Love…Again

Kolkata had a way of holding on to people—like the humidity that clung to skin, like the tramlines that refused to disappear even when buried under tar. It held on to stories too. Some soft, some unfinished, some aching.

Their story began on a late monsoon afternoon at a small café tucked beside College Street, where books leaned into each other like conspirators.

He was already there when she walked in—thin, slightly stooped, scribbling into a notebook with an intensity that made the rest of the room feel like background noise. A pair of earphones hung loose around his neck. If one leaned closer, one might have caught a faint hum—something like Simon & Garfunkel, soft and distant.

She noticed him because he didn’t look up. Not when the bell rang, not when the waiter asked for orders, not even when a chair scraped loudly across the floor. He was sealed into himself.

And yet, when she dropped her book—an old, annotated copy of Pablo Neruda’s poems—it was he who bent down first to pick it up.

“You’ve marked half the pages,” he said, glancing at it briefly.

“Only the ones that hurt,” she replied, smiling.

He didn’t smile back. But he didn’t look away either. That was how it started.

Their friendship unfolded like Kolkata evenings—slowly, without announcement.

They began with conversations about poetry. He quoted Rainer Maria Rilke as if he had lived inside his lines. She countered with Rumi, insisting that pain could be a doorway, not just a wound.

He disagreed, quietly.

“You romanticise suffering,” he once said, stirring his tea absentmindedly.

“And you imprison it,” she replied.

They began meeting often—by the river at Prinsep Ghat, under the amber glow of streetlights, in bookshops where time seemed to stall. Sometimes they didn’t speak at all. Silence, with him, wasn’t empty. It was crowded.

He wrote. Constantly. Fragments, verses, unfinished lines.

She read everything.

“You write like someone is listening from far away,” she told him once.

“Maybe someone is,” he said.

She didn’t ask who.

Music slipped into their friendship like an uninvited but welcome guest. One evening, as the rain drummed against the café windows, he slid one earbud toward her. It was The Beatles—Across the Universe.

“Words are flowing out like endless rain…” he murmured.

She closed her eyes and listened. Later, she made him listen to Kishore Kumar. He resisted at first, then softened.

“His voice feels like home,” she said.

He didn’t respond immediately. Then, very quietly: “I don’t remember what home feels like.”

It was the first crack.

She began noticing the patterns.

The way he would suddenly withdraw mid-conversation, his gaze turning inward, as if he were watching something only he could see. The way his hands trembled when a car screeched too loudly on the street. The way joy seemed to frighten him.

One night, as they sat near the river, the air thick with the scent of wet earth, she asked, “What are you running from?”

He laughed—too sharply. “Nothing.”

“Then why do you look like you’re always being chased?”

He didn’t answer. But a week later, he did.

It was past midnight. The city had quieted into a tired hush. They were sitting on the steps of an old building near Rabindra Sadan.

“I killed someone,” he said.

She didn’t flinch. “Tell me.”

“My girlfriend,” he added, his voice hollow. “A car crash. I was driving.”

The words fell like stones into still water. He spoke in fragments. Rain on the windshield. A moment’s distraction. A sharp turn. Metal folding in on itself. Silence afterward that never really ended.

“She died instantly,” he said. “Which is supposed to make it better.”

He laughed again, softer this time, almost broken.

“I still hear it. Every day.”

She didn’t try to fix it. Didn’t offer platitudes. She simply sat closer, her presence steady, like an anchor.

“You didn’t mean to,” she said.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I don’t get to move on. That would be… betrayal.”

“To whom?” she asked gently.

He didn’t answer.

But for the first time, he didn’t leave. From then on, she became his quiet refuge. She learned the rhythm of his silences, the language of his pauses. When he retreated into himself, she stayed—not intruding, not abandoning. Just there. She encouraged his writing, pushing him to share his work beyond the pages of his notebook.

“You’re hiding behind your guilt,” she told him. “But your words deserve to breathe.”

He resisted. Then relented.

They began attending small poetry readings together. At one such gathering, he read a piece inspired by Dylan Thomas—raw, aching, luminous.

The room fell silent.

Afterward, as they walked along the dimly lit streets, he said, “That felt… strange.”

“Good strange or bad strange?”

“Like I was alive,” he admitted.

She smiled. “That’s a start.”

Somewhere along the way, she fell in love with him.

Not suddenly. Not dramatically. It crept in through shared glances, through the way he listened when she spoke, through the rare, fleeting moments when he smiled—truly smiled.

He fell in love too. But his love was cautious, hesitant, shadowed.

“I can’t do this,” he told her one evening. “I can’t let someone in like that again.”

“I’m already in,” she said softly.

“That’s different.”

“How?”

He struggled for words. “Because if I lose you…”

“You won’t,” she stopped him.

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” she admitted. “But I know this—living half a life to avoid pain isn’t living.”

He looked at her, torn between longing and fear.

The turning point came on a winter morning.

They were at Victoria Memorial, the marble glowing pale under the soft sun. A street musician nearby was playing a tune by R. D. Burman, blending into a hum of old Kolkata nostalgia. He seemed restless.

“She loved this place,” he said suddenly.

His first time mentioning her without breaking.

“She loved you too,” she replied.

He nodded.

“I keep thinking… if I let myself be happy again, I erase her.”

She shook her head. “You don’t replace love. You expand it.”

He looked unconvinced.

So she took his hand—firm, warm, unwavering.

“Your past isn’t a room you’re trapped in,” she said. “It’s a chapter. You’re allowed to keep writing.”

He closed his eyes. For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he held her hand back. He buried in his face in between her neck and breasts as she caressed his hair. She could feel him sobbing softly. She shut her eyes and continued stroking his head. 

Spring came quietly, like forgiveness. He began to change—not dramatically, but perceptibly. His silences grew less frequent. His laughter, though still rare, lingered longer.

One evening, as they sat by the river again, he handed her a page.

“For you,” he said.

It was a poem. Not about loss. Not about guilt. But about her.

About warmth that didn’t demand, about light that didn’t blind, about love that waited.

She read it, her eyes soft. “Is this your way of saying something?” she teased gently.

He took a deep breath.

“I’m terrified,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to run anymore.”

She didn’t rush him. “I’m here,” she said.

He nodded. “I know.”

And this time, when he leaned closer, there was no hesitation. Their love wasn’t perfect. It carried echoes of the past, moments of doubt, days when old wounds reopened.

But it endured.

Because she didn’t try to erase his pain. And he didn’t let his pain define their future.

Kolkata watched, as it always did—quietly, patiently.

And somewhere between the tramlines and the river, between old songs and new verses, they built something fragile and strong at once. A love that didn’t forget. A love that chose, every day, to stay. And in that choice, they found something neither had believed in fully before—

Not just happiness.

But hope.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

Alone Together in a Noisy World

There’s a strange kind of loneliness that doesn’t come from being alone.

