My Dear Doctor

"Temperature ho raha hai tumhe," she said again, her voice a mix of worry and frustration as her cold fingers rested on my forehead. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t a big deal, but her tone left no room for argument. "Tum kabhi meri baat sunte kyu nahi," she added, almost pouting, though her brows were knit in concern.

"I’m fine," I managed to say, though my voice sounded weaker than I intended.

Her eyes narrowed. "Fine? Yeh fine lagta hai? Ziddi ho tum," she said, getting up abruptly to fetch the thermometer.

I watched her move around the room, her steps quick, her movements precise, the way they always were. Even in the middle of her worry, she carried herself like the professional she was—my dear doctor. But this wasn’t the hospital; this was home, and here, she was my wife first.

She returned, holding the thermometer like it was a weapon she intended to use. “Muh kholo,” she ordered, her voice softening slightly when she saw the sheepish look on my face.

I obeyed, mostly because I knew better than to argue when she was in this mood.

As we waited, she sat beside me on the edge of the bed, her hand automatically reaching for mine. She didn’t say anything, but the way her thumb gently brushed against my knuckles spoke louder than words. It was a small gesture, one she probably didn’t even realize she was doing, but it made my chest tighten.

The thermometer beeped, and she pulled it out, frowning at the reading. "101.5. Dekha? Fine keh rahe the na tum."

I shrugged weakly, trying to lighten the mood. "It’s not that bad. Tumhare touch se toh fever bhi sharma ke chala jayega."

She glared at me, but her lips twitched, betraying the smile she was trying to hide. "Tumhari yeh flirting na, mujhe hospital mein bhi sunni padti hai. Patients ke samne serious rehna hota hai, samjhe?"

"Main toh bas apni doctor-wife ko impress kar raha hoon," I said, grinning despite the dull ache in my head.

She rolled her eyes but didn’t let go of my hand. "Impress karne ke liye apni health kharab karna zaroori hai kya?"

I didn’t have an answer to that, so I just squeezed her hand.

"Ab tumhare liye soup banati hoon," she said, getting up.

Before she could leave, I tugged on her hand, making her turn back. "Mat jao," I murmured.

Her expression softened instantly. "Soup kaise banega phir?"

"Later," I said. "Abhi bas tum yahin raho."

She sighed but sat back down, pulling the blanket over me properly. "Ziddi ho," she muttered again, though there was no bite in her words.

I leaned my head against her shoulder, closing my eyes. "Ziddi hoon, par tumhari zidd toh chhodne ka mann nahi karta," I whispered.

For a while, we just sat there. It was such a simple moment, but it felt like a lot. Her presence, her touch, the way she didn’t need to say anything to make me feel cared for—it was enough to heal anything.

"Mera tumhare bina kya hoga?" I asked softly, not really expecting an answer.

She paused, her hand stilling for a moment before resuming its gentle rhythm. "Soup ki jagah injection," she said, her voice playful but warm.

I laughed against her shoulder, letting her words settle.

Later, when she finally got up to make the soup, she kissed my forehead before leaving. "Just 5 minutes and I will be back with soup," she said.

And for those five minutes, I missed her like it had been five years.

A Question of Love

I had been pacing my room for the past hour, the floor creaking softly under my restless steps. Outside, the night was quiet, the streetlights casting long shadows on the pavement. My phone lay on the desk, screen dark, but it might as well have been staring at me, daring me to pick it up.

I had been thinking about her for days. Not in the usual way—her laughter, her way of tucking her hair behind her ear, or the way her eyes seemed to hold entire conversations without saying a word. No, this was different.

I was trying to understand why I loved her.

It wasn’t the kind of love that bursts forth, loud and consuming. It was quieter, like a steady hum in the background of my life. It was in the way I noticed the small things about her—how she always chose the corner seat in a café or how she would pause mid-sentence to find the perfect word.

But the more I thought about it, the more I questioned myself. Did I have the right to love her?

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x

The first time I met her, she was sitting in the library, a book in her hands and a pencil tucked behind her ear. I had walked past her table, trying not to stare, but she had looked up and caught me mid-step.

“Looking for something?” she had asked, her voice soft but confident.

“Just... a book,” I had stammered, feeling like an idiot.

She had smiled then, a small, knowing smile, and gestured to the shelves behind her. “Plenty of those here.”

It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t even love at second or third sight. It was something that grew over time, like a plant you didn’t realize you were watering until it had taken root.

I sat down on the edge of my bed, running a hand through my hair. Why did I love her? Was it because she made the world seem a little less heavy? Or because she had a way of making the mundane feel magical?

