To Stir

There are three types of people in this world - ones who cry, ones who do not cry, and ones who want to cry but have no idea how to. He was amongst the third ones.

The third floor of the Department of Bioengineering at Yale University—his destination every morning—always seemed more alive when she was there. The left wing housed the Nanomedicine Lab, led by the renowned Prof. Rao, while the right wing belonged to Prof. Klajn's Supramolecular Chemistry Lab.

From the stairway that walked to their labs, he could always see her. Every day, the same scene played out like a melody he never tired of—her gaze lifting from the screen, finding him as he reached the last few steps. Every time their eyes met; it was as though the universe pressed pause. His hand would tighten around the stair rail, with his heart stumbling over itself - as if unsure of the next step.

He never used the elevator.

He told others it was for the exercise, that it burnt calories; but he knew better.

I was always with him, watching him. Not a colleague, neither a friend, nor an acquaintance. I was someone deeper who had known him since day-one.

Inside the lab, he couldn’t help his eyes that darted to the window, stealing glimpses of her in the common area. Her presence calmed his storm of research stress like sugar dissolving into bitter coffee. But sometimes, when she laughed with someone else—something tightened in his chest. He’d suddenly become fascinated with his notes or invent an excuse to pass by, coughing just loud enough to draw her attention.

He couldn’t explain it. He was coffee—dark, brooding, complex. She was sugar—light, sweet, and effortlessly transformative. Together, he felt, they could create something perfect. But she remained unaware, or so he thought. To her, he was just another random researcher in the background.

He was coffee.

Dark, swirling, rich with layers that most never see. His world was a hum of soft steam rising, a bitter warmth lingering in the air. She, on the other hand, was sugar. She arrived with the sweetness that swirled effortlessly into the core of who he was, dissolving in a way that made him whole.

On most days, it’s as if he was waiting for her. Together, he felt they were more than themselves—an alchemy that neither of them fully comprehended. But she remained unaware. He wondered if she knew how she transformed his mornings—like sugar subtly enriching coffee, her presence turned routine into ritual.

But he was coffee.

And she—sugar—can slip away unnoticed. She'd walk out in a rush of papers or a quick goodbye, leaving him as he was, incomplete, yearning. Yet, he waited. Always waiting because he knows that tomorrow she will return, and again, for that brief moment, he will be whole. For what is coffee without sugar, and what is sugar without coffee? Separate, they hold no meaning, no magic. But together, they are a perfect balance.

This perfect balance happened a bit later after our protagonist gathered all the courage to engage in deeper conversations. The common area was his refuge, but only when she was there. He always chose a table diagonal to hers, pretending to read papers or type emails while stealing glances.

One afternoon, she caught him looking.

“Everything okay?” she asked, her lips curving into a small smile.

“Uh, yeah. Just...thinking,” he stammered.

“About what?”

He hesitated, his mind scrambling for something witty, something profound. Instead, he blurted, “Mammootty versus Mohanlal.”

Her laugh was instant, a burst of sunshine. “That’s a heavy debate for a quiet afternoon.”

“Mammootty is like an espresso,” he would proclaim, his voice intense.

“He delivers depth in every role, a shot of pure intensity.”

“But Mohanlal,” she countered, her eyes sparkling like sugar crystals catching the light, “is like a perfectly balanced cappuccino—comforting and delightful.” Their playful arguments echoed through the café, with every sip they took fuelling our banter, a delightful froth atop their cappuccino.

After hours of quarrelling daily, she’d say, “I hate you.”

Well, I hate you has more love than I love you, doesn’t it?

After breaking the ice, the stairway scenes increased in frequency. He’d often catch her peeking above her laptop, her gaze being the eighth wonder of the world. He’d intentionally pause on the stairs, letting the moment linger, wait and wait. Their eyes would meet, and time would freeze, like when milk meets coffee, creating a beautiful swirl of colours. In those exchanges, they found solace, maybe a guilty pleasure.

Once upon a time, during Diwali celebrations organised by the Indian community of Yale, he got another chance to spend quite a lot of time with her.

They worked side by side, tying balloons to the walls, her fingers brushing against his every so often. Each accidental touch sent a jolt through him, his carefully rehearsed words vanishing into the air.