It comes from being surrounded—by notifications, by opinions, by noise—and still feeling like no one has really met you that day.

I think a lot of us are carrying that feeling now.

We live in a time that promised connection. We can reach anyone, anywhere, instantly. We can send a thought across continents before it has fully formed in our own minds. And yet, somehow, something essential has thinned out in the process. The conversations feel quicker, but also shallower. The presence is constant, but the attention is fractured.

It’s like we’re all talking, but not always listening.

And maybe that’s where the loneliness begins.

Urban life, especially, has a way of placing people side by side without ever letting them truly arrive in each other’s worlds. You can spend an entire day moving through crowds—on streets, in trains, in offices—without a single moment of being seen in a way that feels real. Not the polite, functional recognition of roles, but the softer, slower kind of seeing that says: I notice you exist beyond what you do.

We’ve become very efficient at interacting. Less so at connecting.

Social media was supposed to bridge that gap. In some ways, it does. It lets us find people who think like us, feel like us, dream like us. But there’s a quiet cost to that kind of closeness. When we gather only among those who mirror us, the unfamiliar begins to feel threatening instead of interesting.

Difference starts to feel like distance.

And then, slowly, disagreement becomes something sharper than it needs to be. Not a conversation, but a confrontation. Not curiosity, but defense. We stop asking “Why do you think that?” and start preparing to prove “Why you’re wrong.”

It’s not that we’ve lost the ability to reason or to debate. It’s that we’ve lost some of the patience required for it. Real dialogue takes time. It asks us to sit with discomfort, to hold two ideas at once, to accept that we might not leave the conversation unchanged.

But we’ve grown used to immediacy—quick responses, quick judgments, quick alignments. There isn’t always space for the slower work of understanding.

And empathy, I think, lives in that slower space.

Empathy isn’t just feeling for someone. It’s allowing their experience to exist without immediately measuring it against your own. It’s resisting the urge to correct, to categorise, to simplify. It’s staying long enough to let another person be complicated.

That’s harder than it sounds. Especially in a world that rewards certainty and punishes hesitation.

So maybe we’re not less empathetic because we’ve become colder. Maybe we’re less empathetic because we’re more overwhelmed. There’s too much to react to, too quickly. Too many voices, too many crises, too many perspectives colliding at once. And somewhere in that flood, our capacity to sit deeply with even one person begins to erode.

It’s not a moral failure. It’s a human limit.

Still, it leaves us feeling isolated in a very particular way. Not just alone, but unseen. Not just unheard, but misunderstood before we’ve even finished speaking.

And yet, even in all this, small moments of connection still happen.

A stranger who smiles at you without reason. A friend who listens without interrupting. A conversation that doesn’t turn into a debate, but remains a conversation. These moments feel almost disproportionate in their warmth, like they’re reminding us of something we haven’t entirely lost.

Maybe that’s the quiet truth beneath all of this: we haven’t forgotten how to connect. We’ve just made it harder for ourselves.

We’ve built systems that amplify our voices but don’t always hold our humanity. We’ve learned to express, but not always to receive. And in the process, we’ve become a little more guarded, a little more certain, a little less willing to meet each other halfway.

But the capacity is still there.

It shows up whenever we choose curiosity over certainty. Whenever we let someone finish their thought instead of anticipating it. Whenever we allow a difference to remain a difference, without turning it into a divide.

It shows up in the smallest, most ordinary gestures—asking one more question, listening one moment longer, softening just a little where we might have hardened.

Maybe that’s where we begin again. Not with grand solutions or sweeping changes, but with quieter choices.

To be a little more patient.

A little more open.

A little more willing to let others be human, even when they are not like us.

And maybe, in doing that, we make the world feel just a little less lonely—not all at once, but in ways that matter.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

Where Words Heal: The Quiet Therapy of Poetry

For me, poetry is a quiet refuge—a place where my thoughts slow down, my emotions find words, and even in chaos, I can feel a sense of calm and understanding.

Poetry has a quiet, almost invisible power. It does not shout solutions or offer quick fixes, yet it gently reshapes the way we feel, think, and breathe. In moments of stress or inner turmoil, it can become a kind of companion—one that listens, reflects, and slowly helps restore balance to a troubled mind.

When we read poetry, we step out of the noise of everyday life and enter a space of reflection. The words slow us down. They ask us not just to read, but to feel and experience them. This is where poetry becomes therapeutic: it allows us to confront emotions without being overwhelmed by them.

Take Bob Dylan, whose lyrics often carry the rhythm of thought itself. In Desolation Row, he writes, “They’re selling postcards of the hanging”, opening a surreal yet haunting landscape that mirrors the chaos many feel inside. In Visions of Johanna, the line “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face” captures a restless longing that feels deeply human. And in It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), he reminds us with stark clarity: “He not busy being born is busy dying.” These lines may feel unsettling, but they also awaken us—they push us to reflect on our own lives and choices, which can be a powerful form of emotional release.

Similarly, Leonard Cohen offers a softer, more meditative voice. His famous line, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in,” (Anthem) suggests that our flaws and struggles are not weaknesses but openings for growth. Reading such lines can bring comfort, especially when life feels fractured.

 Philip Larkin often explored ordinary life with honesty. In Aubade, he writes, “Most things may never happen: this one will,” confronting fear directly. Yet, by putting that fear into words, he makes it less overwhelming. Poetry like this does not hide from anxiety—it names it, and in doing so perhaps reduces its hold on us just that little bit. 

On the other hand, Percy Bysshe Shelley brings hope through beauty and imagination. His line from Ode to the West Wind, “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” (Ode to the West Wind) is simple but deeply reassuring. It reminds us that difficult times are temporary, and change is always possible.

The raw, emotional intensity of Allen Ginsberg speaks to those who feel overwhelmed by modern life. In Howl, he writes, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” giving voice to pain that many struggle to express. Reading such lines can feel like being understood—like someone has already walked through the storm you are facing.

In contrast, Emily Dickinson offers quiet introspection. Her line, “Hope is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul,” is gentle and uplifting. It reminds us that even in silence, something within us continues to endure and believe.

What makes poetry therapeutic is not just its beauty, but its honesty. It does not deny pain; it transforms it. It gives shape to feelings that might otherwise remain confusing or overwhelming. When we read good poetry, we realise that others have felt what we feel—and survived it. And when we read great poetry, our interpretation perhaps is different every time we explore it, offering newer fresher perspectives and visions. That can be so uplifting an emotion. 

In a stressed and troubled state, the mind often feels scattered. Poetry gathers those scattered thoughts and holds them still for a moment. It invites us to pause, to reflect, and to reconnect with ourselves. Whether through Dylan’s restless imagery, Cohen’s quiet wisdom, Larkin’s realism, Shelley’s hope, Ginsberg’s intensity, or Dickinson’s calm insight, poetry reaches into the depths of our minds and gently restores a sense of balance.

