The Lotus and Sunflower - By Kevin Jacob Reguel

Written By: Kevin Jacob Reguel

Category: Romance-Comedy

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

In the creative tapestry of romance-comedy, Kevin Jacob Reguel introduces us to "The Lotus and Sunflower." A participant in Hashtag Kalakar's Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, Kevin presents a narrative that bridges humor and heartfelt exploration. This creative writing piece delves into the intricacies of relationships, the warmth of friendship, and the personal journey of self-discovery. Set against the backdrop of familial expectations and romantic pursuits, the story captures the essence of finding love in unexpected places.

About the Work

"The Lotus and Sunflower" captures the whimsical yet profound journey of two individuals navigating the realms of love and friendship. With vivid characters and a humorous tone, Kevin Jacob Reguel crafts a narrative that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. The story's charm lies in its ability to blend comedy with poignant observations on commitment, identity, and the complexities of familial bonds. It invites readers to reflect on the nature of love and the courage it takes to embrace one's true self.

the Lotus and Sunflower

Original Submission by Kevin Jacob Reguel

The Lotus and Sunflower

Chapter 1: Turbulent Water

Ever felt that looming feeling of being incomplete like you have a weirdly huge cavity inside your mind that keeps yearning for something but somehow, it barely seems to reduce? I feel that I could honestly fill it with a good shopping spree. My best friend, Nalina, seems to think otherwise. She swears to me that “you just need to commit to a deep long-lasting romantic relationship and things will be better”; deep and long-lasting? And what does she mean by ‘committing to a relationship’, honestly, I feel that’s an absurdly long-winded way to ask me to buy a lot of ice-creams but she says it with such an earnest look that it scares me.

I swear it’s because I’m in her zone—a fashion store, since she is a pretentiously fashionable person–-that she has the craziest ideas to tell me (it’s a self-inflicted problem from me being her best friend) albeit the only ‘proper romantic relationships’ I’ve had were flings. I told her “But why should I really date when I have a best friend like you?” with a passive-aggressive smile alongside a rapidly blinking eye to match, she then remarked “First-time I’m hearing a therapist that wants to date a nitpicky and pretentiously fashionable person and actually take advice from them; there really are firsts to everything I suppose” acting surprised and giggling at her own joke.

Lakshmi then said “Hey! I’m kind of fashionable too... never mind, who am I even fooling?” feeling a bit put out at first but then swallowed her bitter pill.

Nalina then remarked “I knew it but I’m serious you do need to date again, like it’s been more than a year from your last ‘relationship’, since you are taking asylum here (with me) from your crazy parents so you might as well date again” while being genuine and serious.

Lakshmi claimed “I don’t know dude, I’m not sure about that because I still have that anxiety to commit like I tried to back in school and college, you know what I mean?” feeling a huge sense of uncertainty in her dating prospects.

Nalina then scoffed “Yeah, you will never know when you could be attacked by your parents—just like how it happens in your dreams—so you have to be on alert” with a tint of sarcasm in her voice

Oh my god, is she being for real? That was literally a one-time thing or to be accurate it happens sort of bi-weekly I guess but my parents are genuinely nightmare inducing to think about! After all they were the reason that all of my childhood romances ended abruptly because they kept thinking that me dating would ruin my grades in school, even worse yet that they would make up some rumours behind my back so that it would cause my boyfriends at the time to break up with me and never letting me break up with any of them.

Suddenly Nalina snarled “What?! Don’t make that face! when you get those nightmares, I end up waking up like 5 times in row”. Seeing that I felt a bit bad, she then said “I mean do like helping you feel calm...” then murmuring “It kind of makes me feel like I’m good at therapy”, “but as much I love to be there for you, I also want things to not keep being this bad for you”.

I retort “I get you but how does ‘Mission: get Lakshmi a boyfriend’ going to solve anything? I know I am the ‘desperate single women’ in my area however I’m not...”

She said “Girlie is really bad at emotional and mental analysis huh? Look it’s not about ‘you needing to love someone’, it’s that you have never had a situation where ‘someone genuinely chooses to love you’ and I genuinely feel that it can help you to actually date someone without worrying about commitment”

“Are you trying to steal my degree or something? How are you like better at helping me than how much I help myself... Well, you aren’t wrong but what would you even suggest other than going to the most romance scamming sites—dating apps”

“Now you are getting it! Well, considering that... what if I got you on a blind date? I know I know but let me cook”

“Damn, you had a date for me prepared? Is this why you were pestering me about dating again? I should’ve seen that to be honest, you’re too good at arguments”

“First of all, not exactly but... I will find one! And, thankfully arguing makes me excel at my job”

I will not be dating really properly anytime soon at this rate, a lawyer that can’t even plan ahead is trying to help the therapist that is barely self-aware. Either way, part of me did want to date again and she somehow has the Bluetooth connection to my brain to know that. It was only the 5th of August, my birthday (I was born on the 5th of August 1998), which is why Nalina was buying clothes for me in the first place but I doubt that for the life of her, even if the time limit was under a year, she could barely even use her wing-woman skills to get me a boyfriend within that time or God forbid at least on time.

Chapter 2: Overcast Sun

Restaurants are usually filled at this time, of Onam, brimming with joy, companionship and last but not least hope; despite sharing this moment with my elder sister, I still feel like a hull of what I once was. Jaswanthi would be with me even if I were an annoying brat similar to how I was in my childhood but it still hurts me a bit that as her brother I can’t feel as vibrant and excited as she tends to usually be for the festival. You know it’s rather absurd as ever since I was able to ‘pay it back’ (she paid for my college tuitions first)—getting her to the college for fashion design—I should be happy and proud but that looming state of numbness has still not gone away. Greif was to my heart like vase collecting water under the hot sun; even with a lot of love, it would still feel as if my vase was empty because it forgot how to be full.

Jaswanti said to me “Hey don’t worry, it’s okay please don’t feel bad! What is important now that you chose to celebrate and try to do something to make you and me happy... hopefully things will get better soon” in weak, deeply concerned voice. I softly said “At least if you eat bad food and regret it, that regret would only be fleeting and you’d have tomorrow to get better food; A messy romantic relationship on the other hand is something you’d have spent too many yesterdays letting it’s worst fester and too many tomorrows sobbing over it” lamenting my romantic past while barely even touching my Sadhya.

She started talking something about being optimistic considering the turmoil, from childhood, which I already survived. Alas, I was already losing my thought either on regrets or blaming or even self-blaming for the same horrible breakup which only happened only slightly over 2 months ago. I asked Jaswanti “Do you think dating again would help me?” partially lost in thought and on the other end, wanting to escape my own head.

Jaswanti almost blurted something but then held herself and then remarked “I don’t know, do you want to forget her? Or move on from her? Or do you just want to have someone other than Mallika to be on your mind?”.

I mumbled “I’m not so sure to be honest... but with fear of using any dating app again and my own tongue sabotaging any of my efforts in communication, it just feels like my life is locked in a state that I can’t even escape” trying to keep my composure while trying to suppress any tears from flowing out.

She inquired “what if I did the work for you?” in a very curious tone and then tried to reassuringly say “Because like I could never talk about you worse than how you talk of yourself”. Seeing me in the span of few seconds going from a waterfall attached to my eyes all the way to flaring my nostrils and squinting my eyes, she then insisted “Okay, Sorry I didn’t mean it like that! I meant more like setting you up for a blind date with anyone who I think would be good for you since if you chose for yourself then... well you know why”

I know today was only the 5th of August and I ended that 2-year 6-month relationship over 10 weeks ago but that feeling of my recovery from that breakup would still be out of reach even on my birthday in 13 days (18th August 1999). As much it hit a nerve when she claimed that I would do badly on finding someone to date, she was right Afterall since she was there when I started dating Mallika and would excuse her behaviours out of a vague sense of excitement

Chapter 3: Aesthetics of Fragility

Imagine the brightest fireworks you saw any festival in your lifetime, even still this room of pretentious and fashionable egomaniacs would still be brighter both in the sense of an expensive electricity bill and the glamour of the dresses on the models. Nalina and Jaswanti were at there at the event taking place in Goa on 7th August, for Nalina it was about being able to be a lawyer for a proper business and take her environmentalist stance to the fashion table while for Jaswanti it was about proving to herself that as a fashion designer she could make clothes that were fashionable and sustainable.

Jaswanti was here since she had been the fashion designer on some of the garments and hoping to either get ideas, see if hers are the best and hope that the environmentalists who came for the event were not going to bully her—Afterall, it was a moment for sustainable fashion. She had been becoming famous for being able to make garments that complimented the traditional arts while still contending with changes of the modern era; Now she had been hoping that this time she could finally cut down costs while doing all of that while somehow being sustainable.

Nalina was so up close in one of the tables to see the models that if you thought she loved the front seats at a cinema then anyone (including Nalina) would forgive you for that assumption. Somehow watching fashion managed to become exhausting since she had to be appreciative of the design and pretentious on the sustainability method.

However, the event hosts had taken note from last time’s horrible spite, hate and argument fest that instead of making the critics meet their most low marked designers but rather meet their most highly rated designers. Some still argued anyway since I guess agreeing a lot but disagreeing a little bit only ferments more fighting somehow. Either way when Nalina was going to meet Jaswanti, any anger she had would’ve been quelled by her mental exhaustion.

Jaswanti enquired Nalina “How high is my average rating, of all my designs, according to you?” in a very cheerful tone. Nalina said “9.4/10” and before Jaswanti could respond she asked “But how did you refine it to make it fit the ‘consistent, cheap and considerate’ requirements” having her eyebrow raised with a smirk hidden in her lips. After a rather intensive discussion on their philosophies of design, fashion tastes and career history which both boosted Jaswanti’s confidence and Nalina’s excitement, they looked like the most agreeable business partners teetering on becoming a good friendship.

In the spur of the moment just right after saying their goodbyes Nalina tugged Jaswanti by her wrist and then quickly asked “Oh before you go, do you or any of your friends need someone to go on a blind date with?” since she knew Lakshmi would torture her for forgetting. Jaswanti almost felt weird about the abrupt closeness but then stomped on it, spontaneously remembering the conversation she had with Saroj not more than 3 weeks back, and then with a lit-up face said “He is not my friend exactly but my little brother who is having absolutely zero game these days”.

Nalina stated “well not my sibling exactly but my best friend needs someone to date” while trying to stifle a giggle.

After sharing a chuckle, Jaswanti conferred “I would tell him to go on a dating app but since by such amazing luck he met his last, most toxic, ex on some dating app he suddenly hates them now” making an ugh sound while breathing out loudly looking at the roof.

Nalina responded “You and me, both”

As the event was closing they both then decided to continue their conversation for tomorrow, meeting for breakfast, to discuss more on the people they need to set up on a date and moreover seeing to set up any business partnership. Any and all pretentiousness that came over from the event sneaked into them discussing the blind date idea while deliberating on the business idea with relatively much more ease.

Nalina then told Lakshmi about a depressed teacher who she met who is named Saroj. While Lakshmi was tensed up on the idea of potentially risking a situation of ‘making a person with depression more depressed’, her best friend then talked about Saroj’s kindness and care that he has been having for everyone in his life and about his love for indoors. Lakshmi finally agreed to a blind date but only because Nalina had been soapboxing about why she had to date him and just wanted Nalina to shut up so Lakshmi could finally go to sleep.

Jaswanti then told Saroj about an optimistic, occasionally grounded and unusually wise woman, named Lakshmi, who happened to be a therapist. In the past 3 or more months, Saroj has been desperate to cling on to hope but unable to find it or keep it but then he felt a vague concept of hope that he might need and was rather quick to accept that opportunity. Jaswanti was elated to know that he would accept it but she was quick to warn him to not anchor his hopes to a woman he hasn’t met yet and to give Lakshmi the space to be herself so he doesn’t put his projection on her; Saroj for the first time actually heard his sister properly and made sure to careful.

Chapter 4: Crepuscular Rays

The Sun was just setting having the dyed the sky like a slice of a blood orange. If you were to sit indoors next to a window with a glass of your favourite drink then it’s rays would give you a sense of purpose: a sense of warmth like that of a campfire, a sense of achievement even with an unfulfilled goal and ease of mind which comes both from the closing day and the end to the afternoon light.

Whatever baggage Lakshmi and Saroj were waking up with on that morning had been bottled up after getting ‘a prep talk’ from their friends, Nalina and Jaswanti respectively, it was mostly out of their mind before they were heading to the cafe. Nalina and Jaswanti collectively preselected the cafe so that it was modern enough to mean something but cheap enough that going there wouldn’t feel high stakes, the blind date had been set for Lakshmi and Saroj on 10th August 2026. Even still given the constant self-pressure to not put expectations, they both had their expectations resurface right upon meeting each other albeit different reasons but for the same intentions. Lakshmi wanted someone she could faithfully trust, reciprocate romantic dedication and confidently call as hers, while Saroj wanted someone he could safely trust, love with reassurance and call as his with emotional security; All of this emotional and mental spiralling had been happening just as both of them were travelling to the cafe.

Since the transit was coordinated by Nalina and Jaswanti, both of them reached on the same time before the reservation and both of them made sure Lakshmi and Saroj met at the steady queue outside of the cafe. Nalina and Jaswanti then left before the two could get to their table so to not be the third-wheel to that conversation. Lakshmi and Saroj didn’t think much of each other at first—mostly due to the desperation of getting to a chair to relax on—but had a sense of being ‘spiritually welcomed’ by each other even if their faces didn’t show it. They had a sense of emotional magnetism over idealized versions of each other however common social courtesy made the two of them give their possible relationship both time and space.

After Lakshmi and Saroj both sat down and went over some of the basic questions: names, birthdate and birthplace. There was sense of awkwardness for a few seconds before Lakshmi realized to ask Saroj “What did you hear about me from your sister? And what made you interested in me?” as her eyes opened up slightly bit more than before to hear his opinion.

Saroj responded “Oh, I heard about a sweet, hopeful and introspective woman which definitely seemed more up my alley; what about you... like what did you hear about me?” as he felt a sense of embarrassment wondering if he was complimenting too much or even about his need to explain himself, all the while Lakshmi was slightly blushing at her description.

She then had to quickly hold herself, remember what Nalina told her last night and then said “Um I heard about a kind and caring soul who also loves the indoors which totally matched my vibe since my job as a therapist makes me stay indoors often” and then almost beating herself over what she felt like was stating the obvious.

He jokingly said “Ah well I hope I’m kind since that what’s kind of necessary to be a teacher, also I’m not that different from you since the subject I teach keeps me in the classroom too” partially feeling that he was accidentally mean but noticing that Lakshmi was sharing his feelings, his doubts started fading away.

She grinned for a bit and then in a chuckle said “Oh then, hopefully I am as introspective as my best friend Nalina says so because that would be necessary for a therapist” feeling more eased up.

Slowly getting more comfortable to each other they were talking about their past dreams, their current career and a question on where they would see themselves in the future (Lakshmi said she never really thought about it; Saroj said he didn’t plan much beyond tomorrow). Both of them started thinking that all the rom-coms they saw were about ‘opposites attract’ and that them dating wouldn’t make that much sense—despite the strengthening emotional magnetism—plus even if they did then it likely wouldn’t last as long as they would expect for whatever reasons that they made up in that moment. Regardless of those feelings they at least believed they could maybe be good friends.

