The final school bell had rung, and like a flock set free, the students poured out into the corridor, the air filling with laughter, chatter, and footsteps shuffling against the dusty tiles.
But Ishaan Sharma didn’t rush. He never did.
He stood at the corner of the verandah, half hidden behind a pillar weathered by years of monsoons and sun, watching the world with that same quiet, curious stillness that had started to draw attention — especially Myra’s.
Her friends were giggling as usual — Anjali in particular was animated, narrating something with wild hand gestures — but Myra was quieter today. Her glance, as fleeting as a breeze in spring, drifted to where Ishaan stood, head tilted slightly, eyes cast downward in thought.
They had never talked alone. Never walked together. Not even by accident.
And they never would.
Not here.
Not in this time.
Not in this place.
—
It was a different era in their little town — one where even walking in a pair of opposite genders was enough to become the centre of murmurs and raised eyebrows. A single touch — even an accidental brush of the hand — was enough to stir storms in conservative corners. Usually, the dress used to be decent and classical, with a traditional style of tying the hair. Although the subjects of study were purely science-oriented and modern, it was a good blend of tradition and modernity.
Myra, graceful and thoughtful, followed those boundaries as naturally as a river flowing within its banks. Not out of fear. But out of deep respect — for her family, her culture, her own sense of purity.
And Ishaan… Ishaan would never even imagine crossing those lines.
He barely spoke as it was.
If he ever did, it was only when asked something directly. His answers were short, sometimes just a nod, sometimes a quiet, “Hmm.” He had no idea what love meant — not in the way others his age teased or whispered about it. But when Myra was near, something happened. Not to his body, but to his breath. To his soul.
—
One afternoon, while the students waited for their class teacher, Anjali joked loudly, nudging Myra, “Look at Ishaan — again! That stillness! Myra, I think he’s about to open his Shiva’s third eye!”
Everyone burst into laughter.
Myra laughed too, her tone light, but there was a twinkle in her eye that didn’t match her laughter.
“Ishaan Sharma,” she teased across the room, “Tell us — are you meditating or planning world salvation?”
He looked up, surprised by the attention. Then — as usual — looked away, the faintest blush warming his face.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
That silence of his had its own gravity.
The kind that made even jokes fall quiet after echoing too far.
—
Many boys stayed in the small hostel attached to the school — a faded, timeworn building behind the playground. It was noisy, cramped, and full of the usual pranks, midnight whispering, and the chaotic joys of teenage boys.
But Ishaan almost never stayed back.
Each day, after the last class, while most boys ran off to games or to the hostel mess, Ishaan would begin a long journey home — several kilometers on foot just to catch a rattling state bus, which took him further into the outskirts of town. And then again, he walked.
No one understood why he put himself through that daily ritual.
But for Ishaan, there was something waiting at home that no hostel comfort could match.
—
As the sun softened and shadows stretched long on the mud path, Ishaan would arrive at his modest home — a place that smelled of earth, incense, and old wisdom. Inside, seated cross-legged near the window that opened to the backyard peepal tree, his grandfather chanted from the *Puranas* — the *Shrimad Bhagavat*, the *Shiva Purana*, or sometimes, from the *Devi Bhagavatam*.
The words floated through the evening air like gentle fireflies.
“…And when Radha saw Krishna walking away with others, she smiled, not out of jealousy, but from love that knows freedom…”
Ishaan would stand silently at the door, schoolbag still on his shoulders, listening. His great-grandmother, old and blind, sat on a woven cot nearby, swaying gently, muttering the name of Hari under her breath with every bead of her rudraksha mala.
Those stories — soaked in devotion, layered with longing and surrender — were not fiction to him.
They were mirrors.
He could feel them echoing somewhere inside, in a space still unnamed.
—
It was on one such evening, while his grandfather spoke of Radha’s love, that Ishaan found himself thinking of Myra.
*Could that kind of love still exist?*
*The kind that waits, that watches, that never asks or takes or even speaks, but simply… is?*
She had never once walked beside him. Never sat alone with him. Never touched his hand. And yet, somehow, he felt as if she lived in his breath now. Not as an obsession, but as a presence — gentle, sacred, untouchable.
Like the flute music only Radha could hear.
—
One day, during a group assignment, Myra turned to him suddenly and said, “You always listen like you’re not just hearing me, but… remembering me.”
Her voice was half-teasing, half-vulnerable.
Ishaan blinked. “Maybe I am,” he replied without thinking.
The group laughed.
Myra paused. Her smile faded just a little — replaced by something softer.
They returned to their books, but the air between them had changed.
A string had been plucked.
—
The school had announced a visit to a nearby heritage temple — an old Shiva shrine atop a small hill, as part of an educational outing. The excitement was palpable. But Myra, even here, chose to remain in the company of her close-knit circle of girls. Even during the bus ride, she sat with Anjali, keeping the invisible lines of decorum intact.
Ishaan sat near the back, watching the green hills pass by, the wind tousling his hair.
At the temple, students scattered in groups, climbing the stone steps, marvelling at the ancient architecture, clicking pictures with shaky school cameras.
Ishaan drifted towards the rear courtyard of the temple — drawn to the silent banyan tree whose roots kissed the stones below.
A breeze blew. A cowbell chimed. And from the temple’s sanctum, a faint *Om Namah Shivaya* floated outward.
He sat beneath the banyan, closing his eyes. Not to meditate. Just to *be*.
—
A few minutes later, soft footsteps approached.
It was Myra.
She didn’t sit beside him. But she stood nearby, her hands folded, eyes on the leaves swaying above.
“You feel different,” she said suddenly.
He opened his eyes.
“In what way?” he asked.
“Like someone who doesn’t belong entirely to this age.”
Ishaan gave a faint smile. “Maybe I read too many stories.”
She shook her head. “Or maybe you *remember* too many.”
There was silence again.
Then she whispered, “Tell me… what is love, really?”
He looked at her for a long moment, then answered, “I think love is what remains when all desire has fallen asleep.”
—
The bus ride back was quiet.
Nobody said much. Not even Anjali.
Ishaan sat by the window, watching the trees sway under the dimming sky. Myra was two rows ahead. But their reflections, caught briefly in the glass — her gaze looking forward, his slightly turned — touched each other.
Not a word.
Not a touch.
Just a spark.
Without words.
—
That night, at home, as his grandfather read the same verse once more — “…Radha’s love knew no possession. Only presence…” — Ishaan closed his eyes and let the story carry him.
Not into fantasy.
But into something very, very real.