But then came the second question, the one that had been gnawing at me: Did I have the right to love her?

She didn’t owe me anything. She hadn’t asked for my affection, hadn’t invited me into her world in the way I wanted to be there. She was kind, yes, but kindness wasn’t an invitation. It was just who she was.

I remembered the time she had talked about her dreams. We had been sitting on a park bench, the sun setting behind us.

“I want to travel,” she had said, her eyes lighting up. “Not just to see places, but to understand them. To feel the stories they hold.”

I had nodded, hanging on to every word.

“What about you?” she had asked, turning the question back to me.

“I... I want to write,” I had said, though it felt insignificant compared to her grand plans.

“Then write,” she had replied simply, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

I stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the empty street. Loving her felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing the fall would hurt but unable to step back.

Maybe love wasn’t about having a right. Maybe it was about giving, about feeling, about letting yourself be vulnerable even when there were no guarantees.

But even as I thought that, a part of me held back. What if she didn’t feel the same? What if my love was a burden she didn’t want to carry?

The phone buzzed, breaking my thoughts. A message from her.

“Hey, are you awake?”

My heart skipped a beat. I picked up the phone, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.

“Yeah,” I typed back. “What’s up?”

Her reply came almost instantly. “Nothing. Just couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d say hi.”

I stared at the screen, a small smile tugging at my lips.

“Hi,” I replied, my heart a little lighter.

In that moment, I realized something. Maybe I didn’t need to have the right to love her. Maybe it was enough to care, to be there, to let her know she wasn’t alone.

And maybe, just maybe, that was what love was all about.

Session 4:

I stared at the invitation on my desk, its gold-embossed letters gleaming mockingly under the desk lamp. A wedding. An elaborate affair, no doubt. The kind where everyone pretended to care, their laughter too loud, their smiles too wide. The kind of event where I always felt out of place.

My mother had insisted I attend. “It’s family,” she’d said, as if blood ties were reason enough to subject myself to a room full of judgmental stares and probing questions. But I didn’t go. I couldn’t.

Not because of the people I hated. I’d long learned to ignore their snide remarks and unsolicited advice. No, it was because of the one person who wouldn’t be there.

Her.

She wasn’t family. Not in the traditional sense. But she was more than that. She was the thread that tied my fragmented world together. Her voice, her laughter, the way she could turn the most mundane detail into a story worth hearing—it was her absence that made gatherings like these unbearable.

The morning after the wedding, she called.

“How was the function?” she asked, her voice soft, like a melody I hadn’t heard in years but still remembered every note of.

“I didn’t go,” I replied.

“Why not?”

“There were people I hate,” I said bluntly, then paused before adding, “and none I love.”

Her silence on the other end was heavy, filled with the kind of understanding that only she could offer.

“You could have gone anyway,” she said finally. “Not everyone there was a stranger.”

“No,” I said, my voice quieter now, almost a whisper. “But you weren’t there.”

Her sigh was barely audible, but I felt it. “You know I can’t always be everywhere you want me to be,” she said, her tone tinged with something I couldn’t place. Regret? Guilt?

“I know,” I murmured, the words more for myself than for her.

The conversation drifted into safer waters after that. She told me about her week—a new project, a book she’d started, the way the sunset painted her balcony in hues of orange and pink. I listened, letting her words fill the void, even as they deepened it.

When the call ended, I stared at the unopened invitation again. My mother had called me selfish for skipping the wedding, accused me of being too wrapped up in my own world. Maybe she was right. But what was the point of being there if the only person who made the noise bearable wasn’t?

I thought back to the psychologist’s office, to the questions she’d asked. Why do you isolate yourself? Why do you find it so hard to connect?

I didn’t have an answer then, and I didn’t have one now. All I knew was that her absence left a void that no crowded room could fill.

The truth was, I didn’t hate weddings. I hated being reminded of what I didn’t have.

And her? She made everything feel like home. But she wasn’t there. She was never there when it mattered most.

I folded the invitation neatly and placed it in a drawer, shutting it away along with the questions I didn’t want to answer.

The psychologist’s voice echoed in my mind: “You still can’t remember her face, can you?”

No, I couldn’t.

But I remembered her laugh. The way she said my name. The way her absence turned social gatherings into lonely affairs.

And maybe that was enough. Or maybe it wasn’t.

I didn’t know anymore.

The Other Side of the Room

I sat in the corner of the coffee shop, staring at the rain streaking down the window. The tea in front of me had gone cold, but I didn’t bother asking for another. The hum of conversation filled the room—soft laughter, the clinking of cups, chairs scraping against the floor—but none of it touched me.

