When I was nineteen, I lived in the Pink City—Jaipur—a land both ancient and alive, where the air shimmered with the echoes of royalty and the burnished sun turned the sandstone buildings golden at dusk. Life then felt effortless, clothed in comfort and surrounded by beauty. It was a time when everything seemed endless—time, dreams, days scented with memories not yet formed. I grew up nestled between the warm arms of a majestic plateau and the gentle laps of green vales that stretched like secrets whispered into the landscape.
Even now, when I close my eyes, I can feel that breath of home: the dry heat clinging to my skin, the vibrant chaos of bazaars during the day, and the ghostly stillness of the roads at night. The city was a living organism to me, a breathing heaven of unspoken promises and untamed beauty. Birds flitted across the horizon in colors I didn’t know names for—small creatures that looked like flying flowers. I watched them in silence, their voices like soft chimes carried by the wind. I never learned what they were called, but their existence was enough.At home, I would smile to myself for no reason at all, caught in the quiet thrill of just being. There was no need to speak. The walls of our old garden house held their own conversations, creaking in the wind and humming with the life of a thousand afternoons.In those days, I had a habit of walking. I wandered alone, like a thoughtful shadow, down the empty streets when the world slept. I didn’t walk with purpose. I wasn’t going anywhere. It was the act of walking that mattered, that opened me up. The silence of night was my cathedral, and I drifted through it as though I belonged to a different time. The air felt cooler then, scented with dust and fading jasmine, and the occasional bark of a stray dog would remind me that I was not entirely alone. Yet I felt no fear. Just peace. The kind of peace that sinks into your skin and makes a home inside your soul.That house we lived in—it had a garden that bloomed like a secret. It was quiet in the afternoons, especially in the summer. My grandmother used to nap there, under the shade of a wide-leafed tree that dripped sunlight like honey through its branches. I still remember the way her breathing would match the sway of the leaves—slow, rhythmic, as if nature itself had paused to rest with her. She had a grace that I didn’t understand then but feel now in my bones. That stillness, that softness, it stays with me.My grandfather left us during winter. It was the season of shivering breath and silent departures. The last season my grandparents would share. The air had turned harsh, brittle, like thin ice about to crack. That winter etched itself into my memory not through words or tears, but through small things—the way the frost clung to the windows, the way no one lit the radio, the way my grandmother looked out into the distance, seeing something we couldn’t.After he was gone, the garden seemed to change. Yet the petunias still came. Bright, bold, unapologetic. They carpeted the ground like a royal welcome, a living red farewell that lined the path we used to take together. My parents kept tending the garden, but to me, it felt like it belonged to the past—echoes of old laughter, shadows of footsteps, the scent of loss wrapped in petals.
One crisp morning, I climbed up to the roof, barefoot, the tiles cool beneath my feet. The roof had always been my secret place, my perch above the world. That day, it was alive with flowers. Petunias in full bloom clung to the edges and spilled over the walls, defiant against gravity. Their scent was everywhere, like a morning
prayer whispered by the earth. I stood there for a long while, not thinking, just feeling.
The beauty was overwhelming—not loud, not sharp, but complete. It seeped into me, into the corners of my silence. I wanted to breathe in every flower. I wanted to memorize the shape of the wind, the shade of light as it touched the petals. Winter had not yet left, but spring was knocking at the edges, peeking through like a curious child. The cold still clung to the corners, but the warmth of summer had begun to stretch its fingers across the sky.It was then that I heard it—a sound unlike any I’d known. A rustle.
Not just the wind playing with leaves, not the usual sigh of nature.
It was music.
Not played by an instrument, but something elemental. As a music teacher, I had spent years fine-tuning my ears to every note, every pause, every trembling silence between chords. Yet this rustle—it held a rhythm I couldn’t replicate, a softness I couldn’t teach. It felt like someone was speaking directly to me, in a language made of breath and motion.I had never encountered anything like it. It wasn’t predictable. It wasn't patterned. But it was alive. The rustle seemed to swirl around me, teasing my thoughts, brushing against the places inside me I rarely visited. I was mesmerized.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay beneath the open sky, the stars scattered like wishes and secrets above me. The moon, heavy and golden, cast silver shadows across my room. And the rustle returned—this time quieter, more intimate, like a whisper only I could hear. I closed my eyes and let myself be taken.It was as if the night was playing its own piano piece. Each gust of wind was a note, each falling leaf a pause, each movement a crescendo. I imagined the stars dancing to it, the flowers opening just a bit wider to listen. I felt entirely still—and yet inside, a storm of beauty was unfurling.
In that moment, I belonged to something eternal.
And then, just as suddenly, it ended.
My dream cracked open with a sound—the unmistakable voice of my grandmother, calling me like she used to. Sharp, familiar, and real. I sat up, startled, unsure if it was memory or magic.
The music vanished. But not from my heart. It still hums there, like a secret waiting to be found again.
React