Conversation went on from hobbies, musical interests, favourite show/movie genres to people they look up to and why, work-life balance, social energy day to day, love languages and each others favourite things to do in each season all while occasionally complimenting each other indirectly and realizing they align on various things more than they realized. Both of them ended up spending 3 hours in just making conversation and then when it struck half-past six PM, they suddenly noticed the time once the sun fully set and then decided to start wrapping up the date.

Saroj then suggested “Hey how about I pay for whole thing? I’m so sorry for taking so much time out of your day to spend with me...” and then Lakshmi sarcastically said “First time I’ve heard of a rich teacher in this economy, either way I am not stopping your pride unless... you’d want me to pay for it?” to which Saroj exclaimed “Ay, I’m not broke from all the stationary purchases for my classes okay! Oh well who am I kidding... I lowkey would appreciate you covering the bill but it’s not like I’ve heard of a high-earning therapist either”. After which they both made shocked faces and simultaneously said “Damn, we really insulted each other’s career like that” and then laughed while doing a modestly loud high five, finally both of them settled on paying the bill halfway to purposefully disregard the price of both their individual meals.

As they left, Lakshmi took to home an idea of a man who was good at humour and compliments and Saroj kept memory of a woman who was very sarcastic and friendly. Lakshmi told Nalina “He is not that bad as I thought he might’ve been, you finally upgraded your wing-woman skills!” in both mockery and sincerity. Saroj told Jaswanti “Look sis, I don’t know about romance but Lakshmi is a very good friend, also the first date didn’t go anywhere horribly as I even slightly expected” after which Jaswanti kept saying ‘I told you so’ and making fun of Saroj incessantly.

Chapter 5: Rising Winds and Tides

“You know what, I call bullshit” said Nalina and Jaswanti to each other on call later in the night after hearing the way Lakshmi and Saroj described each other. From that point Nalina and Jaswanti knew that there is no way they would let Lakshmi and Saroj to convince themselves that it went bad in anyway and that it was nothing more than a friendship.

Over the week after that first date with Saroj and Lakshmi keeping communication via text there were some new issues and good developments. Nalina heard from Lakshmi about Saroj’s ‘heavily delayed texting of taking half a day at most to respond’ despite that ‘he is really good at flirting and he is nice on commenting on all my insta selfies’, Nalina told her “You might actually be into him given that somehow your worst problem is that ‘he only messages me after-work hours and not immediately’ and nothing serious” Lakshmi reacted with flaring her nostrils, pushing her head forwards and slightly shaking her head. Jaswanti heard from Saroj about Lakshmi’s ‘constant deep probing about how his day is to an extent that he might be getting free therapy’ but that ‘she is very emotionally supportive when I make tiny achievements in my hobbies and makes me want to do my hobbies more’, to which Jaswanti said “Bro that’s not free therapy! she has a crush on you, dumbass” Saroj then reacted by rolling his eyes.

Whatever was Nalina’s and Jaswanti’s beliefs they both knew that love cannot be forced but rather needed to ferment. Just then Saroj told Jaswanti that he set up a hangout (second ‘date’) with Lakshmi while he was saying “You know how you were bullying me for thinking it’s just a friendship, Lakshmi agreed with me that you and Nalina are on some nonsense so we decided to have a second ‘date’, which is more like a hangout since we are friends, so you both will shut up about ‘shipping’ us” in frustration. That was when Jaswanti and Nalina realized that spite might be an effective tactic if they ever needed anyone in their lives to do something for them.

Saroj and Lakshmi did have desires to have a second date but they didn’t want the other to believe they were romantically interested in each other. Since they assumed it would make no sense to date someone that seems like a good friend; if they did date It would remove any lingering romantic interest if they knew each other’s romantic past, mental history and other traumatizing things that seem to irk themselves too much to think the other person would like it. They paying the game of doubts while the date was set to be a week in advance and the occasion was for dinner—they assumed the late-night tiredness would make then do weird things and finally settle that they were definitely not into each other.

In spite of Lakshmi’s and Saroj’s persistent feeling that they wouldn’t like each other like that—they shared the same birth month of August despite being born a year from each other (Lakshmi’s birth date is 5th Aug 1998 and Saroj’s birth date is 18th Aug 1999)—So in that spirit they thought of making a gift for each other to give before the second ‘date’ on the day of Indian Independence (August 15th 2026) to try to further reduce the idea that it was not a date but rather a hangout for the Indian holiday, they also convinced themselves that the birthday occasion was the only reason for the gift and definitely not due to wanting the other person to ‘remember me more so they will talk to me more’.

Saroj started working on getting Lakshmi a gift of the widely popular reversible octopus plushie that shows anger on one side and a smile on the other. After he found out about the size of the plushie he then thought that it would be ‘too small to be a gift’, as a result he got 3 of those plushies and then worked on making an hour worth of a music playlist that Lakshmi may like—which he had to quickly make private on his account since Lakshmi was following him there too.

Lakshmi was making a list of shows and movies to tell him about, that she could maybe watch with him, since she remembered that Saroj was very heavily a homebody person. In a sudden epiphany while making the list she realized that she needed plausible deniability since she didn’t want neither herself nor Saroj to think she had any crush on him; Lakshmi started working on making a playlist of songs which barely reached 45 mins worth and bought a recipe book that would help him with learning to make his favourite food for each season and learn about other dishes too, realizing that a bought book seemed too impersonal she then worked over 3 days and nights to write a list of dishes to make for all the Indian seasons alongside it’s recipe list.

Chapter 6: Absurd, Tangible and Exotic

Trying to finally settle on a gift package—Saroj settled on putting it in a gift box since the plushies given any other way may ruin the vibe, Lakshmi settled on giving the list of shows and movies along side the self-made recipe book into a bag that was put into another bag so that nothing would spoil the items she handcrafted.

Since Lakshmi picked the restaurant for the date, she went to pick him up in her car and then went to the restaurant; while driving Lakshmi tried to not look at Saroj so that she wouldn’t lose herself in thought about him, on the other hand Saroj was blushing all the way through from getting picked up and as they she was driving him to the restaurant. She had put her gift in the dickie of the car so that he wouldn’t check it when she went to pick him up, He made sure to put the gift box on his lap covered by his arms to make sure she wouldn’t see his gift as well.

Due to whatever luck and prayers these two made before getting ready for the ‘date’, their booked table was immediately available as soon as they reached the restaurant. The restaurant was moderately expensive, since Lakshmi agreed to fully paying for the bill before since she claimed it as her treat since it was well past her birthday.

They both were carrying their gifts by their side even as they got down to sit on their chair, breaking no sweat Saroj told Lakshmi “Happy belated Birthday for the second time, Sorry I couldn’t properly call you then!” as he handed her the gift he got for her and then told Lakshmi that he made a music playlist for her which he showed on his phone and made public that moment after showing it to her; seeing Saroj’s gifts, she didn’t feel that she went that overboard with her own gifts for him. Lakshmi responded with “Happy advanced birthday to you!” with a cheerful smile while giving him the gifts she got for him and then told him that she made a playlist for him too. After seeing each other’s playlists, they made for each other they realized their music taste was genuinely the same even considering the genres matching on the first date; they then decided to make a playlist to collaborate and share songs on for both of them.

Before either of them went to open the other part of the gifts they gave to each other (Saroj’s plushies and Lakshmi’s recipe book), they both settled on opening it in the car after eating dinner so to not make any mess onto the gifts they got for each other. While Lakshmi and Saroj thought what they said about opening the gifts would make the other person feel like they weren’t nice but it only made the two giddy that the other person cared for their personal long-term happiness and made them all the more excited to open the gifts later.

Lakshmi in the intention of wanting to further stifle her giddiness and to feel more like just friends that treat each other like siblings, she complained “I just need to ask though, why don’t you message me any quicker? You can somehow message in block texts but take like hours to actually message me!” in the most half-assed aggressive voice to which Saroj almost felt sad at the accusation but then he said “Well you therapize me so good that I was talking some time off texting to research and learn about how you help me, thereby using that inspiration to help my students in the classroom to be motivated” while making the ‘um actually’ meme face and pointing his index finger to the air.

Lakshmi then felt elated seeing how he countered her accusations with a genuinely good compliment, all while feeling the same surge of rapid heart beats similar to when he texted some flirty lines. Seeing her reaction, Saroj tried to hide his ever-widening smile by sucking in his lips and then asked her “Well that being, why do you like asking me in high detail about my day like you making you review my day deeper than any e-sports commentator” very curiously, to which she stated “To be honest, knowing about your day is as good as reviewing a sport; somehow you manage to have to most weirdest, wholesome and wonder-striking days ever, on top of that knowing your perspective on what makes it good or bad is all the more fun!”. While he had still been sucking in his lips, it only got more harder to maintain which forced him to smile whilst being over the moon once the pain from hiding it was too much.

As seeing each other was only bolstering the tiny thought in their heads that either ‘maybe he/she has a crush on me’ or ‘he/she is so sweet/fun, I kind of want to date him/her’, they suddenly realized they were doing too much nonsense (the feeling that they needed to be slightly nonchalant about their attraction towards the other person) which made them calm down rather quickly so that both of them would work on the serious questions to eliminate that doubt. In a sudden simultaneous spur of energy, both of them asked each other “So let’s talk about your childhood”.

Lakshmi then said “I grew up with sort of tiger parents which only got worse as I got older, I don’t know how a person can become more demanding and more deeply overseeing everything I do as I got older but that’s what set most of my problems going throughout my life” with some tears at the edge of her eyes

Saroj then asked her “If it’s not insensitive to ask, can I clarify something?” have a slight sense of concern in his voice.

Lakshmi approved his wanting to know more and then he asked her “Is that why you are deeply concerned about my day? Is like a thing that made you believe that is what it means to care for someone?” as looked at her attentively for her response.

Lakshmi had to think for bit as even her therapist said something about it but she kind of forgot and then said “something like that but this like where I found my moderation so far since back in college to get away from them, I tried to be very nonchalant which only ruined my friendships... thankfully Nalina saw beyond that and became my best friend; what about you? What’s the thing from your childhood influencing your life these days?” while feeling somewhat comforted that he asked the right questions, all the while both of them tried to console each other by holding each other’s hands while the other one was speaking to give comfort.

As Saroj was trying to hold back his own tears thinking both about his past and her past, he then said “I grew up as an orphan, as in for most of my childhood from about 8 or 10 years old it was only my elder sister Jaswanti helping me with my life”

Lakshmi asked “Did you lose your uncles and aunts too? Were you in an orphanage for most of your life?” slightly feeling weirded out at her intrusive question

He said “I did lose them but it’s not that they died because they were alive and chose to not care for me and Jaswanti, we were forcefully put in an orphanage; that’s what makes me be very careful to make sure people know that I want them around me if I love them, since even the thought of ghosting someone I like feels like a crime given the life I grew up in which shaped my current morals and ethics” having felt a weight slowly pulled off his heart.

For both of them despite their differing presence of parents, they had some sense of comradery in that for Lakshmi ‘her existing parents didn’t want her’ and for Saroj ‘there was no one that actually wanted to be his parents’. Usually this would raise a red flag over possible emotional dependency but they both felt there was something more to the experiences of other person than they knew in spoken word as their hearts started speaking more than their mouths could for their own mind, if there was any worry about it being reciprocated then the two of them would see it in each other’s eyes in their growing curiosity for the other person. While they did want to further that emotionally deepening conversation, they knew wallowing in a modestly priced restaurant would do no good for both of them.

Lakshmi then asked Saroj “Have you dated before? If you have then what have you learnt from those experiences?” to clear the air and change the conversation while still focusing on their past. Saroj then said “I dated someone like one time in my life; it went somewhat okay until things got really sour... I don’t blame her or myself since it was more complicated than playing the blame game but I did learn that love requires understanding, space and emotional openness so, what about you?” feeling somewhat distant from that experience.

Lakshmi then said “wow you have very good emotional awareness... you are very wise” and then taking a few seconds feeling sure that finally she was going to date someone who is mentally mature, she then asked “however, before I share my experiences I forgot to also ask—how long ago was the breakup? And how long did the relationship last?”.

Saroj responded with “Oh, it was over 3 months ago and it lasted around two and a half years”

She then took a breath to calm herself then said “I had a couple romantic relationships in my schooling years but they would barely last 3 weeks since every time my parents would find out, they would forcefully break up those relationships by spreading rumours about me to the person I like; later in college I tried to commit to some romantic relationships but I was always scared of treating them the way my parents treated me which made most of them become flings” as a wave of regret washed over her mind.

Again, they managed to land on a conversation they both were going to cry on but then decided to instead talk about some other topics to keep composure while being in the restaurant. Their sense of solidarity in approach to life grew a lot, alongside a growing a feeling of wanting the other person more in their lives to have someone who will understand and care properly. To calm things down they decided to just ask some would you rather questions either on very silly or emotionally deep topics. By then after spending over 45 mins, they then decided to call it a day after Lakshmi paid for the bill and Saroj tipped the servers. Afterwards they went back to Lakshmi’s car; both of them sat in the backseat of the car to see each other’s expressions when it came to opening the remaining gifts.

Starting with Lakshmi she opened the gift box that Saroj gave her and was very thrilled to get not one but three of the reversible octopus that shows anger and happiness. Out of the desire to share that feeling, she then asked Saroj if she could hug him which he very gladly accepted—while being hugged he was blushing a lot and reciprocated her tight hug with an even tighter hug. Saroj then opened his gift and as he saw a list of shows and movies to watch he was very excited at the possibility of watching it with her as he said “Now we have to call everyday to finish this list, there is no way I’m watching all of this solo” which made Lakshmi lose herself in daydreaming for a while. As he checked a few pages from the handwritten recipe book with so many dishes listed by season to cook those foods in, it made him like he was being understood very deeply and then, after asking if she wanted a hug, he gave her a hug in that same excitement.

Lakshmi felt a lot closer to him, more than she could mentally allow anyone but still she very desperately appreciated have that rapport, intimacy and camaraderie regardless of her past. For a while the two talked about how important the gifts felt to them, just before she was going to about to go out of the back seat to the driver’s seat, she asked him if she could kiss him. Saroj was very shy hearing what she asked but said “yes” in a soft voice but with a stutter, taking in his consent she impulsively but slowly put her warm palm on the left side of his cheek, pulled him close to her face after which she gave him a soft peck on his cheek (she held his face to her lips for 3 seconds since started blushing while doing it). Saroj was blushing heavily at what she did and when he glanced at her, she gave a wink before going to the driver’s seat to start the car; even if he felt like wanting to think about the whole date for a while as he was going to be dropped to his home, he couldn’t as the strong endearing hugs, excitement from the gifts and the peck got on his cheek only made him daydream about her intensely as they went there—Lakshmi knew from looking occasionally at the rear view mirror, he was still in the back seat lost in his own world whilst drooling over his own imagined scenarios.

