Neelu hadn’t planned on going to the market. But most of her choices these days were unplanned — quiet detours from the life she had lived by routine for years.
She drifted past the fruit carts and sabziwalas, drawn instead to the quiet chaos of the flea market — chipped teacups, rusty tools, old posters, and used books stacked under a faded blue tarp like memories waiting to be found.
At one such stall, a teenage boy offered her a tattered Sidney Sheldon. She smiled politely and reached instead for The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. She’d read it long ago, but didn’t remember much — just that it had once moved her. This copy, soft-spined and weathered, felt like it had stories beyond the printed ones. She bought it without bargaining.
At home, the afternoon wore its usual quiet: a ceiling fan spinning slowly, a pressure cooker hissing somewhere nearby, a Kishore Kumar song drifting in from a neighbour’s house.
Neelu changed into her lavender nightie and made herself elaichi chai with two Parle-G biscuits, like always. She settled into her favourite chair by the window, the old recliner with squeaky arms, and opened the book. Somewhere around page 143, something fluttered out.
A letter. Neatly folded, pressed flat by time. Lined notebook paper. Blue ink.
No date. Just words.
Dear Shikha,
I don’t know how to begin, except to say that I never imagined I would ever have to write something like this to you.
I’ve tried for days now — to explain things, to fight them, to find some version of us that still exists within the rules I was born into. But nothing has worked.
My mother won’t agree. I thought love would be enough. That if she saw how happy I was with you, she’d come around. But she hasn’t. And I’ve reached the end of every argument, every hope.
Letting go of you is not something I’m doing because I stopped loving you. I’m doing it because I love you — and I can’t drag you into a life filled with apologies and explanations you never deserved to give.
I’m sorry. For the cowardice. For not being able to protect what we had.
I’ll carry you with me. Maybe in some other lifetime we’ll find each other again.
And then, we won’t let go.
Yours. Always,
Ajay
Neelu sat still, the letter trembling slightly in her fingers.
And suddenly, she wasn’t in her 2BHK anymore. She was nineteen again. Back in college. Back when she’d met Sameer.
Her own story had once teetered on the same fragile edge.
Sameer’s mother had threatened never to see his face again. Her father had gone silent — stopped speaking to her altogether, like she’d become invisible.
And yet, they had done it.
One humid June afternoon, with sweat clinging to their backs and hearts thudding louder than traffic, Neelu and Sameer stood inside the cramped office of the Lucknow district court. She wore a simple yellow salwar-kameez; he had ironed his only formal shirt twice that morning. Their two closest friends stood behind them — nervous, smiling, holding a box of sweets and borrowed courage.
“Are you sure?” her friend Meeta had whispered, one hand on Neelu’s shoulder.
Neelu had nodded, eyes fixed on Sameer. “Itna sure toh kabhi kisi exam mein bhi nahi thi,” she had smiled, only half-joking.
No rituals, no family, no flowers — just a pen, some signatures, and the stubborn pulse of a love that refused to give in.
They found a one-room flat near Hazratganj with peeling paint and a leaky tap that sang at night. They bought a second-hand gas stove, shared everything — chai in chipped mugs, second-hand dreams scribbled on the backs of old bills.
They fought sometimes — usually over tea.
“Tum chai mein paani kitna daalte ho?”
“Aur tum toh cheeni hi nahi daalti! Yeh koi punishment hai kya?”
But they always made up over anda-paratha and sleepy laughter.
They didn’t have much — but they had each other, and the quiet certainty that no one else in the world had picked this life for them. They had chosen it themselves. Together.
Two years later, Prerna was born.
Their world — sleepless, sticky, full of lullabies and feeding bottles — had suddenly become brighter. And slowly, like rain softening dry earth, their families began to return. Her father first. Then his mother, holding Prerna awkwardly at first, and then with growing warmth.
Their daughter had done what their love couldn’t — she had mended broken bonds.
The wind chimes’ soft ting broke her thoughts. Neelu blinked. The present returned, folding itself gently over memory.
6 PM. Sameer would be home any minute now.
She got up, placed the book and letter back on the side table, and walked to the kitchen. She measured tea leaves with practiced ease. Heated oil in a pan. Sliced onions thinly for the pakode — Sameer’s favourite.
Their love was quieter now, less like thunder, more like sunlight through curtains. But it still lived. In little rituals. In shared silences. In knowing what the other liked with their tea.
Outside, the sky turned orange. Inside, the smell of fried onions rose warm and familiar. And somewhere on the table, between pages 143 and 144, a letter stayed — not as a wound, but as a whisper.
Of love that tried. Of a story that almost was.
Baatein & Beyond 