The invitation had come last week, delivered with a smile that didn’t reach their eyes. “It’ll be fun,” they had said. “Everyone’s going to be there.”

Everyone, I thought. Everyone except someone I wanted to see.

My phone buzzed on the table. I glanced at the screen: a message from Riya. “Why didn’t you come?”

I stared at the words for a moment before typing back, “There were people I hate, there were none I love. I do not enjoy such lonely social gatherings.”

Her reply came almost instantly. “You always say that. But maybe if you came, you’d find someone worth loving.”

I let out a small laugh, shaking my head. She didn’t understand. It wasn’t about the people or the place. It was about the emptiness I felt when I was surrounded by faces that didn’t matter.

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x

I thought back to the last time I had gone to one of these gatherings. It had been Diwali, the lights strung up like constellations, the air thick with the scent of sweets and the sound of laughter. I had stood in a corner, a plate of food in my hand, watching the room move around me like a river I couldn’t step into.

I had tried to join a conversation once, offering a comment about the fireworks. The group had nodded politely before steering the discussion back to something else. I had felt like a ghost, present but unseen.

Later that night, someone had asked me why I looked so serious. “You should smile more,” they had said, as if that would fix everything.

The waiter approached my table, breaking my thoughts. He placed a fresh cup of tea in front of me, along with a small plate of biscuits.

“I didn’t order this,” I said.

“It’s on the house,” he replied with a kind smile. “You look like you could use it.”

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” I murmured finally.

He nodded and walked away, leaving me with the unexpected gift. I picked up a biscuit, taking a small bite. It wasn’t much, but it felt like someone had noticed me.

The phone buzzed again. “You could have at least told me you weren’t coming,” Riya’s message read.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” I replied.

“You disappoint me more when you don’t show up,” she shot back.

I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “What’s the point of going somewhere if you feel more alone in the crowd than you do by yourself?”

This time, her response took longer. When it came, it was simple: “The point is to find the one person who makes you feel less alone.”

I thought about the stars and the moon, about the promises people make in moments of passion. I had once told someone I’d bring them the stars, but now I knew better. I couldn’t give anyone the stars, but I could sit with them under the sky, pointing out constellations. I couldn’t promise the moon, but I could walk with them under its light, sharing silences that didn’t feel heavy.

It wasn’t about grand gestures. It was about the little things—about being there, about noticing when someone needed a fresh cup of tea or a kind word.

The rain had stopped by the time I left the coffee shop. The air was crisp, the kind that made you breathe a little deeper. I walked home slowly, thinking about Riya’s words. Maybe she was right. Maybe I needed to stop waiting for someone to pull me out of the corner and start stepping into the room myself.

But not tonight. Tonight, I was content with the memory of the waiter’s kindness and the warmth of a biscuit shared in silence.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough for now.

It was Patiala Junction

The kind of cold that made the air feel heavier, sharp against your skin. Each breath fogged the air, little clouds that vanished as quickly as they appeared. The night was alive in its own subdued way. A chaiwala shuffled between benches, balancing his battered kettle, calling out, “Chai garam! Chai le lo!” (Hot tea! Get your tea!) His voice cracked with effort, but no one seemed to notice, too wrapped in their scarves and their impatience.

I stood near the edge of the platform, hands shoved deep into my jacket pockets, watching the faint glow of the distant signals. The announcement blared again, jolting me out of my thoughts:

"Yatri kripya dhyan dein. Gadi sankhya 14816, Shri Ganganagar Intercity Express, apne nirdharit samay se teen ghante vilamb se chal rahi hai."
(Attention, passengers. Train number 14816, Shri Ganganagar Intercity Express, is delayed by three hours from its scheduled time.)

I sighed, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. The platform clock read 10:37 PM, its red digits glaring back at me as if mocking my impatience. The Dadar Express was my ride home, but home could wait. Right now, it felt like even the universe wanted me to stay here a little longer.

That’s when I saw her.

She walked onto the platform, cutting through the haze of fog like a quiet revelation. She wasn’t hurried, wasn’t flustered by the cold or the chaos around her. A white shawl wrapped loosely around her shoulders caught the faint, flickering light from the overhead lamps. Her duffle bag swung casually by her side, and there was a certain calmness to her movements, like she belonged here—like this moment had been crafted just for her.

“Ek dam gori-chitti, dudh wargi.”
(Fair and glowing, like milk.)

The words echoed in my head, a phrase my grandmother used to say about women with porcelain skin. But it wasn’t just her complexion—it was the way she carried herself, an effortless grace that felt out of place in a setting like this.

