Ira Mehrotra
The Town That Smelled of Salt and Silence
The train screeched to a stop like it wasn’t ready to let go of Rihan Bose.
He stepped down onto the sun-bleached platform of Kavar, a small town that clung to the southern coastline like a secret. The salty wind stung his skin, and gulls screamed overhead as if announcing his arrival. Not that anyone was listening. It was the kind of town where nothing ever really happened. And that was precisely the point.
Aunty Kamala, his grandmother’s housekeeper, was the only one waiting. She waved half-heartedly, holding a paper umbrella and chewing betel leaf. “Your Dida’s inside. Legs not great these days,” she said, turning without waiting for a response. Rihan followed, dragging his duffel, trying to match her speed. The narrow road curled through coconut groves and low stone walls. Silence clung to everything—except for the breeze, which refused to keep quiet.
His grandmother’s house was exactly how he remembered it from family trips years ago—only smaller, sadder. The white paint was chipped, and the windows wore a thin coat of sea-dust. Inside, the air smelled of sandalwood and memory.
“Rihan?” a voice called from the cane armchair by the window.
He bent down and touched her feet.
Dida looked up with tired but kind eyes. “You’ve grown into your father’s sulk,” she said. “Hopefully not his silence.”
Rihan gave her a faint smile. Words still felt like a foreign language. Especially after what had happened.
No one had said the word expulsion, but it hung in every conversation. His mother’s eyes had been red for days. His father had shouted until his voice cracked. And Rihan—he had simply packed.
He didn’t expect to find himself in this backwater town for the whole summer. But maybe the sea would wash away the guilt.
That night, he lay awake, listening to waves crash distantly, trying not to think about the text that had changed everything. About the friend he’d betrayed. About the version of himself he couldn’t recognize anymore.
The next morning, Kamala handed him a shopping list and some money.
“Go down to the market. Take the side path. It’s shorter, but mind the pond—it’s slippery.”
Rihan nodded and stepped out. The town was waking slowly. Fishermen sat fixing nets, grandmothers sold banana chips in cellophane, and someone played old Hindi songs from a radio that crackled like an old man’s laugh.
He reached the market, an explosion of smells—ripe mangoes, fried chilies, and fish guts. He bought the vegetables, mumbled thanks, and took the side path back, exactly like Kamala had said.
That’s when he saw her.
She stood at the edge of a mossy concrete platform near the abandoned school building, headphones on, barefoot on the wet surface, arms outstretched. Her body moved with the rhythm of something only she could hear. Each motion was precise yet wild—like wind trapped in skin.
He froze. Not because she was dancing, but because she didn’t care who saw.
She noticed him a second later.
“You watching or joining?” she shouted, pulling out one earbud.
He blinked. “Neither. Just walking home.”
She grinned. “That’s boring.”
“I’m not here to be interesting.”
“Well, I am,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m Meher. You’re not from here.”
“I’m Rihan.”
“You don’t smile much, Rihan.”
He wanted to reply that smiling took energy, that guilt made your chest heavy, that maybe he’d smile when he forgave himself. But instead, he said, “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, then,” she said, and danced away into the rain.
That night, Rihan looked at the ceiling fan turning slowly above his bed and wondered how someone could move like that—with abandon, with hope. He didn’t know it yet, but something had cracked open. A breath. A rhythm. A start.
Salt in the Silence
The next morning, Rihan lingered near the gate, unsure whether he was waiting for the postman, the breeze, or Meher.
“Don’t stare at the road like a ghost’s coming,” Kamala snapped, wiping her hands on her sari. “Go fetch tamarind from the spice shop.”
Rihan mumbled an okay, grabbed the canvas pouch, and took the same path. His steps slowed as he passed the abandoned school. It stood like an old secret—half covered in creepers, windows broken, blackboard still faintly holding yesterday’s lesson from years ago.
Meher was already there.
This time she was lying on the concrete, arms out, hair splayed like seaweed. Her headphones were around her neck, music faintly leaking into the air—something with violins and a slow heartbeat.
“I thought maybe you’d smile today,” she said without turning.
“I’m not great with commitments.”
She sat up. “You’re funny. In a slow-burn kind of way.”
He smirked before he could stop himself.
“Ah-ha! A half-smile. Don’t get cocky, Bose.”
He sat on the edge of the platform, careful not to get his shorts wet. “So you just… dance here? Every day?”
“I’m auditioning for Trinity Dance School, Mumbai. Their summer program. The deadline’s in two weeks. I need to record a solo.”
“You want to be… famous?”
She laughed. “I want to be free.”
Her eyes had a fire he didn’t recognize—like she belonged somewhere bigger. “What’s stopping you?”
She hesitated. “My right foot is half metal. Steel plate, three pins. Bike accident. I was twelve. They told me I’d never dance again. Guess I didn’t like that story.”
Rihan stared. He hadn’t noticed any limp. Just fierce movement.
“Can I watch?”
She raised an eyebrow. “That your thing? Quiet boys who haunt abandoned schools and spy on dancers?”
He didn’t flinch. “I think I want to remember what joy looks like.”
She stood, brushed her knees, and walked to the center. “Then shut up and watch.”
The music shifted—something raw and wordless. Her body curved like wind around corners, spine bending like rain meeting land. There was a moment where she stilled completely, arms raised, as if the world had paused just for her.
