Likh kar mita bhi dena chahiye,
Kabhi kabhi.
Har baat batane ki ho,
Ye zaroori toh nahi.

-

Mujhe jashnn manane ko wajah nahi,
Bas ache log, aur ek jagah kaafi hain.

-

ताउम्र मंदिरों के चक्कर काटे,
दूसरों के मंदिरों को नकारते हुवे.
और ये तुमने मंदिर में नहीं सीखा था.

-

Kisi ki dua se tu uthe na uthe.
Par baddua lekar zaroor girega.

-

Badi dikkatein hoti hain
ek kandha dhundhne mein.
Magar char ki zaroorat ho
toh aksar badi asani se mil jaate hain.

-

Jo sapne poore ho jaate hain,
woh umr-waqt ke sathi hote hain.
Aur jo adhoore reh jaate hain,
woh zindagi ke asal sarthi hote hain.

-

Socha apna hi hai, isliye maanga nahi.
Waqt ne bataya, shayad apna tha hi nahi.

-

Ghar le liya, gaadi bhi aa gayi,
budhape ke liye thode paise bhi jamaa ho gaye.
Waqt ko thoda thaam liya,
rishton ko sambhal liya,
sehat ka bhi khayal rakh liya,
aur zimmedariyan poori tarah nibha di.
Azaadi bhi mil gayi.
Ab bas, is sapne ke khatam hone ka intezaar hai.

-

You don’t really understand people completely.
You understand the little parts,
the ones that echo something in you.

-

The Mirror Room

Chapter 1 - The Flat That Watched Me

It was a Thursday when I moved into the building.
The monsoon had just begun and the city
smelled like wet stone and jasmine.
My flat was modest high ceilings, creaky floors,
and a large antique mirror in the hallway.
The landlord said it was “original to the structure,”
but when I asked why it was placed there
facing nothing, catching no light, he just shrugged.
“It’s always been there,” he said.
“Some things you don’t move.”
The mirror was tall, framed in dark wood
carved with vines and eyes.
Not decorative. Not welcoming.
It felt like it was watching, not reflecting.
I didn’t think much of it at first.
But I noticed something strange:
no matter the time of day,
the mirror never showed the hallway behind me properly.
The angles were off.
The shadows lingered longer than they should.
And sometimes, just for a second,
I swear thought I saw someone else in it.
Not behind me. Inside it.— % &I started writing again.
Not because I felt inspired,
but because the mirror made me feel
like I was being read.

Chapter 2 - She lived Upstairs

I met Mira on my second day.
She lived one floor above me,
in a flat filled with books, plants,
and the kind of quiet that feels curated.
She studied comparative literature,
translated obscure poetry for money,
and smelled like clove and sandalwood
like dusk bottled in human form.
We first spoke in the stairwell.
I was carrying a stack of books,
and she offered to help.
“Only if you promise not to judge my taste,” I said.
She glanced at the titles.
“You’ve got one Nabokov,
two books on trauma, and a blank journal.
I’d say you’re either recovering or dangerous.”
I said, “Can’t I be both?”
She smiled. “That’s the best kind.”
I asked what she was reading.
She held up a slim volume of poetry in Hindi,
handwritten notes in the margins.
Beautiful handwriting I must say. — % &“Heartbreak,” she said. “But the elegant kind.”
I said, “Is there any other kind?”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“You tell me.”
There was a pause, comfortable, charged.
I asked if she wanted to come up for tea.
She said, “Only if it’s strong enough
to make me forget the day.”
I said, “I make mine strong enough to remember.”
She laughed. “Dangerous.”
Later, in my flat, the rain tapping against the windows,
we sat close on the edge of the bed.
The tea steamed between us.
She leaned in slowly, maybe deliberately,
until her lips were just inches from mine.
I could feel her breath, warm and spiced.
Her eyes didn’t blink.
Then she reached around me,
her hands resting gently on my back.
Her fingers paused, pressing softly
against the skin where my scars lived.
“What about these?” she asked.
I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t.
She didn’t pull away. She didn’t flinch.
She just stayed there,
close enough to feel my silence.
Then she whispered, “You wear them like armor.
But they feel like poetry.”— % &I said, “They used to be pain.
Now they’re punctuation.”
She smiled again, this time softer, slower.
And I knew: she wasn’t asking for the story.
She was asking if I trusted her
enough to let her stay.

Chapter 3 - Tea, Smoke and Something Unsaid

Mira smoked clove cigarettes.
Not often, just one or two in the evenings,
when the rain softened and the city exhaled.
The scent lingered in her clothes,
in her books, in the air around her
like a signature.
It wasn’t harsh. It was warm. Spiced. Familiar.
One night, we sat on her balcony drinking tea.
The rain had stopped,
and the city below was humming
with puddles and neon.
I watched her stir the cup slowly,
absentmindedly, like she was thinking through
something she hadn’t said yet.
“You never put much in it?,” I said.
“No tulsi or mint, or the other masala herbs.
Always just ginger and a little cardamom? ”— % &She looked at me, amused.
“Too many herbs confuse the truth.”
Then she leaned in and kissed me
soft, unhurried, like she was answering a question
I hadn’t asked aloud.
I was just a second but it felt long enough.
I wanted to kiss her again, badly, but I tried not to.
We looked in different directions
for a breathe and then back at each other.
We smiled.
And when I sipped the tea again,
it tasted like clove and cardamom.
Like her.
Later that same evening, she knocked on my door.
“I found something strange,” she said.
“In the old storage room on the roof.
You have to see it.”
I followed her up the narrow staircase,
past rusted pipes and forgotten furniture.
At the end of the corridor was a door
I hadn’t noticed before. She opened it.
Inside was a room lined with mirrors.
Floor to ceiling. Some cracked.
Some fogged. Some pristine.
Velvet cushions were scattered across the floor.
Candles flickered in the corners.
It felt untouched, yet lived in.
“This place has a name,” she whispered.
“The mirror room.”— % &Chapter 4 - Velvet and Candlelight

