Grace In The Ruins

The coconut trees rustled gently in Alibaug's late October breeze, their shadows stretching across the sand like long, tired dancers bowing at the end of a performance. The air smelled of salt, damp earth, and the faint sweetness of overripe guavas. Irawati Sardesai... Ira for those close to her, sat on the veranda of her modest bungalow, sipping lemongrass tea from a ceramic cup with a faded peacock motif. The cup had a crack near the rim, but she liked it—it reminded her that beauty could survive damage.

She had moved here three years ago, leaving behind a high-rise in Powai and career as a Leader at a leading media company. She had been good at her job—decisive, articulate, respected—but it had never been her soul’s calling. Kathak had always been her quiet rebellion, her secret language. Even now, at 58, with her best years behind her, there was something arresting about her presence. Her cheekbones still caught the light, her eyes still held stories, and her posture retained the grace of someone who had once commanded a stage.

Her daughter, Radhika, had arrived the previous evening from Mumbai. She was 30, sharp, and weary. A corporate lawyer at a firm in Lower Parel, she had recently broken off her engagement to Kunal—a man her friends had described as “perfect on paper” — an IITian, MBA from IIM-B, stable job, no vices, polite to waiters. But Radhika had felt something missing, something she couldn’t name until it became unbearable.

They had sat in silence, the kind that only mothers and daughters can share—layered, forgiving, and slightly frayed. Radhika had always admired her mother’s poise, her ability to remain composed even when her father, had left them for a younger woman many years ago. He had moved to Dubai, sent money, and called once a month. Irawati never spoke ill of him. She simply stopped mentioning his name.

“I just couldn’t do it, Aai,” Radhika said, sitting cross-legged on the veranda floor, her voice low and frayed. “He was like a spreadsheet. Balanced, but blank.”

Irawati smiled faintly, brushing a strand of grey-streaked hair behind her ear. “You don’t marry a spreadsheet, beta. You marry a story.”

Radhika looked up, her eyes tired. “And what if the story turns out to be fiction? What if you’re the only one reading it while the other person’s just flipping pages?”

Irawati leaned back, letting the breeze touch her face. “Then you close the book. But you don’t stop reading. You find another story. One that reads you back.”

Radhika exhaled sharply, almost a laugh. “You make it sound so poetic. But it’s not. It’s humiliating. All my friends have married and they seem to be so happy. I feel like I failed at something everyone else seems to manage successfully.”

Irawati reached out and touched her daughter’s hand. “Managing isn’t the same as living. Some people manage marriages like they manage bank accounts. You were brave enough to want more.”

Later that afternoon, they walked along the beach. The tide was low, revealing crabs scuttling between rocks and plastic wrappers. Radhika picked up a conch shell, held it to her ear, and frowned.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said.

“You’re not supposed to,” Irawati replied. “It’s not about hearing. It’s about remembering.”

They sat in silence on a stone bench for a while, listening to the sea and returned home. A ferry horn echoed faintly from the jetty, slicing through the stillness like a reminder of the world beyond.

Radhika turned to her mother. “Aai… Did you ever… I mean, after Baba left… did you ever fall in love again?”

Irawati’s gaze didn’t waver. She was direct in her reply. “Yes. Once.”

Radhika blinked. “Who?”

“There was this person. Arvind. He was from Mumbai. He played the tabla. We met during a workshop in Pune. I was teaching a group of young dancers, and he was accompanying them. He was married.”

“Married?” Radhika’s eyebrows lifted.

“Yes, I knew that from the start.”

 “And?”

“No,” Irawati said, her voice steady. “We never crossed that line. With both of us working in Mumbai, we met often. Talked. Danced. He played, I moved. It was enough. There was something sacred in the restraint. We knew the boundaries, and we respected them. But within those boundaries, we created something beautiful. A rhythm that belonged only to us.”

There was silence for a minute. Radhika was quiet. “Did … you … want more?”

Irawati nodded slowly. “Of course. There were moments when I imagined a life with him. A small home, shared mornings, music in the evenings. But the decades I spent in corporate life had taught me that fantasy is a fragile thing. It can’t survive too much sunlight.”

Radhika hesitated. “What happened?”

“His wife died. I thought maybe… maybe now he’d come to me. That we’d finally be free to choose each other. But he withdrew. Said he needed time. That he wasn’t ready. That was fifteen years ago.”

She paused, her eyes distant. “I waited for a while. Then I stopped. Not out of anger, but out of clarity. I realised, he wasn’t mine to begin with. And maybe he never wanted to be.”

Radhika looked down at her hands. “I never realised any of this at that time. First Baba, then this … Did it break you?”

Irawati shook her head. “It could have. But it also taught me something. That love isn’t always about possession or permanence. Sometimes it’s about presence. About being seen, even briefly, in a way that makes you feel real.”

The sun dipped lower, casting amber light across the veranda. A koel called from a distant tree, its voice plaintive and clear.

That night, searching for her mother’s balm for headache, Radhika found an old letter in a drawer—yellowed, unsent, addressed to Arvind. It was written in Marathi, the handwriting elegant and restrained. Ira had written to Arvind that he hadn’t understood her. She had ended the letter saying she forgave him “because love is not bondage—it is release.”

The next morning, Radhika handed the letter to her mother. “Why didn’t you send it?”

Irawati didn’t appear surprised. She folded it gently, placed it back in the drawer. “Because I didn’t need answers. I needed silence. Some truths are meant to be carried, not delivered.”

“If that was the case why keep the letter all these years?” Radhika said to herself.

Next day Radhika announced that she'll leave for Mumbai later that evening. They spent the day cooking simple food—batata bhaji, varan bhaat, and koshimbir with crushed peanuts. The bungalow smelled of turmeric, coconut, and something older—memory, perhaps. In the evening, Irawati danced in the courtyard, her ghungroos soft against the stone. Radhika watched, her heart full of questions she no longer needed to ask.

Before leaving, Radhika picked up a conch shell from the beach. She held it to her ear, not expecting sound, but something else.

The sea whispered behind her, not in words, but in rhythm. In the hush between waves. In the way her mother moved with grace despite the years. In the quiet strength of unsent letters and unspoken forgiveness. It was a kind of news that didn’t arrive in headlines or notifications. It arrived in gestures, in silences, in the way two women sat together and let the past breathe.

As the ferry pulled away from the jetty, Radhika looked back at the bungalow—whitewashed, quiet, and full of stories. The sea stretched behind it, vast and knowing. She held the shell close, not to listen, but to remember.