Under the Same Stars

The cold hit Dr. Neha Kapoor before she even stepped out of the jeep. The wind in Spiti Valley wasn’t just chilly—it carried a weight, a silence that wrapped itself around her city-worn senses. She tightened the scarf around her neck, blinking at the vast, arid landscape dotted with whitewashed stupas and jagged peaks dusted with snow. Kaza looked like a forgotten outpost painted in muted tones—nothing like the neon haze of Mumbai. Her phone had lost signal three hours ago, and the absence of constant vibration felt more like amputation than relief. A dozen strangers from different corners of India gathered near the tent assembly area, their woollen layers and awkward glances revealing equal parts curiosity and discomfort. Neha had come on this trek for a reason—to escape—but now that she was here, all she could think about was the tightness in her chest and the silent scream of withdrawal echoing in her bones.

Tenzing Norbu, the trek leader with a face as weather-worn as the hills, assigned them tents without ceremony. “Group of two. Dr. Neha Kapoor with… Karan Thakur,” he said, barely looking up from his clipboard. Neha turned, expecting a fellow doctor, or at least someone with neat hair and cleaner shoes. Instead, leaning against a rock with a camera in hand and a smirk on his lips was a man in a faded brown jacket and sunglasses that didn’t hide the boredom in his expression. “Great. A doctor,” he muttered, shouldering his backpack. “Hope you don’t snore.” Neha stared at him, momentarily stunned. “And I hope you don’t talk,” she retorted, already regretting this whole thing. They walked toward their shared tent in silence, each step crunching against the frost-laced dirt, the air between them colder than the evening wind settling in.

The first night offered no comfort. Inside the flimsy nylon cocoon of their tent, Neha lay wrapped in thermals, two sleeping bags, and a sense of disbelief. Karan had barely said a word since setting up camp, save for a few sarcastic jabs at her meticulous unpacking. She noticed he didn’t eat dinner with the others, choosing instead to sit on a ridge with his camera aimed at the stars. She wanted to be annoyed by his aloofness, but found herself glancing at him often, wondering what he saw through that lens. Her own journal remained unopened, buried somewhere under layers of socks and antiseptics. The stars above Spiti didn’t blink like Mumbai’s false skyline. They burned. Bright. Cold. Unapologetic. Neha felt small beneath them, her city-self stripped down to raw nerves and silence.

At dawn, she woke up to the sound of boots crunching outside. Karan was already packed, camera slung casually across his chest, like a soldier ready for a war he wasn’t interested in winning. “Sunrise waits for no one,” he called without looking back. Neha exhaled, pulling her jacket tight. Maybe this was exactly what she needed—to be in a place where Wi-Fi couldn’t reach, where strangers didn’t pretend to care, and where the only thing left to face was herself. Still groggy, still unsure, she stepped into the Himalayan light, not knowing that this trek would shift the axis of everything she thought she understood about healing, grief, and the silent spaces between two hearts.

–

The morning trek began with a thin thread of sunlight creeping across the barren slopes, gilding the prayer flags fluttering at the monastery gate. Neha trudged behind the group, her boots already biting into her ankles, breath coming out in short, frosted puffs. The silence was different here—less absence, more presence. It filled the spaces between footfalls and whispers of wind. Karan walked a few paces ahead, pausing now and then to photograph a ridge, a yak, or a patch of frost shimmering like diamonds on a boulder. He hadn’t spoken to her since morning, which Neha didn’t mind—his quiet was easier to manage than his sarcasm. Still, she couldn’t help noticing how surefooted he was on the rough terrain, how he looked at the world like it held secrets worth waiting for.

The group stopped near a chorten where the valley opened wide like a desert sky. Tenzing shared a tale of the Wind God who, in Buddhist lore, lives in these mountains and rearranges fates like grains of sand. Neha found herself listening, unexpectedly moved, until Karan leaned toward her and whispered, “Wind God or not, these stories are basically mountain Wi-Fi for bored tourists.” She shot him a look. “Just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean it’s not sacred.” He shrugged, amused. “Touché, doctor. But if sacred means something that gets you through the night, I’d rather trust my tripod.” His smile was crooked and fleeting, like sunlight on melting ice, and Neha felt something stir—annoyance, curiosity, maybe both. She turned away, not trusting herself to respond.

