Them

 

Anurag Mishra was thirty-two, a software engineer at a mid-sized firm in Baner, Pune. He wore his conservatism like a neatly ironed shirt—buttoned to the top, tucked into beige trousers, and paired with brown shoes that had seen three monsoons. Raised in a very traditional Brahmin household in Banaras, Anurag had inherited a worldview shaped by rituals, restraint, and reverence for hierarchy. His father, a retired Sanskrit professor, still began each day with an hour of pooja and ended it with a sermon on duty. 

Aparna Deshmukh, twenty-nine, was everything Anurag wasn’t. She wore her liberalism like a breeze—flowing kurtas with oxidized earrings, a tattoo of a crescent moon on her wrist, and a laugh that didn’t ask for permission. Her parents, both professors at Ferguson College, had raised her on a diet of poetry, protest, and possibility. She believed in love before marriage, in tea over coffee, and in questioning everything—including Anurag’s silences.

They had first met at a common friend’s book reading session in Koregaon Park. Anurag had come for the author; Aparna had come for the wine. She noticed him scribbling notes in the margins of his copy of The Prophet and asked, “Do you always read like you’re preparing for an exam?”

He looked up, startled, and in all seriousness replied, “Books deserve reverence.”

She laughed. “Books deserve rebellion.”

Their courtship was a slow dance between contrast and curiosity. Anurag found her spontaneity unsettling but magnetic and irresistible. Aparna found his rigidity frustrating but oddly grounding. They argued about everything—religion, politics, caste and even the correct way to make poha. But beneath the debates both sensed a growing tenderness, like two mismatched puzzle pieces learning to fit.

When Aparna proposed marriage, Anurag hesitated. “My parents won’t accept someone like you,” he said.

“You mean someone who thinks?” she teased.

But she understood. His family still believed in arranged matches, in horoscopes and dowries. Her parents, meanwhile, welcomed Anurag with open arms and vegetarian samosas.

“We trust Aparna’s choices,” her mother said. “Even if they wear sandals with formal pants.”

It took a while but Anurag’s parents agreed to the match. They married in a quiet ceremony with close relatives and friends and had a celebration at a well known hotel. Aparna wore a simple yellow saree with a sleeveless blouse; Anurag wore a cream kurta and tried not to look scandalized by her bare shoulders. Their vows were handwritten, their smiles untrained.

Life in Pune was a mosaic of small joys. Sunday walks on JM Road, late-night vada pav at Zee Bridge corner, impromptu poetry readings at their apartment, welcoming friends for dinners. She taught him how to dance in the rain; he taught her how to budget. They fought often—about dishes, deadlines, and Anurag’s reluctance to say “I love you” aloud. But each fight ended with Aparna pulling him into a hug and whispering, “You’re my favorite contradiction.”

Then came the fever.

It started as a dull ache in Aparna’s joints, a low-grade temperature that refused to leave. She dismissed it as fatigue, a side effect of her new teaching schedule at Symbiosis. But within days, she was too weak to stand. Her skin turned pale, her breath shallow. Anurag rushed her to Ruby Hall Clinic, where tests revealed a rare auto-immune disorder. Her immune system was attacking her own tissues, mistaking them for enemies.

Anurag felt like the ground had been pulled from beneath him. He sat in the hospital corridor, staring at the vending machine, unable to choose between tea and coffee. His thoughts were a tangle of guilt and helplessness. He remembered how he had once mocked Aparna’s habit of skipping meals.

“You treat food like a poem,” he had said. “Too abstract to be nourishing.” Now, he thought, she didn't even have the energy to hold a spoon.

In ten days, Aparna was admitted for intensive treatment—steroids, immuno-suppressants, endless blood tests. She began to lose hair. Her laughter dimmed. Anurag moved into a rented room near the hospital, leaving behind their cozy flat in Kothrud. He stopped shaving. He stopped replying to messages. His colleagues noticed the change—he spoke less, smiled never, and stared at his screen with Google searching for answers. Anurag applied for a leave of absence from office.

One evening, Aparna asked him, “Do you remember the time I cried after your mother scolded me for wearing jeans at the temple?”

Anurag nodded. 

“You didn’t say anything,” she said. “Not even later.” 

He looked away. “I didn’t know how to defend you without offending her.” 

She touched his hand. Slowly she said, “Sometimes silence is betrayal.”

Another day, she whispered, “When I told you I wanted to adopt a child someday, you laughed and said, ‘Let’s first try the traditional way.’”

Anurag winced. “Look, I didn’t mean to dismiss you. And why are we even talking these things now?”

Aparna smiled faintly and continued. “But you did. You dismissed my dream like it was a joke.”

The third instance came during a quiet afternoon when the IV drip ticked like a metronome. 

“Remember when I got that fellowship in Delhi and you said, ‘What about us?’” 

Anurag nodded.

 “You made me choose between love and ambition,” she said. “And I chose you. But I wish you had said, ‘Go. I’ll visit every weekend.’”

Anurag felt like a mirror had cracked inside him. Each shard showed a version of himself he didn’t want to see—passive, possessive and afraid. He began journaling at night, scribbling apologies he couldn’t yet say aloud. He wrote poems about Aparna’s resilience, metaphors about her spirit being a monsoon cloud—dark, fierce, and full of life.

His depression deepened. He stopped eating. He avoided calls from his parents, who still asked if Aparna had learned to cook “proper vegetarian food.” He wandered Pune’s streets at night—Deccan, Aundh, even the quiet lanes of Model Colony looking for something to anchor him. Once, he sat on the steps of the river behind Balgandharva Theatre and cried for an hour, until an old uncle lightly touched his shoulder and comforted him.