For a bit just as Lakshmi dropped Saroj as his home, he didn’t feel like getting out of the car since he didn’t want to leave that day making himself feel like he was too shy to make the necessary advances or too cowardly by not reciprocating his feelings for her and then possibly losing her; he asked her to wait then got out of the back seat and went to the window of the driver’s seat and asked her “Um, can I give you a kiss on the cheek?” while stammering but pushing on with every ounce of his courage. Lakshmi felt intensely cherished hearing him and said “yes” with a blush on her face—more intense than the one Saroj had when she gave him a peck—and opened her door to give him a visual approval alongside the verbal and physical one; it took him a while to push himself to go past his worries, shyness and fears and then he made sure to push himself mentally through all of it for the sake of love. He tilted his upper body towards her, put his one palm on her nape and the other on her chin then pulled her close enough to his face so that he could kiss her cheek—it went on for longer than he would intend but only because he didn’t want his shyness to make it last any shorter than the time it should last.

It took her a few minutes to soak in what happened, after she realized the time, she quickly went back home. Once they both got home, they tried their best with Nalina and Jaswanti to make it look like two friends just getting close but all the flirting, physical touch and emotional closeness didn’t help their case that well. Lakshmi then kept two of them, since she needed both emotions ‘active’, in her room after gifting one of them to Nalina. Saroj then tried to make Jaswanti work with him to make the dishes listed in the recipe book so that he could gift some to Lakshmi and Nalina; Jaswanti almost said no but after realizing it would help Lakshmi and Saroj get close and for her to keep in touch with Nalina, she accepted it.

Chapter 7: A Greenhouse for Hearts

Over 2 months they both spent a lot of their time in the night watching movies and shows, sometimes even going to the midnight. Both of them kept forgetting to go to sleep over due to the reasons of either ‘this show is too fun to stop binging’ or over ‘I love seeing his/her reactions and her analysis of the plotline and it’s making my day much better’ and sometimes it happened to be both of those reasons.

While their approach to analysing the shows and movies were some what different which gave way for most of the extensive discussions, both of them always managed to reach the same conclusions. As they felt anything, they would always talk about what experience that came to mind and why they related to that moment. Most of the time they even added a lot of songs to their collaborative playlist to remember each day they were watching movies and shows. At some point Nalina told Lakshmi “Hey! remember to tell me when he proposes to you” to which Lakshmi blushed and rolled her eyes

Nalina then begged her “No! You have to promise!” while pulling at her arm

Lakshmi then said “Okay, sure” while chuckling

After Nalina made her say the promise word for word, she left Lakshmi to her long hours of listening the playlist she was making with Saroj. Jaswanti didn’t do much on her front overtly but would ask Saroj random questions on Lakshmi: ‘how is she doing today?’, ‘do you think this song is what makes sense to your connection to Lakshmi’ or any other basic question just so Lakshmi would be on his mind more often.

The playlist which started shy over 20 songs ended up reaching over 100+ songs as they even added songs which made them remember each other outside of watching movies and shows together alongside a song they decided on together to remember that moment. However, at some point the pace of songs they added to the playlist reduced as their workload suddenly increased as it was reaching as the next year began, they both started to really miss each other and could never find a time to meet again as whenever it was set then something would mess up both of their schedules leading either one of them cancelling the dates. Making sure they wouldn’t forget each other, both of them tried to listen to the playlist they made more often. Saroj would try to sneak it in the time he had to review his students class test answer papers so it could reduce the sense of anger or even any feeling of loathing the classrooms and Lakshmi would try to listen to it in the breaks she got in-between sessions because it would help her to be reminded to have resilience, kindness and sweetness no matter how exhausted she was getting from helping each person in the therapy sessions.

Chapter 8: Pruning and Recovering

While Lakshmi and Saroj did at least maintain the basics of ‘hi, how are you today?’ to keep some form of communication alive, one of them would occasionally try to slip in any additional question just to text for somewhat longer. Even though it was not purposeful, l those ‘3rd questions’ would not be read until hours later and with such a tiny response despite both of them wanting to talk more.

Eventually since there was major event coming up for both Lakshmi and Saroj they couldn’t even fulfil the basics, of communication, for a week. The event was about discussing how to help students in schools with mental and emotional health to so that they get better at studying. Since it was held at the school Saroj was working at, moreover Lakshmi and Saroj were some of the important people who had to come for the event to discuss action plans. Which meant that after many weeks of dry texting they finally met—which just felt like they got to have surface level talking because their meeting after that sour patch of 6 weeks seemed like to be only for the school crisis event on mental health.

After the very long and intensive discussion which was supposed to be over 3 hours, they made sure to meet each other in the 20-minute break that came in-between the meeting. The first thing they did was to hug for 5 minutes before asking many questions about their lives over the last 6 weeks which was barely answered. Once the meeting was adjourned, they finally got the excuse to talk to each other for much longer, one of Saroj’s work colleague made sure to substitute for some of his classes, and they hugged again told each other about how they listened to the playlist often to get inspiration.

Throughout the discussion, Lakshmi and Saroj had for an hour, they properly went over the events that happened over the 6 weeks when they didn’t talk; they also found out that the reason they couldn’t meet to talk about the event during those 6 weeks was due the agency Lakshmi was working for had partnerships with multiple schools that the agency didn’t specify about and due to that lack of knowledge it was harder to be sure if she could actually call Saroj for conversations. The two of them then settled that they need a proper vacation to talk for longer about their pasts to clear the air and properly define what was the status of their relationship since even the shortest periods without talking had made both of them want each other more.

In the spirit of needing to properly discussing about taking a vacation Lakshmi and Saroj decided to set meeting in 2 days for breakfast to happen alongside Nalina and Jaswanti. Lakshmi, Saroj, Nalina and Jaswanti then met at a vegetarian restaurant to discuss the possibility of a shared vacation for a week—starting from 28th Dec 2026 and ending at 1st Jan 2027. They settle on visiting Goa for the week to which Nalina and Jaswanti agreed since they had, their fashion business, plans in Goa. After through discussion they finally settled on going to Goa via train in about a month’s time.

The major reason which made Nalina and Jaswanti accept the idea of a vacation to Goa was due to their ongoing discussions on their possible business venture since they had to get prepared to start for the summer sales for clothes. Alongside any economic ambitions, seeing Lakshmi and Saroj get closer bolstered any existing reason—the ever-accumulating mental exhaustion from their work—to go to Goa.

Since their work schedule was significantly lesser after the event was over, they started watching movies and shows during that period often meeting at each other’s houses after finding out that they lived only at most 30 minutes away from each other. They chose to not take a third date before the vacation since they needed to save up money.

Chapter 9: Transplantation of a Bouquet

The wait was finally over as they got into the train station in Thrissur to head to Goa over, since their ticket was for the evening seven pm train to reach goa by early morning half past seven pm. As they were waiting for the train, the four of them had 3 cups of tea in a row striving to keep their eyes alert and their minds awake while talking about the places they travelled to throughout their lives.

Once they hurriedly got into the train then waiting to get dinner, Lakshmi and Saroj almost acted like they were on their third date but Nalina and Jaswanti stopped them from making the situation cringy. The four of them just played some games until they went to sleep; Lakshmi and Saroj were sleeping in the lower berth of the AC cabin of the train while Nalina and Jaswanti were sleeping in the upper berth. The sudden jerking of the train sometimes caused either one of more of them to wake up ever so often; Lakshmi and Saroj would often look at the other person to help with going to sleep which they would sometimes do while blushing, neither of them would think much of it since they either thought it was a dream or that they were too tired to think of anything. Sometimes Nalina or Jaswanti would wake up and see them staring, at each other in the lower berth, cause them to cringe out or look at them adoringly while occasionally trying to scare the other (Nalina scaring Jaswanti or Jaswanti scaring Nalina).

By the time it became early morning Nalina woke up by six AM to wake up everyone and get ready to get off at the station in Goa. Since they had to leave the train before the usual time for breakfast while starting their day in, the Madgaon Junction of, Goa on hungry stomachs; Jaswanti remarked openly to the group after getting in a taxi to go the hotel saying “Reaching a place hungry is the worst start for my vacation, but at least we get to start off our breakfast with food from a hotel”.

Soon after getting set up into their rooms—Lakshmi and Nalina are in one room, Saroj and Jaswanti are in another room—they immediately have a heavy breakfast in the hotel. For the first day their plan was to take a nap before lunch and then eat again at the hotel, they planned to eat out but their one-hour nap became a four-hour nap making them wake up at 2:45 PM. After a rather unexpectedly light lunch, they went for a safari trip to see a waterfall; while all four of them thought the waterfalls here was not as good as the ones in their home state (Lakshmi’s home state is Maharashtra, Nalina’s is Karnataka, Saroj’s is Kerala and Jaswanti’s is Kerala), all of them still appreciated being able to have a hangout as big as this in their late 20’s. While watching the unexpectedly loud but short waterfall Nalina jokingly told Lakshmi “It’s with such less force that it’s much calmer here compared to back at home” whilst thinking about the waterfall

Lakshmi blushed and said “Yeah, I don’t think having it here would create a pressure on anything” thinking about marriage and kids

Nalina responded “Hmm, true but it would look better if it was slightly stronger and more vibrant though”

Lakshmi said “I mean, I guess you do need it to be peaceful and vibrant to care for it in the long term”

Nalina stated “One can only hope for it, since the current climate is only making it worse and only slowly taking it away from us at the end of the day”

Lakshmi was shocked and said “Who the hell is kidnapping the babies in this economic climate?!”

Nalina was completely caught off guard but realizing what Lakshmi meant she responded “That makes so much sense why you were blushing back then, anyways please invite me to your marriage whenever it’s going to happen” while laughing.

On the other hand, Jaswanti and Saroj were joking about being kidnapped to be tortured by seeing a lacklustre waterfall, adding on in sarcasm while claiming that the only reason Saroj came is because ‘the real attraction for the vacation is Lakshmi’ and that ‘the waterfall is a side quest’.

After the most rushed starting to their vacation: they all went back to hotel, ate outside at some local restaurant and played some games with whatever playing cards they had on hand before going to sleep. Before all of them slept, Nalina and Jaswanti promised to each other that they would work on the business plan soon meanwhile Saroj and Lakshmi said that they would try to continue and deepen the conversations that they had on their second date.

Nalina and Jaswanti made sure to wake up earlier on the second day of the trip by around half-past seven pm and made sure to wake up Saroj and Lakshmi as well. Nalina and Jaswanti had gone to the hotel restaurant for a bit to eat while talking about their action plan for getting data on their competition and customer needs; Saroj and Lakshmi decided to meet in the hotel room, where Nalina and Lakshmi set their bags, to hangout and talk about their childhood in more depth—Lakshmi and Saroj cried more openly, hugged more often and held each other’s hands occasionally to console each other. Then when it became afternoon and all of them had their lunch together at some local bakery where they all just talked more about plans for the next 4 full days of the vacation. Directly after eating at the bakery, they went to their hotel rooms to get their beach wear and then spent over 1.5 hours at the beach.

After they all went back to the hotel and got ready they all worked on different things before dinner that day: Nalina and Jaswanti bought multiple bags of candies and took their questionnaire to a mall to ask people on summer fashion and their desires in clothes, meanwhile Saroj and Lakshmi talked more on their perspectives of the world alongside how it impacted them as they grew up. Nalina as Jaswanti came to hotel room—these two spent their time starting from five minutes past four pm and then ending at fifteen minutes to eight pm—seeing both of them just talking about things around to which they joined in as they talked about how it was to do the survey and things they learnt from people about fashion. All of them just ordered dinner to the room to extend the conversation before exaggeratively parting ways (just two of them going to their hotel room) to go to sleep.

Since Nalina and Jaswanti had the main work fully done therefore wanting extra sleep, they decided to not put alarms; they then told Lakshmi and Saroj that they will have a heavy brunch tomorrow by around noon and it’s up to them to wake up on their own. Lakshmi and Saroj decided to wake up by half past seven AM to talk more seriously about the idea of dating; since Lakshmi woke up more quietly but Saroj disturbed Jaswanti by accident, Jaswanti tried to sleep for another hour (rather awfully) then woke up Nalina by nine AM to work on fully making a report for themselves on the survey they did in the park—it look her another half an hour to wake Nalina since she was a heavy sleeper afterwards Nalina begrudgingly woke up and joined her.

Lakshmi and Saroj decided to head out to a big park to talk about the prospect of romantic commitment. After they finally found a reasonably secluded area to discuss the idea, they both sat down then Lakshmi opened up the conversation by asking Saroj “So before we go ahead with some insane yapping about how much we mean to each other” sarcastically and then continued “I wanted to ask you about what does romantic commitment mean to you?” in a serious tone. Saroj then really thought about it and then said “I mean like we discussed yesterday we can’t just delve into what commitment means without putting it into two actual parts: what we learned to actually see as important after our old relationships and what values are core to either of us so the relationship feels romantic” to which Lakshmi nodded in agreement.

Saroj then said “with regard to my crazy past” while giggling along with Lakshmi and continued “for me I firstly need emotional security: which is like the mental safety to vent, argue and be transparent without retaliation in a way it feels harder to do that same thing again” feeling some hope seeing Lakshmi actually listen to him

and then continued “Secondly, it would be verbal intimacy: which I think you know with the way I was flirting with you but also like some reconfirmation when you like something I did or didn’t like something I did so I can have clarity and trust that you actually want me to love you, if you know what I mean” to which Lakshmi aggressively nodded in agreement

after which Saroj said “thirdly... um wait I think that’s the last one so I guess lastly” which made Lakshmi chuckle to and after seeing Lakshmi, Saroj chuckled too and then he said “So yeah lastly, it would some sense of safety like mentally? In the sense that I can trust when you say something sarcastic or serious you are letting me know even if I misunderstand so that there is no unintentional divide in our relationship”

She responded with “Yeah, that seems perfectly reasonable! Afterall communication is key to the maintenance of any relationship”

He then jokingly remarked “Please don’t lose this key okay, lose any other key instead... I mean try not to lose keys but genuinely please don’t lose this specific key” to which they both laughed loudly.

Saroj then said “I think we talk core values after you talk about what is important to you based on your previous romantic relationships” making sure that Lakshmi didn’t feel left out or to prevent any possibility of unintentionally becoming the focus of the conversation.

Lakshmi felt very strongly acknowledged of her presence from his last point and then said “So for me it would also be like three things which I’ve always personally remarked as lessons from my last romantic relationships; firstly it would be a genuine relationship where putting faith in it lasting wouldn’t be naive: In the sense that it’s not something I see either of us ending unless the turmoil we share is too hard for our relationship to rise over” after which she sharply stated “I would fucking hope that we could push to handle all our relationship problems together and that the most that would end it is like we actually lost the emotional capacity to make it work but oh well sometimes that feels like a hard ask too” to which Saroj nodded in validation both to the surprise of himself and Lakshmi.

She then said “Secondly it would be that I want to feel that dedicating to it wouldn’t feel like a foolish act: which is like say if we had a date or outing on out anniversary of committing then it shouldn’t like where either one of us barely does anything to show appreciation while the other is disproportionately showing higher appreciation while feeling ridiculed for it, if that makes any sense”.

He then asked her “do you basically mean that you want it be like an actual romantic relationship and it should neither be a fling nor like ‘dating just for the season and that’s it’, does that make sense?”

She replied “Exactly on the dot” without wasting a second to think

Saroj aggressively nodded in agreement while saying “Clock that bestie, because I agree with you word for word” as he was tapping his index finger against his thumb repeatedly.

