto the fractured main road.
The city felt like a beast shaking its chains. Smoke curled from an overturned auto. Shops lay shuttered, signs dangling broken. Groups surged and scattered like restless tides, their slogans dissolving into chaos. Rohit kept to the edges, ducking into side lanes, scanning every corner. His mind replayed Imran’s face—wide eyes, hesitant smile, too small for this kind of fury.
At the bakery two streets away, the shutters were half down. Through the gap, Rohit spotted movement—a man sweeping broken glass. “Did a boy come here?” he shouted over the distant roar. “Thin, blue shirt?”
The man shook his head. “They all ran when the stone-throwing started. Maybe toward the bridge.”
Rohit turned, heart pounding. He pushed through a cluster of panicked pedestrians and reached the bridge approach. There, amidst the chaos, he caught a flash of blue—small, darting.
“Imran!” he yelled.
The boy spun, eyes wide, and bolted. Rohit sprinted after him, weaving through fleeing bodies. A bottle shattered near his feet. Someone shoved him hard. He stumbled, recovered, and lunged. His hand caught Imran’s wrist. The boy shrieked until he recognized him, then collapsed against his chest, sobbing.
“It’s okay,” Rohit gasped, cradling his head. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
They slipped into a side street, hugging the walls until the noise dulled. Rohit half-carried him the rest of the way, his shirt clinging with sweat, legs shaking. When they reached the police post near the market, he saw Aisha’s father there, frantic and pale. At the sight of Imran, the man’s knees buckled. He pulled the boy into his arms, murmuring prayers through tears.
Rohit stepped back, dizzy with relief. Aisha appeared moments later, breathless, her eyes blazing with fear and disbelief. When she saw Imran, she let out a broken sob and clutched him tightly. Over his shoulder, her gaze found Rohit. For an instant, everything stilled—the smoke, the noise, the fear. Only her eyes and his, locked in silent recognition.
Then her father looked up. Their eyes met. Rohit expected anger, suspicion—but what he saw instead was something rawer, heavier. Not gratitude exactly, but a crack in the armor, the faintest acknowledgment. The older man gave a single stiff nod.
Rohit nodded back and turned away, walking fast before anyone could speak. His legs trembled as he crossed back into the alley. The red-and-gold gate flapped in the wind, half torn, like a wounded banner.
Inside his house, his father’s voice roared—furious, disbelieving. “You went out there? Are you mad? Do you want our name dragged into their chaos?”
Rohit didn’t answer. He went to his room, shut the door, and sank to the floor, lungs burning. Through the window, he could see the Karim house lit for the first time in days, the glow spilling softly onto the broken pavement.
Aisha stood at her balcony, Imran safe beside her. She didn’t smile. She only placed her palm flat against the window glass, facing him.
Rohit raised his hand in return.
No words. But something had shifted forever.
Episode 5 – A Rescue and a Risk
The alley was quieter than it had any right to be. The morning after the chaos, sunlight fell on the broken gate and the blackened streaks of burnt tyres like it had fallen on them forever, as if nothing had changed. But Rohit felt the change in the way people looked at him. Or rather, in the way they did not.
When he stepped out to fetch water, the chatter at the corner tea stall dimmed. A group of neighborhood boys, usually loud with jokes, fell silent until he passed. Their eyes slid away, sharp with something unspoken. Even the grocer gave him change without meeting his gaze. The silence was not ignorance—it was accusation, soft and poisonous.
Inside, the tension was harder. His mother hovered near him as if near a burning lamp, her worry flickering into sharpness. “Why would you risk your life for them?” she demanded in a low voice. “What if something had happened? What if the police had caught you with that boy?”
“He’s just a boy,” Rohit said, weary. “And he was alone.”
“That is not our concern.”
Her words stung. He wanted to argue, to shout, to crack the walls of this house with the truth that fear was not morality. But his father was sitting in the next room, stiff and silent like a loaded gun. He knew if he pushed, it would explode. So he said nothing.
By afternoon, the whispers hardened into words. He caught scraps from the balcony—“took their side,” “trying to be a hero,” “shaming his own family.” One woman told another that boys like him forget where they belong. He pretended not to hear, though each word struck like a pebble.