He felt it—goosebumps on the back of his neck. Like her movement reached something buried deep inside.
When she stopped, her breath was shallow. “That was trash. Off-tempo.”
“I thought it was…”
“What?”
“Like flying. If wings were made of pain.”
She blinked. “You’re a poet?”
He shook his head. “Just someone trying to disappear less.”
Silence sat between them, not awkward but honest.
“I come here at 7 every day,” she said. “You know. In case you’re not busy disappearing.”
He nodded, and for the first time in weeks, his chest didn’t feel like a locked door.
That night, Dida looked up from her crossword. “Who’s Meher?”
He paused mid-chew. “Girl from town. She dances.”
“She’s the Fernandes girl. Her father teaches history. People say she’s trouble.”
“She doesn’t seem like it.”
“Rihan,” Dida said gently, “some girls don’t care how they seem. That’s their strength. And their punishment.”
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to label her. He just knew the way she moved made him feel less numb.
Days passed in slow monsoon rhythm. He’d go to the market, take the same path, and sit by the old school. She’d dance, he’d watch. They spoke of small things—favorite smells, worst fears, songs they played on loop until they hated them.
One day, he asked, “Do you ever feel like you’re not enough? Like… you broke something in yourself and now everything’s off?”
She didn’t ask what he meant. She just said, “Every morning. But I dance anyway. That’s the win.”
He nodded. He hadn’t told her yet why he was here, what he’d done, why he carried so much silence. But maybe he didn’t have to—not yet.
That evening, the storm came harder. Rain lashed against the windows as he sat with Dida, trying to read, failing.
His phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.
Meher: I want to record the audition video tomorrow. Will you help? I trust your eyes more than anyone’s.
He stared at the screen for a long time.
Then typed: Yes.
Recording Light
The rain had washed the town clean by morning, leaving puddles that mirrored the sky. Rihan arrived at the school earlier than usual, phone charged, headphones in, heart strangely loud. He walked past the overgrown swing set and stepped onto the concrete stage that had now become their shared secret.
Meher was already there, her hair braided tight, wearing a simple grey tunic and black leggings. Her anklets were wrapped neatly around her wrist like a talisman. A Bluetooth speaker stood beside her like a loyal dog.
“You came,” she said, not smiling, not surprised.
“I said I would,” Rihan replied, raising the phone. “Where do you want me to shoot from?”
She took a breath and pointed. “Back there, near the steps. Keep it steady. Try not to breathe like Darth Vader.”
He gave her a look. “I don’t breathe that loud.”
“You do when you’re nervous.”
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he crouched, framed the shot, and said, “Whenever you’re ready.”
She closed her eyes. A second passed. Then the music began.
It was a slow build—no lyrics, just cello and percussion and breath. Her body moved like it was born from water, not bones. Every flick of her hand, every tilt of her head told a story without words. Rihan felt himself holding his breath not out of awe but to avoid breaking the spell.
She spun, balanced, froze, slid—there was defiance in her posture, grace in her pain. And when she finished, arms stretched skyward, eyes closed, the sky above cracked with a small roll of thunder as if applauding her.
He lowered the phone slowly. “That was…”
She turned sharply. “Don’t say magical.”
“I was going to say—like watching someone fight gravity and win.”
That made her laugh. “You’re a weirdo. But I think I needed a weirdo today.”
She walked over and took the phone, watching the video silently. Her lips moved in time with the beat. After a minute, she nodded. “It’ll work. It’s not perfect, but it’s real.”
“Do you want to do another take?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I can’t force what I felt just now. That was it. That was all I had.”
Rihan sat on the steps beside her. “Do you think they’ll choose you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure they’ll even open the email. But if I don’t try, I’ll always wonder. You ever feel that?”
He paused. “I did something… back at school. Something I didn’t try hard enough to stop.”
Meher didn’t look at him. “Tell me, or don’t. But don’t let it rot inside you.”
So he told her.
About his friend Zayan. About the meme that started as a joke and turned cruel. About how Rihan had laughed along even though he knew it was wrong. About how Zayan broke down in the school corridor one day, shaking, crying, and how someone traced the group chat back to Rihan’s phone.
“They didn’t expel me. Technically,” Rihan said, staring at the ground. “They called it ‘voluntary withdrawal.’ My parents were ashamed. I was too.”
Meher sat quietly. Then she said, “So you were a coward.”
He flinched. “Yeah.”
“But you’re here. Trying. Watching people dance and not running away from it.”
He looked up. “You’re not angry?”
“Of course I’m angry. At all the boys who thought bullying was funny. At the girls who laughed when I limped on stage. But if someone realizes they were part of the fire and now they’re carrying water, I won’t slap the bucket away.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. So he simply said, “Thank you.”
“You’re not forgiven,” she said softly, standing up. “But you’re welcome.”
She sent the video later that night. He watched her hit “Send” with trembling fingers. Then she looked at him and whispered, “Now it’s out in the world.”
Over the next few days, their rhythm grew quieter, softer. No more intense questions. Just shared sunrises, shared music, the occasional ice candy from the roadside stall. The guilt inside Rihan didn’t vanish, but it no longer shouted. It sat beside him like a familiar ache.
Meher told him about her childhood—how her mother left, how her father raised her on old dance tapes and biryani. Rihan spoke of his brother—captain of everything, perfect grades, a glow that left Rihan always just behind.