By noon, the trail narrowed into a zigzag between craggy ridges. Neha slipped once, then twice, finally grasping a rock to steady herself. Karan, already at the next bend, glanced back and noticed. Without a word, he walked down and extended his hand. “Try leaning forward, not back. Trust the weight of your body.” She hesitated before placing her palm in his, his grip firm, warm even through the glove. “I’m not used to falling,” she muttered. “Then you’ll hate the mountains,” he said, helping her up, “because here, falling is part of learning.” They continued upward, their silence now marked not by distance but by something shared—brief, but real.

That night, the group camped near a frozen stream. As the others huddled for soup and stories, Neha wandered to the edge of the clearing, watching the moon rise over a ridge. Karan joined her, camera in hand. “You’ll get used to the quiet,” he said softly, his voice more honest than before. “First it unsettles you. Then it starts to feel like truth.” Neha looked at him—really looked—and for the first time, didn’t see a stranger, but a man who had made peace with solitude in a way she hadn’t yet learned. “Maybe I’m tired of my own noise,” she replied. He didn’t smile this time, just nodded, then pointed at the sky. “That’s Taurus,” he said, “and Aldebaran—the eye of the bull. My favorite.” Neha followed his gaze, and for the first time in weeks, didn’t think of the hospital, the emails, or the boy she couldn’t save. Just stars. And breath. And silence.

–

The third night brought with it an eerie kind of stillness. The wind, which usually howled through the Spiti cliffs like a wild animal, had retreated into hush. The temperature dropped fast after sundown, turning the breath of every camper into a ghost. Neha sat outside the tent wrapped in a fleece blanket, nursing a cup of butter tea she hadn’t yet learned to like. The sky above stretched endlessly, a canvas dipped in ink and stabbed with stars. Karan sat on a slope nearby, barely visible except for the occasional flicker of his camera’s red focus light. He was photographing the Milky Way with the kind of devotion Neha recognized from her years in medicine—the quiet obsession with capturing something fleeting, something that mattered.

She didn’t mean to speak first, but the silence had grown intimate, like a third presence urging conversation. “Why do you photograph stars?” she asked, her voice rough from the cold. Karan didn’t turn around. “Because they’re the only thing that’s still where you left them. Everything else—people, places, plans—they shift.” Neha considered that. “But stars are dead light, aren’t they? Some of what we see doesn’t even exist anymore.” Karan looked over his shoulder, face faintly lit by starlight. “Exactly. And yet they shine. I like that kind of resilience.” She smiled at the poetic twist hidden beneath his sarcasm. Maybe he wasn’t hiding a lack of depth—maybe he was hiding too much of it.

Later, the group gathered around a bonfire, Tenzing leading chants that melted into stories from the locals. Someone passed around a small bottle of apricot wine. Neha sipped and coughed, laughing as warmth bloomed in her throat. Karan, surprisingly, joined in—a rare moment of presence. When one of the other trekkers asked what he did before photography, Karan hesitated. “Climbed things. Until I couldn’t.” The conversation paused, uncertain whether to pry or pivot. Neha noticed his hands tremble just slightly as he passed the bottle on. She filed it away—another breadcrumb. That night, back in the tent, the cold forced them closer. Their sleeping bags zipped side by side, inches between them, breath synchronizing in the dark. “What made you come here?” he asked quietly. Neha didn’t answer for a while. “A boy I couldn’t save,” she said finally. “And the fear that I’m losing parts of myself trying to keep others alive.”

They lay in silence for what felt like hours, the tent shrinking to the shape of their shared grief. “You know,” Karan said, “I think people are too obsessed with ‘moving on.’ Sometimes you just carry things better.” His words settled into her like snowfall—gentle, but lasting. Outside, the stars shivered in their brilliance, and inside, two strangers stopped pretending to be just that. The night, deep and wild, held its breath. For once, Neha did too.

–

The morning began with an omen—clouds swallowing the peaks, a silence too thick even for the mountains. By noon, snow had begun to fall in soft, relentless sheets, erasing the trail they were meant to follow. Tenzing announced they’d be staying put in a small stone guesthouse in a remote village until the weather cleared. Neha stood at the window of their cramped room, watching the snow bury the prayer flags outside. It was colder than any day so far, and something about being trapped intensified everything—sounds, thoughts, emotions. Karan hadn’t spoken much since breakfast. He lay curled on his mattress, face half-covered, his usual smirks nowhere in sight. His silence wasn’t the comfortable kind anymore. It was distant, strained, and Neha, instinctively alert to the subtle signs of decline, noticed the tremble in his hands and the sheen of sweat on his brow despite the cold.