Across the alley, the Karim house stayed shuttered. He saw only flickers—Imran’s shadow, Aisha’s fleeting silhouette. Once, in the late afternoon, she stepped out briefly to hang laundry. Their eyes met. She mouthed something soundless—thank you—and disappeared before anyone could see.
That night, as the alley buzzed with festival drums again, Rohit sat at his window, notebook open but untouched. The world outside beat with dhaks and laughter, as if the violence of the day before had been swallowed whole. Only the gate still hung torn, a wound no one tended. He caught himself wondering if he should have stayed silent, safe, invisible.
But then he remembered Imran’s thin wrist trembling in his grip, the boy’s sob against his chest. He knew he could not have done anything differently, no matter the cost.
The cost arrived the next morning.
It came in the form of Mr. Bose, striding down the alley like an old emperor, his umbrella thumping the ground. He stopped at their doorway and called for Rohit’s father, voice carrying. Within moments a small crowd gathered—neighbors drawn by the scent of confrontation.
“Your son,” Bose began grandly, “put all of us at risk. Running into riots, dragging strangers into our alley, inviting police attention.”
“They are not strangers,” Rohit said before his father could speak. “They are our neighbors.”
Bose’s eyes gleamed. “Neighbors who never join our puja, never show respect for our traditions. You think heroism means betraying your own?”
“It means saving a child.”
The words were out before he could stop them. A ripple ran through the crowd—shock, disapproval, something like awe quickly smothered. His father’s face darkened.
“Enough,” his father hissed. “Inside.”
Rohit did not move. His hands trembled, but his voice stayed steady. “If compassion is betrayal, then maybe we need more betrayal.”
For a heartbeat, silence held the alley like a fist.
Then Bose spat on the ground, turned sharply, and stalked away. The crowd melted with him, muttering. Rohit stood alone in the doorway, heart racing, until his father seized his arm and dragged him inside.
“You have humiliated this family,” his father said. His voice was soft now, which made it worse. “Do you think this city rewards bravery? It crushes it. And it will crush you.”
Rohit pulled his arm free. “Then let it try.”
They stared at each other, two immovable stones on opposite banks of a river that once ran between them and no longer did. His father looked away first, the gesture sharp as a door slam.
By dusk, word had traveled through the entire block. Children played farther from their house. The tea-stall men lowered their voices when Rohit walked by. His phone buzzed with a single message from an old school friend: Heard you’ve joined the other side. He deleted it without replying.
Yet amid the cold shoulders, something unexpected bloomed. That night, as he sat at his window lost in thought, a faint knock came from across the alley. He looked up. Aisha’s curtain parted just enough for her hand to emerge, holding a scrap of paper. She pressed it to the glass.
He says you saved his life, it read.
Beneath the words was a crooked drawing—Imran’s attempt at a thank-you, a stick figure holding a candle.
Rohit stared at it for a long time, his throat tight. He wrote nothing back. Instead he simply lifted his hand and pressed his palm to the glass, mirroring hers across the alley.
For the first time in days, he felt warm.
The wall was still there.
But now the whole neighborhood knew he had stepped across it.
Episode 6 – The Whispers Grow
The whispers didn’t begin like thunder. They began like mold—silent, invisible, creeping through corners until everything smelled faintly of rot.
At first Rohit only sensed a shift. The tea stall men, who once called him “engineer babu” with a wink, now only nodded stiffly. The committee boys who had begged him to design the pandal’s lighting circuit avoided eye contact. Even children who used to kick their cricket ball toward his feet now veered away at the last moment. The space around him had changed shape—same walls, same doors, but wider somehow, emptier.
He had become a rumor.
It wasn’t what he did, exactly—it was what they said he had done. How he had “paraded through riots with a Muslim boy in his arms,” how he had “stood with them” when “our people” were being attacked. The story grew limbs and claws. Someone said the police had followed him home. Someone else claimed they saw him shouting slogans. By the time it looped back to him, he had apparently joined a “student radical group” and was plotting to “ruin the sanctity of the alley.”
His father said nothing, which was worse than shouting. Silence hung from him like iron chains. His mother clattered plates louder than necessary, muttering about “spoiled names” and “how neighbors remember such things.”
Across the alley, the Karim house stayed watchful. Their windows were open more often now, though only slightly—as if even gratitude had to remain discreet. One afternoon, while Rohit was leaning against the sill pretending to read, Aisha appeared. She didn’t wave, just watched him quietly. After a long moment, she wrote something on a page and held it up.
