The Word That Never Came

Pune, September 2025. The city had grown louder—flyovers slicing through old neighbourhoods, cafés blooming like wildflowers, and the hum of scooters and conversations filling every crevice. But in a quiet lane off Prabhat Road, in a second-floor apartment with peeling blue shutters, lived Kshama Datar, a 62-year-old retired literature professor who had once taught at Fergusson College. She was a spinster.

Her home smelled of sandalwood and old paper. Books lined every wall, their spines faded, their pages annotated with thoughts she never shared. A brass lamp flickered in the corner, and a framed black-and-white photograph of a man with kind eyes sat on her writing desk.

His name was Raajan Joshi. He had died twenty years ago. But Kshama still spoke to him—sometimes aloud, sometimes in her mind. What she never did was write about him.

She had spent her life teaching poetry, dissecting metaphors, and guiding students through the maze of language. But when it came to Raajan, words failed her.

On a rainy Tuesday, as the Gulmohar trees outside shed their last red leaves, Kshama received a letter. Not an email. Not a WhatsApp message. A real letter—handwritten, in blue ink, on cream paper.

It was from Ruchi, Raajan’s daughter from his broken marriage. Kshama had met Ruchi only once, in 2005, at Raajan’s funeral. She had been 15 then—angry, confused, and distant.

Now, Ruchi wrote:

Dear Kshama Kaku,
I found some of my father’s journals while cleaning our old house in Kothrud. There’s a page about you. Just one. But it’s beautiful.
I thought you should have it.
Warmly, Ruchi.

Enclosed was a torn page. She immediately recognised Raajan’s handwriting—slanted, elegant—filled the sheet.

तिने कधी प्रेमाचं शब्दात सांगितलं नाही,  

पण तिचं मौन, कबुलीपेक्षा कमी नव्हतं काही.  

एक शब्दाची वाट पाहत राहिलो मी,  

शब्द नव्हता, पण त्याचं अस्तित्व होतं ती

“She never said she loved me. But her silence was louder than any confession. I waited for a word. Just one. But maybe the absence of it was the word itself.”

Kshama read it thrice. Then folded it carefully and placed it inside her copy of T.S. Eliot’s "Four Quartets".

Her mind wandered into the past. The year was 2000. Kshama was 37, Raajan 40. He was a visiting lecturer from Mumbai, invited to conduct a workshop on modern Indian poetry. He always wore crisp khadi kurtas, always white, and carried a leather satchel filled with books and loose papers.

They met in the college library. She was shelving a copy of "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath. He asked, “Do you think Plath was brave or broken?”

She replied, “Both. Isn’t that's what poetry is?”

Their conversations began with literature and ended in long walks through the lanes of Deccan Gymkhana, sipping cutting chai and quoting Kusumagraj, GA Kulkarni, W B Yeats and John Keats in the same vein.

But they never spoke of love. Not directly.

One evening, under the banyan tree near Balgandharva, he said, “If I were to leave tomorrow, would you miss me?”

She looked at him, eyes steady. “I would remember you.”

That was all.

 

Today, Kshama sat at her desk, staring at the letter. She hadn’t cried in years. But now, tears came—not loud, not dramatic. Just quiet drops that stained the paper.

She opened her diary and wrote:

Some words remain where silence stays,
Not lost in fear, nor hidden haze
They burn too bright to be broken
Too sacred still to be spoken.

She remembered a verse she had once scribbled in a notebook, never shared:

I stitched my silence in sari’s seam,
To hold my heart and every dream.
You searched my eyes for words unsaid —
But I had breathed them deep instead.

Ruchi called the next day and asked directly. “Can I come see you?”

Kshama hesitated, but replied. “Of course.”

Ruchi arrived in jeans and a kurta, her hair tied in a loose braid. She looked like Raajan, the dimple on the left cheek — same eyes, same quiet intensity — but her steps were unsure, her demeanor hesitant. She stood at the threshold of Kshama’s apartment for a moment longer than necessary, as if crossing into someone else’s memory.

Kshama welcomed her in with a soft smile. “You’ve grown into him.”

Ruchi looked down. “I wasn’t sure I should come.”

Kshama gestured toward the balcony. “I’m glad you did.”

They sat across from each other, lemongrass tea steaming between them. The silence was gentle, but not yet comfortable.