“Hold it tighter!” she scolded playfully, her laugh ringing like the temple bells back home.

He smiled awkwardly, clumsily adjusting the knot on the balloon, as her gaze lingered for a fraction of a second longer than he expected. Did she notice his trembling hands? Nah, let’s not overthink.

Once the decorations were complete, he retreated to the last row of chairs, away from the crowd. She, as always, was surrounded by people, her laughter lighting up the room. He watched her from afar, his mind waging a battle between hope and fear.

What if she sees me only as a friend?
What if I ruin this fragile balance?

The violinist began to play, the haunting notes weaving through his restless thoughts. And then, amidst the melody, she appeared.

For a moment, he froze. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as she leaned forward. Her fingers brushed against his as she placed something in his hands.

A balloon. Just a simple balloon.

She didn't say a word. No explanation, no casual comment. Just a fleeting smile that seemed to contain entire universes before she walked away to join the crowd again.

He looked down at the balloon, the smooth surface cool against his skin, and tried to make sense of it. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind. Was this her way of reaching out? Or just a whimsical gesture, as light and fleeting as the air inside the balloon?

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. The laughter, music, and applause all faded into the background. He clung to the balloon like it was a lifeline.

Later that night, as he returned to his room, he couldn’t help but smile. He still didn’t know what the balloon meant, but he knew one thing for sure—it wasn’t just a balloon anymore. It was a promise. A question. A moment shared between two souls who spoke volumes without a single word.

And for the first time, he felt that perhaps, just perhaps, she knew, and this is how they started dating amidst their PhD research work.

To Sip

Dr. Rao was one of the most revered names in nanomedicine and drug delivery. When he received the email from Yale stating the acceptance for its PhD program under the supervision of Dr. Rao, he nearly fainted with joy - he never saw that coming.

But what happened later on during his PhD? He never saw that coming either. Rao was a cold-hearted, emotionless human. He demanded a lot. After two years of experiments and data, he saw the real Dr. Rao. He realised why some of his fellow students had advised him against joining the lab when the manuscript he had submitted to Nature for publication didn’t seem to impress Rao. Not even a bit.

The lab was quiet. Yet, the air felt heavy, like a thunderstorm brewing. Dr. Rao stood motionless at the room's far end, except for the trembling paper in his hand. His face was a mask of barely contained fury, eyes narrowed to razor-sharp slits.

“You call this research?” His voice cut through the silence - sharp, exact, and lethal. “This?” He slapped the crumpled rebuttal onto the lab bench. “This is what you’ve been slaving over for two years?”

His gaze bore into him, dissecting him like a faulty specimen under a microscope.

“This,” Rao spat, stabbing the paper with a finger, “is why I told you: perfection or nothing. This is nothing!”

He stepped closer, his movements sharp and deliberate, like a predator sizing up its prey.

“You think Nature accepts mediocrity? You think you’re some prodigy who can float by on luck and good intentions?” Rao’s voice dropped to a whisper, the kind that chilled the blood. “They’re laughing at this. At you. At me, for even allowing this garbage to leave my lab.”

His chest tightened, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. It was as if the air itself refused to support him.

“Answer me!” Rao roared suddenly, the sound ricocheting off the metal walls. “Or is silence your only contribution to this field?”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“You’re pathetic,” Rao said, shaking his head with a smirk that dripped venom. “A waste of space. A waste of funding. A waste of my time.”

And then, quieter, more dangerous: “Do you even have the spine to keep going? Or should I save us both the trouble and kick you out?”

Every day was the same. Every night, the exact words echoed in his mind, amplified, distorted, until he couldn’t tell if it was Rao’s voice or his own.

“You think this is acceptable?” Rao would snap again hours later, his pacing frantic now, his tone swinging between rage and something more sinister. “This isn’t research. It’s a joke. You’re a joke.”

The tension in the lab was suffocating. No one spoke unless spoken to; no one dared to meet Rao’s eyes. But his eyes—those piercing, unblinking eyes—were always on him. Watching. Waiting.

“Do you know what I sacrificed to be here? Do you know what it takes to succeed in this field?” Rao’s voice cracked, but his words were relentless, unyielding. “If you think for even one second that half-baked ideas and weakness will get you anywhere, then you don’t belong in this lab. Or in this world.”