Do they hate you now?
Rohit smirked without humor. He wrote back: They never loved me enough to hate me.
Her expression softened. She wrote: I’m sorry.
Don’t be, he scribbled. Worth it.
For the first time since that night, her smile came quick and bright. But she lowered the note almost immediately, glancing back over her shoulder. Her fear was contagious. Rohit suddenly felt the weight of a hundred invisible eyes.
That evening, the whispers became words.
His father called him to the veranda, where two older neighbors were seated like judges. “Sit,” his father said. His voice was brittle.
One of the men, Mr. Banerjee, cleared his throat. “We understand your… emotions, Rohit. Youth is passionate. But you must consider appearances. Our community thrives on harmony. And harmony needs discipline.”
“Harmony that ignores children bleeding in the street isn’t harmony,” Rohit said.
Banerjee flinched, as if struck. The other man, Bose’s cousin, leaned forward. “We are only saying—distance is safety. If you blur lines, you will have no place on either side.”
“I didn’t draw the lines,” Rohit said quietly. “I just stepped over them.”
A brittle silence followed. Then his father’s voice cut like glass. “Enough. Go inside.”
Rohit obeyed, though every step felt like splintered wood. Behind him, their murmurs resumed, low and poisonous.
By nightfall, he noticed another change. Someone had removed his name from the committee’s volunteer roster, scratched it out in angry ink. The festival lights still glimmered over the alley, but none were lit on their balcony. His father refused to allow it now. Their darkness stood out like a scar.
Aisha saw it too. Later that night, as the lane pulsed with music and the smell of incense, she slipped a note against her glass.
They think we are poison. Now they think you are too.
Rohit stared at the words, something cold tightening in his chest. He wrote back: Let them choke.
Her eyes widened, then she covered her mouth, hiding a laugh. The soundless shape of it lit something reckless in him.
But recklessness had its price.
Two days later, his mother found one of the notes—crumpled near his desk, faint ink still visible. She stood in his doorway holding it like a weapon. “Are you trying to destroy this family?” she whispered, trembling. “Do you think the world is kind to people who cross lines?”
He didn’t answer. There was no answer she would accept.
That night, when he went to the window, Aisha didn’t appear. Her curtains stayed closed, the glass blank and cold. The alley below was loud with festival crowds, but he felt utterly alone.
Only near midnight did the curtain shift. She emerged briefly, just her shadow, and placed a single candle on the sill. It burned small and defiant against the dark.
Rohit lit one too.
The two flames swayed toward each other in the night breeze, separated by distance, by fear, by everything—and yet refusing to go out.
Episode 7 – Breaking Bread
The alley smelled different that morning. Not of incense or frying onions or damp cloth left too long in the monsoon—but of something richer, warmer, something that seemed to float out from behind the Karim family’s closed doors and settle gently over the cracked pavements. The usual chaos of vendors was muted. Even the children played more softly, as if the air itself had asked for quiet.
Rohit noticed it first as he leaned out of his window, bleary from another sleepless night. The sky was pale gold, soft with early sun. From across the alley drifted the faint sound of laughter—light, muffled, like bells ringing underwater. Then came the aroma: spiced meat slow-cooked in ghee, bread blistered on a tawa. He realized, with a jolt, that it was Eid.
He had never really thought about Eid before. It had always been just another date on the calendar, something that happened quietly behind closed curtains while their own household went about its usual routines. This year, though, the day pressed itself against him. Maybe because he had seen the Karims not as shadows behind lace curtains anymore but as people—with fear, with love, with small boys who could get lost and sisters who smiled like secrets.
Downstairs, his mother clattered cups at the sink. His father read the newspaper without turning a page, his eyes unmoving. The headline spoke of “normalcy returning” after the violence. It did not mention children gone missing, or young men who crossed burning streets to find them.
Late in the morning, a soft knock came at their door. His mother opened it—and froze.
On the threshold stood Imran, scrubbed and solemn in a white kurta, holding a covered steel tiffin with both hands. Behind him hovered Aisha, her dupatta pinned neatly, her face composed into careful neutrality.
“Ammi sent this,” Imran said shyly. “For Eid.”
For a moment, nobody breathed. His mother stared as if she had been handed a live flame. Rohit’s father looked up sharply from his chair.