“Maybe you needed to fall,” Meher said once, as they sat on the seawall. “Maybe we both did. That’s where the real dance starts.”
He looked at her. Her face was tilted to the sky, eyes closed, soaking in the salt air.
“Would you miss me if I got in?” she asked suddenly.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A real one.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’d miss you before you even left.”
Three days later, Meher got the email.
She screamed so loud, Rihan heard it from the street.
She ran to him, barefoot, waving her phone like a torch. “I GOT IN! TRINITY DANCE SCHOOL—FULL SCHOLARSHIP! They said the emotion in the video felt raw and dangerous and alive! Rihan, you shot that!”
He hugged her before he could stop himself. She melted into it. Her body still buzzing with joy.
He held her like the storm might take her away.
“I leave in ten days,” she whispered against his shirt.
And suddenly, the summer felt too short.
Borrowed Time
Ten days.
Rihan tried not to count them, but the numbers lodged themselves like grains of sand under his skin. Nine. Eight. Every sunrise became a reminder that she would be gone soon—off to the city of her dreams, while he remained a footnote in her story.
But Meher, as usual, refused to let melancholy in. If she was sad, she hid it with dancing, music, mango popsicles, and a hundred tiny adventures she insisted they must squeeze into the shrinking days.
“We’ll make a list,” she announced, scribbling in a small yellow notebook as they sat outside the old lighthouse one afternoon. “Ten things to do before I leave.”
Rihan raised an eyebrow. “We?”
“Yes, we. You think I’m going to do these things with Kamala Aunty?”
He laughed. “Fine. What’s first?”
She grinned. “Midnight ocean dip.”
“No way. That’s illegal. And cold.”
“That’s what makes it magical.”
He sighed. “What else?”
“Break into the abandoned church. The one near the railway crossing.”
“You are an actual criminal.”
She smiled sweetly. “Only in spirit.”
They never made it through all ten things, but each day turned into a scavenger hunt for joy. They rode bicycles down mud lanes, danced barefoot in temple courtyards, stole jackfruit from an old orchard, and once, spent an entire evening drawing cartoons of each other in the sand.
And at night, Rihan would lie in bed, unable to sleep. Something had shifted. He felt alive. He’d always thought his life would restart once the guilt faded. But maybe healing wasn’t about forgetting. Maybe it was about motion—like dancing.
It was the fifth day before departure when they finally made it to the midnight ocean.
The town was quiet, asleep, the street dogs lazily watching as they tiptoed down the slope to the shore. Meher wore a red t-shirt and old denim shorts, and her feet kicked up moonlight on the wet sand. Rihan had brought a towel, a flask of coffee, and enough fear to fill the Arabian Sea.
“Come on!” she yelled, already knee-deep in the waves.
“This is a terrible idea!” he shouted back.
“Terrible ideas make the best stories!”
He cursed under his breath and followed. The water was shockingly cold. It bit his skin, dragged at his limbs, made his teeth chatter. But she was laughing—head thrown back, arms out—and he knew he’d never forget this.
They didn’t swim far, just enough to feel weightless. The waves rocked them gently, like lullabies hummed by the earth.
“I’m scared,” he said, suddenly.
She turned to him. “Of the ocean?”
“No. Of the silence that’ll come when you go.”
For a second, she said nothing. Then she swam closer and touched his wrist underwater. “Rihan, I don’t belong to silence. I belong to motion. And you… you’re no longer still.”
His chest tightened. “What happens after this?”
“We grow. In different cities, maybe. But not apart.”
He looked at her in the silver shimmer of night. Her eyes were serious now, her body quiet.
“I want to kiss you,” he said, not as a question, not as a threat—just the truth.
She didn’t answer. She leaned in, let her forehead touch his, and for a moment, it was just breath and waves and heartbeats.
Then her lips brushed his—soft, like a secret. And the world slowed.
The next day, they didn’t meet.
She sent a short text: Need to pack. Brain chaos. See you tomorrow.
But Rihan felt the shift. Something had cracked between them—not broken, but changed. The air now carried the weight of what they had shared. There was no label for it. Not love, not yet. But something just as fragile.
On the eighth day, they sat under the banyan tree near the bus stop. She braided flowers into his hair while he recited old Bollywood trivia to distract himself from the ache inside.
“Do you think people like us ever get a forever?” he asked.
“No,” she said honestly. “But we get a now. And sometimes, now is enough.”
He wanted to believe that. He wanted to hold on.
That night, Dida knocked softly on his door. She handed him an envelope. “Your father wrote,” she said. “He’s… ready to talk. If you are.”
Rihan stared at the letter, fingers trembling.
“I’m not ready,” he whispered.
“Then wait,” Dida said, touching his shoulder. “But don’t wait forever.”
On the ninth day, Meher came with a parcel.
“For you,” she said. “Open after I leave.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Is this one of those sad memory traps?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s a map. You’ll have to find out.”
They walked without speaking much. The town was loud with goodbyes. The fish market sang, the temple bells rang, the school playground was noisy with cricket.
It was strange how everything went on, even when it felt like a world was ending.
The final day came like thunder—loud and sudden.
Her father drove her to the station. Rihan stood with a cheap flower garland in hand, unsure what to do with it.
“You’ll be fine,” Meher said, slinging her bag onto her shoulder.
“So will you.”
“I already am,” she whispered.