He worked longer hours. Slept less. Ate less. He did everything to avoid Rao’s wrath, but it was never enough. Nothing was ever enough. Some days, even I would pray for his day to get over as the cycle of poison kept stinging limitlessly.

He stopped hearing them as words—they became a drumbeat in his head, pounding away any confidence he had left. At night, when the lab was empty, he stared at the rejection letter from Nature, the cursor on his computer blinking back at him like a mocking eye.

Depression wasn’t sudden; it seeped into him, slow and insidious. The fear of Rao, the fear of failure — it consumed him, hollowed him out.

And yet, he stayed.

The days blurred into one another. Mornings became evenings, and the lines between work and sleep disappeared. His lab coat became a second skin, and the endless barrage of insults and degrading comments felt like a daily routine. Dr. Rao would pace the lab like a predator circling his prey, waiting for the slightest mistake to pounce.

“You think this is good enough? It’s pathetic. I could find a high schooler who’d understand chiral nanoparticles better than you.” Rao’s tone was ice-cold, every word a calculated blow designed to erode his confidence. He’d walk home each night, with the weight of Rao’s voice echoing in his head. Sometimes, he’d sit at his desk, staring blankly at the computer, unable to type a word because all I could think of was him.

One evening, as he was about to leave the lab, the lights dimmed, and the familiar creak of Dr. Rao’s shoes stopped behind him.

“I gave you everything,” he said, his voice low, dangerously calm. “And what have you given me? Failure. Again, and again.”

The second rejection from Nature hung between them like a physical presence. He had tried everything—reworked the data for the rebuttal, redrafted the conclusions—but nothing had been enough. And in Rao’s eyes, he had become nothing more than a burden.

“You’re weak,” he said, stepping closer, his breath hot on the back of his neck.

“You’ll never make it in this field if you don’t grow a spine. If you don’t stop being a disappointment.”

He stared at the screen, the cursor blinking as if mocking his paralysis. His words settled into his bones like lead, weighing him down with every step he took.

Depression was a slow burn. It crept through the cracks of his mind, filling the spaces where his passion for research used to be. He stopped sleeping and stopped eating. He existed only to avoid his wrath, to survive another day in the lab. The once vibrant world of scientific inquiry had become a suffocating prison, with Dr. Rao as his warden.

He’d find himself sitting in the dark, staring at the rejection letter, wondering where he had gone wrong- he couldn’t even look at it without hearing Rao’s voice in his head.

Amidst all this chaos, she was the only hope he held on to - the sanest chaos. The eternal love straightens all twisted roads of life. Thank goodness we can’t tax love. God gives suffering according to the amount of suffering you can carry. If you suffer a lot, often and often, it's only because he thinks you are capable of handling it. The Sunday trips on the bus to the city with her were the only doses of serotonin that kept him alive.

She had a unique way of hers. The way she nodded her head when she found something funny, the amount of delusion she carried in her heart, the way her hair brushed against his on the bus, the way she’d open and close her fist continuously indicating him to hold her hand, the way they’d walk along the streets and she’d bite his shoulder when she would become way too excited, and her insane obsession with puddles- jumping and splashing wherever she saw one. She loved the rain, just like the puddles. He kept saying sugar dissolves in water, so don't walk in the rain; he didn't want to lose her that way.

He could fall for her forever, I knew it. She would rest on his shoulder, and they would blow air into their cheeks together to increase contact area while feeling their skin and the warmth it carried, free of cost. Her side eyes and smirks, followed by some mandatory lip sport, were the cute moments that kept him smiling throughout the week.

Her financial condition was a crumbling façade she held together with sheer determination. Every penny of her fellowship had been swallowed by the mountain of loans she had taken to complete her master's degree, leaving her with nothing but worry. Life had dealt her blow after blow—her mother, her guiding light, had passed away when she was just a child. Her father, a humble bank clerk in India, had done everything to see her dreams soar, only to be struck down by cancer. Now, he lived tethered to a home nurse, his once-strong frame worn thin by relentless rounds of chemotherapy.