“Tell her we don’t need—” his father began.
But Imran was already holding it out farther, his small arms trembling. Aisha’s eyes flicked to Rohit, a fleeting spark, then back to the ground.
Something cracked inside Rohit’s mother’s face—some old reflex older than pride. She stepped forward, took the tiffin gently, and said, “Tell her… thank you.”
Imran beamed. Aisha dipped her head in silent relief. They left without another word, their footsteps soft on the stairs.
When the door shut, silence fell like dust. Rohit’s father exhaled through his nose, muttered something about “customs” and “appearances,” and retreated behind his newspaper. But his mother stood in the kitchen longer than usual. When she finally opened the tiffin, the aroma rushed out—soft sheermal bread still warm, seviyan sweet with milk and cardamom, lamb curry rich enough to make Rohit’s eyes sting.
They ate in silence. But his mother, he noticed, served the food onto proper plates instead of their old tin ones.
Later, when the dishes were washed and stacked, Rohit slipped back to his room. Across the alley, the Karim house glowed with soft laughter. Aisha appeared at her window briefly. Their eyes met. She didn’t smile, not exactly, but her chin lifted a fraction—as if to say: this counts.
Rohit raised his tea glass in reply like a toast. She tilted her head, amused, and disappeared.
By afternoon, word of the tiffin had traveled through the alley. A few neighbors clucked disapprovingly, some whispered about “boundaries dissolving.” But none could erase the image of his mother taking the food with her own hands. It had happened.
As evening settled, the festival lights blinked on over the lane again, tiny firefly bulbs strung from balcony to balcony. For the first time in weeks, Rohit’s mother allowed him to hang their own. He climbed the rusted grill, stringing the colored lights along their railing. When he plugged them in, the bulbs sparked alive—red, green, yellow—spilling color across the cracked walls.
From across the alley, the Karims’ lights blinked on too. Not loud, not gaudy, just a soft line of white bulbs tracing their balcony.
Two balconies glowing across a divide.
Not friendship. Not peace. But something quieter, older—
The first shared breath after a long war.
Episode 8 – The Student Protest
By the end of September, the campus no longer felt like a campus. It felt like a throat clearing before a scream. The university’s cracked red-brick walls were plastered with fresh posters every morning—slogans against unemployment, against corruption, against the ghost-silence of promises never kept. At first, Rohit had watched from the library steps, clutching his books like armour. But something inside him had been restless since the night he ran through smoke with Imran in his arms. Once you crossed a fireline, the world on this side of safety stopped fitting around your skin.
So when the notice came of a mass student rally at College Street, Rohit didn’t hesitate.
He left early that morning, telling his mother it was just a “seminar,” though she looked at him too long, like she sensed the heat behind his voice. The tram ride was hushed. Strangers glanced at the gathering clusters of youth spilling out of lanes, placards folded like wings under their arms. The air smelled of paper ink, sweat, and something electric—like iron just before lightning.
By the time Rohit reached College Street, the world had changed. Hundreds of students filled the road, shoulder to shoulder, their voices braided into one vast pulse. Banners fluttered, slogans rose and cracked like waves. He found himself pulled into the surge, chanting until his throat burned.
And somewhere on the edge of that tide, he saw her.
Aisha.
She was standing on the steps of the Indian Coffee House, notebook in hand, her hair tied back, her expression a blade of concentration. A laminated press trainee badge swung from her neck. Her eyes were scanning the crowd like a lighthouse beam.
For a heartbeat, Rohit forgot to breathe. She wasn’t the shadow at the window anymore. She was out here—on the street, in the noise, her name inked on a badge for the world to read.
Their eyes met across the chaos.
It was not soft, not secret. It was a shock, raw and sudden, like striking live wire.
A boy next to her said something, pointing, and she looked away quickly, scribbling notes, but her hand trembled. Rohit wanted to run to her, to shout above the slogans, to say you’re here, you made it here. But the tide of protest surged, pulling him along.
The march moved, roaring down the avenue. Drums pounded. Police lines bristled ahead like steel teeth. The sun climbed higher, baking sweat into their shirts. Speeches erupted at every intersection—young men on makeshift stages, their words blazing about futures stolen before they even began.
At one pause, while the crowd caught its breath, Rohit ducked into the shade of a shuttered bookshop. Aisha appeared at the corner, scribbling furiously. When she saw him, she froze.