The train roared in, a blast of dust and movement. She climbed aboard, leaned out the window.
“Thank you,” she said. “For showing up. For listening. For… being still when I danced.”
The whistle blew. She waved.
And then she was gone.
Rihan stood on the platform long after the train had disappeared.
That night, he opened the parcel.
Inside was a USB stick labeled “Move, always.” And a note.
If you ever forget who you are, play this. I’ll be dancing in it. Somewhere in Mumbai. And you’ll remember: even silence can move.
He closed his eyes and let the tears fall. Not because she left. But because for the first time in months, he finally felt like he hadn’t.
The Girl in the Video
Two weeks had passed since Meher left.
The town felt slower now. Like the monsoon had taken her rhythm with it. The sea still crashed against the rocks, the fishermen still shouted over crates of shrimp, and Kamala still yelled at Rihan to fix the leaky roof. But something inside him moved differently now—quieter, sharper, heavier.
Every morning he walked past the abandoned school, half-hoping, half-knowing she wouldn’t be there. Her footprints had been washed away by the rains, but her presence lingered in the corners: the moss-stained ledge where she used to sit tying her shoelaces, the rusted pipe she used for stretching, the concrete that had once echoed with her laughter.
Some days, he sat there anyway, playing music from her playlist.
He didn’t tell anyone about the video on the USB. Not even Dida.
It took him a week before he gathered the courage to plug it into her old laptop. What appeared wasn’t just the audition tape—but a folder labeled “To Rihan – Play in Order.”
Inside were eight videos.
Each named after a moment they had shared: Mango Popsicle Day, Jackfruit Escape, Monsoon Dance, Midnight Sea. Every video was a short diary—Meher speaking into the camera, wind in her hair, rain on her face, sometimes laughing, sometimes not.
In one, she said, “You think you’re quiet, Rihan, but your silence hums. It hums like a wire full of stories.”
In another: “You looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Like the steel in my foot was just another chord in the music. No one ever looked at me like that.”
And in the final video, recorded the night before she left, she sat in her room, hair tied up, no makeup, just her raw and real.
“If I could fold time,” she said, “I’d press one end of this summer to the other and make it eternal. But maybe it’s better that we had an end. Some stories are poems, not novels.”
She paused.
“You asked me once if we’d get a forever. I don’t think we will. But I know this: if we ever meet again, I’ll know your silence from a thousand miles away. And I’ll dance to it.”
Rihan stared at the screen long after it went dark.
He didn’t cry.
He felt something warmer, steadier, blooming in his chest.
Maybe closure wasn’t about erasing what happened.
Maybe it was about honoring it.
He started spending afternoons at the community library, which was dusty and dim, but quiet. There, he pulled out books on photography, light composition, film editing. Meher had once said he had “eyes that noticed.” Maybe it was time to put them to use.
He borrowed Dida’s old camera. She barely remembered she had one. And soon, Rihan began documenting the town—boys jumping into the sea from rusted jetties, women balancing baskets of fish on their heads, temple bells ringing against pink skies. He captured moments, just like Meher had lived them—messy, moving, and full of soul.
Dida watched him from the window, a knowing smile on her lips.
“You’re humming again,” she said one evening.
“I didn’t know I stopped.”
“You stopped when you stopped forgiving yourself.”
He paused, holding the camera. “I think I’m still learning how to do that.”
“Well, keep learning,” she said. “Just don’t drop the melody.”
One evening, a notification blinked on his phone.
It was a message. Unknown number. A video link.
He clicked it.
It opened to Meher, center stage, spotlight on her, arms poised in mid-air. The stage was grand. The music was softer now, classical with a modern twist. She moved with more control, more polish—but the wildness was still there, just buried deeper.
Rihan watched, breath tight, as she spun and dropped and rose again, the steel foot hidden beneath silk, her fire more refined, more dangerous.
When the video ended, a line of text appeared: Trinity Showcase: Emerging Soloist of the Month – Meher Fernandes
Beneath it, a short message:
You said I flew. You helped me build wings. I’m still dancing to your silence. — M.
Rihan closed his eyes.
Then opened them and hit “reply.”
You moved me, Meher. In ways even music couldn’t. I’ve started filming. Stories of this town. Of stillness. Of becoming. Thank you for teaching me that stillness isn’t death. It’s just… breath before the step. — R.
Weeks turned into a month.
Rihan created a short film called “Summer Without Shoes.” It had no dialogue, just music and images—kids running through rain, a girl dancing in a ghost school, a boy on a rooftop watching birds. It was quiet, beautiful, and full of memory.
He uploaded it anonymously.
Within days, it started circulating in small student filmmaker forums. People called it “haunting,” “tender,” “a love letter to motion.” One comment simply said: “I don’t know who made this. But I feel seen.”
And Rihan, who once tried to disappear, finally felt visible.
Late one evening, Dida handed him a new envelope.
He opened it carefully. It wasn’t from his father this time—it was from a community arts program in Chennai. They’d seen his short film and wanted him to apply for their youth media fellowship.
Dida raised an eyebrow. “Well?”
Rihan looked at the sea outside, the place where he first learned how to let go.
“I think it’s time,” he whispered. “To keep moving.”
He didn’t know where the road would take him next.
But he knew one thing.
He would dance, in his own way.
And somewhere in Mumbai, maybe, just maybe, a girl with steel in her foot and fire in her heart was dancing too—still to his silence.
