In Another LIfe, Us

Art is what an artist love to create in order to express himself, it may be liked by all or may be disliked by all.. but the real value of that art is not in others liking or disliking it,

The real value of that art has been already consumed by the artist during its creation process…everything else remains secondary.

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Disclaimer - This is a fictional story and all the characters are not related to anyone from real life. If any character matches with any real life person you know, it’s just a coincidence.

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Ishita, you have the most beautiful eyes in the entire world ever and I deeply adore them. They calm me down at my core of being, whenever I get a little chance to look at them, I feel blessed. And you know your name resembles the peace that you bring with yourself. Always smile like this, as you have the most adorable one.

You didn’t know this, but I didn’t see you for the first time in that wedding in Bardhaman Bhavan in 2020 when you were wearing that dark black gown, you were looking so beautiful that day before the lockdown was about to begin. I actually saw you long before that in 2008 and from that time you remain my first crush. Throughout all these years in between I have been wondering who that girl was and then when I saw you in 2020, all those memories became real again, you came back to my life. But then again I lost you. I am losing you multiple times. You are someone really very special to me and remember that no matter what I will always be there for you at your side. I lost you once to get you again and I cannot afford to lose you again.

- Raahi

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PROLOGUE

Winter Night of February, 2022. College Hostel Room. Diamond Harbour, West Bengal, India.

A biting frost clings to the skeletal college hostel on this February night in 2022. The corridors, cavernous and hollow, stretch into the gloom, undisturbed by the living. Somewhere in the vast distance, a solitary dog lets out a sharp, mournful bark that shatters the brittle silence before it is swallowed whole by the oppressive, icy stillness of the dark.

Why does it feel as though the very essence of me is hemorrhaging? Is this the sum of it? Is this the unremarkable threshold of the end? Just me, suspended in this vacuum! Nothing carries weight anymore; the world will continue its orbit, oblivious to my absence.

Is this the visceral sensation of death? This profound, paralyzing inertia—where my limbs have become leaden and my voice is a phantom I can no longer summon. Is my legacy to be a mere footnote, an unfulfilled potentiality departing a world that never truly knew my name? Am I but a lost opportunity? A brilliant sun extinguished before dawn, leaving only the wreckage of what might have been. What was the core of my existence? To radiate love! To be a vessel for love! To simply love.

A thousand interrogations crash against my consciousness like rogue waves in a violent tempest, a kaleidoscope of childhood memories flickering in the dying light of my mind. I am a statue of flesh, immobile and cold. Amidst the swirling fragments of my history, her visage emerges—my Ishita—the singular, luminous constant. If I could have glimpsed her one final time, I would have unburdened my soul; I would have whispered how she remains my anchor, my sanctuary. Why did she shroud her heart in silence? Why did she keep the truth veiled behind those beautiful eyes?

Sensory perception is dissolving; I can no longer feel the boundaries of my own skin. I am becoming a singularity in the void, a consciousness without a vessel, expanding into the boundless architecture of space. I exist without existing. Time has lost its teeth; I cannot discern if seconds or eons have passed in this state. It is not merely emptiness; it is a sublime, velvet nothingness—a profound peace where the very concept of ‘self’ is a discarded garment.

Where has my spirit drifted? I am untethered. Only the exquisite tranquility of the absolute remains, a place where I am not a witness to the void, but the void itself.

Then—the black diary, the sacred archive of my soul, slipped from my slackened grasp. It tumbled from the edge of the mattress and struck the floor with a hollow, final thud.

My blue pen skitters across the tiles, a frantic, rhythmic tapping that dies in the corner of the room. The diary lies splayed open, its pages fluttering like the wings of a dying bird before settling into stillness. There, etched in jagged, defiant ink, are the words: “Main khelega! Main khelega!”—a vow born of desperation when she was the only victory I sought. On that day, I chose to stay in the arena, even when the sky was falling. And now, a new, unwelcome shadow beckons from the threshold, its breath a cold, ethereal mist against my cheek. Hot tears pool in the wells of my eyes as her memory flares one last time, yet I lack the strength to even wipe the salt from my skin.

A suffocating silence descends, heavy as a shroud. Then, a mere vibration in the air, my final utterance drifts forth: “Ishita…” It is a fragile, crystalline sound. I speak her name into the eternity of the room. “Ishita… my love for you is a bottomless well, a truth you may never possess... I love you with everything I am.” This confession is not for the living, but a silent prayer vibrating through the core of my being. And then, the light recedes into the unknown.