Lakshmi then continued “Also lastly it should be monogamous because that’s very important to me, hopefully I don’t explain why if you remember our conversation from yesterday” looking at him hoping that he remembered

Saroj then acknowledged her and said “Yeah, things like being the focus of romantic attention, having undivided access and distribution in intimacy (romantic, emotional and sexual) and last but not least a silver lining for trust that in conflict so that the intimate focus doesn’t metaphorically spill to someone else resulting in accidentally making the relationship feel less valid overall. Am I right or am I right?” to which both of them laughed while Lakshmi felt deeply acknowledged mentally.

Lakshmi and Saroj then suddenly and simultaneously said “How the heck are we agreeing so well? We are highkey twinning for real!” after which they both tried to high five but failed to do while only successfully landing it on the third try.

Saroj then said “Okay so for core values I hopefully don’t have to explain much; for me it’s emotional depth, reasonable curiosity for change and loud celebrations of milestones” while being somewhat on the edge hoping for Lakshmi to agree. Lakshmi then said “Oh my... my... my... someone that actually wants a relationship balanced in the seriousness and fun while also have a constant hope and desire to be with someone as they change and celebrating as if the milestones were like the greatest things to achieve! I was genuinely thinking we were going to differ a but I have the exact same core values as you!” whilst being astounded.

As they slowly came to the realization—that they agreed more than they realized for over the past 4.5 months—both of them were blushing for a long few minutes whilst barely being able to keep composure, feeling huge waves of shivers flow throughout their body and a huge sense of hope for the romantic relationship about which they have been dreaming ever since their second date which felt like forever ago for both of them. Lakshmi and Saroj started having a strong, genuine and reasonable feeling that the person they have been slowly and increasingly crushing for the last four and a half months would actually want them the way they would want them.

Lakshmi having an unshakable urge to not let go of the chance of losing someone she is actually romantically interested in then asked Saroj “Um, do you want to date each other?” in a mild stutter while being somewhat shy. Whatever amount of sense of blushing Saroj had only increased multi-fold after which he realized he couldn’t bare the thought of making Lakshmi feel like he didn’t like her—she kept appearing in all his dreams when he thought about kissing someone—Saroj then looked at Lakshmi into her eyes as he held himself together and told her “Yes, I definitely want to date you” feeling elated and as Lakshmi felt her heart skip a beat, he then stated “hopefully I can date you forever!” in a voice loud enough to not be misheard, serious enough to not be mistaken and with a such glee that she would feel like he actually appreciated it. Both of them mutually agreed on telling Nalina and Jaswanti in the hotel after brunch, site visit’s and just enough time before dinner; since they wanted to playfully stare at each other or even touch each other hands publicly with reasonable plausibility despite having romantic intentions so that for a few more hours the two could prank Nalina and Jaswanti before making the announcement. Lakshmi and Saroj then headed back to the hotel room, by half past eleven AM, where Jaswanti and Nalina have been working on the report.

The whole group then headed to have brunch at a local restaurant for a Goan thali. Saroj and Lakshmi sat opposite to each other, meanwhile they made Nalina and Jaswanti very confused as Lakshmi and Saroj would frequently do random intimate things despite what seemed like two single people being too intimate without being in a relationship. Lakshmi and Saroj would nudge each other’s upper arm in the middle of eating—in ways that were more deliberate than accidental sometimes—while the other one would sometimes act blushed, other times they would genuinely blush, only adding to Jaswanti and Nalina’s confusion. After brunch they headed out to visit and explore an old church. Sometimes either of them would act like they couldn’t do something or see something and then help each by overly touching each other: Lakshmi would sometimes act like she didn’t know how to light other candles using a candle despite doing it over 5 separate times in the same hour so that Saroj would hold her hand to help her light some candles, other times Saroj would act like he couldn’t see some thing Lakshmi would point out so that she could either rotate him by the hips or hold his face by his cheeks to make him see the thing she was pointing at earlier. At some point where Jaswanti and Nalina were at a good distance away from Lakshmi and Saroj, Jaswanti remarked to Nalina “How do these hopeless idiots don’t know the other one has a crush on them?”

Nalina said “I guess they are not hopeless romantics but rather foolish romantics” after which Jaswanti and Nalina covered their mouth to share a giggle for a good while.

Jaswanti then asked “Do you think they are actually dating and just playing some big prank on us? This seems too weird and cringy to be honest”

Nalina then said “I don’t think so... like think about the way they were staring at each other in the train, how they were spending all their nights watching shows with each other and how they were flirting over text despite still not dating”

Jaswanti then calmly said “that makes more sense than an elaborate prank, plus I’d rather feel like these two are the idiots and not us two, since my ever-depleting self-worth would tank if I found out I was wrong in the stupidest way”

Nalina then high-fived Jaswanti and said “Yeah...” with a slight doubt that Jaswanti’s question was probably a good guess given the recent rising intimacy.

After the church visit, they headed back to the hotel and after all four of them got in one room, Saroj and Lakshmi then revealed to Nalina and Jaswanti that they were dating alongside the fact that they were pranking both of the all the way from brunch to the church. Nalina immediately got up to repeatedly punch Lakshmi’s shoulder saying “Hey! That’s not fair, you told me that would tell me first if Saroj proposed” to which Lakshmi made a grin merged with a smirk saying “I did promise but the thing is that I proposed to him!” while mocking Nalina; Jaswanti groaned as she pushed her back into the bed saying “I literally knew! I really should’ve trusted my gut” to which Saroj said “Maybe one day when your intelligence can keep pace with your instinct” after which Jaswanti and Saroj made silly faces at each other.

Since it was only the 28th of December, Jaswanti and Nalina said that if and when the two plan to share a kiss for the start of the new year then they have to be there to see it otherwise they had to let them buy a lot of chocolates and ice creams as a treat on their money (Lakshmi’s and Saroj’s money). Lakshmi then put her hand on Saroj’s shoulder and sarcastically said “Saroj, we have to either pay the creepy kissing tax or the expensive candy tax... we are so cooked” to which he said “I know right! It’s so rough out here” while trying to match her sarcastic tone, after which both of them just kept laughing to which Nalina and Jaswanti joined in laughter after both of them calmed down about their perceived betrayal. The group then decided to have food in the room again to get Lakshmi and Saroj to talk about what made them want to date each other and how the proposal went, all of them went to sleep by midnight in the same room with Saroj and Lakshmi in one bed alongside Jaswanti and Nalina in the other bed.

They all ended up waking up by around ten AM, since Jaswanti and Nalina usually wake up early—both of them woke up at half past nine AM—they decided that it would be best to rearrange the way they put their bags so Lakshmi and Saroj were in one room, whilst Jaswanti and Nalina were in the other. However just as the two were thinking about to move the bags, Lakshmi and Saroj woke up—seeing that the first thing was they were doing was hugging each other while sleeping which made both of them have very rosy cheeks while looking into each other’s eyes, alongside seeing Jaswanti and Nalina already awake—initially both of just got shocked realizing that Jaswanti and Nalina had been looking at them for a while thinking they might’ve done something weird in their sleep.

Jaswanti jokingly said “I think Lakshmi is pregnant” while trying to stop herself from laughing, Lakshmi screamed “what” in a loud voice as Saroj sharply said “huh”.

Nalina added “Yeah, the two of you kissed for too long in the middle of sleeping” which made Lakshmi and Saroj take a sigh of relief until they realized something after they thought more about Nalina’s point.

Lakshmi got scared thinking that she had her ‘first kiss’ with her boyfriend but she didn’t lock in because she thought the lip-kissing sequence in the dream was fake, on the other hand Saroj lamented over the fact that he had his first kiss with Lakshmi but he was not conscious enough to remember it. After a few minutes, Saroj mouthed to Lakshmi “do you think it counts?” while having the blues and then Lakshmi wanting to make the first one be good and an actual memory, she mouthed back to him “yup, it doesn’t count” whilst rubbing his cheek with her palms with a smile on her face.

Jaswanti then added to Nalina’s point stating “Yeah, definitely because when I was 5 years old my parents told me that kissing for too long makes you get babies” while trying to be as serious as possible to ragebait Lakshmi and Saroj.

Nalina almost misheard her so she leaned into Jaswanti’s ear and asked “Kissing gets you rabies?! You know you’re supposed to be only kissing humans on the lips and not animals, right?” in the softest voice which made Jaswanti confused and then leaned into Nalina’s ear and said “babies not rabies, as in kissing gets you babies”.

Nalina then feeling the joke had died out, said in a voice loud enough for Lakshmi and Saroj to hear “Anyway to not beat around the bush, do you guys want to change rooms so that both of you are in one room while me and Jaswanti are going to be in another room?”.

While being in one room to sleep in together seemed like a huge jump for the relationship, both of them agreed to go to one room since regardless of the weight of the change they already managed to sleep together in one bed.

All of them worked on fully moving around Saroj’s and Nalina’s items so that the room that was for Lakshmi and Nalina would now be for Lakshmi and Saroj, while the other room that was for Jaswanti and Saroj would now be for Jaswanti and Nalina. All of them then went to have their breakfast at the hotel by around half past ten AM and then all of them went back to their rooms. Nalina and Jaswanti decided to take a break from the business work just for this day and then decided to go out to some malls to eat, buy some things to remember their trip and just talk about their lives. Lakshmi and Saroj decided to sit in the hotel room to talk about how they plan to maintain constant communication, necessary time to show intimacy alongside making a new list of movies and shows to binge once they got back home.

Whilst Lakshmi and Saroj decided to skip lunch due to the late breakfast, Jaswanti and Nalina just decided to have their lunch slightly later in the day than usual (three PM). Once it hit half past three PM all of them decided to play some games with the playing cards for the rest of the day, by around six PM all of them had their snacks in the middle of playing their card games. After having dinner much later in the restaurant at the hotel, all of them went back to their respective rooms and slept.

On the 5th day of the vacation (Dec 29th 2026) they all woke up by eight AM and had their breakfast at the hotel. Jaswanti and Nalina made a list of items after asking Lakshmi and Saroj about anything they wanted before Jaswanti and Nalina went to go on a shopping spree again.

For most of Lakshmi’s and Saroj’s morning hours they decided to act like they were having their ‘official first date’/third date in the room while flirting with each other, talking about what the vacation has meant so far to them individually and to them as a new couple. At some point they decided that they would have their first meaningful kiss on the lips before the eve of the new year so that it felt more intimate and private, after being actually done with their ‘official first date’ both of them laid down on the bed while tightly hugging each other with their hand around either one’s waist or neck and French-kissing for very long time to ensure that neither of them forgot about it.

After the four of them had lunch, they all went to have fun at another beach for a good while; once they all got back home and realized they didn’t make use of the hotel’s pool facility at all, they took a break for an hour, then went to have fun in the pool later in the evening and not tomorrow to avoid a crowd. All of them ended up playing cards again for that night, Jaswanti and Nalina then acted like they got Lakshmi and Saroj their gifts (it was just the items on the list that Lakshmi and Saroj gave them) with all of them acting overly excited at getting/giving ‘gifts’ and then went to eat dinner at some local restaurant before going to sleep by half past ten PM.

Then it became the eve of the new year, the four of them woke up by the same time as yesterday. After all of them did their usual morning routine for the vacation; Lakshmi and Saroj kept flirting with each other for that whole morning while keeping almost the same routine as last morning, meanwhile Nalina and Jaswanti started working on an action plan for their business. Once lunch was over, all of them kept playing cards until it became evening, as by then all of them headed to a bar to celebrate the dawn of the new year. All of them avoided alcohol, they agreed it would be safer to have it at home, and in the spirit of keeping their promise to Nalina and Jaswanti, the couple hugged each other very tightly and close with Saroj’s hands on the back of Lakshmi’s head and on her cheek alongside Lakshmi’s arms around his hips they shared a kiss the second after it marked the new year. Later once they went to their hotel rooms all of them decided to pack their clothes and items into their suitcases to get ready for their morning train after they wake up.

Since their train ticket was for six AM in the AC seater train to reach Thrissur by around half past four PM, Jaswanti and Nalina went to Lakshmi and Saroj’s room to wake them up by half past four AM to get ready and go to the Madgaon junction station. All of them had heavy cups of coffee to stay awake to get on the train by six AM. They all had their breakfast—not before they took their long nap to recover their sleep—by around nine AM and their lunch by around two PM; all of them either kept to reading some magazine given in the train or playing cards or just sitting silently and looking outside while listening to music.

They were only slightly late to reaching as they reached Thrissur, Kerala by five PM, after which once they got out all of them made their hugs and good byes before going back to their home. The group had a group hug crying and giving each other compliments talking about their fav things in the vacation and what they liked about each other—Lakshmi had to force all of them to do as they would’ve otherwise just immediately gone home. Lakshmi and Saroj made sure to get their packing done quickly in the evening so that they would end their night at Thrissur by watching a movie over a video call and then went to sleep.

Chapter 10: Germination and Nutrition

Both of them had to just get back and had a full list of movies and shows to watch is what helped earlier during the 2 months after their first date. However, to help with making things easier they made sure to spread out the things they planned to watch to be done every alternate day while spending the other days to talk if needed. Alongside that they would sometimes meet bi-weekly to watch the shows and movies while being physically close to one another, doing it alternatively in Lakshmi’s home or in Saroj’s home.

Since it had been only the first 3 months of their committed romantic relationship, most of their existential talks were kept to a minimum despite Lakshmi still persistently asking in great detail about Saroj’s day. For them they still felt like they had a crush on each other, they all the bi-weekly meetings had them constantly giving pecks or French-kissing (lasting not more than 10 seconds) or touching each other a lot in romantic intentions. They would also report about anything they liked about the other person while adding ‘boyfriend/girlfriend’ just to be sure that they are dating; both of them complimented each other on their physical features, personality and habits. It happened to a point that sometimes even when referring to their lover in third person when talking about them to Nalina or Jaswanti, they would sometimes forget to say their name.

While Saroj’s case of being chronically late and his physical clinginess to borderline being dramatic when it was time to go home on the bi-weekly dates would annoy Lakshmi, there would some part of her that still thought it wasn’t bad as she did daydream about him to compensate for being late and somewhat liked repeating for him about why she loved him. Despite Lakshmi’s constant prodding about his day and her constant need for reassurance would cause some agony for Saroj, he too liked her ‘quirks’ since her constant prodding made him feel important to her and he somewhat liked repeating to her about why he loved her. Afterall, they believed their infatuation for the other person was just ‘having butterflies in their stomach’, part of them had to believe they fully loved the other person lest time made cracks in their rose-tinted glasses.

Time was ticking, if not Saroj then at least Lakshmi knew things were going to change a lot from here if she wanted to maintain the relationship with the one they love. Part of Saroj’s mind wanted to believe that there was nothing to discuss because they talked about their lives in the vacation, nevertheless some part of him felt that ‘looking at the past’s problems to make an overview from the present’ to describe it was not enough rather ‘looking at their present through the causes of their past’ could help things to be better but that lack of knowing how made him feel low from time to time about the relationship being actually strong. Lakshmi had a moment once where she was waiting for him to come to her house for one of their bi-weekly meetings and she only daydreamed for a bit; it somehow made her a little madder at her boyfriend and that possibility of her getting a little madder at him every week made her cry. Regardless, all four of them would meet at each other’s houses from time to time for the fun of it and that partying helped them forget the worries for a bit.