By late afternoon, Karan hadn’t touched food, hadn’t moved. Neha crouched beside him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. “You’re burning up,” she whispered. He tried to swat her hand away. “It’s nothing. Just altitude.” But she saw it now—his knuckles, inflamed and swollen, the way he winced even while lying still. “This isn’t new,” she said softly. “How long?” He didn’t meet her eyes. “Two years. Autoimmune disorder. Doesn’t matter what it’s called.” Neha sat back, the revelation slamming into her harder than she expected. “And you’re here, trekking, in sub-zero temperatures?” Karan chuckled weakly. “What’s the worst that could happen? I feel alive here. More than I ever did on hospital beds or waiting room chairs.” Her heart clenched at the recklessness in his words—not because she didn’t understand, but because she did.

She spent the rest of the day nursing him in silence, fetching lukewarm water, adjusting his blanket, crushing her urge to lecture him. There was a tenderness in the way she touched his forehead, the way she quietly arranged his meds even though he hadn’t asked. That night, as the snow muffled the world into a white cocoon, Neha sat awake beside him while he slept in fevered fits. The room smelled of balm, old wood, and unspoken fears. The mountains outside loomed like guardians, ancient and impassive. She wanted to be angry at him—for hiding this, for treating life like something disposable—but all she felt was an ache that ran deeper than logic. Somewhere between their silences and shared warmth, something fragile had taken root, and now it was tangled in the knowing.

When Karan finally stirred just before dawn, his voice was raw. “You should go. With the group. When the snow lifts.” Neha looked at him for a long moment, the firelight casting gold across his cheekbones. “I didn’t come here to leave people behind,” she said. And it was the truth. Not just for the boy she’d lost. Not just for herself. But for this stubborn, shutter-clicking, half-broken man who hid his fear behind stars and sarcasm. She didn’t know what they were yet. But she knew one thing—they were no longer strangers surviving a trek. They were something else now. Something unfinished.

–

The storm lifted with a whisper, not a roar. When Neha stepped out of the guesthouse the next morning, the world had transformed—what was grey and smothered just yesterday now gleamed under the clean light of Spiti’s winter sun. Snow clung to the prayer flags like white silk, and the distant peaks sparkled like secrets waiting to be spoken. The group resumed their journey, trekking toward Kunzum La, the high mountain pass that locals believed to be the threshold between the known and the sacred. Karan walked slower than before, drained from the fever but stubborn as ever. Neha stayed close without hovering. Their rhythm had shifted—less guarded now, less about space and more about presence. The silence between them wasn’t cold anymore. It was watchful. Protective.

As they ascended toward the pass, Neha noticed how the others had started falling into smaller groups. Tenzing, ever intuitive, let her and Karan move at their own pace. The altitude made their breath short, but neither complained. At the highest bend, they stopped by a mound of flat stones wrapped in faded prayer flags. “This is where we leave behind what no longer serves us,” Tenzing said to the group. “We offer it to the winds.” One by one, the trekkers placed stones for lost people, old griefs, quiet prayers. Neha stood with a smooth pebble in her hand, unsure what to let go of—guilt, fear, or the identity that defined her for too long. Karan stepped beside her, holding nothing, eyes on the wind. “I don’t know what to offer,” he said, almost to himself. “There’s not much left to give away.” She turned to him. “Then maybe it’s time to ask for something instead.” He looked at her then—really looked—and the weight behind his silence nearly undid her.

Later that day, when the group broke for rest, Karan and Neha sat on a rock overlooking a snow valley that stretched endlessly into blue haze. He pulled off his gloves slowly, fingers swollen and red. “This thing I have—it’s called Mixed Connective Tissue Disease,” he said flatly, like naming a ghost. “Some days I’m fine. Some days I can’t hold a camera.” She listened, heart clenched. “Is there treatment?” He nodded. “Steroids. Painkillers. Hope.” Then after a pause: “No cure. Not yet.” Neha didn’t flinch. “Does your family know?” He laughed, dry. “My parents passed years ago. No siblings. I didn’t bother telling anyone else. I thought if I stayed in motion, I’d stay ahead of it.” She reached over, touching his hand gently. “But pain isn’t a predator. You don’t outrun it. You live with it. That’s the only way it stops owning you.”