I watched her stop near a bench at the far end of the platform. She set her bag down, rubbed her hands together, and glanced around like she was searching for something—or someone. My eyes followed her movements, but I stayed rooted where I was, unsure if I should approach or just let her be.

The chaiwala passed by, his cries cutting through the quiet hum of the station. “Ek chai dena, bhaiya,” I called out, my voice cracking slightly. (One tea, brother.)

The warmth of the glass cup felt good against my frozen fingers. I took a sip, watching the steam curl upwards as I turned back toward her. She was sitting now, her posture relaxed but her eyes sharp, scanning the platform as if taking it all in.

The silence between us wasn’t just silence; it was charged, as though the cold air carried something unspoken.

Then, before I knew it, I was walking toward her. My feet moved on their own, and the tea sloshed dangerously close to the rim of the cup as I got closer.

“Train’s late,” I said when I was finally near enough to speak.

She turned her head, her eyes meeting mine with a curious, steady gaze. “I know,” she said simply, her voice as calm as she looked.

I hesitated, unsure how to keep the conversation alive. But she didn’t seem uncomfortable; she just turned back toward the tracks, her shawl slipping slightly off one shoulder.

“What about you?” she asked after a moment, surprising me. “Is your train late too?”

I nodded. “Three hours.”

She gave a soft laugh, shaking her head. “That’s Indian Railways for you.”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling despite myself. “You get used to it.”

The announcement crackled again, this time for her train:

"Yatri kripya dhyan dein. Gadi sankhya 56789, Amritsar Shatabdi, apne nirdharit samay se 14 ghante deri se chal rahi hai. Yeh gai platform number teen par aa rahi hai."
(Attention, passengers. Train number 56789, Amritsar Shatabdi, is running with a delay of 14 hours and is arriving on platform number three.)

She stood, brushing off invisible dust from her shawl, and reached for her bag.

“That’s me,” she said, her tone light but final.

“Where are you headed?” I asked, my voice softer now, as if trying to delay her departure.

“Home,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“And where’s home?”

She paused, her lips curving into a faint smile. “Just a small town. You wouldn’t know it.”

“I could guess,” I offered, hoping to make her linger just a little longer.

She laughed, the sound warm against the cold. “Maybe next time.”

She turned toward the train that had just pulled in, its windows glowing faintly against the foggy backdrop. The doors hissed open, and passengers spilled onto the platform, their voices blending into a symphony of hurried farewells and directions.

She took a step toward the train, then stopped, glancing back at me.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

I told her, and she nodded, repeating it softly under her breath as though committing it to memory.

“I’m Priya,” she said.

Priya. The name felt like it belonged to this night, to the cold, to the silence that had hung between us like an unspoken promise.

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” she said, her voice almost lost in the noise of the boarding passengers.

And just like that, she turned and climbed onto the train.

I stood there, the warmth of the tea long forgotten, watching as her silhouette disappeared into the coach.

“Priya,” I whispered, the name feeling strange and familiar all at once.

The train began to move, its wheels groaning against the tracks, and her window passed by me, blurring her face into the fog.

I stayed on the platform long after the train was gone, the words she’d left me with replaying in my mind.

“Maybe I’ll see you again.”

I clenched the empty tea cup in my hand, feeling the cold seep back in, and whispered to the quiet night:

“I want to see you again.”

An Hour Long Call.

I hadn’t planned to call her. It wasn’t a conscious decision, more like a reflex, the kind you don’t think about until it’s already in motion. The clock on my desk said 7:12 PM when I dialed her number, expecting the usual five minutes of small talk—routine, polite, forgettable.

She answered on the third ring, her voice warm and familiar. “Hey, you called.”

“I did,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Hope it’s a good time.”

“For you? Always.”

The way she said it, casually but with an undercurrent of sincerity, made me pause. She had this way of making you feel like the center of the universe without even trying. It was dangerous, that kind of power.

We started with the usual—work, the weather, the absurdity of traffic. She told me about a stray cat that had taken to lounging on her balcony, a scruffy little thing with mismatched eyes. “I think it’s adopted me,” she said, laughing softly.

I told her about my day, though it wasn’t much to talk about. Meetings that dragged on, a colleague’s bad joke, the way the evening light had turned the office windows golden for a fleeting moment. She listened, her occasional hums and chuckles making even my dullest anecdotes feel like stories worth telling.

Somewhere along the way, the conversation shifted. It always did with her.

“Do you ever think about what makes life beautiful?” she asked suddenly.

“Like sunsets and art and all that?” I replied, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Not just that,” she said. “The small things. The things we don’t notice until they’re gone.”

