In The Shade of her Memory
Ninad Joshi, now 43, had then stood under the stone archway of Pune's Sahitya Institute, watching droplets gather on the edge of his umbrella. He was there for a poetry reading, dressed in denim’s and a casual shirt that matched the sky’s melancholy. Despite being an avid biker, he had always preferred silence to speech, metaphors to declarations.
Roshni Kaur, three years younger to him, arrived late, her dupatta soaked, but her laughter and energy, louder than the thunder. She was a study in paradox's - a Kathak dancer and philosophy lecturer, born in Ludhiana and raised on verses and mustard fields. She wore a rust-colored dress that clung to her like a second skin. Her earrings chimed lightly with every step, as if announcing her arrival to the universe.
They met over a shared verse—Ninad had just read, “Silence is the loudest truth,” and Roshni leaned in, eyes gleaming, and said, “Only someone who’s been broken knows how silence sings.”
That was the beginning. Before they realised, they had fallen in love like dusk falls on old temples—slowly, reverently, with shadows that deepen before the stars appear.
Ninad was introspective, a man of quiet rituals and long pauses. Roshni was fire wrapped in silk—impulsive, expressive, her emotions dancing as freely as her feet.
Yet, he found her chaos intoxicating; she found his stillness grounding. They married amid Roshni’s cousins singing folk songs. Surprisingly it was Ninad’s mother who shed a tear softly, not out of sadness, but because she saw in Roshni the colours her son had long forgotten. He was an avid biker but work pressures had overshadowed him.
Now, two years after Roshni’s death in their bike accident near Law College Road, Ninad stood in his apartment, holding a Teak wood box he had once dismissed as meaningless junk - filled with fragments of her— a broken bindi case, a diary with pressed bougainvillea petals, a brass locket with their photo, and a pair of ghungroo’s that no longer sang.
Outside, the city was drenched in late September light, the kind that makes everything look like it’s remembering something. Roshni had left behind a list of places she wanted to visit—not tourist spots, but emotional geographies within his city, some she had been to and some, she wanted to visit with him. He had ignored that list while she was alive. Now, he would go. Not to mourn, but to meet her again in the spaces she once dreamt of.
Next day early morning, he reached Sarasbaug. The garden was still waking up—temple bells chimed softly, pigeons fluttered like scattered thoughts, and the air smelled of wet earth and marigolds. Ninad sat on the stone bench where Roshni once told him, “Grief is like a banyan tree—it grows inward first, into the unseen.” He remembered her voice, low and lyrical, as he watched an old woman feeding crows.
शोक है बरगद जैसा,जो अंदर से उगता है
जड़ से ही ज़िन्दगी के सवालों को चुगता है
He buried her ghungroo beads beneath the soil near the pond. The sound they once made was now silent.
A child playing nearby asked, “Uncle, are you planting something?”
Ninad took a moment and smiled faintly. “Yes. Something that doesn’t grow, but stays.”
Later that morning, he was walking through the arches of Pune University. The red brick walls echoed with Roshni’s laughter, her lectures on Kabir and metaphysics. She used to say, “Philosophy isn’t about answers. It’s about asking better questions.”
He placed her fountain pen inside the hollow of an old banyan tree, the same tree under which she once faced students during a protest. He thought-
मैं उस जगह जा रहा हूँ जहां उसकी रूह थी
और खुद ही को पा रहा हूँ जहाँ वो कभी थी
Next week he reached Mulshi Lake at around noon. The road curved like memories trying to return. The lake shimmered under a pale sun, and the breeze carried the scent of eucalyptus and longing. There was a lone old man sitting besides the lake with a sketch book. Watching Ninad sit alone silently, the man approached him. Slowly, they exchanged stories.
“She loved this place,” Ninad said. “She said the lake was like her mind—still on the surface, storm beneath.”
The man handed him a charcoal sketch of the water. “Then you’re not just finding her,” he said. “You’re finding the storm you buried.”
Ninad dropped Roshni’s favorite earring—just one, the other lost years ago— in the water. He remembered Roshni had had once playfully said-
अगर पहले मैं चली जाऊँ, तो क्रिया कर्म में मत उलझो
चलना शुरू करो,
हर कदम में मेरा नाम
रख लो.