Karan turned away then, as if her words had landed somewhere deeper than he expected. “Do you still miss the boy?” he asked softly. “The one you couldn’t save.” Neha’s voice cracked before she could stop it. “Every single day.” They sat like that for a while—two people baring old wounds to thin air and cold light, trusting that the mountains would hold their confessions. When they rose to continue walking, something between them had shifted. Not romance, not yet. But an understanding. A shared bravery. That night, as they camped near a frozen ravine, Karan traced constellations with his finger in the sky and said, almost as an afterthought, “If I were a star, I think I’d want to be one that still shines… even if no one remembers my name.” And Neha, curled beside him in a cocoon of sleeping bags and breath, whispered back, “Then you already are.”

–

The final leg of their trek led them to Chandratal—“The Moon Lake”—a shimmering, crescent-shaped mirror nestled at 14,000 feet, silent as a held breath. When Neha first saw it, she stopped walking entirely. The lake didn’t seem real; its waters reflected the sky so perfectly that the boundary between earth and heavens vanished. The others unpacked and roamed about, voices softened by awe, but Neha walked slowly to the edge, crouched, and touched the surface. It was icy. Pure. As if nature had created this place just to remind people that stillness could be sacred. Karan stood behind her, his camera lowered for once. “Even I don’t know how to photograph this,” he said, almost reverently. “Some things are meant to be felt, not framed.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Then stop looking through the lens and just… be here.”

That day passed in scattered laughter, quiet photos, and conversations that no longer needed masks. Karan showed Neha some of his unpublished shots—images that didn’t fit the brief, or the brand, but meant something to him. A boy chasing prayer flags in the wind. An old monk’s wrinkled hand pouring tea. A cracked mirror reflecting mountain light. “These,” he said, “are what I kept for myself. The ones that felt too raw to share.” Neha took her time with each one, holding them like secrets. And then he pulled out the last photograph—one he’d taken two days ago without her noticing. It was her, standing at sunrise, head tilted back, laughing at something unseen, hair tangled in the wind, utterly unguarded. “I didn’t mean to take it,” he said. “But you looked free. And I didn’t want to forget that version of you.” She swallowed hard, unsure what to say to a truth so gently offered.

As night fell and temperatures dropped, the group lit a small fire beside the lake, everyone layered in wool, breath rising like smoke into the star-hung sky. Someone began humming a local lullaby, and others joined. Neha leaned into Karan’s shoulder, neither of them speaking. He reached into his coat and gently slipped something into her palm—a small stone painted with a single red line across its center. “The monk at Ki Monastery gave it to me. Said it’s for letting go of fear.” Neha held it tightly. “And are you?” she asked. Karan didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together under the stars. When he did speak, it was a whisper only she could hear. “I’m learning.” Their hands stayed like that—quietly interlocked—through stories, firelight, and a kiss that came not from urgency, but from stillness, as natural and inevitable as the moonlight on the water.

Later, lying side by side in their tent, bodies close for warmth, hearts closer still, they spoke softly in the dark—about dreams, regrets, impossible futures. Karan traced the curve of her cheek with his thumb. “If you could go anywhere right now, where would you be?” Neha turned to him. “Here. Exactly here.” He smiled, not with joy, but with something deeper—recognition. Outside, the wind stirred the lake’s surface and the mountains listened. Inside, two people no longer hiding from themselves let the silence fill with a tenderness that needed no explanation. For a moment, nothing hurt. Nothing rushed. Everything was exactly enough.

–

The morning after Chandratal felt heavier than the altitude could explain. The group packed their tents quietly, reluctant to leave behind the lake that had, in some unspoken way, cradled them. The path back to Kaza was steep and winding, the sun already high above the peaks. Neha walked slower than usual, not from exhaustion, but from a quiet dread she couldn’t shake. Every step downward felt like a slow peeling away from something sacred. She watched Karan a few paces ahead—his camera tucked away, his gait steadier than it had been in days. He didn’t turn back as much anymore, didn’t crack jokes or point at strange-shaped clouds. It was as if the descent had placed a thin sheet of glass between them, fragile but real.