Despite his condition, he’d never let her come back to take care of him. “Finish what you started,” he had said, “Earn your doctorate, and make me proud. That’s all I want.” His words were both a blessing and a curse, filling her with purpose but also a haunting guilt that gnawed at her every moment she was away.

One night, everything shattered. A call came through—his nurse, frantic, barely able to get the words out. Her father had blacked out and was now in the ICU. Tears streamed down her face as panic took hold. Her mind raced—how could she get to him? She had no money for a flight, not even enough to call a cab to the airport if she somehow found a way. She wept into the night, torn apart by the cruel truth that she was too far, too helpless, to be by her father’s side when he needed her most.

He noticed her absence from their usual dinner table conversation, the distant glaze in her eyes that spoke of a storm brewing within. He didn’t need her to say anything. He knew. He had always known her struggles, her silent battles, her sacrifices. She didn’t have to speak; her tears said it all.

The next morning, as she sat hunched over her desk, exhausted from crying, she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She turned, her swollen eyes meeting his. In his hand was a flight ticket. Home. She stared at it - disbelief and gratitude colliding within her.

“I know you wouldn’t ask,” he said softly, his voice thick with unspoken emotion. “But I can’t watch you bear this alone. Go to him. He needs you, and you need him.”

Her hands trembled as she took the ticket, her tears falling freely now. He didn’t try to stop them. He just stood there, his own eyes glistening. “I’ll be here when you’re back. Take care of him—for you and me.”

She didn’t know how to put into words the depth of what he had done. He had given her more than a way home; he had given her light when everything felt lost.

In his unseen stories, they played king and queen. Art, to him, was her. In his muted mind, she arose as a song. They say that if you fall in love with a pair of eyes, you lose sight of all other pairs of eyes. That was precisely the momentum it carried. When he stared into her eyes, love was the only thing between his and hers. They didn’t need to come up with gossip to break the silence; they adored the silence and embraced it.

When he looked into her eyes, he could see and hear all their unlimited gossip, so he never had to forcefully open his mouth with gossip to ruin the melodious flow of 1000s of them through the eyes. That, my son, is the beauty of eyes - they whisper like magic. The best part was her fantastic navigation in the city while they scanned for restaurants and outlets nearby. After hours of following her navigation, they'd reach the same spot all over again. She wouldn't even let him giggle as she'd say, “The world is spherical, so maybe we walked down the whole globe within an hour, thanks to me”, with a proud blush.

She had a fondness for chocolate-glazed donuts and fruit-and-nut-flavoured Cadbury chocolates. He always made sure to get them for her, especially after she mischievously quipped, “Feed me, mister, I ain’t making my hands dirty with that chocolate!”

It was one of those moments he secretly longed for—the chance to feed her like a child, indulging her playful demand every time he handed her a donut. One afternoon, as she chatted with her dad on the phone, she casually instructed him, “Feed me the donut,” without missing a beat.

With a grin, he pushed the whole donut into her mouth and fled away, staring at her with his mouth bursting with laughter as he saw her struggle to speak and reluctant to get her hands dirty with the chocolate. Oblivious to the situation, her dad continued talking on the phone, completely unaware of the struggle unfolding on the other side. The playful yet annoyed look she gave him that day still stung him with pleasure.

I learnt that his soul didn't have to be translated to her, they spoke the same languages through the eyes.

Meanwhile, things were getting worse with Dr. Rao, and the bond seemed to be crippling.

He sat hunched over his desk, and his shoulders curled inward as if trying to shield himself from the storm he knew was coming. His eyes burned from hours spent staring at data that refused to align, but he didn’t dare leave his post. Then came the sharp, rhythmic echo of leather shoes in the corridor. His stomach twisted as the door burst open. Dr. Rao strode in, his presence a force of nature, and his piercing gaze landed on the desk.

He flinched but managed to stammer, "I—I am trying to refine the analysis—"

"Trying? Trying?" Dr. Rao's laughter was cold and sharp. "If you think trying is enough, you're in the wrong field. This isn't kindergarten, and I'm not here to pat you on the back for your pathetic attempts!"

His face burned, and his hands clenched into fists under the table. "I'm doing my best," he whispered, barely audible.

"Your best?" Dr. Rao leaned in, his eyes boring into him. "Your best is an insult to this lab. Do you even know how many students would kill for your position? And you sit here, wasting my time and theirs with this… amateur drivel? "You know what separates the good from the great? It's the grit. And you have none."