Poetry does not cure stress. Instead, it changes how we experience it. It turns chaos into meaning, loneliness into connection, and pain into something that can be understood—and even, at times, appreciated.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

Nowhere Feels Like Home: Urban Alienation in Neil Diamond’s I Am… I Said

Nowhere Feels Like Home: Urban Alienation in I Am… I Said

I Am… I Said by Neil Diamond is less a conventional pop song than a stark interior monologue—one that captures the quiet dislocation of a man suspended between places, identities, and meanings. Beneath its simple melody lies a deeply modern anxiety: the sense that even in a crowded, hyper-connected world, a man can feel profoundly alone, unmoored, and existentially uncertain.

I Am…I Said is a tension between geography and belonging. The lines, “L.A.‘s fine, but it ain’t home / New York’s home / But it ain’t mine no more,” articulate a paradox familiar to many in an age of migration and urbanisation. Los Angeles, emblematic of opportunity and reinvention, is acknowledged as “fine”—adequate, even desirable—but it lacks emotional rootedness. New York, once “home,” has become estranged, transformed into something unrecognisable. Man here is caught between two cities that represent different selves: one that no longer fits, and one that never quite did. This is displacement not merely as physical relocation, but as a fracture in identity, something that feels lived-in rather than observed from a distance.

Urban alienation intensifies this sense of estrangement. Cities like New York and Los Angeles are often imagined as spaces of possibility, yet they also produce anonymity and detachment. In the song, the man is surrounded by millions, yet feels unseen, unheard. The refrain, “I am, I said / To no one there,” underscores the futility of asserting existence in a void. The act of saying “I am”—a declaration of being—loses its power when there is no listener to affirm it. It begins to feel less like a statement and more like a plea, as if the man is trying to convince himself he exists at all.

This existential crisis is made explicit in the line, “I am lost and I don’t know why.” It is not just that he is lost; it is that the loss itself is incomprehensible. There is no clear cause, no story he can tell himself to make sense of it. This absence of explanation deepens the anxiety, suggesting a crisis that runs deeper than circumstance. It becomes something internal, something that follows him no matter where he goes—a quiet, persistent dislocation that cannot be reasoned away.

Perhaps the most poignant image in the song is the “chair,” which “heard him, not a word.” This inanimate object becomes the only witness to the man’s declaration of self, highlighting the depth of his isolation. The chair’s silence is not just literal but symbolic: it represents a world that does not respond, a reality that offers no validation. In that moment, it feels as though even the simplest acknowledgment is out of reach, and the man is left alone with the echo of his own voice.

Ultimately, I Am… I Said captures the emotional landscape of displacement in the modern urban world, but it is not confined to Los Angeles or New York. That same feeling can surface anywhere—on the crowded streets of Bombay or in the shifting, memory-laden spaces of Calcutta. It is the experience of a man caught between past and present, between places that fail to hold him, and within a reality that resists easy meaning. Through its spare yet evocative lyrics, the song becomes less about one man’s geography and more about a shared human condition—the quiet, unsettling realisation that even in the busiest corners of the world, one can feel entirely alone, searching, and unanswered.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

The Evening

It was supposed to be an ordinary evening—one of those polite gatherings where conversations hover safely above the surface and laughter comes in practiced bursts. At their common friend’s apartment, the lights were warm, the music soft, and the air faintly scented with incense and something floral.

He arrived late.

Salt and pepper hair, neatly kept but rebelliously curling at the edges, framed a face that carried both confidence and a quiet fatigue—the kind that comes from years of being dependable. In his mid-forties, engaged for three years to someone steady and kind, he had long since stopped expecting surprises from evenings like these.

Until he saw her.

She stood near the bookshelf, her back partially turned, fingers gliding along spines as though she were reading them through touch alone. A black and white saree draped her with an effortless grace, the fabric whispering with every slight movement. Her hair—long, silky, and unapologetically free—fell down her back like a dark river. A red bindi rested perfectly on her forehead, bold yet delicate, and her oxidized jewelry caught the light in quiet flashes.

She turned.

And for a fraction of a second—just one suspended breath—the room fell away.

It wasn’t just her beauty. It was the way she looked at him, as if she had been expecting him without knowing why.

“Hi,” she said, a small smile forming—curious, not rehearsed.

“Hi,” he replied, softer than he intended.

Their friend’s voice cut in, introductions were made, names exchanged—but they barely registered them. Something unspoken had already begun, something neither had words for.

They found themselves gravitating toward the same corner of the room, as if pulled by an invisible thread. Someone had put on an old playlist—soft ghazals melting into classic love songs—and the world narrowed to the quiet rhythm of shared presence.

“You read?” he asked, nodding toward the shelf she had been browsing.

She tilted her head, amused. “That obvious?”

“Only to someone who does the same thing at parties.”

A pause. A smile that lingered longer this time.

“What do you read?” she asked.

“Things that make me feel less alone,” he said lightly, then added, “and sometimes more.”

Her eyes softened. “That’s dangerous.”

“So is pretending you don’t need that.”

She laughed—a low, warm sound that seemed to settle somewhere inside him. It wasn’t loud, not attention-seeking, but it stayed with him even after it faded.

They spoke of books first. Then poetry. Then music. Each discovery felt less like coincidence and more like recognition—favourite authors shared, verses half-remembered and completed by the other, songs that meant something for reasons neither fully explained.

At one point, a line of poetry slipped from her lips—soft, almost absentminded.

He finished it.

They both went still.

“Okay,” she whispered, exhaling. “That’s… unsettling.”

“In a good way?” he asked.

She met his gaze, holding it this time. “In a way I’m not sure I should like.”

Silence settled between them, but it wasn’t empty. It was full—of awareness, of restraint, of something dangerously close to longing.

Across the room, laughter erupted. Glasses clinked. Life continued, oblivious.

“Are you happy?” she asked suddenly, her voice gentler now.

The question lingered in the space between them.

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked at her—as if trying to decide how honest one can be with a stranger who doesn’t feel like one.

“I am… settled,” he said finally.

She nodded, understanding more than he had said.

“And you?” he asked.

A faint smile touched her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ve learned how to be.”

Something shifted then—not spoken, but acknowledged.

They didn’t move closer, not physically. But everything else did.

At one point, their hands brushed as they both reached for the same book. It was nothing—a fleeting contact—but it lingered like a spark on skin, sending a quiet awareness through both of them. Neither pulled away immediately.

When they did, it was almost reluctant.

Later, as the music softened into something slower, the lights dimmed slightly. Conversations thinned. People began drifting toward departure.

He found her by the balcony.

The city stretched beyond them—lights flickering, distant and indifferent.

“Strange evening,” he said, leaning beside her.

She smiled faintly. “That’s one way to put it.”

Another pause.

“Do you believe in… moments?” she asked, not looking at him. “The kind that don’t last but somehow stay?”

“I think I’m in one,” he replied.