By afternoon, the group reached the last ridge before the village came into view—Kaza looked almost unreal now, a patchwork of roofs and flags nestled in a bowl of stone and light. The first signal bar blinked onto Neha’s phone as they descended, and with it came an avalanche—notifications, missed calls, unread emails. A message from her hospital director. A forwarded article from her department. An apology from a colleague. And just like that, Mumbai bled into the mountains, reclaiming her. She looked over at Karan, whose own phone buzzed with an alert he didn’t bother to check. They sat side by side on a rock, staring at the valley. “Back to the noise,” he murmured. “Back to fluorescent lights and schedules.” Neha nodded. “And walls. And white coats.” Their silence this time was not peaceful. It was tight, uncertain.

They reached Kaza by evening. The group scattered into guesthouses, some to charge phones, others to plan their departures. Karan and Neha stood near the monastery gate, bags slung, the wind sharp again like the first day. She looked at him, unsure what came next. “Are you going back to Manali?” she asked. He nodded slowly. “For a while. Maybe longer.” She hesitated, then said, “I have to return to Mumbai. My leave’s up.” They stared at each other, two people who had shared sleeping bags, fevers, starlight, and scars, now suddenly unsure if any of it belonged outside these peaks. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the photograph of her laughing at the lake, and handed it to her. “Don’t forget her,” he said. “You were honest there. Light. Even if it was just for a moment.” Her fingers trembled as she took it. “What about us?” she asked.

Karan’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes dimmed, just a little. “Maybe we were the right story at the wrong altitude,” he said. “Or maybe we were always meant to belong here—under this sky, not beneath concrete.” He touched her hand briefly, then turned and walked toward the waiting jeep. Neha stood rooted, photograph pressed to her chest, the cold climbing back into her bones. There were no goodbyes. Only echoes. Only the sound of her heart beating against the stillness as the sky above began to darken—not with storm, but with the kind of grief that comes from knowing something beautiful may not follow you home.

–

The Spiti sky had never looked clearer than it did on their last night. An ink-black canvas pierced by countless stars, shimmering like scattered memories, like promises waiting to be made. Neha stood a little apart from the group, her breath visible in the cold, her heart oddly calm. The trek was ending, but something inside her was just beginning. Karan joined her silently, his shoulder brushing against hers, that quiet contact saying more than words ever could. “Tomorrow,” he said softly, “we return to the chaos. No more tents. No more frozen socks or bonfire songs.” She smiled. “No more excuses to avoid emails or explain ourselves.” They both laughed, but the ache was real—something fragile had formed between them in these wild mountains, something honest, and the thought of returning to a world full of masks was terrifying.

As the night deepened, Karan handed her a small notebook. Inside were photos he’d taken during the trek—shots of her laughing, looking lost in thought, caring for a fellow trekker’s twisted ankle. He had captured her, not just her face, but the quiet strength beneath her hesitation. At the back was a hand-written note: I didn’t come to Spiti to fall in love. I came to forget I was running out of time. But you gave me a reason to stop running. Neha’s hands trembled slightly as she closed the book, the firelight flickering in her eyes. “What happens now?” she asked, not to pressure, just to know. Karan exhaled. “I go to Delhi next week. Clinical trials. The final round. If it works, I live a little longer. If not… I don’t know.” Neha reached for his hand, squeezed it tightly. “Then we live now. For however long we can.”

The descent the next morning was quiet. Hugs were exchanged, contacts swapped, the kind of hurried goodbyes that often never evolve into anything more. Neha and Karan didn’t say goodbye. They just looked at each other like they’d already agreed on something wordless. Back in Manali, amidst honking horns and glowing phone screens, Neha opened her inbox—full of hospital queries, patient files, a job offer from Mumbai. But it all felt smaller now. She stared out of the café window and saw Karan across the street, camera in hand, waiting like someone who’d promised her a story and was ready to tell the rest. She crossed the road without thinking.

Months later, the world was back to its usual pace, but not for them. Karan’s treatment began, and Neha stood by him—doctor, lover, friend. When the side effects hit, she read him stories under the stars painted on his hospital ceiling. And when his photography exhibit opened, it was titled Under the Same Stars. They weren’t promised forever. But they were promised now. And every night, no matter how far they were, they looked up at the same sky, knowing somewhere, someone was tracing the same constellation and thinking of them.

END