The weight of the words crushed him, tightening his chest with every syllable. He felt the tears prick at the edges but blinked them away. Dr. Rao didn't stop.

"I should've known better than to take you on," he sneered, pacing the room. "You're just another entitled brat who thinks ambition is enough. Newsflash: it's not. You either deliver results, or you get out. I don't care how hard you think you're working—if you don't have the brains or the backbone, you're dead weight."

He couldn't help but think in moments like these, he should have never chosen this path. That passion which fuelled his desire to learn had given way to incessant anxiety. Every critique sounded like another nail into the coffin of his confidence. The research that excited him was now the dark and ominous storm cloud hovering over him. How was this him? A shadow of the ambitious student he once was?

Each meeting was like a battle for him, losing ground. The lab walls closed around him, trapping him in an endless cycle of self-doubt. He thought a PhD would be a journey of discovery, but it had instead become a minefield of toxic criticism. He misses his laughter and camaraderie with his colleagues; now, only a desolate silence follows their wake. They fail to see the cracks in his mask. They don't know how Rao's words resonate in his mind like a metronome, reminding him of every failure.

One stormy evening, after a three-hour meeting that had been more of an insult match by Dr. Rao and less of a research meeting, he was left alone in the laboratory. His hands trembled as he dived through the pages of never-ending notes, every page being a reminder of failures, each flung in his face by Dr. Rao.

“You’re a disappointment,” the man’s voice echoed in his mind. “You’re not cut out for this. You never were.”

The laptop screen blurred as tears welled up, but he refused to let them fall.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like a ghost! Is this what you want? To become another dropout in a sea of incompetence?” He comes again.

Looking into his eyes, he realized there was no light there, only an insatiable hunger for perfection that consumed everything in its path. His soul felt heavy with the weight of his words, and he was left to pick up the pieces of my shattered confidence. He was drowning in a sea of despair, the rhythm of his life reduced to a jarring discord.

He took a deep breath and met the older man’s gaze. “Dr. Rao, I need to say something. Your approach… it’s been affecting me more than you realize.”

Dr. Rao leaned back in his chair, raising an eyebrow. “Affecting you? If you can’t handle a little pressure, maybe you’re in the wrong field.”

“It’s not the pressure,” he replied, his voice steady despite the turmoil. “It’s the way you talk to me. The constant belittling, the insults—it’s not constructive. It’s toxic.”

Dr. Rao’s eyes narrowed. “Toxic? Let me tell you something about the real world. It’s not kind. You'll never survive out there if you can’t endure my criticism.”

“Maybe,” he admitted, his tone calm but firm. “But the real world also values respect and collaboration. I’m not asking you to lower your standards—I’m asking you to treat me like someone here to learn, not someone you’ve already written off.”

Rao gave him a death stare and walked away. It was only going to get worse.

Seeing his mental health reach rock bottom concerned his girlfriend. A progressive, courageous thinker competent at handling people, she wanted to take the matter into her own hands, but he didn’t want to involve her in his mess. But the limit had been crossed, and after witnessing the toxicity live and being told to confront Rao by his lab mates, she decided to go all in.

The air outside Rao’s office was suffocatingly still as he lingered by the closed door, his heart hammering in his chest. Inside, their voices clashed—sharp, raw, each word striking like a blow.

“You have to stop this!” she demanded, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and desperation. “You can’t keep treating him this way. It’s cruel, and it’s destroying him.”

“And who are you to tell me how to run my lab?” Rao’s voice was a venomous snarl, the scrape of his chair against the floor sending a chill down his spine. “This isn’t a therapy group. It’s science. You don’t succeed by cuddling mediocrity.”

“You think this is about mediocrity?” she fired back, her tone fierce but strained. “He’s brilliant, and you know it. You’re tearing him apart, and for what? To prove how broken you are?”

There was a tense silence, thick and charged before he heard the unmistakable clink of glass on wood—a bottle placed deliberately on the desk. Rao seemed to have taken his time machine back to the time when his excessive drinking and drug abuse caused his wife to file for divorce and eventually lose his kids. He now had nothing to lose, no one to love, and all the frustration to vent.