She turned then, her gaze steady, searching.

There was so much they could say.

There was so much they shouldn’t.

A breeze lifted a strand of her hair across her face. Without thinking, he reached out—just slightly—then stopped himself halfway. She noticed. Of course she did.

Instead, she tucked it back herself, her fingers lingering near her cheek.

“Some things,” she said quietly, “are better left exactly as they are.”

“Unfinished?” he asked.

“Unspoiled.”

Their eyes met again, and this time it was heavier—full of everything they were choosing not to do.

Someone called her name from inside.

She stepped back.

“I should…” she gestured vaguely.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

Neither moved for a second longer than necessary.

Then she smiled—soft, almost secret. “It was… really nice meeting you.”

“It was more than that,” he said, before he could stop himself.

She held his gaze, something flickering there—agreement, maybe. Or warning.

“Goodnight,” she said.

“Goodnight.”

She walked away, the soft rustle of her saree fading into the noise of the room.

He didn’t follow.

Later, as he left, he glanced back once—half expecting, half hoping.

She wasn’t there.

Or maybe she was, just out of sight.

The night resumed its ordinary rhythm. Cars passed. Phones buzzed. Life, with all its commitments and carefully built structures, waited patiently for them both.

And yet—

Somewhere between a line of poetry, a shared silence, and a touch that lasted a heartbeat too long…

Something had happened.

Whether it would remain just that—

Or become something more—

Neither of them knew.

But neither of them would forget.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

Tupelo Honey

The song slipped into her before she recognised it.

It was just a line at first—low, honey-warm, almost careless—floating out of the dim, half-forgotten café as Radhika walked past. She stopped mid-step, her breath catching in a way that felt both unfamiliar and deeply known. The world around her—the narrow street, the passing scooters, the hum of a city she didn’t belong to—seemed to recede.

“She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey…”

The words wrapped around her like something she had once worn close to her skin.

For a moment, she didn’t move. Then, almost without deciding to, she turned and walked in.

The café looked like it had been waiting for someone who might never come. Faded walls, wooden chairs polished smooth by time, a faint smell of old coffee and something floral—jasmine, she realised, though she didn’t know why that mattered yet.

A young man sat on a stool with a guitar, his voice untrained but tender, carrying the song like it meant something to him.

Radhika chose a corner table.

“Espresso,” she said softly when the waiter came.

She hadn’t said that word in twenty-eight years.

Not since Arjun. 

Arjun, the man she married and for being with him she decided to forget the Jatin chapter of her life completely. 

Before the apartment with its clean lines and efficient routines. Before she had learned to prefer tea because it was easier, lighter, more acceptable somehow.

Before she had packed away a version of herself that drank bitter coffee and laughed too loudly and believed in ‘forever’.

The first sip burned her tongue slightly.

And just like that, she was no longer in this city.

They were sitting on the low wall outside his college hostel, sharing a single cup of espresso because they couldn’t afford two.

“You always take the last sip,” she had complained, nudging him.

Jatin grinned, unrepentant. “That’s because the last sip is where all the magic is.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” he insisted, leaning closer, lowering his voice as though revealing a secret. “Everything important stays till the end.”

She rolled her eyes, but when he handed her the cup that evening, he didn’t drink at all. He just watched her.

“See?” he said softly when she looked up. “Magic.”

The guitar string hummed back in the present.

Radhika blinked. The café returned, dim and quiet, the song now nearing its end.

She hadn’t thought of him in years. Not like this. Not with this ache that felt startlingly alive. She told herself she had forgotten. But memory, it seemed, was a patient waiter – not gone forever. 

Another fragment surfaced, unbidden.

Rain hammering against the windows of a tiny rented room. Her hair damp, his shirt clinging to her because she had borrowed it when her own got soaked.

“You’ll fall sick,” he had said, trying to sound stern, but his hands lingered at her wrists longer than necessary.

“And you won’t?” she teased.

“I have you to take care of me.”

She laughed then, that unguarded, luminous laugh that belonged to a girl who had never yet been broken.

He pulled her closer, almost shyly, and yet his eyes priced through hers like first light slipping past a curtain, quiet, warm and almost impossible to look away from. 

“Stay,” he whispered.

“I am,” she replied, and for that moment, it was true in every way that mattered.

The song ended.

Applause scattered lightly across the café. The young singer smiled, bowed his head, and began packing his guitar.

Radhika stood before she could think better of it.

“Excuse me,” she said when she reached him.

He looked up.

“Where did you learn that song?” she asked. “It’s… not very common.”

For a second, he just stared at her. Not with surprise—but recognition. As though confirming something he had long believed. Then he smiled. Not broadly, but gently. Almost with relief.

“Baba told me you’d come one day,” he said.

The words didn’t make sense.

“I’m sorry?”

“He said you would hear it,” the young man continued, as though explaining something simple. “And you’d come inside.”

A strange chill ran through her.

“Who is your Baba?”

“Come,” he said, picking up his guitar. “He’ll be very happy to see you. He’s been waiting.”

Waiting.

The word pressed against something fragile inside her.

“I… I don’t think—”

“Radhika?”

She turned.

Arjun stood at the entrance, scanning the room, then softening when he saw her. “There you are. I was looking—”

“I need to go somewhere,” she said, the urgency in her voice surprising even herself.

“With him?” Arjun asked, puzzled.

“Yes.”

There was a pause. A thousand questions hovered, but Arjun only nodded slowly. “Call me when you’re done.”

She didn’t know if she would.

The ride was quiet.

The city blurred past, but inside her, everything sharpened.

Jatin’s laughter. Jatin’s hands. Jatin’s voice saying her name like it was something he had discovered.

And then—the ending she had trained herself not to revisit.

The silence. The distance. The letter that never came. The explanation that never arrived. A love that had once felt inevitable, dissolving into absence. And silence. 

They stopped before a modest house. Even before she stepped out, she smelled it.

Jasmine.

Not faint. Not imagined. But real. 

Her fingers trembled.

One last memory came, softer than the others.

A night filled with those same flowers. Strings of jasmine draped carelessly across a terrace, their fragrance thick in the warm air.

“For you,” Jatin had said, almost sheepish.

“You did all this?”

He shrugged. “I know you like them.”

She touched the flowers, then him. “I love them.”

“I know,” he replied quietly. Then, after a pause, “I love you.”

The words had settled between them like something sacred. Something unbreakable. That night they kissed for the first time. Soft, lingering, forever. 

Radhika stood at the door now, her heart pounding so loudly it felt as though it might give her away.

Twenty-eight years collapsed into a single breath.

She raised her hand.

Paused.

Then pushed the door open.

The room inside was dim, lit by a single lamp. The scent of jasmine was stronger here, almost overwhelming.

On the bed, a frail figure lay propped against pillows.

Her breath caught.

Not because she didn’t recognise him. But because she did. Even now. Even like this.