—

This is his last word, he says nothing after this. The hostel grows unnaturally quiet outside, the trees too remain frozen in the winter night, with not a single leaf that is stirring. Only the restless cry of the crickets are breaking through the silence of the night. Slowly, slowly, one by one, the hostel windows begin to turn black from outside from where a dog is looking at those windows with soft blinking eyes. Firstly, one light switches off, then another, and then another. Until the entire block is swallowed by darkness, only, except for one room. Room 340. Behind its closed curtains, a strong tube light is still glowing. In the distant corridor, the hostel clock strikes two. Looking at his watch, a man starts to climb up the hostel stairs, his footsteps echoing along the staircase as he steps up hurriedly. Wrapped tightly in a woollen shawl, he shivers slightly against the cold as he reaches the third floor, walks a little forward and stops at the door marked 340. He is the hostel’s security guard, who rarely smiles. Perhaps his thick facial skin doesn’t allow that smiling expression.Beside the door of room no 340, on its right side there is a switchboard fixed to the wall. He reaches out his hand and turns the switch off. The corridor light dies instantly. But immediately he notices that all the lights in the hostel are turned off right now. Still from beneath the door of room 340, there is a thin, stubborn line of white light still spilling out. He pauses for a moment, thinking.

Looking at the door, he thinks, I have walked this corridor countless times but tonight it is feeling different. Is there something wrong?

For a long moment, he simply stands there, looking at the door and questions himself. Then, almost without asking, a realization touches him. And a small, quiet smile touches his face that he never gives - soft, unexpected, and strangely calm. He remembers that this boy mostly studies at night, he often witnesses him going to the washroom at night and that could be the only reason why his light in his room is still on. I should not disturb him. He must be studying.He turns back with a relief in his heart and walks down the stairs a few steps when a sudden brush of cold air passes across his face which stops him right where he is standing at the moment. Slowly, he turns back behind toward room 340, his gaze drawn once again to that narrow strip of light. His brows tighten slightly, a faint unease settling inside him. Removing his negative thoughts, he starts to descend downstairs, as footsteps fade back, shallows in into the darkness of the night.

The next winter morning arrives under a blanket of thick fog, the sky is heavy and grey. There is very little traffic on the road. Cars are crawling slowly through the heavy mist on the diamond harbour highway, their headlights cutting weak beams into the same thick fog. Most of them are keeping their hazard lights on.

In the college’s vast playground, a few students are playing football without wearing any sports shoes. Sheuli flowers are scattered across the green ground beneath the Sheuli tree, their sweet scent hanging gently around the main gate, where another security guard is holding a phone to his ears dialling someone’s number, in the air. Different birds are chirping all around the lushful green trees around the campus.

Someone is climbing the stairs rapidly, taking two steps at a time — her hurried footsteps echo around the staircase: tuh... tuh... tuh... tuh...

In the girls’ hostel, Room 340, the door is half open.Rigzin, a first year student of the Reotia University, stands before her mirror, humming a soulful Bengali song softly in a cheerful mood as she holds a pair of beautiful earrings to her ears, wondering whether they match her dress.

The song - Kon gopone mon pureche, bristi thamar pore, amar bhitor ghore…

Suddenly, the door bursts open.

A girl rushes in completely breathless, her eyes wide with excitement and her voice trembling with urgency.

“Rigzin!” she shouts standing at the door, “Did you hear? A boy from the boys’ hostel… Room 340. Has committed suicide!”

“What are you saying? Have you gone mad?” Rigzin snaps, irritation flashing across her face.

But then, her expression changes. “What room number did you just said?”“340!”“What! Have you gone mad?”The glorious happy color immediately fades away from the face of Rigzin, completely draining from her face. She freezes, staring into the mirror — her eyes widens, her features softened into an almost childlike stillness.

“What? Three-forty?” She repeats slowly.

She looks at the sky like a child, time seems to pause for a moment of realisation. Her thoughts stop. The room number keeps echoing in her head. She knows it. Her own room number is also 340.

She remembers. Once, she had casually asked this boy, “What’s your room number?”

He smiled and said, “Three-forty.” What a smile he has.

The earrings she is holding in her hand for so long and looking at the mirror, slips from her fingers, hits the floor and tear apart.

“Raahi…” she whispers, turning toward the girl who brought the news.

Seeing Rigzin’s face so stricken, the girl’s excitement fades instantly. Her expression turns cold; she cannot hold Rigzin’s gaze. Her eyes drop to the floor. Seeing the girl’s face go cold and her eyes drop to the floor, Rigzin’s left cheek—just beneath her eye—starts to quiver. Her throat tightens even more. She doesn’t want to believe what she’s just heard. Not this. Not now.

Is this even true? How can I accept what I just heard?Why? Why would he do this?

Her gaze too falls to the floor and she notices the earrings lie there, glinting faintly. Immediately, her mind floods with flashes—Raahi’s laugh. His short hair. His glasses. The silly jokes. The quiet pauses. That one afternoon in the lab—last bench—when he sat alone, wearing that tired, sad smile she had never noticed.

Why did I never bother to ask if he was really alright?

Lifting her gaze to the mirror, an unanswered question keeps on throbbing inside her.

Why? Has he gone mad? No! How can I live without him?

Rigzin spins away from the mirror. Clothes lie scattered across her bed. The earrings she had picked out are still there on the floor, long forgotten.

She doesn’t care. She runs—straight out of her room, straight toward the boys’ hostel. Behind her, the girl who brought the news hurries to keep up.