“Get out,” Rao said finally, his voice quieter, but no less biting. “You don’t know anything about me.”

After that confrontation, she started spending more time with Rao. It seemed like an act of kindness, almost noble—an effort to temper the storm within him.

“He’s not what you think,” she told him one evening, her tone measured as she untied her hair. “He’s carrying much pain, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. But I think I’m helping him.” She had been his anchor, steadying him when Rao’s tirades threatened to drown him.

She stayed late at the lab more often now, her explanations always simple and reasonable. “Rao wants to discuss some of the data,” she’d say. “I think he’s trying to open up about his struggles.”

Once, when Rao tore into him during a fierce meeting, he’d glanced at her, hoping for a flicker of support. Instead, she placed a careful hand on the edge of the desk, her voice calm. “Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding,” she offered softly, her gaze flitting briefly to Rao. “It’s been a long day. We’re all tired.”

Her words felt out of place, though he couldn’t articulate why. He told himself she was trying to de-escalate the situation, but the moment stuck with him.

Then there were the times she defended Rao outright.

“You don’t see the pressure he’s under,” she had snapped one night when he vented about Rao’s latest tirade. “You think it’s easy to carry the weight of an entire lab? To deal with all the failures and keep going?”

Her tone was sharp, almost defensive. He tried to brush it off as exhaustion, but the sting of her words lingered.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the lab hummed with the usual undercurrent of tension. The data on his screen blurred as exhaustion set in, and he decided he needed a break. She was in Rao’s office, as usual, and he figured he’d check in on her and maybe suggest grabbing lunch.

When he reached the office, low murmurs drifted through the door. He knocked once. No answer. Another knock. Still nothing.

Assuming they were deep in discussion, he gently pushed the door open.

The sight before him froze him in place. She was perched on the edge of Rao’s desk, her hand resting lightly on his chest. Her head was tilted slightly, her lips close to his ear as she whispered something that drew an unfamiliar smile to Rao’s face—a smile so soft, so uncharacteristic, it didn’t belong to the man he knew. Then, with effortless intimacy, Rao reached up to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear. And then she kissed him.

It wasn’t a fleeting kiss or a careless mistake. It was deliberate, slow, filled with a passion that belonged to them. Not him.

His legs felt like lead, and his breath caught in his throat. The room spun as the scene unfolded, every second an eternity. He wanted to look away and retreat before the betrayal could crush him, but he couldn’t move.

She was so absorbed in Rao at this moment, which it was undeniably theirs, that she didn’t even notice him at first. But then she pulled back, her gaze shifting—and locking onto his.

Her expression shifted from confusion to dawning horror as their eyes met. The colour drained from her face, and her lips parted, searching for words that didn’t come.

For a moment, everything else faded—the lab, the tension, even Rao himself. All that remained was the sickening realisation that the one person who had been his solace, his lifeline, had torn his heart out. He shook his head, bile rising in his throat. The sound of her voice, her pathetic attempt at explanation, made his stomach churn. He didn’t want to hear it—couldn’t bear to. Even I felt overdone as the witness to all the sin.

Rao’s smug smile flickered when he finally noticed him standing there. For the briefest second, something in Rao’s eyes almost resembled regret. He turned and left, his legs moving instinctually even as his mind reeled. The hallway stretched endlessly before him, every step echoing with the weight of her betrayal. She had annihilated him. The trust he had placed in her, the love they had shared, was now a shattered fragment of a life he no longer recognised. A closed chapter.

Yun naa humse nazrein phira, Noor-e-Khuda, Noor-e-Khuda,
Chhod ke tanha kyun gaya, Noor-e-Khuda, Noor-e-Khuda?

To Empty

They say the more you travel on the wrong train, the more expensive it is to reach back home. I knew the train had become home for him.

He opens his mailbox. Mails the insurance company with all his personal details. He texts his mom and dad an “I love you 5000”. Phone off.

He walks down the coast, staring at the Pacific. As he shed a teardrop, a wave hit his feet - they say the sea cries when you do and laughs when you do as well in the form of waves. He walks ahead, and more, and more, without a full stop

Who am I narrating the story? I’m his shadow, and you have never seen me because it was the sun that never shone.