Time had thinned him, softened the edges, but it hadn’t erased him.

Jatin.

His eyes opened slowly, as though he had been listening for her footsteps.

And when they found her, they didn’t search, didn’t question.

They simply rested.

As if they had always known she would come back to stand in this doorway.

Radhika took a step forward.

Her throat tightened. A thousand words rushed to her lips—questions, accusations, confessions—but none of them survived the distance between them.

He smiled.

Faint. Fragile. But unmistakably his. And in that smile, she saw everything they had been.

Everything they had lost. Everything they had never stopped carrying.

She moved closer, her fingers brushing against the jasmine lying beside him.

He watched her, his gaze unwavering.

Then, with a voice that was barely more than breath, he said—

“Last sip… is where the magic stays.”

Her eyes filled up. 

The room seemed to hold its breath. 

And somewhere, very softly, as if carried by memory itself— the song began again inside of her. 

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

Love, Returns

The first thing people noticed about Arjun was his hair—salt and pepper far too early for thirty-seven—but it only made his boyish face more disarming. When he smiled, his eyes caught light like glass wind chimes, bright and restless, as if youth had refused to leave him entirely.

Mitali used to tease him about it, long ago, when teasing came easily.

Now, fourteen years into their marriage, teasing had been filed away somewhere between grocery lists, client calls, and the quiet ticking of a clock that seemed louder in the evenings than it had any right to be.

Their life in Kolkata ran like the trams on College Street—steady, predictable, slightly worn, but dependable.

Morning tea at 7:15.

Arjun scanning headlines on his phone, occasionally humming an old jingle from his media agency days.

Mitali tying her hair into a loose bun, already thinking about fabrics, fall stitching, and a client who wanted “something subtle but not boring.”

They spoke, of course. But mostly in practicalities.

“Milk’s over.”

“Meeting at 11.”

“I’ll be late.”

“Don’t wait for dinner.”

Love had not disappeared. It had simply… settled. Like dust on a bookshelf no one thought to clean.

The week Naina arrived, the air changed.

Mitali had been excited in a way Arjun hadn’t seen in years. “She’s been my client for four years,” she had said, rearranging cushions for the third time. “From Bengaluru. You’ll like her—she’s very… alive.”

Alive was an understatement.

Naina walked in with a burst of laughter, a suitcase, and a presence that seemed to tilt the room slightly in her favour. Dusky skin glowing from travel, hair wild in a way that looked accidental but wasn’t, eyes bright with curiosity.

And then— She saw Arjun. And Arjun saw her. Time didn’t stop. It stumbled. A flicker. Recognition. Something unspoken but unmistakable.

Mitali, oblivious, was saying, “Arjun, this is Naina—”

“We’ve met,” Naina said quickly, her smile steady but her fingers tightening around the handle of her bag.

Arjun nodded. “A long time ago.”

That night, the ceiling fan seemed louder than usual.

The first two days passed in careful choreography. Naina was warmth itself with Mitali—complimenting her designs, laughing at her stories, trailing her through the boutique like an admiring shadow. With Arjun, she was… precise. Polite. Measured. Distant in a way that only two people with a past could manage.

And Arjun—soft, easy Arjun—became quiet.

He watched her sometimes when she wasn’t looking. Not hungrily. Not even nostalgically. Just… curiously. As if trying to reconcile the girl he had known with the woman sitting across the dining table discussing Kolkata’s humidity.

Mitali noticed none of it. Or perhaps she noticed everything and chose silence.

On the third night, Arjun broke. Mitali was folding clothes, her movements efficient, when he said her name.

“Mitu…”

She looked up. He hadn’t called her that in a while.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

And then he did. Not dramatically. Not defensively. Just… honestly. About college. About a love that had been bright and consuming and ultimately fragile. About how life had pulled them apart without betrayal, without bitterness—just distance and time.

About Naina.

When he finished, the room felt very still. Mitali didn’t react immediately. She placed a folded kurta on the bed, smoothing it unnecessarily.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asked finally.

“I didn’t know she was that Naina,” he said softly. “Not until she walked in.”

That was true. And she knew it.

“And now?” she asked.

“I don’t feel what I felt then,” he said, choosing each word with care. “But I would be lying if I said it doesn’t… stir something. Not love. Just… memory.”

Mitali held his gaze. For fourteen years, she had been the stronger one. The one who steadied storms. The one who absorbed, who endured, who anchored.

But this—this was not a storm. This was almost like a mirror.

“Do you want her to stay?” she asked. The question surprised him.

“It’s your house too,” she added quietly. “Your past too.”

Arjun exhaled. “What do you want?”

Mitali looked away, toward the window where the faint glow of streetlights filtered through.

“I want honesty,” she said. “Not comfort. Not convenience.” She turned back to him. “Let her stay.”

Something shifted after that. Not dramatically. Not loudly. But perceptibly. Mitali began to watch. Not with suspicion—but with attention.

She noticed how Arjun still laughed at Naina’s old jokes. How Naina’s eyes softened when he spoke about things that mattered to him. How easily they slipped into conversations that required no effort. And she noticed something else too.

How Arjun still made her tea every morning—without asking. How he still waited for her to take the first bite at dinner. How he still looked for her in a room before settling.

Love, she realized, had not disappeared. It had simply grown quiet. On the fifth evening, it rained. One of those sudden Kolkata downpours that turned streets into mirrors and air into music. The power flickered. Then went out. They lit candles.

Naina suggested music. Arjun found an old speaker. Someone—no one quite remembered who—started playing songs from their college days. And then, somehow, they were laughing. Really laughing. Naina told a ridiculous story about Arjun trying to impress a professor. Arjun groaned. Mitali laughed harder than she had in years.

“Is this true?” she asked, wiping her eyes.

“Exaggerated,” Arjun protested.

“Completely true,” Naina confirmed.

Mitali looked at him, really looked at him. Not as the man who forgot to buy milk. Not as the husband who came home late. But as the boy he had been. And something inside her softened.

Later that night, after Naina had gone to bed, Mitali stood by the window, watching the rain slow into a whisper. Arjun joined her. For a while, they said nothing. Then Mitali spoke.

“You loved her,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And she loved you.”

“Yes.”

Mitali nodded. “And you chose a life without her.”

He looked at her then. “Life happened. But yes.”

She turned to him, her light brown eyes unreadable and full at the same time. “And you chose me,” she said.

There was no accusation in it. Only truth. Arjun stepped closer.

“We chose each other,” he said quietly. “We kept choosing one another. Every day. Even when we didn’t say it.” Something broke open in that moment—not painfully, but like a window finally letting air in.

The next morning, Naina announced she would be leaving a day early.

“My meetings got rescheduled,” she said lightly.

But Mitali knew. So did Arjun. At the door, there was a pause. Naina hugged Mitali tightly. “You have something rare,” she said softly.

Mitali smiled. “So did you. Once.”