For a moment they only stared. Then she mouthed, You’re insane.
He grinned, mouthing back, So are you.
Something unspooled between them, tension sharp enough to cut. They were two people standing on opposite sides of a chasm their families had built, yet here they were—on the same street, the same cause thundering in their chests.
A stone clattered against the pavement nearby. The crowd surged again. Police megaphones barked orders. Rohit was swept forward, shouting until his voice frayed. Somewhere behind him, he glimpsed her climbing onto the Coffee House steps again, defiant, her pen moving even as the sky cracked with tear gas shells farther down.
By late afternoon, the rally dispersed like scattered embers. Rohit’s head rang. His legs trembled with exhaustion and adrenaline. He slipped down a side lane and caught the tram back, the protest chants still echoing in his bones.
When he reached the alley, it looked smaller than ever. Quiet. Dim. The lights from the pandal glared garishly against the dusk. His father’s voice was scolding from inside even before he stepped in, asking why he smelled of dust and shouting. Rohit mumbled about “crowd at college” and shut himself in his room.
Across the alley, Aisha’s window glowed.
A few minutes later, a folded scrap of paper appeared pressed to her glass. He leaned forward.
You were louder than the slogans, it read.
His lips curved despite the weight in his chest. He scrawled back on his notebook, You were braver than the city.
She covered her smile with her hand.
No curtains, no fear this time—
Just two people who had met in the open, and somehow survived.
Episode 9 – The Family Confrontation
It began with a knock that wasn’t really a knock—more like a strike. A flat, hard thump on the door, loud enough to silence the radio, to still the spoons in the kitchen. Rohit’s father opened it, and the silence of the alley walked in wearing sandals.
Mr. Bose stood on the threshold with his umbrella clenched like a sceptre. Behind him trailed two other elders from the neighborhood committee, and behind them, to Rohit’s astonishment, stood Aisha’s father. His shoulders were stiff, his face carved from stone, but he was here, which meant something had broken.
“Sit,” Bose said curtly, though it wasn’t his house. They all sat. Rohit remained standing, pulse hammering.
Bose began without preamble. “Enough of this farce. This boy,” he jabbed his umbrella at Rohit like a spear, “has become the center of gossip from here to the main road. You have let him tarnish our reputation—parading with that girl, inciting sympathy for people who reject our culture. This ends tonight.”
Rohit’s mother flinched. His father’s jaw locked, but he said nothing. Bose pressed on, voice swelling. “We have tolerated whispers, rumors, pity. Now the boy marches in protests, shouts slogans with radicals, while she runs around pretending to be a journalist. People are watching. They are saying this alley has lost its discipline.”
“This alley,” Rohit said slowly, “never had any discipline. Only fear.”
The words fell like stones into a still pond. Bose blinked, as if slapped.
“She is a Muslim girl,” hissed the second elder. “You will destroy her life and yours. These roads are not for love stories.”
“I never said anything about love,” Rohit replied, though his heart thudded. “I said humanity. I said friendship.”
Aisha’s father finally spoke, voice low but sharp enough to cut glass. “You think this is friendship? This… circus? You risked my son’s life dragging him through fire. You risk her name every time you stand near that window. Do you know what people say about her now? Do you know what my own brother said to my face this morning?”
Rohit swallowed hard. “I saved your son’s life.”
“And in return you will ruin my daughter’s.” His gaze was steady, cold. “Stay away from her.”
Something inside Rohit’s chest twisted until it hurt to breathe.
“My daughter will not be talked about in whispers,” Aisha’s father said, rising. “She will not be the punchline in your alley’s gossip. She will not be seen laughing with a Hindu boy at midnight like a character in their cheap stories. She is more than your rebellion. Do you understand me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and left, his sandals striking the steps like verdicts. The committee men followed, Bose throwing one last glare sharp enough to leave a scar.
When the door shut, silence howled in the room.
Then his father exploded. “You will end this madness!” he roared, rising so fast the chair skidded back. “No more windows. No more protests. No more parading our name in the gutter like a slogan on a wall!”
“She’s not a slogan,” Rohit shot back.
“She is nothing to you!”
The words slammed through him like a fist. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. His mother stood between them, trembling, whispering, “Please… please…” but neither of them moved.