But Aparna, even in illness, remained luminous though weak. She joked with nurses, read diametrically opposite authors like Ratnakar Matkari and Pu La Deshpande. She laughed aloud and asked Anurag to bring her mangoes even when she couldn’t eat them.

“I just want to smell summer,” she said. Her body was failing, but her spirit refused to surrender.

After two months of treatment, Aparna began to recover... slowly. Her blood reports stabilized. Her strength returned. She walked again—very slowly, like a poem trying discover it’s rhythm. Anurag brought her home, their flat now rearranged to accommodate her needs. He cooked for her—awkwardly, earnestly – when the maid was away. He read her favorite books aloud, even the ones he didn’t understand.

When Aparna came home from Ruby Hall Clinic, the flat in Kothrud felt unfamiliar. The walls, once echoing with laughter and debates, now held a silence so thick it seemed to muffle even the ticking of the clock. Anurag had bought an arm chair for her, had rearranged the furniture—moved the bed closer to the window so she could see the gulmohar tree outside, cleared the shelves of books she could no longer lift, and placed her favorite shawl, the indigo one with mirror work, neatly folded on the armchair.

Aparna was lighter now—physically and emotionally. Her illness had stripped her of weight, but also of the need to pretend. Her hair was cropped short, her cheeks hollowed, but her eyes still held that flicker of mischief, like a candle refusing to go out in the wind.

Anurag, on the other hand, had become a shadow of himself. He moved like a man underwater—slow, deliberate, as if every action required permission from grief. He had stopped going to work, citing “family reasons,” though the truth was more complex. He couldn’t bear the fluorescent lights, the polite small talk, the way people said “hope she gets well soon” , like it was a line from a script.

He spent his days tending to Aparna—making khichdi with too much or too little turmeric, reading aloud from her favorite poets, and watching her sleep with a kind of reverence usually reserved for temples. But inside, he was unraveling.

One evening, as the sky turned the color of bruised peaches, Aparna looked at him and said, “You have changed. You’ve stopped smiling.”

Anurag nodded. “You taught me how to cry.”

She smiled. “You’re still the best husband. Just... better now.”

Anurag didn’t respond.

She reached for his hand, her fingers still trembling from the steroids. “You know, when I was in the ICU, I dreamt I was a bird trapped in a glass cage. I could see the sky, but I couldn’t fly.”

Anurag’s voice cracked. “I was the one who built that cage. With my fears. My silence.”

Aparna shook her head gently. “No No. You were the one who kept tapping on the glass, giving me hope, that I was still alive.”

Anurag looked at her, eyes all wet. “I feel like a ghost in my own life. Like I’m watching myself from outside, unable to intervene.”

She whispered, “Then come back. Be flesh again. Be flawed again. It's OK to make mistakes.”

Overwhelmed with emotions, Anurag lowered his head in her lap. She gently tapped his head with her palm comforting him. 

That night, Anurag sat on the balcony alone, watching the city breathe. The traffic hummed like a distant lullaby, and the Gulmohar tree swayed as if nodding to some invisible rhythm. He thought about Aparna’s three memories—the temple, the fellowship, the adoption—and realized they weren’t accusations. They were invitations. To grow. To become.

He began writing again—not just apologies, but reflections. He wrote about how Aparna’s illness had turned their love into a pilgrimage. How each day was a step toward grace. How her resilience was not just strength, but poetry.

Aparna’s recovery was slow, like a raaga unfolding at dawn. She began walking again—first to the kitchen, then to the balcony, then to the nearby park. Anurag would walk beside her, carrying a thermos of Tulsi tea and a notebook. Sometimes they’d sit on the bench and watch children play, and Aparna would say, “They run like they’ve never known gravity.”

Anurag would smile faintly. “Or sorrow.” He thought.

One afternoon, as the sun filtered through the Neem leaves, Aparna said, “Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me?”

Anurag nodded. “I whispered it. Like it was a secret.” He said softly.

She laughed softly. “You still whisper. Even your joy is shy.”

He looked at her, then at the sky. “I’m learning to speak louder. To let my heart echo.”

Aparna touched his cheek with her fingers. “You’re not just the best husband. You’re the most human one.”

Anurag looked at her—her short hair, her tired eyes and dark circles, her crescent moon tattoo—and felt something shift inside him. A quiet gratitude, like rain on dry soil. He reached for her hand and said, “Thank you for staying. And for daring to be yourself.”

And in that moment, under the fading light of a city that had witnessed their becoming, they were not husband and wife, not patient and caregiver, not tradition and rebellion. They were simply two souls—flawed, fierce, and finally free.

Their days became rituals of healing—shared meals, shared silences, shared metaphors. Aparna started painting again, her strokes gentler now, like she was caressing the canvas. Anurag cooked with more confidence, even experimenting with Thai curry once (it was terrible, but she ate it anyway). 

Once she asked him, do you remember Faraaz’s ghazal- 

अब के हम बिछड़े तो शायद कभी ख़्वाबों में मिलें

जिस तरह सूखे हुए फूल किताबों में मिलें

Anurag surprised her with his complementing lines-

अब के हम मिलें तो वक़्त भी ठहर जाए हमारी बातों में

जिस तरह चाँदनी ठहरती है खामोश झील की बाहों में

 “I don’t want the nights and dreams anymore. I want mornings. With you.” He said.

And so, in a city that had witnessed their unravelling and their reweaving, they began again as two souls who had walked through fire and come out holding hands.