Naina turned to Arjun. There were a thousand things they could have said. They said none of them. Instead, she smiled—that same dazzling, slightly wild smile—and said, “Take care of her.”

“I do,” he said.

“I know,” she replied.

And then she was gone.

That evening felt… different. Not empty. Just… quieter in a way that wasn’t heavy. Mitali was in the kitchen when Arjun walked in and, without a word, wrapped his arms around her from behind. It startled her.

“You’ll burn the dal,” she said spontaneously.

“I’ll risk it,” he murmured.

She didn’t pull away. After a moment, she leaned back into him. It was a small thing. Almost nothing.

But it wasn’t routine.

Days passed. The timetable returned. The structure. The familiar rhythms. But something had shifted beneath it all. Arjun started coming home a little earlier. Mitali began lingering over dinner instead of clearing plates immediately. They found things to say—not always important, not always meaningful—but real.

One Sunday morning, without planning it, they went out for tea. Not because they had to. Just because they wanted to. Sitting at a small stall, sharing a single clay cup, Mitali looked at him and said, “Your hair is getting more grey.”

He grinned. “You always liked it.”

“I still do,” she said. And this time, there was no dust settling over the moment.

Years later, if someone had asked them when their marriage changed, they might not have agreed on the exact day. But they would both remember the week the past walked into their present—and quietly, gently, gave them back their future.

Because love, they discovered, does not always need grand gestures. Sometimes, it just needs to be noticed again.

And chosen.   

Again.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

Two of Us

Kolkata always knew how to keep secrets. It hid them in the rustle of old trees on Southern Avenue, in the lingering smell of rain on tram tracks, in the way the Hooghly held reflections just a second longer than it should. And sometimes, it tucked them quietly between two people who made no sense together.

Like Aritra and Meera.

Aritra, 37, was all order. Crisp white shirts, schedules planned to the minute, coffee without sugar, and a life that moved in straight lines. He worked in finance, believed in logic, and trusted numbers more than people.

Meera, 33, on the other hand, was chaos wrapped in soft cotton sarees and silver anklets. She painted for a living—if that could be called a “living.” Her studio in North Kolkata was always a mess of colors, unfinished canvases, and half-burnt incense sticks. She forgot appointments, lost her phone twice a week, and believed that sunsets meant something.

They met, as most improbable stories do, by accident.

Aritra had taken a wrong turn.

His GPS had failed him somewhere near Kumartuli, and in his irritation, he had walked into a narrow lane that smelled faintly of clay and rain. That’s when he saw her—sitting cross-legged on the floor outside a workshop, arguing passionately with an idol-maker about the shade of blue for Krishna’s skin.

“No, no, this is too sad,” she insisted, holding up a brush. “Krishna should look like he knows a secret. Not like he’s waiting for a tax audit.”

Aritra had laughed.

He didn’t mean to. It just slipped out, surprising even himself.

Meera turned, annoyed at first, then curious. “You disagree?”

“I think…,” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “Krishna’s emotional state doesn’t impact the market value of the idol.”

She stared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter. The kind that made her eyes crinkle and her shoulders shake.

“That,” she said, “is the saddest thing I’ve heard all day.”

He should have left then. Gone back to his structured world.

But he didn’t.

Their second meeting felt less accidental.

Aritra found himself walking that same lane again, two days later. He told himself it was because he had work nearby. He ignored the fact that his route had conveniently stretched by twenty minutes.

Meera was there, sitting on a low stool, sketching.

“You got lost again?” she asked without looking up.

“I didn’t get lost the first time,” he replied.

“Of course,” she said, smiling faintly. “People always ‘find themselves’ in Kumartuli.”

He sat beside her, uninvited.

That became their thing.

Kolkata slowly became their accomplice.

They walked along Prinsep Ghat in the evenings, where the river shimmered like it was listening in on their conversations. Meera would talk about colours—how the sky was never just blue, how shadows had feelings, how people carried invisible shades within them.

Aritra would counter with probabilities, data, and reality.

“You overthink everything,” she told him once, as they shared a paper cone of jhalmuri.

“And you underthink,” he replied.

“Maybe,” she said, tossing a peanut into her mouth, “but I feel more.”

He didn’t have a response to that.

Instead, he noticed the way the wind kept pushing her hair across her face. Without thinking, he reached out and tucked it behind her ear.

They both went quiet. It was a small moment. Barely anything. And yet, it lingered.

There were many such moments.

Like the time it started raining suddenly near College Street. Meera spun around, arms wide, laughing like the rain belonged to her.

“Come on!” she shouted.

“I don’t do this,” Aritra said, stepping back under a shop shade.

She walked up to him, grabbed his hand, and pulled him into the rain.

For a second, he resisted. Then he didn’t.

His shirt clung awkwardly, his hair was a mess, and he was definitely going to fall sick.

But Meera was right there, grinning at him like he had just done something extraordinary.

“See?” she said softly.

And for once, he didn’t calculate the consequences.

Or the night they took a tram for no reason at all.

They sat side by side, the city sliding past them in sleepy lights and familiar chaos. Meera leaned her head on his shoulder halfway through the ride, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Aritra stiffened at first, taken aback by the suddenness of her action. Then, slowly, he relaxed. Although he didn’t move for the rest of the journey. Not even when his arm started to ache.

But love, especially the illogical kind, never comes without its shadows.

Aritra saw the red flags clearly. Meera was unpredictable. She cancelled plans, disappeared into her work for days, and refused to think about the future in any concrete way.

“I don’t want to plan everything,” she said once, when he tried to talk about where they were headed. “It ruins it.”

“Not planning ruins it,” he argued.

“You’re scared,” she said gently.

“I’m practical.”

“You’re scared of things you can’t control.”

“And you,” he said, a little too sharply, “don’t take anything seriously.”

The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have. They didn’t meet for a week after that. Kolkata felt different in those days.

Too loud. Too empty.

It was Durga Puja when they found their way back.

Aritra saw her first. She was standing in front of a pandal in North Kolkata, draped in a simple white saree with a red border, her hair tied loosely, a tiny red bindi on her forehead. She looked… still.

Not chaotic. Not scattered. Just still. He walked up to her.

“You disappeared,” he said.

“So did you,” she replied.

They stood there, surrounded by the sound of dhaak and the hum of a thousand people, yet somehow in a quiet of their own.

“I can’t promise to be logical,” Meera said after a moment. “Or predictable. Or… easy.”

“I know,” Aritra said.

“I might frustrate you.”

“You do.”

She smiled faintly. “Then why are you here?”

He took a breath.

Because this was the part where logic should have stepped in. Where he should have listed all the reasons this wouldn’t work.

Instead, he said, “Because when I’m with you, things… make sense in a way I can’t explain.”

Meera’s eyes softened.

“That’s not very logical,” she said.

“I know.”

For once, he didn’t mind.

The dhaak grew louder. The lights flickered. Somewhere, someone started laughing.