We sat close on the velvet,
our knees grazing, the friction subtle but electric.
The air was thick, clove, rain,
and something else: maybe anticipation.
She turned toward me, her gaze unguarded,
pupils wide, lips parted like a question.
“I don’t know why I brought you here,” she murmured.
“I just… felt like you’d understand.. me.”
She looked down and I reached for her hand.
She let me.
Her fingers curled around mine,
slow and intentional, like she was choosing me
in that moment.
Her breath caught as I leaned in,
my lips brushing hers, barely, reverently.
She tasted like cardamom and memory,
like something I’d craved before I knew it existed.
She pulled me closer,
her body melting into mine.
The mirrors around us multiplied our closeness,
infinite echoes of skin and breath and want.
Her shirt slipped from one shoulder,
revealing the curve of her neck,
the hollow beneath her collarbone
the place where her pulse whispered.— % &I kissed her there, slowly,
like I was learning her by heart.
She whispered my name like it was sacred.
We moved with aching care,
like the moment might fracture
under too much urgency.
Her skin glowed, golden and alive in the candlelight.
Her hands roamed me with quiet hunger,
mapping me with fingertips that trembled and lingered.
When she reached my back,
her touch stilled. She didn’t speak.
She traced the scars like they were constellations,
decoding the story etched into me.
No pity. Just understanding.
Then, wordlessly, she shifted,
straddling me with a grace that stole my breath.
Her thighs framed mine,
her breath warm against my cheek,
her gaze locked to mine like gravity.
It wasn’t about power.
It was about surrender. About being known.
I steadied her hips, grounding us both.
She leaned in, her forehead resting against mine,
and for a suspended eternity,
we breathed together, two bodies in sync,
wrapped in velvet and flame.
And when we unraveled together,
shuddering, gasping, undone, she leaned in,
lips brushing my ear, and whispered:
“Don’t forget this.”— % &Chapter 5 - The Room Stayed, She Didn’t

The mirror room was quiet in the morning.
The candles had burned low. Mira was gone.
I called her, out of reach.
I went to her flat. The door was locked.
I knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Nothing.
I left a note under the door.
I asked the neighbors.
Even the chai vendor on the corner.
No one had seen her.
Some didn’t remember her at all.
When I pressed the landlord, he frowned and said,
“That flat’s been empty for months.”
I stared at him. “The one upstairs. Mira’s.”
He shook his head. “Nobody’s lived there since last winter.
And previously an old man lived there.
What young girl are you talking about?”
I didn’t know what to say or believe.
I searched hospitals.
Sent emails to a university she mentioned. Nothing. Eventually, I stopped.
Not because I stopped caring,
but because the silence started answering louder
than the questions.
But the room remained. I returned often,
sitting in stillness, watching my reflection.
Sometimes, I swore I could feel her beside me.
Her warmth. Her breath. Her voice.
Just like she asked, I never forgot. — % &Chapter 6 - Reflections in Strange Places

3 Months passed.
I finished my book. I moved out.
But the mirror room stayed with me.
One night, in a different city,
I found an antique mirror in a café bathroom.
I looked into it and I swear for a moment, I saw her.
Not a ghost. Not a memory. Just her. Smiling.
And I knew: some encounters don’t end.
They echo. Forever.

Chapter 7 - The Letter

Three more months later, a letter arrived.
No return address. Just my name,
handwritten in ink that had bled slightly from humidity.
Inside was a single sheet of paper,
folded twice.
The handwriting was unmistakable.

Dhairya,
You asked me once who I was.
I didn't answer cause I couldn't.
I’ve lived in many places,
but I only ever belonged in one:
the moment we shared in the mirror room.
I didn’t disappear. I stepped sideways.
There are rooms like that scattered across the world.
Places that don’t exist on maps,
but in memory. You found one. You found me.
And I found you, through the mirror in your hallway.
It was the first one. The quiet one.
The one that watched you before you knew. — % &Your scars told me everything I needed to know.
I’m not gone. I’m just elsewhere.
I want to love you like you deserve.
But I can't live outside , not yet.
That's something I'm still trying to figure out.
If you ever find another mirror like that, step through. I’ll be waiting.

- Mira

I read it twice. Then again.
The paper trembled in my hands,
though the air was still.
I thought I knew Mira.
I thought she was just a woman who lived upstairs.
Someone who read poetry and brewed tea
and saw through me like glass.
But she was more than that.
This was too much for me to take,
too many questions, too much confusion?
She wants to live outside but she can't?
What did that mean?
But I knew the answers lied inside a mirror, with her.
And more than the answers, I wanted her.
That night, I looked through mirrors across the city,
all I could find.
I couldn't feel anything. Didn't see her.
Then I remembered the old flat,
the one I used to live in, the strange weird mirror.
I returned to my old flat. — % &It was empty now. Dusty. Quiet.
But the mirror in the hallway was still there.
I stood in front of it,
just like I had on my first day.
The frame was still carved with vines and eyes.
The glass shimmered faintly,
like it was holding its breath.
I reached out.
The surface rippled.
And just before I stepped through,
I heard her laugh, soft, familiar, waiting.
Then I stepped into the silence.
With her. — % &

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