That evening he was in Koregaon Park. The rain trees arched like old lovers leaning in. He stopped at a café they used to visit. Farah, the owner, recognized him.
“She wrote poems on napkins,” she said, handing him one:
तेरे चुप रहने से, मैं और गहरी हो जाती हूँ
He placed Roshni’s lipstick—terracotta red—on the café bookshelf. The color matched the bougainvillea outside. He smiled as he remembered her saying, “Red is not a color. It’s a declaration.”
The week passed with its usual speed. Next weekend, he wandered through Shaniwar Wada in the amber hush of evening, where the air held scent of old stone and fallen leaves. The arches loomed like memories—majestic yet fractured, echoing footsteps that no longer belonged to the living. Each broken wall seemed to whisper fragments of stories. A stray breeze carried the scent of moss and ancient secrets, curling around him like a gentle reminder of time’s passage. The ruins stood like old thoughts—half remembered, half forgiven, waiting for someone like him to listen without judgment.
He sat near the fountain and opened Roshni’s diary. She had once danced here during a heritage event, her feet moving like questions, her eyes answering with fire.
He placed her payal in the water. It sank slowly, like a secret returning to its source. A tourist curiously asked, “Was she famous?”
Ninad smiled. “She was infinite.”
Next morning, he climbed Vetal Tekdi. The sky was bruised with twilight. His breath was uneven, his heart full. At the summit, an old chirpy woman called him and expressed concern.
“Are you ok? You look like you’re carrying something heavy,” she said.
“Memories,” he replied with a weak smile.
She paused , then said, “Oh yes! They weigh much until you try to set them down.” She then smiled with the experience of a lifetime. “Set them down gently.”
He left Roshni’s bindi’s under a stone. He remembered her saying, “A poem is not written. It’s released.”
कविता लिखी नहीं जाती, बस बन जाती है
मन के किसी कोने से, खुद ही रूप पाती है
That evening he reached the last destination from Roshni’s list. He reached the riverbank behind COEP, near Sangam Bridge. The moon hung low, like a question waiting to be asked. Ninad wore denims and a simple white cotton kurta, like a ritual without religion. He took out the last item: a brass locket with their photo. He remembered Roshni laughing in the rain, saying:
कभी खो दो मुझे, तो बरसात का पीछा करना
मैं मिटटी की खुशबू हूँ, घुल जाऊंगी हर कोना भरना
He buried the locket in the sand and sat there until the stars came out. A stray dog curled beside him.
He whispered, “I didn’t lose you. I just didn’t know how to carry you.”
The night wrapped around him like Roshni’s old dupatta—frayed, fragrant, familiar. The river flowed quietly, like time forgiving itself, he thought.
The river didn’t just flow—it remembered. Its current carried not just water, but the weight of time, the hush of longing, and the quiet resilience of those who had loved and lost.
As Ninad stood beneath the moonlight, the city behind him preparing to sleep and the stars above him listening, he understood something Roshni had always tried to teach him—not through instruction, but through presence.
Grief, he realized, is not a wound to be healed, but a doorway to be walked through. It doesn’t ask for closure—it asks for transformation. The pieces he had left behind weren’t fragments of sorrow; they were seeds of remembrance. Each object buried, each memory revisited, had not diminished Roshni’s presence—it had diffused her into the world - into the soil, the wind, the rhythm of footsteps on old stone paths.
He thought of how she had once said, “Love is not possession. It’s permission—to be, to become, to belong.” And now, he belonged not to the past, but to the continuity of her spirit.
मैं जो चली गयी तो ख़त्म नहीं कहानी
तुम्हारे हर पल में बसी है मेरी ही ज़ुबानी
He stood up — not lighter, but clearer. The pieces he left behind weren’t fragments of grief. They were offerings. To memory. To Roshni.
He walked home slowly. The story hadn’t ended—it had simply changed its language.
Like water becoming mist.
Like mist becoming rain.
Like love becoming silence.
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