And that silence? It was no longer empty.
It was alive.
A City Between Them
The train to Chennai left at dawn. Rihan sat by the window, his bag tucked beneath the seat, the camera wrapped in soft cloth beside him like a sleeping companion. Dida had packed tamarind rice and papads in a tiffin and pressed his hand before he boarded.
“Don’t forget who you were,” she said. “Even as you become someone new.”
Rihan didn’t reply—his throat was too full. Instead, he pressed her fingers gently, then turned toward the horizon.
The journey was long, humid, and loud. Vendors selling tea shouted over crying babies, and the ceiling fans whirred like rusty insects. Rihan barely noticed. He was thinking about what it meant to start over—not as punishment, but as choice.
When he arrived at the fellowship dorm, the city’s scent hit him like a tidal wave—exhaust fumes, fried snacks, wet concrete, and a kind of frantic ambition that pulsed in the air. Everything here moved. The buildings, the traffic, the people—even their thoughts seemed to hurry.
The campus was small but lively, tucked between a crumbling art deco theatre and a bookstore named “Yesterday’s Dreams.” He smiled at that. It felt like a good omen.
In the first week, he kept his head down. The other fellows were louder, more polished. One girl had already directed two music videos; another boy had a YouTube channel with 70K subscribers. Rihan, meanwhile, introduced himself as: “Hi. I’m just… learning.”
Still, he watched. He absorbed. He wandered the city with his camera, catching forgotten corners: a boy sleeping under a cinema poster, an old couple feeding pigeons outside a cathedral, a musician on the beach playing a broken harmonica for ghosts.
He didn’t try to speak much.
His stories came through the lens.
One afternoon, while editing a short about a chai-seller who danced with his kettle while pouring, his phone buzzed.
Unknown number. Video message.
He clicked.
Meher appeared on screen—sweaty, flushed, smiling.
“This isn’t a dramatic monologue,” she said, grinning. “Just a hello.”
She turned the camera to a mirror in the rehearsal room. “New routine. A duet. My partner’s obsessed with perfection. I’m teaching him how to fall without fear. Wish me luck.”
She blew a kiss—more silly than flirty—and the video ended.
Rihan stared at the screen, his cheeks warm. Then he recorded a reply.
“Hey. I met a kettle dancer. He pours tea like it’s ballet. I think you’d like him. I miss your feet slapping the concrete stage. And your ridiculous laugh. Hope Mumbai hasn’t polished your edges too much.”
He didn’t send it.
Not immediately.
Instead, he edited it down. Removed the “miss you” part. Added a street violinist playing in the rain. Then clicked send.
Her reply came an hour later.
“You make silence sing. You always did.”
Their messages became irregular—like tides. Sometimes daily. Sometimes a gap of three, four days. Once, a full week passed. But Rihan didn’t panic. Something in him had changed. He wasn’t waiting. He was growing.
Still, on the twenty-seventh day in Chennai, he found himself filming a girl spinning with an umbrella on the marina beach and, without warning, whispered: “That’s a Meher move.”
He froze.
The ache hadn’t gone. It had just grown familiar.
That night, he opened her last video again—the one where she called their story a poem. He watched her eyes, how they blinked slower when she meant what she said. He paused the screen, stared.
And then he whispered to the still image: “If this is a poem, I think I’m ready for the next stanza.”
The program assigned the fellows a final challenge: make a five-minute short on “motion.”
Rihan had an idea.
He titled it: “The Girl Who Taught Me to Move.”
But he didn’t make it about her directly. Not fully. Instead, it became a love letter to moments—a slow montage of feet skipping puddles, birds startled into flight, bicycles tilting on curves, children twirling with open arms.
And over it, his voice—soft, measured, speaking like breath:
“Sometimes, motion is not about speed. It’s about refusal. Refusal to stay broken. Refusal to stay silent. Refusal to stay still.”
He didn’t say her name.
But her rhythm was in every frame.
The short went up on the fellowship’s YouTube channel.
And in two days, a comment appeared:
@meherfernandes
I see what you did. And I’m still dancing. For you, with you, beside you—wherever you go.
Rihan smiled.
Then wrote back:
@rihan.bose
Then I’ll keep filming. Until we meet again. And after.
Later that night, under the yellow streetlight outside the dorm, Rihan finally played the voicemail his father had left weeks ago.
The voice was hesitant, cracking a little. “Rihan… I saw your film. Your Dida sent me the link. I don’t know how to say this well. But… I’m proud of you. And I think Zayan would be, too.”
Rihan closed his eyes.
He didn’t cry.
He didn’t need to.
Some silences had already been danced through.
The Reunion That Wasn’t
Rihan stood outside the dance theatre in Mumbai, his camera strapped across his chest, palms sweating. The banner above read: Trinity Movement Fest: Emerging Choreographers Showcase.
He hadn’t told Meher he was coming.
It wasn’t meant to be a dramatic surprise. The fellowship had arranged for all the media students to cover the event—capture behind-the-scenes clips, do interviews, film performances. When Rihan saw her name on the list—Meher Fernandes | Original Choreography: “Broken/Beautiful”—his heart had paused. Then raced.
He told himself he was here for work. To film. To observe. To grow.
But deep down, he knew better.