I thought about it for a moment, about how often I took her voice for granted, the way it wrapped around me like a favorite song. “Yeah,” I said finally. “I think I do.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was the kind of silence that felt full, like a pause between verses of a poem.

She started talking again, about a dream she’d had, about her favorite childhood memory, about the way she once spent an entire day watching the rain. And I listened, not just to her words but to the way she said them, the way her voice carried a quiet joy even when she talked about the bittersweet.

Time slipped away without either of us noticing. The clock on my desk read 8:14 PM by the time we hung up. What was supposed to be a quick call had turned into an hour-long conversation, the kind that leaves you feeling lighter and heavier all at once.

As I sat there, staring at the phone in my hand, I realized something I’d known all along but never put into words.

I wouldn’t say I loved her with every cell of my body. Cells die and get replaced; they’re fleeting, temporary. She wasn’t. She was more like my eyes—not something I needed to live, but something that made life infinitely more beautiful.

She was the lens through which the world seemed brighter, softer, more forgiving. And though she might never know it, every moment I spent with her, even over a phone call, felt like a gift.

An hour. Sixty minutes. Three thousand six hundred seconds.

And yet, it wasn’t enough. It never would be.

2025, First Text.

The clock on my desk flickered to 12:01 AM, its soft glow carving shadows into the walls of my room. Outside, the world was bursting into celebrations—fireworks painting the sky, distant cheers echoing through the streets, the occasional crackle of laughter spilling from balconies. But here, in the stillness of my room, there was only the hum of my thoughts and the faint vibration of my phone, the cursor blinking against her name.

"I love you."

Three words. A confession. A declaration. A prayer. I typed them slowly, as though they might collapse under the weight of their meaning. My thumb hovered over the send button for an eternity. Would it ruin everything? Would it make me smaller in her eyes? Would it make her leave?

But when you’ve carried a love like this—quiet, relentless, and all-consuming—you learn that silence is the heaviest burden of all.

I pressed send.

The seconds stretched into an ache. I stared at the message as if willing it to disappear, to undo itself before it reached her. But then the tiny grey ticks turned blue. She’d read it. My chest tightened, my breath caught. Somewhere, someone burst a balloon outside, its sharp pop ricocheting through the air, and I flinched.

Her reply came after eight minutes. I counted every one of them.

"Why now?"

Two words. A question that held a thousand unspoken answers. Why now? Because I couldn’t carry it into another year. Because every moment I spent with her—her laugh, her voice, her maddening habit of tying her hair with a pen when she couldn’t find a scrunchie—made me love her more. Because the spaces between us were growing too vast, and I was afraid one day she’d slip through the cracks.

Because I love her.

I typed and erased my response four times before finally settling on, "Because it’s true."

The dots that signaled her typing appeared, then vanished, then reappeared again. My heart thrummed against my ribs like a trapped bird. When her message finally came, it was a single sentence.

"You know I can’t love you back."

I read it once. Twice. A third time, hoping the words might rearrange themselves into something softer. They didn’t. They never would.

I closed my eyes and let the weight of her reply settle over me. It wasn’t a surprise; I’d known this truth for as long as I’d loved her. She’d never led me on, never given me false hope. She was kind like that—kind enough to stay, to talk to me when I needed her, to acknowledge my love without returning it. But kindness is a double-edged sword, and tonight, it cut deeper than ever.

Still, I couldn’t stop myself. I opened our chat again and typed: "I don’t need you to love me back. I just need you to know."

This time, her reply came quickly. "I do know. And I don’t deserve it."

I laughed bitterly at that. How could she not see what I saw? The way she made the world feel lighter just by existing. The way her presence turned ordinary moments into memories I clung to. The way she made me want to be better, to be enough, even though I knew I never would be.

I typed, "You deserve everything beautiful of this world."

The dots appeared again, lingered, then disappeared. She didn’t reply. Maybe she didn’t know what to say, or maybe she knew that no words could fix this. Either way, the silence that followed was deafening.

I sat there, staring at the screen until the fireworks outside began to fade, until the world grew quiet again. Somewhere, someone was waking up to a new beginning. Somewhere, someone was holding the hand of the person they loved, stepping into the year with hearts full of hope.

But not me.

For me, the year began with an ending. An unspoken goodbye wrapped in a confession that could never be returned.

And yet, as I put my phone down and leaned back against the wall, I felt a strange sense of peace. She knew. She might not love me, but she knew. And sometimes, that’s all you can ask for.

The rain began to fall softly against the windowpane, each drop a quiet reminder that some things are beautiful even in their ache.

I closed my eyes and whispered her name into the stillness, my first and last prayer of the night.

"I love you."