Rohit’s voice came out low, shaking with fury. “She is the only thing that has felt real in this whole hollow world you’ve built.”
His father stared, stunned. His mother gasped.
“Enough,” his father whispered, voice gone deadly. “One more step toward her, and you are no son of mine.”
The words landed like exile.
Rohit turned, walked to his room, and shut the door gently so they would not hear how his hands shook.
At his window, the alley lay quiet, too quiet, as if holding its breath. Across the gap, Aisha’s curtains were drawn tight. Not a sliver of light escaped.
For the first time since the blackout night, the glass looked like a wall again.
And this time, the wall felt absolute.
Episode 10 – The Crack of Light
The accident came like lightning—instant, merciless, shattering the stillness of their alley in one breath.
It was early evening, just as the festival lights blinked awake along the balconies. Rohit had been lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, his mind a gray fog after days of silence. His father had not spoken to him since the confrontation. His mother moved like a ghost through rooms. And across the alley, Aisha’s curtains stayed sealed, her window a blank eye turned away.
Then came the sound: a shriek of twisting metal, the scream of brakes, and a sickening crash.
Rohit bolted upright. From his window he saw chaos at the alley’s mouth. A motorbike had slammed into the bamboo pandal gate. Its iron frame had snapped, the whole archway collapsing onto the cracked pavement. Beneath it lay two shapes tangled—one of the club boys, bleeding from the head, and old Mr. Chatterjee from the next house, his leg pinned grotesquely under the splintered poles.
The street erupted. People shouted, scattered, froze. Someone screamed for help. Someone else wailed for water.
Rohit didn’t think. He was running before his body knew it, shoving through the gathering knot of neighbors. The fallen arch was heavier than it looked. Blood darkened the dust. The boy was conscious but sobbing; Mr. Chatterjee lay gray-faced, his breath thin.
“Lift it!” Rohit yelled.
Nobody moved. Too heavy, too dangerous, too risky. Fear hung over them like a second barricade.
Then, through the stunned murmurs, a new voice cut clear.
“I’ll help.”
Rohit turned. Aisha was there.
She must have run from her house barefoot; her dupatta was slipping, her hair wild from the wind. Behind her came her father, grim and silent, and little Imran clutching his hand.
They didn’t hesitate. While the crowd stared, Rohit and Aisha’s father crouched on either side of the iron frame. Their hands met the same bamboo beam. Their eyes locked, wary, but held.
“On three,” Rohit said.
They lifted. The frame groaned, shifted, rose an inch. Rohit strained, muscles burning. Someone cried out—then more hands joined. The spell broke. Neighbors surged forward, hauling the wreckage off the trapped men.
When they dragged Mr. Chatterjee clear, his eyes fluttered open. The boy whimpered but sat upright. Someone ran for a car to take them to the clinic. The crowd’s panic dissolved into orders, water passed from hand to hand, cloth torn into bandages.
Through it all, Rohit barely felt his body. Only when he sank back on his heels did he realize Aisha was beside him, her face streaked with sweat and fear. They stared at each other, breathing hard. No smile. No words. Just a trembling recognition: they had done this together.
And more astonishing—so had everyone.
Her father stood a few feet away, hands still trembling. For the first time, he looked at Rohit not like an enemy, nor like a danger—just like another boy who had been there when it mattered. Their eyes met. A slow, tired nod passed between them.
By the time the ambulance arrived, dusk had fallen fully. The lights strung across the balconies flickered on as if the alley itself were exhaling after holding its breath too long.
Later, after the injured were taken and the wreckage cleared, the neighbors lingered awkwardly. Someone murmured thanks. Someone clapped Rohit’s shoulder, half-proud, half-ashamed. Even Bose, grim as ever, said nothing at all—which was its own kind of surrender.
Rohit climbed back to his room on shaking legs. Across the alley, the Karim balcony glowed softly. Aisha stood there in the warm spill of light. She didn’t hide behind the curtain this time.
For a long moment they just looked at each other, two figures on two balconies, separated by history and fear and stubborn walls—but also bound now by what they had done.
Aisha raised her hand slowly, palm outward.
Rohit raised his.
Their palms hovered in the air, not touching, but close enough that the space between seemed to hum.
And for the first time, the invisible wall between them did not vanish—
but cracked, clean and quiet,
letting through a thin blade of light.
END OF STORY