Idealistic views of their views of their relationship lasting forever especially with barely any turmoil could only last them so long, they would try to go out more often in the fourth month of their relationship which helped a lot to keep their brains active. Lakshmi and Saroj started to go on walks every weekend after which they would have breakfast together, they would try to watch some recently released movies when their movie list was reducing and they started to work on going on dates more often—they had 2 weeks (it’s respective weekend) where they would go out and eat somewhere together and the other 2 weeks they would try to go and eat food at each other’s home.

During that whole 4 months they shared a lot of romance songs with each other that made them think of each other, they ended up making 2 shared playlists where one for remembering their outings/dates and the other was for all the romance songs which made them think of the other person. Their mild annoyances and agonies which they would think were their personal problems would make them work on it slightly to either improve their ‘tolerance’ of the other person or even ‘improve themselves’ to make their perceived negatives slightly lesser.

Chapter 11: Budding our Flowers

Some point in the 5th month of their romantic relationship, Lakshmi and Saroj had an argument when both of them were making breakfast after a walk when what should’ve really just been about the food they were making started giving them the realization that they were letting their worst fester in silence. It not that they didn’t talk about it, since it was one of the things they talked about before dating but rather both of them thought there was nothing worth talking about, after all they never hated each other since both of them thought the issue was a personal thing. The insecure feeling inside of Saroj’s mind seemed like he was secretly hating her made him feel guilty and regretful, Lakshmi felt the same sense of dread she had earlier actually came crashing down on her; She knew this was more than the food and not something to ignore so she pulled Saroj to the couch to talk about it, Saroj partially felt like discussing might be foolish but he trusted Lakshmi enough to not walk away in ignorance to let her take the necessary steps.

Lakshmi had to think for a bit to understand what she had to do, because of the conditions that caused it to be a toxic argument in spite of the focus being on food felt like incomplete information so she decided to ask Saroj what felt intuitively right. She asked him “when we made those insults of one of us being picky and the other one being too obsessed... what do you think we really meant?” while looking into his eyes out of concern for him and herself. Saroj had to think about it properly now, it was no longer something that could be ignored or sidelined so he said “I don’t know exactly but my gut is saying it might be that when we talked about our past, we didn’t look at it properly” feeling very unsure of his own words but he knew at some level Lakshmi was wise enough to guide him to what he may actually mean. She then asked him “if it’s about our past, I think there could be a few possible scenarios of what went wrong when we talked about it: 1st possibility is that we talked properly but missed some details, 2nd possibility is that we talked about it in hindsight and not as it happened when it happened, 3rd possibility is that we talked about how it felt then and not about what it’s making us feel now and the last one could be that we talked about our past in a limited capacity like in way for the other person to relate to but not in a personal realistic capacity like in the way you genuinely experienced it”

Saroj had to think hard—he didn’t want to say something on impulse as if he didn’t care, he didn’t want to choose the sweet one just to avoid turmoil but rather a choice that actually felt true to reality, where they can work on it and fix things for the sake of the relationship. In that exact moment, as he contemplated each one, he had an epiphany about why his last relationship with Mallika failed and made it irrecoverable. Saroj then told Lakshmi “the first one is not likely because we went into the details more than either of us could imagine, the second one wouldn’t make sense we went over our feelings, 3rd one makes sense since we did go into details and feelings but the process being wrong is very likely and the last one is something that definitely didn’t happen because we tend to be honest when talking about our experiences and I don’t think the 4th scenario is the truth because we are very good at sympathizing with each other” in both a state of shock at his realization and a sense of understand on where things can get better.

After Lakshmi took in his response she said “this time lets talk about everything like our childhood and our exes not with the questions of ‘how and what’ in the way that we did before by about the thing that happened and then our feelings, instead lets talk about it in ‘what, why and which’ in the way of the thing that happened then our reactions and feelings and then in the specific tendencies we see our present influenced by the past; by the way it’s not that ‘how and what’ is bad but we should’ve done ‘how, what, why and which’ regardless we realized now and we can act on that” having a sense of comfort that things might get better from here on.

Saroj feeling like he had a responsibility to recorrect his path especially since he desired for proper emotional safety and security. He knew that the way to get that sense of shared trust back was by him acknowledging those mistakes with him initiating the discussion. He said “So when it comes to being abandoned as a child, I think you already know that I was 5 years old when both of my parents died from the house fire. The thing is what happened is that because I had no proper memory of it but Jaswanti did since she was 8 years old at the time, it kind of made become jealous that she got to have a relationship to cherish whilst mine were so vague and dreamish. Since no one took us and we had to struggle and survive in an orphanage it made me think love was not about emotional cherishment but about material benefit in spite of the contradiction that Jaswanti taught me how to be sympathetic, sweet and secure in myself. So in relation to the present it ruined how I was with my ex because the problems were individual and the good based in luck of the situation, coming to my romantic relationship with you it made me think that when you were incessant on the details and constantly wanting reassurance that it was a failure in how I was to you since most my basis of love comes form the only one I had as a child which was a parentified sibling dynamic which pushes itself into now making me feel more disproportionally responsible for everything I do. In the end I forgot to treat you with the maturity you do have and the equal state of mutual care because I never knew what it meant to do that” having felt a huge wave of ease come over his mind.

Lakshmi then said “Okay I think we can resolve this after I talk my part and we see where we can coincide in mutual care and support to push beyond and through the issues, we face now” to which Saroj nodded in acknowledgement. Lakshmi then continued on saying “For me when it came to my extremely controlling and pressuring parents, you already know that it ruined my perception of failure and made me think success as the norm. While the fact is true that in my early childhood it barely did anything since I didn’t know what it meant to ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’ but rather the thing was me doing something would either make my parents treat me antagonistically or treat me with endearment so for me the longest time being a people pleaser was the only way making connections made sense because I never had a sibling to change that. Fundamentally when I got more mature as a teen and knew what failure and success, approval and disdain meant that’s when I had my mind hardline into a binary view of doing things and in self-loathing way where failure and disdain meant I was worthless or bad at everything meanwhile success and approval was a norm which I couldn’t settle with; I was forced to believe that appreciating my success was a form of laziness for me in the future so I was made to push for endless success where the process of burnout is the only way I could find any appreciation for life. So, when it comes to the present it’s why I always depend on unnecessary amounts of reassurance and constant probing of details since thinking neutrally made me emotionally glitch and need details to rid the nuance for a binary amazing or horrible state of things. Which is the condition making me exhausting and annoying to deal with since for me what seems like pestering and obsessing is love when it’s really just a desire for control which ruins any respectful and kind form of love, moreover it’s what made me go for flings to fool myself to be unserious and laxed”

After both of them really sat and thought about each other’s experiences after which Saroj said “So for me I need us to work on feeling secure in what we do, to feel some depth even if feels emotionally burdensome for a while and treat things with the egalitarian understanding, compassion and faith in the way we communicate love to each to each other, what do you think?”

Lakshmi then said “I guess adding on to that we need to give each other space and empathy without extreme scrutiny so that we can love each other as we are right now and to love each other as we change through time” while putting her arm through his and crossing her fingers with his in the spirit of solidarity.

Even though both of them clarified the issue, they knew things won’t get better quickly and needed to trust each other with the respect both of them deserve to push to a more deeply loving romantic relationship while aiming moving away from surface level or naive versions of love. To ensure both of them could work on a pathway to a better relationship they decided to take the date they would have next week to be one where they work on discussing about the future of their relationship. When the day came, they settled on talking about issues as and when they happen even if hurts, to warn the other when either of them fall out from what is needed for the relationship without shouldering that burden themselves and they agreed to talk more even if it meant less fun times and not try to use the fun time as a crux to override any negative feeling that would need to be talked about.

Over the next 4 months they cut down on their frequent outings to give each other space to love more intensely than obsessively, while making sure to have physical intimacy (kissing on each other’s heads or cheeks as pecks; constant touching through intertwining their hands and having hugs) to times it would matter so that their reassurance in love would set into becoming a balance of physical, verbal and mental intimacy without overvaluing either one. Lakshmi and Saroj ensured to have the fun (binging, cooking and music), courtship (flirting, kissing and touching) and mental intimacy (deep emotional conversations, talk about the world and their changing perceptions on their life) to be done in a way where none of them are ignored. On the whole ensuring the relationship made them as good friends and lovers at the same time. The growing trust, security and faith in the relationship led them to starting to keep pet names for each other—such as ‘sweetheart’, ‘love’ and ‘darling’—but they used it more appropriately when they wanted console, caress or cherish each other. They even said “I love you” to each other, even adding details from time to time.

Chapter 12: Ripples, Rays and the Glitter Path

It had been over 407 days from the first blind date (i.e. 1 year 1 month and 11 days) and over 274 days from the date of their proposal (i.e. 9 months); the day the couple realized is 26th September 2027 which happened to be only 91 days (i.e. 3 months) to their 1st year anniversary for their relationship. While both of them hoped to reach this far, neither of them could believe that it would start to feel this real.

By the 10th month both of them spent a lot time hugging each other in bed whilst either talking about existential topics while gazing into each other’s soul through their eyes or flirting with each other while touching each other in mildly sexual ways or just endlessly kissing and dry humping. Lakshmi and Saroj connected much better spiritually, emotionally and physically whilst being very proud of their achievements on mending things after their emotional turmoil and being excited over the idea of possibly reaching the 1-year marker for the relationship. They also started to work on saving funds for a 2-week staycation in December to celebrate their anniversary and the new years.

During the 11th month of their relationship, they spent most of their weeks discussing about their plans for the staycation, what to do for their 1st year anniversary and how the relationship has grown so far. At one time when the group was discussing about the plans the late December-early January vacations all of them had an intense debate about the 2nd Vacation plans, it only started when Jaswanti asked the couple’s plans for the 2 weeks but they both said “We’re just going to go with the flow and do more fun in that time, ideally staying indoors”.

Jaswanti loudly stated “So both of your plans are more of the same but done more intensely? What is the point of the vacation if not to do new plans for things to do that you would’ve otherwise not have done!” whilst being shocked at their opinion

Nalina said “Well, she did say that in a bit crazy way but I agree with her core point—we need to make sure the limited time we get for extended free time needs to be used for doing things to make our existing time more lively and worth it so that when we look forward to it!”

She then asked Lakshmi and Saroj “What are your guys plans for your first-year anniversary?”

Saroj then said “Me and Lakshmi were just going to make some food for each other at home then eat it together while setting up some candles and flowers for a date” while glancing at Lakshmi with a smile.

Jaswanti then remarked “Ah, no wonder...” and then looked at Nalina and said “We were asking the people who love the indoors on their outdoor plans, so of course it was going to be basic, simple and frugally planned” to which Nalina and Jaswanti high fived.

Lakshmi then responded “I wasn’t asking for data on the kind of clients you get but thanks for your opinion or something” in a very sarcastic voice.

Jaswanti felt partially insulted but also partially cherished, that kind of duality and her liking of Lakshmi made her have some hope that Lakshmi could possibly be her sister-in-law; Jaswanti then held her fist in front of herself (hoping for a fist bump) as she said “That was a good roast” while smirking to which Lakshmi chuckled and gave her a fist bump.

While Lakshmi did want to have a quiet, cozy and isolated celebration with her boyfriend to focus more on the core tendencies and where they connect, there was some part of her that subconsciously wanted something grandeur out of the feeling that it might unintentionally devalue the importance of the occasion. Whatever inking of worry that would’ve been there during that conversation had only grown to be worse; it was only a week after that conversation when Lakshmi wanted to talk to Saroj about the 1st year anniversary plans. She asked him “Do you think since we already have breakfast together every week after walk, should we make our celebrations for the 1st year anniversary to be something similar to what we did on our first blind date but more expensive instead making it like our first date when we started dating but more private?” being worried about a major milestone not being celebrated the ‘right’ way. Saroj was confused hearing about that from her despite the fact the couple as a whole had grown their relationship to not value events materially but rather emotionally, it was more confusing to hear her feeling that making food for each other wouldn’t feel significant and even more so that personally he empathized—instead of sympathizing—with why she was stressing over it.

Even though the issue was raised only by 14th November 2027, the both heavily discussed the issue even as it became 1st December 2027—lasting over 17 days (2 weeks 3 days). They had to discuss the why—Lakshmi felt that it was a significant achievement which had to be valued as important as it is to achieve it, meanwhile for Saroj it was about making sure that achieving that day was not just a basic thing—the how—Lakshmi thought they had to sit and talk about how the relationship has been and where they want it to go and that both of them should get elaborately planned gifts for each other, for Saroj it could be to have high intimacy while making it feel precious—and the where—both of them agreed on booking with an expensive restaurant. All the while they felt the opposite worries too: the why—Lakshmi felt it would erode the built mental growth all for some big number next to the rupee symbol, Saroj felt it would force them to be outdoorsy and showy when they were really homebodies—the how—Lakshmi thought they could focus on watching shows or doing karaoke to the songs in their collaborative playlist, Saroj felt it would help to focus on actual physical and emotional intimacy while not worrying about fitting with the cultural norms outside—and lastly the where—Lakshmi thought they could maybe do camping in nature where it would be semi-private, Saroj thought they could do it at either of their houses.

Throughout their discussions the only poignant thought was there despite the repeated airing about the conflict of ideas, grandeur or simplicity, they only felt an ever-growing sense of trust, welfare and solidarity in their relationship. Since they already the most of their first week in the 12th month of their romantic relationship, they worked on focusing on more fun for 2 weeks until they had to start spending their 4th week of the 12th month dating/1st week of the staycation.

During their vacation they went with the group to hike, coast camping and take a 5-day trip in the local Kerala rivers on a boat. On the 28th December 2027 for the night of their 1st year relationship anniversary, Lakshmi and Saroj settled on going to an expensive restaurant. While it was true that both of them were so excited that they outpowered their tiredness and felt rather cherished by each other in the date; it also happened to be that both of them felt some pressure subconsciously to not be too affectionate or barely affectionate, the gifts made them anxious about it either being too grand or too casual and if anything, the conversations could never be as intimate as they would desire since it felt like the words were at discord with the feelings in their mind. The overly calibrated public display of affection only made them want to go back home and shower each other with a lot more affection in such a feral way compared to how they would do normally in a private sensually intimate moment. It was ironic that the thing making both the date and physical intimacy to be more grandeur than usually only made them regret the day so much more than what they would’ve vaguely expected.

Chapter 13: Leaves, Fragrance and Roots

Confusion was the quintessence of their relationship, everything that they thought would make sense didn’t feel to be necessary later on; their romantic relationship was primed for chaos but both of them were stronger on the communication since they had the continuous endeavour to genuinely have constancy, to manifest deeper cognitive empathy and to relentlessly yearn for each other.

The 1st year anniversary celebration struck a chord in both of them; they thought that the celebration had to fit their earlier need of ‘celebrating as if the milestones were like the greatest things to achieve’ would make that celebration worth it. After they had a date at home later in the 13th month of their relationship, they decided that together they had to face the reckoning of regret over their celebratory date. As they sat on a 3-person cushioned couch Saroj asked Lakshmi “What do you think we did wrong when we did the 1st year anniversary celebrations?” feeling some rue over 28th December 2027, Lakshmi stated “I think we felt a stronger need to fulfil the agreements be made before dating despite how we have grown to love the indoors more than outdoors, more so on that how we felt the need to show our love in exaggerated ways and if anything it was also about how tried to curtail our own expressions which made the late night kissing more intense because of desperation” feeling her hands get sweaty and her mind deep in worry.