And in that moment, Aritra did something completely out of character.

He reached for her hand. Not cautiously. Not hesitantly. Just… naturally.

Meera looked at their hands, then at him.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I don’t understand this,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to walk away from it either.”

She squeezed his hand gently.

“Good,” she said. “Because I wasn’t going to let you.”

Years later, if you asked them how it worked, they wouldn’t have a proper answer.

They still argued. He still planned too much. She still forgot things.

But he learned to leave space for the unexpected. And she learned to stay.

Sometimes love isn’t neat. Sometimes it doesn’t follow rules or logic or sense. Sometimes it’s just a quiet moment on a tram, a hand held in a crowded pandal, or laughter in the middle of rain.

And sometimes, in a city that knows how to keep secrets, two completely different people find each other…

…and decide that’s reason enough.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

Things We Said Today

The first time it rained that year, Kolkata didn’t ask permission.

It came down in a soft, silver rush over College Street, blurring bookstalls and tram lines, turning the air into something that smelled like wet paper and old stories. Arijit stood beneath a half-broken blue tarpaulin, holding two earthen cups of chai, waiting.

Rituparna was late. She was always late.

He checked his phone, though he knew there’d be no message. Then, as if summoned by his impatience, she appeared—hair damp, kurti clinging slightly at the shoulders, eyes bright with apology and mischief.

“Traffic,” she said, breathless, though they both knew that was never the full truth.

“Of course,” Arijit replied, handing her the chai. “The city personally conspires to delay you.”

She laughed, that soft, familiar laugh that had long ago stopped feeling like something he heard and started feeling like something he carried. They walked together under his umbrella, shoulders brushing occasionally, neither of them moving away.

It had been like this for years. Friendship, everyone called it.

Something quieter, something deeper, Arijit knew—but he had never found the courage to name it. They met in college. First as classmates, then as study partners, then as everything in between—late-night calls, shared playlists, arguments over films, long walks along the Hooghly where words weren’t always necessary.

There were moments. Too many moments.

Like the evening at Prinsep Ghat when the sky turned gold and Rituparna had leaned her head on his shoulder, just for a second too long.

Or the winter morning at Victoria Memorial when she had tucked her cold hands into his, laughing, “Temporary heater service.”

Or the time she had fallen asleep during a movie at his place, curled up on his couch, trusting him with a kind of quiet that made his chest ache.

Each time, Arijit had felt it—that pull, that certainty. And each time, he had said nothing. Because what if saying something broke everything?

Because what if she didn’t feel the same? Because what if he lost her? So he stayed where it was safe.

Beside her. Not with her.

The new guy arrived on a Tuesday. His name was Sayan.

Rituparna mentioned him casually at first, over a call that stretched past midnight.

“He’s joined our office,” she said. “From Bangalore. Thinks Kolkata traffic is ‘charming.’

Arijit snorted. “Give him a week.”

“He’s nice,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “Funny, too.” Something small and uncomfortable shifted in Arijit’s chest. He ignored it.

Weeks passed.

Sayan became a name that appeared more often in their conversations.

“Sayan said this—”  “Sayan thinks that—” “Sayan and I went for coffee—”

Arijit listened, smiled when required, teased when expected. But something had changed.

Not in Rituparna, not really. In him.

He started noticing things he had always taken for granted. The way she didn’t call him first thing in the morning anymore. The way their evening walks became less frequent. The way her laughter sometimes came from the other end of a story that didn’t include him.

One evening, they met at their usual spot near Rabindra Sarobar. The lake shimmered under fading light, couples scattered along the paths, the city humming softly in the distance. Rituparna arrived glowing.

Not just happy. Different.

“You’ll like him,” she said, sitting beside him on the bench.

Arijit’s fingers tightened slightly around the paper cup in his hand.

 “Will I?” 

“Yes,” she said easily. “You both have the same sarcastic energy.”

He forced a smile. “Dangerous combination.”

She nudged him playfully. “Don’t be jealous.”

“I’m not,” he said quickly.

Too quickly.

She looked at him for a moment, something unreadable flickering in her eyes. Then she looked away. “Good,” she said softly.

The night it finally broke, Kolkata was restless. A storm threatened but didn’t arrive. The air was thick, heavy with everything unsaid. Rituparna called him.

“Come out?” she asked.

He didn’t hesitate. They met near the river.

The Hooghly stretched out before them, dark and endless, the Howrah Bridge glowing like something steady and certain. Rituparna stood by the railing, her hair loose, the wind playing with it.

“I think Sayan likes me,” she said.

Arijit’s heart stumbled.

“And?” he asked.

She turned to him. “I don’t know.”

Silence settled between them, louder than anything.

“Do you like him?” he managed.

“I should,” she said. “He’s… everything people say I should want.”

The words landed heavily. “And?” he asked again, quieter this time.

She took a step closer. Close enough that he could see the familiar crease between her brows when she was thinking too much. “And I keep comparing him to someone,” she said.

His breath caught.

“Who?” he asked, though he already knew.

She held his gaze.

“You,” she said.

The city seemed to pause.

The river, the bridge, the distant honk of traffic—everything faded into the space between them. “Then why—” he started, his voice unsteady.

“Because you never said anything,” she interrupted, her voice trembling now. “All these years, Arijit. You never said anything.”

The truth hit harder than any storm. “I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid of losing you.”

She laughed softly, though her eyes shone. “And I was afraid I imagined it all.”

They stood there, years of silence unraveling in seconds.

“I thought,” she continued, “if you felt the same, you’d say it. And when you didn’t… I told myself I should move on.”

Arijit took a step closer.

“Don’t,” he said. Just one word. But it carried everything he had never said.

“Don’t move on?”

“Don’t settle for someone just because I was a coward,” he said, his voice steadier now. “Ritu… I’ve loved you for years. I just didn’t know how to risk losing you.”

She looked at him, really looked at him, as if searching for hesitation.

There was none left.

“Idiot,” she whispered, though her lips curved into a smile.

“Certified,” he agreed.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then she reached for his hand. Not playfully. Not casually. She held it like it mattered. Like it always had.

“You took your time,” she said softly.

“I’m here now,” he replied.

The first drop of rain fell between them. Then another. And another. Until Kolkata finally exhaled into a downpour. They didn’t run for cover. They stood there, drenched, laughing, something new and fragile and beautiful settling into place.

Somewhere in the city, life continued as it always did. Trams rattled, chai boiled, people hurried home. But for Arijit and Rituparna, something had shifted forever. Not friendship lost. But love, finally found.

And this time, neither of them looked away.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar, 2026. Any article, story, write-up cannot be reproduced in its entirety or in part, without permission. URL links can be used

The Sudden Disappearance of Arjun Basu

I. The Man Who Didn’t Fit

On most evenings, Arjun Basu stood by the narrow balcony of his third-floor apartment in Ballygunge, watching the city slip into its neon-lit restlessness. Kolkata never really slept—it simmered. Honking cars, distant tram bells, late-night tea stalls, laughter rising from nowhere and dissolving just as quickly.