Backstage was chaos. Dancers adjusting costumes, makeup artists working miracles in corners, lighting techs shouting cues into walkie-talkies. Rihan moved like a ghost with purpose, capturing quick shots—a hand adjusting an anklet, a burst of laughter, a nervous sigh.
Then he saw her.
She stood near the wings, head tilted to one side, eyes closed. Hair in a tight bun, maroon costume hugging her frame, lips murmuring what looked like a prayer—or maybe a beat count.
He froze.
She looked the same. But sharper. Like someone who had learned to breathe underwater.
She opened her eyes.
And their gaze locked.
For two seconds.
Then a third dancer called her name and she turned away.
No wave. No smile.
Just silence.
The performance was electric.
Her piece, “Broken/Beautiful”, was everything she once told him dance should be—feral, intentional, aching with grace. Her partner moved in counterpoint—rigid and elegant—while she flowed like contradiction made flesh.
Midway through the piece, she paused, one foot hovering off the ground, arms trembling mid-air.
And in that stillness, Rihan felt it.
She had put them into the choreography.
Not as a love story.
But as a departure.
When it ended, the audience stood. Applauding. Cheering. Rihan clapped too, his throat tight.
He didn’t know what he had expected.
Maybe that she’d run into his arms, cry into his shoulder, say she missed him like air.
But she was becoming now.
She didn’t need to turn around.
He waited by the back exit, camera switched off, hands fidgeting in his pockets.
She came out forty minutes later, sweat still glistening on her collarbone, a water bottle in hand.
He stepped forward.
“Meher.”
She paused. Looked at him.
Long enough for the sound of the street to fade.
“You came,” she said finally.
“I didn’t plan to.”
“But you did.”
He nodded. “I saw your name. I guess I… followed the rhythm.”
She gave a small smile. “That line would’ve made me melt two months ago.”
He swallowed. “You were amazing. Like… terrifying and beautiful.”
“Thanks.” Her voice was polite. Cool. Not cold—but rehearsed.
“I wanted to talk,” he began. “Not to pick up from where we left off. Just to…”
She cut in, gently. “Rihan, I know. And I’m glad you’re here. But I’m not.”
He blinked. “Not… where?”
“Not in the part of the story where I can hold hands with the past and the future at the same time. I’m mid-leap. And you, maybe, are mid-frame.”
He tried to smile. “That was very Meher of you.”
She laughed. Briefly. “I’m still the same. But different.”
“So am I.”
“I can see that.”
A long pause.
Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a small envelope.
“I was going to post this next week. But since you’re here…”
He took it.
“What is it?”
“Something to help you keep moving. Even when you’re standing still.”
Before he could reply, someone called her name from inside. Her director.
She turned back to him. “Keep filming, Rihan. The world needs your kind of eyes.”
Then she walked away.
No hug. No goodbye.
Just motion.
He sat on the pavement long after she disappeared.
Then opened the envelope.
Inside was a single polaroid photo. Grainy, golden, sun-drenched.
It showed him—barefoot, smiling faintly, sitting on the concrete stage of the abandoned school, watching someone just out of frame.
On the back she’d written:
“For the boy who made silence his story. Let your stillness never be empty.”
Back in Chennai, Rihan spent three days editing a new short.
It was called “For the Ones Who Don’t Stay.”
No narration this time.
Just visuals: waves rushing in and pulling back, dancers stepping out of light into shadow, a boat untethered from the shore, and the boy on the bench watching it float away.
The film ended with one long still: the empty stage at the abandoned school.
No people. Just wind.
And a faint sound of anklets fading in the distance.
He didn’t send it to Meher.
He didn’t have to.
She would find it.
And maybe, one day, they’d meet again.
Not as the dancer and the boy who watched.
But as two people moving toward their own sunrises.
The Sound of Anklets
The next few months unfolded like a slow-motion song.
Rihan stayed in Chennai, extending his fellowship into an assistantship with the same arts program. He now mentored younger students, taught them how to capture feeling rather than footage, and slowly built a portfolio that was less about image and more about emotion.
His days filled up. Editing reels. Teaching framing. Shooting small-town wedding documentaries for side income. And yet, in the cracks between all that motion, his mind wandered—to a girl with steel in her foot and fire in her voice.
Not with sadness. But with… tune.
One day, while walking past the graffiti wall near Besant Nagar beach, Rihan saw something that stopped him.
A line spray-painted in blue:
“Let your stillness never be empty.”
—M.F.
He smiled.
Meher had danced through the city after all.
Back at the dorm, he stared at the polaroid she’d given him—the one with him sitting on the stage, half-smiling, half-lost.
He pinned it above his desk.
Then powered up his editing software and opened a blank project file titled: “For Meher. For Me.”
This one wouldn’t be shared publicly. It wasn’t for awards. It wasn’t even meant to impress anyone. It was for two people who had once collided like lightning on wet stone. Who had turned silence into steps and heartbreak into movement.
The short film began with that stage.
Empty. Overgrown with weeds.
Then—slowly—sound entered.
A faint rhythm. Anklets.
And then, a voice. His own.
But not scripted.
Rihan recorded it live, once. No retakes. No filters.
“She told me movement was rebellion. I didn’t understand it then. I do now. Every frame I shoot is a refusal to stay silent. Every cut is a heartbeat.”
The visuals stitched together small fragments from their summer—moments she had never known he’d captured: the slight stumble when she lost balance but laughed it off, the way her fingers trembled before she began a solo, the blur of her red scarf in the wind.