Saroj then held her hand and said “Also it’s not that we did it wrong, since we did try our best but rather, we didn’t try to consider what it meant to celebrate” Lakshmi then got less worried, felt comforted by his words with her breaths going slightly calmer as she rested her head on his shoulder.

He then continued saying “Celebration is fundamentally an act of ascribing an emotional value in relation to time for something that has been achieved: it’s about wanting to show your love for something, to have high regard for something in relation to the past and making a sense of hope for things to come for that specific event” to which Lakshmi nodded in agreement as he put her arm around his back with her hand on he opposite shoulder.

Lakshmi had a realization as she put her palm over his mouth and asked him “I think I understand what you mean, can I explain where I think we fell out on?” to which Saroj was partially stunned but then he felt treasured for the words he said as was looking at how Lakshmi was excited to speak so he let her explain her view.

Lakshmi then said “So when celebration is about the core concepts of passion, regard and hope and our date didn’t fit how we really experienced that one year of dating, it actually made the celebration not fit what it should’ve really been. Hence the reason our date went bad was because we compartmentalized our passion for the sake of material value, we had more regard for glamour than to actually love each other and that we didn’t set our hopes on being able to do more of the same with the same intimacy” which made Saroj astounded by Lakshmi’s very wise insight after which he kissed her forehead but since he was still not sure what she meant in depth and partly so that he could hear her sweet voice for longer.

He asked her “Can you explain more? I’m not exactly sure what we should do to mend our mistakes” in a soft voice while he put his hand on the crown of her head.

Lakshmi said “So before I explain the change, I’ll state what would’ve been ideal celebration aesthetics: We had to more passionate for each other mentally, we should’ve had regard for what the relationship’s history and last but not least have hope being able to grow from where we are with a perspective that is pragmatic” after which she looked at Saroj for his opinion

He then said “Yeah that makes sense for having a romantic relationship to be rooted in a more mature way to express love” while smiling

She then added to her point “Consequently we needed to do a date that was mostly simple with some aura of being grandeur; I think we should’ve dated at home while giving gifts, alongside making food for each other in an elaborate and intensive way and made sure to do our deeply physical intimacy with a steadier process instead of aggressive spontaneity”

While they did tackle their overarching issues in a methodical way so that those mistakes couldn’t occur again, for some reason at some subconscious level they had more issues to address. Both of them talked more on how their past might’ve influenced their present in invisible ways, however the methods of talking about the issues weren’t the conventional way of verbal descriptions; they worked on talking about their subconscious through songs by doing karaoke and a presentation what that song meant to them personally, the two of them made sure to take journals to take notes and discuss their whole changing perspectives at the end of the week.

Once they took notes on what would be an ideal way to re-celebrate their 1st year anniversary to give that experience justice to make it fairer for both of them. They cooked a full course meal for each other, watched a movie together and made sure to plan their late-night physical intimacy to be more comfort focused. Both of them made milkshakes for drinks, made a seafood paella and chicken biryani and then made some side dish that they invented together. Spirit of love thrived in both of them in a way that was no longer meeting in far away ideals set in ways that didn’t make sense for either of them, personally or as a couple, overtime they grew in the attunement in their unending fidelity regardless of turmoil, an alterous stable connection and an emotionally secure relationship.

As both of them grew more closer in their attachment, over the next 2 months, towards each other by finding ways to be intimate in what would be unconventional ways; it only made them love each other not in ways of only fitting their personal needs but also in each other’s growingly silly, absurd and weird ways. Lakshmi grew to no longer focus on focus on her aesthetics, to care less about how society would see them and find a stronger sense of confidence in both herself through self-love and through the couple through emotional security in her boyfriend. Saroj grew to have faith in Lakshmi’s care, he also found a sense of reliability while dating her and overtime he gained a stronger sense of relentless optimism at his core. While both of them did most of this development in the early parts of their relation, this time the growth was no longer about some symbolic sentiments of love each other overall but rather a unity in shared suffering and prosperity.

Eventually during their 16th to 18th month of their relationship, they had a sense of deep intimacy for each other. For them sharing a gaze was like mutually looking into their soul, physically knowing each other meant a reciprocated comfort at a cellular level and being aware each other’s habits would mean being at one with other mentally. It meant that whenever they shared pecks and French-kisses, they would do so out of appreciation, gratitude and endearment. Whenever they would watch movies and shows together, the focus would be finding comfort in each other’s warmth, mind and presence. Cooking food for each other by focusing on their shared tastes, effort to see progress in their skills and to impress each other not to meet a high standard but to show the depth of their admiration. Alongside learning more about each other by seeing each other—in the bedroom, showers or as they showed off their clothes—in a sensually raw way, whilst being stripped of natural conformity and sense of luxury through the adoration of their imperfections.

Chapter 14: Anemochory

Even though it had been over 18 months since Nalina and Jaswanti had worked on their business idea by now, they fully got their clothes to be on sale in malls. It was only after their intensive discussions on design and production during the first few months after the vacation in late December of 2026, despite it being early July of 2028. Once their business that operated as a partnership it managed to grow greater than either of them would expect which led to the whole group doing a mid year celebration by going on a hike on the mountains of Kerala; since Lakshmi and Saroj kind of wanted to get back at the two for ‘ruining their anniversary date in theory’ they mocked them for the boring nature of going for a drive through the hills instead of sitting at home and celebrating with a party, however Nalina and Jaswanti were more steadfast in their desires which led the group to go for a drive through the hills regardless of the couple’s persuasion.

The group mostly focused on checking waterfalls, scenic views from the high points of the hills and to get good places to take pictures; most of the pictures were of Lakshmi and Saroj making romantic poses which Jaswanti captured (while partly making them pose to take photos as if the two were dolls for her to put into poses). At some point during the hike, Lakshmi got a text message from her parents saying “I think it’s time you came to collect your items from the home and that we come to talk to you about our mistakes” which heavily confused her but since she wanted to focus on the drive, she decided to ignore the message. Lakshmi decided to tell the group about the message the day after they did the hill drive to discuss whether or not she should meet her parents.

Once they all grouped up at Saroj and Jaswanti’s home in the evening on the day after the hill drive, they all sat on table with snacks and notebooks for the discussion. Lakshmi told them about the text and then asked the group “Do you guys think I should meet my parents?” feeling unsure about even seeing the faces of the ones weren’t nice during her childhood. Nalina immediately asserted “There is no way you would actually be considering the idea of meeting them especially after how they treated you as a child and back in college?! Please tell me you are joking...” feeling appalled at even the thought of her forgiving them.

Jaswanti then said “Hey that’s not fair to her! They are her parents, I think if anything she should have the right to hear them out on a possible apology but at the least even without the apology she does deserve to get her things from her childhood back” in part feeling weirded out at Nalina’s assertive tone and partly having the subconscious thought about the house fire that killed her parents and burned all of her childhood possessions.

Nalina retaliated by stating “Look as much as she has the right to the things from her childhood for the sake of not losing her memory in that area; it is important to know that Lakshmi’s childhood was not all sunshine and rainbows to make it worthy of remembering, I personally feel it could make her relapse to less than ideal tendencies and in essence set her mental growth way back. Moreover, meeting her parents for some godforsaken apology that she should’ve gotten as child is not going to undo that horrible past, atonement is necessary but apologizing this late is absurd and borderline egoistic for people who would likely be in their 50’s right now”.

Jaswanti proceeded to chastise her “Even if it made her mentally regress in some form, possibly retraumatize her with access to earlier bad memories and in essence make it harder to have ease in her life with those items in her presence; she should have the choice to make that! I mean for fucks sake, what if by getting those items thereby gaining the ability to burn them or donate them, she could maybe physically set herself to move on from her past in way that could make her grow in her life better. Also, so what if its too late for an apology? Its still up to Lakshmi to accept it or reject it but she still deserves to hear it even if she does reject it! Also, given the information available to her parents in the early 2000s, don’t you think it’s reasonable to assume they didn’t know their best?”

Jaswanti and Nalina kept on going back and forth while conceding some points here and there but still keeping to their core discussion; meanwhile Saroj mostly focused on keeping Lakshmi at ease emotionally, while it did comfort Lakshmi to see the two of her best friends passionately argue about the issue of meeting and not meeting it still made only more unsure about meeting her parents. Lakshmi then made Jaswanti and Nalina calm down, after which she said “Look you two, while your points on me going there to hear them out and make the choice myself is nice and knowing that it might also be good to keep cut off on communication is reasonable. The point of me asking about meeting them is not about the moral value of doing it but about if it would be safe for me to do so and like what risks could be there with it” while trying to be calm so Nalina and Jaswanti could mirror her behaviour to continue the discussion.

Saroj then said “I’m not sure that it will be safe to be honest, given that we live in India and the cultural issues it faces—which I’m sure you know about—could be the things at risk for you”

Nalina then said “Exactly what he said, those kinds of risks are also very high” pointing her upwards-facing open palm towards Saroj while swinging her arms to make her point.

Lakshmi then remarked “I don’t know about that though, they did actually ease off on overseeing how I was doing after I kept scoring high in college especially after what they told me like...” then taking a few seconds to analyse her past as she then said “2-3 years before even going to college. I think they are reliably honest, I’ve known then not to lie but only be extremely against the privacy in presence and decision”

Despite Jaswanti getting the ammo she needed for a counter argument, she felt some uneasiness in Lakshmi’s point as she said “I have to be honest, I don’t feel like you should go to Mumbai anytime soon. Those risks are much worse than some, as Nalina aptly stated, ‘a godforsaken apology’; like if you’ve known them to want to control you and given that you haven’t been married yet, don’t you feel like there is a risk of them doing something that is extremely ethically abhorrent to change that?” feeling some deep-seated concern flow through her skin.

Saroj then stated “That risk is there but I think if she needed then she could make them meet in a place that is more public alongside some of us to give that sense of physical security. Afterall what if she needs to hear that ‘godforsaken apology’ to know that it was godforsaken? Like if the apology is genuinely horrible, she can feel sure in herself that her parents don’t even care about apologizing properly and in that process so we could put an end to any further idea of talking to her parents from then and there”

Somehow the argument got worse for Lakshmi’s brain to handle. Her own personal experiences make her feel like she shouldn’t go at all for her own peace of mind, however her intuition had been damned for the way her boyfriend made a good point on a relatively future state of having a higher peace of mind. It’s one thing to have someone oppose your viewpoints and that they make better arguments against you, but it’s a whole different thing to have two viewpoints that a reasonable and make sense; the entire clash of arguments only gave Lakshmi a mental crisis as she got increasingly anxious with the fear mongering and possible chances of hope. Saroj having been her lover for the past 1.5 years knew her well enough that regardless of Lakshmi’s calm exterior, he knew of her ever-stressing mind. While staring directly at Lakshmi, he asked her “Sweetheart, if this discussion is getting too stressful for you then we can always move it on for another day! Plus, it not like your parents actually know where you live, they will be clueless until you decide to let them know” making a soft smile and in a voice sweet enough so that she knew he cared for her state of mind.

Seeing all of them actually stop in their tracks to see if Lakshmi was okay made her more calm and cherished knowing that the discussion was only to aid her in decision making and not arguing for arguing’s sake. She smiled at Saroj as she glanced at him for a bit, Lakshmi then looked at hands in the direction of her lap and mumbled “Fuck” out of frustration after which she then looked at everyone and stated “No, we need to have this discussion now. I know I’m stressing out but I also know that if we delay this then I might avoid wanting to bring up the topic later, moreover I feel like I can trust you guys enough to have actual concern for my mental wellbeing. You guys are sweet; I love you all”. In an immediate response the rest of them replied back “Aww thanks Lakshmi, I love you too!”.

Lakshmi wanted to fully settle the ideas then and there, so she asked all of them to now take the existing ideas: ‘cut them off’, ‘ask for items but no meeting’, ‘hear the apology but forgo the items’, ‘make them text the apology and force their hand to send the items by mail’ and ‘hear the apology after which you get the items in person from the home’. Then see their pros and cons to know what to do; it took them a while to discuss but they settled on going to see the apology with protection and if she wants then she could ask them to mail the items or collect them in Mumbai in person based on the parent’s apology. In the spirit of having some direct and indirect protection, they decided to get Saroj to meet the parents alongside Lakshmi—to see if it incites any sense of aggression towards her current liberty and independence—while also having Nalina and Jaswanti be in the background in hoodies to be protection if they need to successfully evacuate and protect against their parents. Apology had other preset criteria which the group agreed upon: accountability, understanding and reconciliation. Once the whole motion was setup, they worked on checking which restaurants would help with evacuation and spying by taking their time over 2 months; during which Saroj made conversation and excuses in her stead while typing to the parents, Lakshmi focused on making the texts realistic until the day of the meeting.

Chapter 15: Lilies of the Valley

Planning was still tough for the group having to account for environment, possible actions her parents would takes and what precautions the group had to take to make sure the meeting wouldn’t end up any worse for Lakshmi in a way that she’d end up having to call them multiple times. Regardless of their plans, Saroj remarked to the group “it’s easy to plan when you know what to predict, it’s near impossible to plan when whole thing is riddled in bullshit” to make note that if things chaotically mess up then the group shouldn’t blame themselves or each other.

They were at a popular restaurant in a different district in Kerala—they wanted to get an out so that the parents wouldn’t know where Lakshmi lived exactly—for a meeting set to be during lunch on a weekend exactly on 2nd September 2028. Lakshmi and Saroj sat at the table together awaiting her parents as they came 30 minutes later than the time told for the meeting; Lakshmi was talking, to Saroj, in snide of her parents coming late during those 30 mins when they would’ve chastised her for it during her childhood to which he was giggling while trying to hold himself from laughing loudly. Meanwhile Jaswanti and Nalina sat on a table slightly far away to be able to spy on the meeting while not alerting her parents. When Lakshmi’s parents came, she avoided exactly letting them know on purpose to annoy them after which Saroj had to get them to the table; regardless of who got them to the table, the couple covered for each other while Saroj said “Lakshmi couldn’t find you to be honest, which is why it was hard for her to help” and Lakshmi claimed “I only asked Saroj to get you two to the table so that you guys could get to meet my boyfriend a bit earlier”. Her parents, Ravi and Rosaria, didn’t have any strong feeling on both of their ‘excuses’.

Rosaria looked at Saroj and asked “So, you two are dating? Since when and how did the proposal happen?” with a smile weird enough to feel passive-aggressive but not insulative enough to feel antagonistic.

Saroj responded “Yeah! We’ve been dating since a couple days before the New Years of 2026! and the proposal was crazy...” mostly just seeing the subtle smile and getting excited. Lakshmi put her hand on Saroj’s thigh and then looked at him with a tilted face and a gentle smile, which clued in Saroj to be more cautious and less detailed as he then looked back at Lakshmi’s mother and said “We just jived with each other enough that we got mutual romantic feelings and then we started dating” while still being some what excited but with less shakiness.

Lakshmi then added while putting her head on Saroj’s shoulder saying “It’s only been 1 year and 8 months but it feels like we have been dating forever” with a slight smile whilst blushing a little bit.