At forty-six, Arjun felt like an unfinished sentence in a city obsessed with conclusions.

He was five foot ten, his hair now more salt than pepper, though his face still carried a softness that belonged to a younger man. People often mistook his silence for calm, his kindness for weakness, and his thoughts—too many, too tangled—for irrelevance.

Inside, the television blared.

“…you have to be practical, Arjun,” Madhumita’s voice cut through the room. “You can’t keep giving money away to strangers. We have responsibilities.”

Madhu stood firm, arms crossed. Twenty years of marriage had sharpened her into someone who balanced compassion with calculation. She loved Arjun—she truly did—but she no longer understood him.

“I didn’t give it away,” Arjun said quietly. “I helped someone.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” she replied. “You always help. Even when you shouldn’t.”

From the sofa, their sixteen-year-old son Riddhiman didn’t look up from his phone. “Baba, you’re too emotional. That’s why people take advantage of you.”

Arjun smiled faintly, as if they were discussing someone else.

Maybe they were.

II. The Office and the Outcast

Arjun worked in a mid-level corporate office on Park Street—one of those places where ambition smelled faintly of air freshener and fear.

He wasn’t particularly ambitious. That was his first mistake.

The second was that he noticed things.

The way people laughed louder around power. The way truth bent itself into shapes that fit performance reviews. The way kindness was often treated like a liability.

Fatima sat across from him.

She was sharp, articulate, and carried herself with a confidence that unsettled others. Rumours followed her like a shadow—that she slept with her boss to climb the ladder.Arjun never believed them. Or perhaps, he didn’t care. What he saw was something else entirely—a mind that felt, a person who understood the absurdity of the world they inhabited.

“You’re listening to Pink Floyd again?” she asked one afternoon, noticing the faint leakage from his earphones.

“Wish You Were Here,” Arjun said. “It feels like… an apology to existence.”

Fatima smiled. “That’s a very Arjun way of putting it.”

“Do you ever feel like you’re not meant for this?” he asked.

She leaned back, looking at the fluorescent lights. “All the time. But I stay. Survival is less poetic than escape.” Arjun nodded. He wasn’t sure he agreed.

III. The Hidden Notebooks

At night, when the city dimmed just enough to pretend it was quiet, Arjun wrote. Not on his laptop—never there. Always in an old, worn notebook he kept hidden behind a stack of files. His poetry wasn’t structured. It wandered, much like him.

I am not lost,

I am simply misplaced,

like rain that fell

In the wrong season.

They tell me to grow roots,

but I was born wind,

and wind has no address.

Sometimes, he would hum old songs as he wrote

“There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold…”

Led Zeppelin. Stairway to Heaven.

He wondered if anyone truly believed that anymore.

IV. The Rumours

It started quietly.

A glance here. A whisper there. Then one afternoon, it arrived fully formed. “I heard you and Fatima are… close,” a colleague said, with a smirk that carried more accusation than curiosity.

Arjun frowned. “We’re friends.”

“Of course,” the man said. “That’s how it starts.”

By the end of the week, the story had evolved into something else entirely. By the end of the month, it reached home. Madhu stood in the doorway that night, her expression unfamiliar.

“Is it true?” she asked.

Arjun blinked. “Is what true?”

“You and Fatima.”

The silence that followed was heavier than any answer.

“No,” he said finally. “It’s not like that.”

“But there is something,” she pressed.

Arjun hesitated.

That hesitation broke something.

“You see?” Madhu said, her voice trembling—not with anger, but with exhaustion. “I don’t even know you anymore.”

Neither did he.

V. The Breaking Point

Days blurred. The office grew colder. Home felt distant. Conversations became transactions—words exchanged without meaning.

Fatima noticed.

“You’re withdrawing,” she said.

“I think I’m disappearing,” Arjun replied.

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

She looked at him carefully. “What are you thinking?”

He smiled faintly. “About how easy it would be to just… not be here.”

Fatima’s expression hardened. “Don’t romanticize escape, Arjun. The world doesn’t change because you leave it.”

“No,” he said softly. “But maybe I do.”

That evening, he walked home instead of taking a cab. The city moved around him—people rushing, arguing, laughing, surviving. No one noticed him.

No one ever did.

VI. The Last Night

That night, Arjun didn’t argue. He didn’t explain. He simply sat by the balcony, listening to an old cassette he had dug out from a drawer.

“Hello darkness, my old friend…”

Simon & Garfunkel.

He opened his notebook one last time:

I tried to belong

to a world that trades hearts

like currency,

but mine was counterfeit—

too soft,

too human.

If you look for me,

don’t search in crowds,

or in names,

or in things that can be owned.

Find me instead

in unfinished songs,

in pauses between words,

in the silence

you were too afraid to hear.

He closed the notebook. At some point in the night, while the city continued its indifferent rhythm—

Arjun Basu left.

No note. No trace. No goodbye.

VII. The Aftermath

Morning came, as it always does. Madhu noticed first. His side of the bed untouched. His phone left behind. His wallet still on the table. Riddhiman thought it was a mistake.

“He must’ve gone out early,” he said.

But Arjun never went out early. By afternoon, the realization settled in like a slow, suffocating fog.

He was gone.

VIII. The Search

They searched. Police reports. Calls to relatives. Visits to hospitals.

Nothing.

Fatima searched differently. She went to the places he liked—the old bookshop near College Street, the quiet bench by Rabindra Sarobar, the tea stall where he once spoke about how “chai tastes better when you’re not in a hurry. She found nothing.

Except a feeling.

That he hadn’t run away. He had simply… stepped out of the frame.

IX. The Notebook

It was Riddhiman who found it. Hidden. Forgotten. Or perhaps, meant to be found. Madhu read it in silence. Page after page of a man she thought she knew—but didn’t. Not a loser. Not naive. Not impractical.

Just… unbearably alone.

She stopped at one line.

“The tragedy is not that people don’t understand me,

but that I no longer expect them to.”

Madhu closed the notebook. For the first time in years, she cried without restraint.

X. The City Moves On

Kolkata did what cities do. It moved on. The trams still rang their bells. The tea stalls still filled with arguments. The offices still buzzed with ambition. Somewhere, someone hummed an old tune.

“We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl…”

Fatima stood at the balcony of the office one evening, looking at the same city Arjun once did. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she whispered into the wind.

There was no answer.But I n the hum of the city, in the spaces between noise—  there was something that felt like him.

Not gone. Just… no longer visible.

XI. Epilogue: The Question That Remained

People spoke of Arjun Basu for a while. Then less. Then not at all. But the question lingered—not in words, but in quiet moments. What does a man do when the world demands he become something he isn’t?

Does he adapt?

Does he break?

Or does he simply… disappear?