He paired these with newer frames—sunsets over the Chennai port, birds flying above rain-drenched rooftops, young dancers rehearsing barefoot under trees.
And one final scene: a close-up of his empty hand slowly curling into a fist… then slowly relaxing again.
Letting go.
Not in grief.
But in gratitude.
He saved the film to a private link and named it: “The Last Dance of Summer.”
He didn’t send it.
Not yet.
Some stories needed to sit, untouched, like pressed flowers in a journal.
Two weeks later, an email popped up in his inbox.
Subject: Invitation to Guest Screen: Trinity Movement Residency, Mumbai
Body:
Dear Rihan,
We are pleased to invite you as a guest visual artist for our winter showcase. Meher Fernandes personally recommended your work for the program.
If interested, we’d love for you to design a live projection experience alongside our choreography series.
— Trinity Arts Committee
He read the message three times.
Then leaned back, eyes closed.
Not everything ended.
Some things circled back—not to restart—but to rise again.
When he arrived in Mumbai in December, the city was cooler, quieter than he remembered. Or maybe he was.
The theatre was buzzing with preparation. He met with the tech team, adjusted frame rates, mapped light onto bodies in motion. But he didn’t ask about Meher. And no one offered her name casually in rehearsal conversations.
Until the last night before the show.
He was adjusting a side-stage spotlight when a voice behind him said, “You forgot to add blue to the end cue. It softens the final fall.”
He turned.
She stood there, arms crossed, scarf wrapped around her neck, hair loose this time.
He looked at her. Not like a question. But like a page he’d bookmarked a long time ago.
She walked closer. “Hi.”
He nodded. “Hi.”
“So,” she said softly, “how does it feel? To be here?”
“Different,” he said. “Less like returning. More like arriving.”
She smiled.
They stood in silence. Then she asked, “Did you ever finish the film?”
He nodded. “The one about you? Yes. But it became about me, too.”
“I figured.” She looked away. “Did you send it to anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because sometimes a story needs to live quietly before it finds its stage.”
She met his gaze. “So… is now the stage?”
He hesitated.
Then pulled out a flash drive from his pocket and placed it in her hand.
Her fingers closed around it.
“I won’t watch it tonight,” she said. “I’ll wait till the day I miss you enough.”
He smiled. “That could be never.”
She shook her head. “Or tomorrow.”
The night of the show, his projection danced across the backdrop as Meher took the stage.
Her new piece was titled “Weightless.”
It wasn’t about him.
Not directly.
But when she paused mid-step, looked toward the wings—just once—and let a soft smile curl across her face before spinning into the final twirl—
He knew.
She had seen him.
And that was enough.
Almost, Always
The applause was thunderous.
Rihan stood behind the curtain, hands trembling—not from nerves, but from something deeper. Fulfillment, maybe. Or the soft ache of recognizing a goodbye before it’s said. The blue light from the projector washed across the floor like moonlight, Meher’s silhouette still lingering in its wake.
He didn’t move. He didn’t need to.
She found him first.
After the final bow, as the crew cleared props and dancers peeled off layers of sweat and costume, Meher appeared beside him, her hair damp, her scarf missing. Just her, as she always was after dancing—unarmored, alive.
“You stayed till the end,” she said.
“I always do,” he replied.
They stood in silence, the kind that no longer frightened them.
Then she said, “I watched it.”
He blinked. “The film?”
She nodded.
“Last night. After tech rehearsals. In bed. In the dark.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“You filmed me when I didn’t know,” she continued, voice steady. “But you never made me look weak.”
“I never saw you that way.”
She smiled. “I know.”
They walked out into the cool Mumbai night. The air smelled like jasmine and auto-rickshaw smoke. The theatre behind them faded into a warm blur of voices and clinking tea cups.
They sat on a bench near the sidewalk, under a dying gulmohar tree. Above them, the stars blinked like secrets.
“Do you think we’re still a love story?” Rihan asked suddenly.
She looked at him, not startled, not smiling. Just thoughtful.
“I think we’re the part of a love story that most people don’t write down,” she said. “The after. The almost. The still.”
He nodded slowly. “So not a happy ending.”
“Maybe not an ending at all,” she said. “Maybe just… a comma.”
They sat for a long time. The kind of quiet that isn’t empty. The kind that feels like exhaling.
“Someone asked me once,” Rihan murmured, “if people like us ever get a forever.”
She tilted her head. “And what did you say?”
“I said no,” he replied. “But I think I was wrong.”
Her eyes softened.
“Maybe we do get a forever,” he continued. “Just not the kind they write in books. Maybe ours is scattered across films and dances and trains we missed and emails never sent. Maybe forever is made of ‘almosts’.”
“Almosts,” she repeated. “That sounds right.”
She took his hand—not like a lover, but like a friend who knew the geography of his grief.
“Rihan,” she said, “we don’t have to call this love. We don’t have to call it anything. But whatever it is… it taught me how to dance without fear.”
“And you taught me how to move at all,” he whispered.
They sat there until the streetlight above them flickered out.
In the following days, they didn’t promise to stay in touch.
They didn’t exchange schedules or deadlines or “we’ll call”s.
They simply were.
Existing in each other’s atmosphere. Occasionally orbiting, occasionally colliding, but never crashing.