The parents went on about the couple’s relationship for a bit often asking curious questions in ways that seemed like they wanted to delegitimize the couple’s romantic commitment. Lakshmi took heavy notes on their remarks while holding Saroj’s hand under the table to ease herself from jitters. Nalina and Jaswanti could barely hear what was going on but took note on any minor signs of discomfort to talk about later. Saroj then looked at both of her parents as he asked the same questions about their marriage to slightly return the favour of how they talked about his dating life with Lakshmi. Overtime the parents went to talking about Lakshmi’s childhood while trying to embarrass her in front of Saroj—they failed to work since Lakshmi mostly told Saroj about her childhood in excruciating detail to avoid this specific situation—Lakshmi would often act like it actually weirded her out in a sarcastic way to mess with their heads while Saroj would make absurd questions on their parenting (Lakshmi had to stop him from going too far since they still needed to talk about getting her items without making them feel petty about it).

While it started to feel like their parents just came to meet Lakshmi just to torture her emotionally, one thing that put Lakshmi afloat mentally now was having Saroj on her side to comfort her and keep her mentally stable for the conversation—Its not that was any bad at regulating herself due to being a therapist since she was mentally prepared, rather that she was human with a traumatic childhood who had her lover there to keep her afloat. Suddenly her parents started talking about how they felt bad for how they treated Lakshmi during her childhood, talking in some half-sincere depth of their changes; Saroj felt some huge ego boost thinking he just made them feel guilty that quickly, but Lakshmi was still suspicious not because she didn’t want to believe they actually changed—to some extent it was a good coping mechanism to not worry why now and not back then—however it was that she was feeling that they were trying to play tricks on her mind. Whether or not the tricks were working was a question for much later, Lakshmi then tried to give them the benefit of the doubt by pestering her parents for the details on why they started to feel that their parenting was horrible.

Nalina and Jaswanti seeing Lakshmi trying to act smug and Saroj somewhat zoned out seeming like he was daydreaming (he thought he was getting the ‘best boyfriend of the year’ award the way he was arguing for her) made sure to text both of them to talk about getting the items from Mumbai. Lakshmi noticed the text first and readjusted her seating position to be straight as she asked her parents “So let’s cut to the chase, what is the plan for giving me my items back?” in a serious tone, Saroj got out of his head then looked the message and remarked “If possible make sure that you guys can send the items by mail, because my girlfriend is very busy with her work these days which is why it would be very hard for her to come to Mumbai just to get her items back” making his tone somewhat accusatory so could maybe he could force her parents so that she wouldn’t have to go meet them again.

Ravi then sneered “Well sending the item by mail was the original plan to deliver all of her things by mail but then we saw a lot things were fragile had seriously different ways to pack them, we just felt like that if we tried to minimize the box size and box count then we would possibly damage it” while shrugging.

Rosaria then remarked “It’s not an issue though, maybe if you guys could send some money to make it easier to pack more; then again why go through that hassle when Lakshmi could come and pack it herself so that no issues will happen” with the same passive-aggressive smile she held for most of the conversation.

Lakshmi and Saroj just looked at each other after that and then decided to leave the conversation at that and then call an end to the meeting for lunch after all four of them finished eating, Saroj decided to cover for the whole bill to quash any further antagonistic sentiments (Jaswanti gave him the money to do so). Lakshmi and Saroj made sure to only leave a couple minutes after her parents so that they could merge with the group and then head for home.

Once all of them reached Thrissur and settled in Lakshmi’s and Nalina’s home for the night, they made sure to discuss about the meeting she had with her parents in more detail. Nalina and Jaswanti made sure to note to the couple that they could barely hear the whole conversation and ended up focusing on non-verbal cues while also making up what they thought the couple could’ve been discussing with the parents either as a joke or to genuinely understand the situation. Saroj made notes that the parents try to be curious but that it feels somewhat off, however given their weak sense of care for the items meant that there was probably something to them being honest even on the apology; he even said “if we were to play devil’s advocate to be extra considerate, they were probably trash at basic communication skills and proper wording; then again they are in their 50’s and don’t seem socially stunted given that they seemed to sneer at us extremely consistently in such a way that it would be foolish for me to assume it wasn’t intentional”. Lakshmi said she was just extremely suspicious but that she really wants her things back from her home so that she could actually be fully away from her both symbolically and literally, making the additional worry that the only way they likely remember about her past enough to be able to say their statements in such an annoying way.

Visiting her parents was a concept that took the group a month to discuss if it would be worth it; Lakshmi said that the only reason she didn’t get her items anytime sooner was because she wanted to ghost them and make them lose any aspect of control on her life, the only reason she wants to even get the items is because in her strength now she could maybe reclaim more control by getting her items back. Lakshmi ended up going to Mumbai 2 months later for just one week going from 4th to 10th November 2028 by plane with her parents. The only reason it was she went to there on a ‘solo’ trip was due to the rest of them getting busy with more work—Jaswanti’s business was booming, Nalina had more work with the business expanding to more costumer bases—Saroj couldn’t come since his school was in the period of mid-year exams so him taking a vacation wasn’t even in the realms of possibility much less that Lakshmi’s parents wouldn’t let her take her boyfriend to the house on the grounds of ‘risking the couple being too inappropriate in the guest bedroom’.

The group only got more stressful about the situation since they could barely do anything to protect Lakshmi with her this far away, Saroj only became paranoid given their requests and that she had to go at this time—the parents said that if had to take any more time by coming in December then they would mail the items consequently making an indirect threat of destruction to the things she managed to keep throughout childhood. Lakshmi had always dealt with her parents forcefully lose her own things over vague concepts of immaturity, excess or worthlessness of the things she tried to keep; She would be valid if she thought there was nothing to take if she devalued those things due to the repeated loss, but for her it meant losing the last bits things could use to remind herself of the past.

Chapter 16: Desiccation and Cloudburst

Communication and trust had been something strongly developed in Lakshmi’s and Saroj’s relationship, turmoil is not something that would tear them apart since their love could nurture all of it back together. Saroj had that faith in Lakshmi for her to come back from there, Lakshmi had that hope set through in things going smooth with her parents. Before Lakshmi would head out on her trip, Saroj was there to help her with packing and would ask her repeatedly every 10-15 mins about if was sure about going there; Part of him was doubtful, anxious and weary of her going there, on the other hand another part of him was optimistic, supportive and trust that things would work out for her. That duality of his perspective was the part that made him doubt if he knew anything was going to be good or bad, it was still rooted not in his view of Lakshmi but how he knew Lakshmi’s perspective deeply without having to even step out of his show; Their knowledge of each other was simply rooted in the state of being at one with each other at every facet of their mental and spiritual levels.

Lakshmi made sure to update Saroj on her whole trip for every hour as much as she could by sending him photos with a note on her feelings (whenever she went to sleep, she put him on video call so that he could feel some sense of assurance that things were okay even if he woke up in the middle of his sleep). She often made remarks during her trip that she either felt anxious about reaching back to her home considering her past and her parents, sometimes she would take pictures through the train windows when it would take her mind of things looking at the beauty of nature and she would talk about the food or the activities while noting on her favourite parts of it. During the first 2 days of getting set into her room she took pictures of things that either of the things that made her wish she could retract her head like a turtle or the things that made her remember of the good parts in her childhood which extremely detailed notes on why she thought it caused those feelings.

As time went on, the pace of the messages had been reducing during the first 2 days of her trip. Lakshmi swore to him that it was only since was packing up her things into boxes that her messaging frequency reduced and even if she was honest, it didn’t help that Saroj felt like he was on edge every second. So, to help each other calm down, they agreed to video call whenever she was packing her items so he could occasionally glance at her even if she was in the background—because if she wasn’t, his mental background (sounds of other people, birds chirping and generic bustling city sounds) would fade by being suppressed through the extremely anxious realm of his mind.

Suddenly the messages stopped, there was no warning about it from her or even any overly detailed explanations on why she may have forgotten to message. People say silence can be deafening or even loud, Saroj felt both as the clocked ticked by during his work hours; His mind was ever so slowly collapsing on itself when it hit over 14 hours of no messaging or calling (he couldn’t even rationalize to himself that she could be sleeping, Afterall the longest period of hours that she would ever sleep was 12 hours). Maybe he could tell himself that he accidentally cut the call in the middle but Lakshmi would intuit that too in the middle of her sleep just to video call him again. The fear went from his mind to his skin as anxiety by noon, from his skin to his heart as panic by afternoon and then finally to his stomach making him rush to the school toilet to vomit by evening; the principal happened to see him and then excused him for the day a bit earlier.

Saroj called Jaswanti to come drive his car for him to come back home since got sick all of a sudden, not wanting her to share his fate as she would come to get him, Jaswanti came by auto then picked him by his car and then went back to their house. After Jaswanti heard his worries, she made sure to reassure him by saying that “Lakshmi is probably needing some space since she likely got exhausted over him wanting updates so often” to which Saroj said “But I know her, even if she wanted space then she would let me know and enforce the boundaries herself; it feels so unlike of her to ghost me”; the conversation went back and forth with Jaswanti trying to calm him down and Saroj trying to rationalize his fears. At some point, his sister just got him some chocolates from the fridge (they often kept huge stock of chocolates ever since childhood as a sort of backup for coping mechanisms) for him to eat so the anxiety wouldn’t hurt him too much.

Jaswanti then went to her room to leave Saroj to let him ease up, she then called Nalina to talk about the situation of Lakshmi not messaging Saroj for over 16 hours. Jaswanti then went over events, in the way Saroj told her, to Nalina and then asked

“Do you think anything bad is happening to Lakshmi?” feeling somewhat concerned at a minute level while mostly keeping herself steadfast in Lakshmi’s control of the situation. Nalina told her “Honestly, I feel like you might not be far off considering all things... then again this is Lakshmi and Saroj we are talking about, they are so similar in the way they operate that its also likely Lakshmi liked to keep him on call given that she would wake up and go back to sleep with no difficulty just to keep him on call” while scaring herself to some degree

Jaswanti then mumbled “Are you sure that she is not ghosting on purpose?... Um... maybe its that she just forgot if you are right about her liking keeping in contact” while biting her nails, after taking a few seconds, she then said “I mean I’m not even being delusional because she is packing her stuff after all, what if she is not calling and texting so she can lock in harder on packing up all the items to meet Saroj quickly” trying pulling herself out of worrying about the situation too much.

Nalina wanted to say something to be honest but she hated the worst possibility coming out of her head, she took over a minute to reword her response to Jaswanti; she then said to Jaswanti “Yeah you aren’t wrong but if Saroj is right then we have to start prepping for the worst” since she felt worse thinking of Lakshmi.

Half a day turned to a day’s worth of hours with Lakshmi not even sending any message, not even one to say ‘sorry babe, but here [insert photo of her boxes] I’m almost done packing my things’ with whatever cringy/endearing emojis both of them would add to their texts. Nalina met at Jaswanti’s house to talk to Saroj about the situation while trying to reassure him in her own ways, meanwhile Nalina was working with Jaswanti while murmuring about possible action plans to help Lakshmi. It didn’t help that 24 hours turned to 48 hours with no response from Lakshmi, anxiety rose in the three of them at a tremendous rate all the while Jaswanti and Nalina tried to be calm to work on a proper action plan to get Lakshmi back.

Out of the blue at some time past 72 hours since Lakshmi’s last message, Saroj received a text message saying “I was talking to my parents about everything and they were right about fooling around and dating you, I’m going to get myself properly married by getting my parents to arrange my marriage with someone else that they would approve” which made his heart sink and scream out loud at the text. Jaswanti and Nalina got startled by his scream and then read the text message which only shocked them even further than before; while Jaswanti was extremely confused, Nalina felt all the more suspicious about the way the text was framed and wrote it down in a book to discuss with Jaswanti.

Nalina got Jaswanti in a room and told her “I don’t think she said that, the text is so absurdly written that I feel her parents wrote it by stealing her phone!”

Jaswanti then said “But... how? don’t you think...” after which Nalina stopped her from speaking any further

Nalina then said “There are no excessive explanation for every single reason she would state as her ‘whys’, moreover they said ‘fooling around and dating you’ which is even more poignant to the signs of it being written by her parents” feeling a sense of ghoulish epiphany.

Jaswanti remarked “So? That makes sense though, she is saying that she was fooling around with Saroj” being unsure of the point Nalina was trying to make

Nalina then put her hands on both of Jaswanti’s shoulders and stated “That’s exactly my point! Of course, the text would focus on Saroj, I mean its within the limits of what Lakshmi’s parents know! Lakshmi never talked about her flings in college to her parents and we know that those people are horrible enough to use that as ammunition to solidify the arranged marriage. Since they didn’t, because they didn’t know means that it was her parents were texting, like if Lakshmi genuinely said that short message then there is no realm of wanting to be puritan that she wouldn’t add absurd amount of detail to her points which is what adds to my point of it being a controlled text” with a wry smile.

Jaswanti then realized what she meant and then said “So we need to show them that we know, we need to attack back so that they know... but the thing is I don’t know what to say back to them”

Knowing that the only person who knew her tastes in shows and movies, the two of them asked Saroj about what is Lakshmi’s favourite movie to which he said ‘Matilda’ while wallowing about missing Lakshmi. Nalina and Jaswanti told Saroj about their discovery, while Saroj did hear them his thoughts started getting preoccupied with other things as hope as barely able to enter his mind; He gave them his phone so that he could lay down and sulk in his bed as his worries started to convert into guilt. Nalina then sent a text message to Lakshmi’s phone number saying “She’s a spectacularly wonderful child and I love her”—it was what Miss Honey told Matilda’s parents on why she would want to keep Matilda as her child—after which both of them just looked at each other with smug faces; the point of the text was not directed at Lakshmi (or in the example, that would be Matilda) but at Lakshmi’s parents (or in this example Matilda’s parents) to speak in Saroj’s stead (as a metaphorical representation of Miss Honey). Nalina and Jaswanti had to watch the movie in full over night to get the dialogue to send to Lakshmi’s phone number and it was after watching the movie as they were crying, they understood why Lakshmi related so much to Matilda.

Nalina got a message about 4 days later from a random number saying “Hey, I’m currently Lakshmi’s groom to be and My name is Oliver. I got your number from Lakshmi as she told me that you are her best friend would help to clue me in on any details that I would want to know about her”. Nalina was seething towards the audacity of the groom but then Jaswanti told her to not block him but rather use a direct communication line from him to help Lakshmi escape, they still had to plan how to talk to him in way that it would aid in Lakshmi escaping which meant the two had to plan more about the tactics to free Lakshmi. Jaswanti took Nalina’s phone and then sent Oliver a text saying “No issues! But the thing is I need to tell you something important before you think about marrying her... I believe she has been kidnapped not because I don’t think Lakshmi wouldn’t marry but rather, she has been dating someone for over 1 year 8 months and it doesn’t make any sense for her to want to cheat since she is a therapist who has learnt from her own flings! Plus, if anything it would be more help for you not cancel the marriage but rather buy us time to help Lakshmi in escaping from her parents so this doesn’t happen again”

A day after the text from the groom, they got 2 messages from Lakshmi with one as a text message and the other as a voice message. On a base level view it looked like the text paragraph was telling them all is fine and that she is more in touch in with parents, while the other one was inviting them to the arranged marriage and it looked like Lakshmi was speaking like she wanted to marry in an arranged marriage; However Nalina used her skills of being able to read coded texts and found out: the first text hid a coded message that she is not able to freely text them because she is under her parent’s watch and the second one hid that Lakshmi needed Nalina and Jaswanti to properly coordinate with the groom (he is aware its a kidnapping which is why he is helping Lakshmi to text them in code) and get a car to help her escape from Mumbai.