“I’ve thought about this meeting for days,” Ruchi said, eyes fixed on the rim of her cup. “It’s awkward. I mean… I’m meeting someone who I am certain my father loved. And I’m doing it after he’s gone.”

Ruchi lifted her gaze, looked at Kshama and continued, “I’ve thought about you for a long time. In anger, in confusion.”

She paused then added, “I used to ask him about you. When I was younger. Maybe sixteen, seventeen. I’d find your name scribbled in the margins of his books. Or in his old letters. I’d ask, ‘Who is this woman Kshama?’ And he’d say, ‘A friend. A very dear friend.’ That’s all.”

Kshama’s gaze softened even more. “He was protecting something.” She said.

“Now I know,” Ruchi continued. “But I wasn’t looking for scandal. I just wanted to understand. I wanted to know what part of him belonged to you.”

She looked out at the Gulmohar tree swaying in the breeze. “There was this one evening some years ago. I found a poem in his drawer. It wasn’t signed. But it was about silence. About waiting. About someone who never said the word.”

Her voice trembled slightly. “I asked him again. He smiled and said, ‘Some people never leave, even if they never arrive.’ I didn’t understand it then. I still don’t fully.”

Kshama whispered, “He was speaking of me.” 

Ruchi nodded. “I know that now. But back then, it felt like he was speaking in riddles. Like he was guarding a wound he didn’t want me to touch. Today it feels strange. Like I’m trespassing into something very personal.”

Kshama nodded slowly. “It is personal and sacred. But it’s not closed. Memories don’t lock their doors.”

Ruchi gave a nervous laugh. “I used to think you were the reason my parents split. I was fifteen. Angry. Confused.”

“I remember,” Kshama said softly. “You didn’t speak to me at the funeral.”

“I didn’t know how to react,” Ruchi admitted. “I didn’t know who you were to him. And now… I’m trying to understand.”

Now it was Kshama’s turn to look out at the Gulmohar tree swaying in the breeze. “We never defined it. Not in words.”

Ruchi hesitated. “But he loved you. I read it in his journals. He wrote about waiting—for a word. Waiting for just one word from you.”

Kshama’s voice was barely a whisper. “We never said it.”

“Why?” Ruchi asked, her voice cracking slightly. “Why didn’t you?”

Kshama took a long breath. “Because some truths are too fragile. Words can bruise them.”

Ruchi looked away. “He wrote that he waited for you to say something. Anything.”

“I know,” Kshama whispered. “So did I.”

Kshama’s mind went back twenty-two years. Raajan had returned to Pune for a seminar. They met at Vaishali restaurant. He wore a grey kurta, older now, eyes tired.

“I’m moving to Delhi,” he said. “A new job. Ruchi’s growing up. I need to be there.”

Kshama smiled. “That’s good.”

He paused. “I wanted to ask you something.”

She looked at him intently and waited.

“Did you ever—” he began, then stopped.

She reached for her glass of water. “Don’t ask.”

He nodded.

They never met again.

That night, Kshama sat at her desk and wrote a poem. For Raajan. For herself.

You asked for a word, a whisper, a sign,
But silence I gave, though the fault wasn’t mine.
Not empty, not hollow—my heart overflowed,
With too many truths that I never showed.

She didn’t publish it. She folded it and placed it inside Raajan’s letter.

Ruchi's voice brought her back from the past. Ruchi seemed to want to know more but she held herself. She stood by the door, ready to leave.

“He loved you,” she said. “Even without the word.”

Kshama smiled. “And I loved him. Even without saying it.”

Kshama's admission suddenly seemed to connect all the dots. Ruchi’s eyes welled up by the restraint shown by her father and Kshama. She stepped forward and hugged her. “Thank you. For being part of his story.”

After she left, Kshama lit a lamp and placed it beside the photograph.

She whispered, “I’m saying it now.”

In the days that followed, Kshama began writing again—not essays, not lectures. Just fragments. Verses. Thoughts.

She wrote about silence, about memories, about the spaces between sentences.

She taught herself to believe that love doesn’t always need articulation. That sometimes, the absence of a word is the word itself.

That night, just before going to bed she wrote-

If I had spoken, would you have stayed,
Or vanished as the magic frayed?
I held my silence, calm and true,
For words felt false beside my view.