Rihan stayed in Mumbai a week longer, helping another choreographer with a visual sequence. He and Meher bumped into each other in canteens, in editing rooms, once even in a temple courtyard where she was filming barefoot children dancing to drums.
Each time, they smiled.
Each time, they said nothing more than needed.
One night, as he prepared to leave, she handed him a folded paper napkin from a roadside tea stall.
He opened it on the train back to Chennai.
Inside, she had scribbled:
Some dances aren’t meant for the stage.
Some stories aren’t meant for the world.
But you and I—we’re somewhere in between.
And that’s enough.
—M.
He folded it gently, placed it in his wallet behind his ID card.
Back in Chennai, life resumed.
Rihan began working on a new documentary—this time on folk musicians in the Tamil delta. He still walked with a quiet rhythm. Still filmed people like they were poems. But now, there was a lightness to him. A rhythm that felt more like presence than absence.
His students noticed it.
“Sir,” one girl said, “you smile more now. But like… only with your eyes.”
Rihan laughed. “It’s a side effect of good music.”
He didn’t mention Meher.
She wasn’t a chapter.
She was the undercurrent of the whole book.
One day, while uploading photos for an exhibition, he got a message from an unknown number.
It wasn’t her.
But it was a video.
A man stood at the edge of a rooftop in Himachal, wind whipping through his kurta. He began to dance—awkwardly, shyly, beautifully. As the camera panned around him, it caught a familiar laugh.
Meher’s laugh.
In the background, she yelled, “Rihan, he dances worse than you did on mango popsicle day!”
Then she appeared in the frame, twirling once before giving the camera a peace sign.
The message beneath said:
“Thought of you. Sent you motion.”
He smiled.
Then picked up his camera.
And walked outside.
There was light to catch.
And he was ready.
In the Frame
Rihan stood on a hill in Karaikal, camera poised, just as the sun dipped low enough to set the river on fire. The fisherman in his frame was smiling toothlessly, hands raised with the day’s catch. Behind him, two children danced barefoot on sand, echoing a rhythm only they could hear.
Click.
A moment frozen.
But Rihan no longer shot to freeze things. He shot to free them.
Later, as he packed up his gear, his phone buzzed.
1 New Email
From: meher.fernandes@trinitymovement.org
Subject: Just a thought.
He sat on a stone and opened it.
Hey Rihan,
I taught a class today called “Story in Stillness.” Can you believe that?
One of my students asked if I ever choreographed something that was real. Not inspired by real. But truly real. I told them: “Yes. Once.”
I didn’t name you. But they understood.
I still haven’t watched that film of yours again. I’m afraid it’ll break me. Or worse—make me want to go back to that summer and never leave. But maybe I will. One day. On a quiet night. With no moon and a full heart.
How’s the river?
Yours in motion,
M.
Rihan stared at the screen.
Then opened his camera gallery.
He scrolled past the hill shots, the delta footage, the Chennai cityscapes—until he found the folder labeled “Kavar.” Inside were images from that summer: Meher mid-spin in the abandoned school. Her shadow on the wall. The polaroid she’d taken of him that he later photographed back into digital form.
He chose one.
Attached it in reply.
Then wrote:
Hey Meher,
This is the last shot I ever took in Kavar.
The school’s been rebuilt now. They painted over the old walls. There’s a new floor, new benches, even curtains. But they didn’t touch the stage. The concrete is still cracked. Moss still grows in the corners.
I sat on it last week. Alone. Closed my eyes. I swear I heard anklets.
Maybe I made that up. Maybe not.
Either way, thank you.
For dancing first.
For letting me watch.
For reminding me that some things don’t need to last forever to change everything.
Yours—
maybe not in motion,
but in frame,
R.
He hit send.
And felt no ache.
Just warmth.
That winter, Rihan’s documentary on folk musicians went to a small film festival in Kochi. He stood in a crowded theatre, answering questions from strangers who called his work “soulful,” “textured,” and once, “a love letter to forgotten people.”
He smiled at that. Because in many ways, his first love story was exactly that.
He didn’t tell them about Meher.
Not by name.
But she was there—in the flicker between frames, in the way he held on just one second longer, in the soundtracks he chose that always carried a faint rhythm of anklets.
Backstage at the festival, an interviewer asked, “Do you believe art heals?”
Rihan paused.
“I think art doesn’t heal us,” he said. “It witnesses us. And that’s enough.”
Months passed.
Seasons shifted.
He visited Kavar once more in spring, taking Dida to the temple fair, filming fishermen teaching songs to their grandsons, eating sugar-dusted jalebis on the sea wall. The town hadn’t changed much.
But he had.
And when he passed by the abandoned school—now freshly painted, repurposed as a dance hall—he placed one photo on the wall. Quietly. Without permission.
It was a black-and-white still.
A girl in mid-air, caught in the middle of a spin, her face half-shadowed, hair flung like ink.
Below it, a handwritten caption:
“She moved. And so did I.”
One monsoon morning, nearly a year since that summer, Rihan received a letter.
Not an email.
An actual envelope, addressed in Meher’s loopy handwriting.
Inside was a single page. No photos. No poems.
Just this:
I watched it.
I cried.
Then I danced.
Always yours,
—M.
And that’s how it stayed.
Not a reunion.
Not a goodbye.
Just an ongoing story—told in movement, stillness, and the quiet spaces in between.
END