Nalina got a response (text message reply) from Oliver on the same day saying: “I had a friend once that killed himself because his girlfriend’s parents forced her into a marriage she didn’t want and this feels like a repetition of that, I could never disrespect my old friend’s grave by learning nothing. Lakshmi told me about Saroj and He sounds like an amazing person with whom I’d love to be friends. Lakshmi deserves her freedom away from her parents and her freedom to decide her own life; She reminds me of that woman my late friend lost and I know at some point my friend’s girlfriend killed herself too out of guilt. I will help you guys and Lakshmi so that she gets the justice she has the right to do against her parents whatever it may be, I do hate her parents for what they did but that’s Lakshmi’s war to fight and win while I do my best to be her ally to aid her in that way. Also, I lowkey hate my parents too now for knowing about the abuse in some capacity (they saw a grieving desolated woman) and still convinced me that it was a perfect match, I don’t care about a perfect match if it means that I would have to erode a woman’s liberties and the right for her to love whomever she wants just to fulfil some vague social contract that needs me to be married at this age. Never in my life would I want to be that egoistic groom that can’t see beyond himself to be someone would let history repeat with a person like my late friend and his girlfriend die for the second time... He killed himself the day that the parents hatefully sent him the wedding invite and she died about 7 months in that forced arranged marriage... so please trust me when I say that I will do whatever I can to help you guys”.

Nalina then kept continuous conversation with him asking about details of what’s going on to bring herself up to speed on the situation; Nalina found out that Lakshmi had been forcefully put in a ‘room’ (she lived in as a child) converted into a horrifying ‘timeout place for an adult’ (description he heard from Lakshmi’s parents) and that the ‘marriage’ would be set to happen in 8-10 weeks time. While Nalina’s urgency only increased to travel only increased to prevent that marriage from taking place, she got a voice message on his phone with Lakshmi’s voice asking “Bestie, please give me a week’s time before you come to pick me up because I want to ruin some of my parents’ precious items so I can leave while taking my vengeance” sounding very steadfast in her objective, after which there was a second voice message with Oliver’s voice “By the way, I will join you guys on the way back out of here. I don’t want to be with my parents either” after which the phone seems to be handed over as Lakshmi adds “Yeah, don’t worry about him. He is chill, doesn’t bite and is kind of a good friend now” after which Nalina heard Oliver and Lakshmi giggling before the voice message ended.

Only 2 days into that week before picking up Lakshmi, Jaswanti saw Saroj almost try to cut himself with a knife after which she asked him about it to which he “I can’t do this anymore, I don’t know I can even trust myself or anything... I just want all of this to be over”; Jaswanti then talked a bit more on his thoughts and then asked him “Would you be fine with admitting yourself into a psych ward for your safety, and I’ll come with you to help, until we get Lakshmi back?” to which Saroj reluctantly agreed. When Jaswanti and Nalina dropped him off at a psych ward—she had to take a couple of hours to search for a good psych ward with the help of Nalina—the three of the them hugged as Nalina and Jaswanti tried to console him while give reassurances that ‘things will get better’ and he should try to be as open as he can with any of the therapists to aid with him getting better while being there. Nalina and Jaswanti talked to Oliver more about the plans to escape, for which they decided Nalina and Jaswanti would come to Mumbai by train and then go with Oliver by flight back to Thrissur—while making sure to settle in Pune, Maharashtra with Oliver, Lakshmi, Nalina and Jaswanti for a few days before taking that Pune-Thrissur flight (given the flight booking date). Nalina and Jaswanti decided to leave their business operations with some other manager at their business while claiming it was about “on the job training” with no further explanations.

After fully getting all of them to Pune, they were sitting and talking about Lakshmi’s feelings, how Oliver (as the groom to be in that situation) felt and what the two of them did to escape. Lakshmi was still in the aftershocks of the situation having her mind finally understand the true horror of the situation without having the fear take control of her mind but she couldn’t come to be able to explain to them without intensely crying herself but the few details she did give to her friends were that “my parents turned my childhood room into my prison cell” and “My mom had two passports and I thought one of them might be the one that my mom said was mine when I was one year old but I felt that was a dream since she lies a lot and I felt that she would hurt me if I checked or took any of the passports even if one of them was expired”. The rest of them just aided her with helping her to be calm and letting her know ‘it’s okay to give yourself space to understand it before you are ready to talk about it to anyone’ while Nalina and Jaswanti added ‘we will always be here for you when you need it’ whilst having memories of leaving Saroj at the psychiatric ward.

Oliver talked about how his parents told him that the marriage would be good but when he saw Lakshmi in horrible state of Melancholia and that feeling his parents saw that and still didn’t care made him hate his parents (he already had issues with them being deceitful and manipulative as child but it fizzled out in his teen years, however since his parents didn’t see anything to apologize for so he already had some bad sentiments against them). Moreover, what helped him to become friends with Lakshmi was that he too did a degree in psychology (alongside a degree in philosophy) and that shared college experience of studying the subject and their shared trauma of horrible parents made them as good friends. He then said that he decided to go to Kenya to stay with his friend—who he saved once over 2 years back, who is now a car salesman and keeps sending Oliver notes of thanks despite Oliver’s humbleness—since he is an Aid worker at the UN (the African headquarters for UN is centred in Kenya) and thought getting out of India would be the best, moreover he has been having dreams of wanting to live in Kenya but never thought about it since he never went to his home that often after work which didn’t provoke any thought in him to change his home address.

Once all of them got back, Jaswanti got Saroj from the psych ward—they said he could leave early as his feelings of suicidality and self harm has subsided much earlier—all four of them were at the home, in Thrissur. Jaswanti and Saroj would live in so that Saroj and Lakshmi could meet each other again. The four of them hugged while finally giving themselves the space to cry about the whole situation, alongside Lakshmi and Saroj stayed in one room together for a while just hugging just to remind each ‘things are okay and he/she is here with me now’.

Chapter 17: Crepuscular Rays II

Lakshmi and Saroj decided to talk each other about their mental turmoil about 2 weeks after the events—on their own they needed that time to get themselves grounded to reality in some way—trying to go in as much detail as they could. Mental turmoil would make it hard for them to go about the details as insecurity, guilt and emotional numbness was persisting in their minds: for Lakshmi it was about the fact she always wanted to believe can change but her parents still being horrible forces herself to reconcile reality with her ethics; for Saroj he thought that since he had only broke up with Mallika over 2 years 5 months 1 week 5 days ago, he would be ‘over’ it but when things turned sour the person who was the voice of his negative thoughts was his ex. Lakshmi told Saroj “the only thing that had let me keep myself mentally sane was thinking of how you had been to me when we were dating, remembering about how you look at life overall and how I could take lessons from your life to imprint on my mind”. Saroj told Lakshmi “The only things that kept me from not actually killing myself or considering self-harm was writing poems about our positively developing relationship, I kept remembering the things I learned from you that changed my life to be optimistic and push myself to understand that there were still people that wanted me alive so that they would have the motivation to stay alive as well”.

Lakshmi told the group about how she felt like was suddenly put in a prison cell in her own childhood room (they took all her childhood memorable items away from her room and covered the window from the outside in a way that light would come in but she couldn’t see outside), how one day her dad took her to the backyard with her tied up to a chair as she had to watch her old items burn for hours (her mom wouldn’t join since she seemed to look like she was on the edge of feeling guilty), the way they controlled her sleep, appetite and thoughts for 7 days before the groom came and how she was fawning over the groom verbally even though her thoughts on a emotional level only let her think of Saroj every minute of being kidnapped while feeling worried that Saroj could’ve killed himself since she didn’t hear his voice in over 15 days. Lakshmi also told the group that she didn’t want to report the crime to any police so that she didn’t have to deal with the extremely delayed courts of India alongside avoiding the high risk of re-traumatization from even suing, she didn’t report to any police more specifically since she didn’t trust the police who tend to victim blame a lot (given her experience from most of her clients in India) to aid her in fighting back against her parents.

Saroj talked about how during those first 3 days of not hearing from her that he worried that she could’ve been killed by her parents which made them constantly plagued by extreme anxiety which made his appetite very low and almost induced insomnia. He added that for those 5 days when he heard of those ‘fake messages’ he had thoughts that came from the way his abusive ex-girlfriend used to tell to him: “It’s hard to love you, it’s not that I don’t love you but loving you feels exhausting sometimes”, “Sometimes I understand why no one took you as a child but it’s okay since at least I chose to love you” and “I don’t think I could ever wish that your never had your trauma since you did meet me, you know how much you improved while you had me in your life? It’s not fair for you to wish that your past wasn’t like that, it’s like saying you don’t want to love me” on loop for those 5 days without repeat. He would try to self harm those days with rubber bands or hitting himself with random items in his rooms so he could use his pain to escape his own mind but once it started to get too much he felt like using a knife thinking that ‘if the hurt is permanent then Mallika will leave my mind’; He said his thanks to Jaswanti since in the psych ward the counsellor helped him to prevent himself to going to suicide over a slowly mentally creeping thought, “Mallika is always in my mind, its like I’m cheating on Lakshmi”, “I can barely even help my sister and her friend to save Lakshmi, why would I want to save my girlfriend if this bad of a boyfriend for letting her go there and barely helping to get her back” and “if I barely learn form my own past and from other people then I must be the worst teacher ever too” which made him slowly think that his existence was a burden, since the counsellor helped him to become grounded and realize that Lakshmi, Nalina, Jaswanti, his work colleagues and his students loved him not for him to be perfect but since he was nice human being which is why he gets love from the close people in his life.

The couple had to start the last month, 7th December 2028, of their 2nd year of dating trying to recover form two hells of their own, restore their relationship from the doubts/guilts that plagued their mind and relearn what it means to love without eliminating their individuality whilst not forcing a sense of spiritual oneness by being a couple. In some sense the couple wanted to believe that they could just talk out their issues together but they knew that the way they did their communication was likely still not any better; they wanted to be in love while being the sole helper for each other but no one can have their cake and eat it too so the two of them decided to collectively go to both individual therapy and for couples therapy to make sure things can actually get better.

Even if Saroj felt bad about things becoming this horrible that this was the only way to keep them afloat, Lakshmi told him “Water can only help a flower to grow only if it has the soil, weather and nutrition to make a good base for it to grow from; we can’t just make it have water, any random soil and some sun to grow, that’s not to say its not meant to grow but that it has to be nurtured the right way” while reassuring him that she was talking about therapy as a metaphor and not any weird way to break up (she actually wanted to commit to the relationship more than ever). After all therapy takes time to heal, so they decided to do their 2nd year anniversary by focusing on small, low intensity but important acts of love by not being too strongly focused on any particular kind of intimacy and not heavily powering their intimacy overall to give each other time to learn to love again.

The four resettled their houses in Bangalore, Karnataka to let Nalina be closer to her family (the only one in the group whose problems were not familial/internal but came from her childhood experience for being bullying for who she was in the sense of her looks or her personality); Jaswanti lived with Nalina in a flat together as they grew to become strongly platonic meanwhile Lakshmi lived with Saroj in a separate room but the same flat that Jaswanti and Nalina lived in so that the four of them could be closer together.

It took the couple over 3 weeks before they could learn to hug each other, for long periods, without feeling guilty for anything that they may had done to each other. It took them over 2 more months before they could keep okay about giving pecks of kisses that would last more than a second without feeling insecure personally and to not feel that insecurity without projecting it on the other person; for more longer more intimate kisses it had a separate pace of going from occasional spontaneity to repeated consistency. They would cycle from very deep intimacy to basic level of intimacy every month whenever ‘their minds started to betray them again’ over thoughts of any insecurity in the way they loved each other, that constant fall back to being unable to show that deep intimacy despite the few weeks of progress had them suddenly doubtful of the romantic relationship putting both of them in crisis mode for what felt to have no end. The couple’s therapist would be there to help them pull their thoughts from their subconscious so that the couple would realize that they still wanted to love each other since both of them were at some level having a persistent want to reach that state similar to where they were before the kidnapping event.

Finding the things necessary for their relationship: that hope in growth, resilient sense of trust, a sense of faith grounded in reality, mutual intimacy undefined by intensity, cognizant security centred in cooperation, exuberant desire to celebrate focused on individual thresholds and a strong well-developed sense of ‘dual-oneness’ (to not sacrifice their fierce individuality for the sake of romantic oneness or vice versa) had took them over 9 months. Those 9 months from when their therapy started finally got them to a new reformed level some what similar to their past (putting their romantic relationship at over 2 years and 8 months), both of them were okay with things not being the same as before the kidnapping because now they had something better which neither of them could naturally push to themselves. However, they still kept up to date on their therapy for 6 weeks after reaching that stable level to fully cement their relationship into something that could last. During those 8 months of their ongoing 3rd year of their relationship- Lakshmi would often ask Nalina if she could travel with Saroj to a new country but Nalina would assert for Lakshmi to work on stability of the romantic relationship with Saroj.

Chapter 18: Symbiosis and Grafting

Travelling to a new country to resettle for a third time but somewhere Lakshmi and Saroj could permanently get safety from external issues was a dream Lakshmi and Saroj had for the longest time they could imagine. Lakshmi wanted to live with him in a progressive country somewhere in the world so they wouldn’t have to worry about the pressures of conformity that would naturally come from living in a traditionalist society; normally they would’ve have taken this as a core value since was to mostly escape India and by proxy Lakshmi’s parents but the trauma of the almost arranged marriage took a toll on their relationship giving more specific limits on where to resettle—they decided on Ireland since Lakshmi’s mother had been an Irish citizen born in India.

On the other hand, Lakshmi and Saroj got comfortable with each other by late November of 2029 while being very strongly sure of their mutual love in the romantic relationship. Lakshmi asked Saroj about being married to her at some point in the future to which he thought would be amazing and didn’t need to discuss over the idea of marriage since they already felt a better connection to each other after intensive couple’s therapy. After Lakshmi proposed to Saroj with a candy ring pop on one morning walk (Saroj felt like proposing but was unsure given her trauma), Lakshmi and Saroj had got their marriage done at a civil court with Nalina and Jaswanti attending; later the four celebrated the marriage at home with their own made-up ceremony without going to do it in public. Lakshmi mostly wanted to get the legal hurdle of marriage done to prevent any sham arranged marriage alongside making more ease for getting citizenship abroad and to ensure that Saroj was hers forever.

The couple decided on both of them working on job interviews at the same time while getting some money from Nalina and Jaswanti for any excess in their overall needs. Lakshmi tried to find a job in Ireland that would pay high without considering her work timings so that she could get her finances kickstarted as soon as she would even enter Ireland, even if she wanted to later work in some agency so she could have some control over her time. Despite her efforts in the interviews, it didn’t work since there weren’t really any places for the income, she wanted that would hire her; Saroj didn’t mind her rejecting them since they were going to a new country to start a new life and not to simply get away for the sake of getting away, after all it was harder for her parents to even contact her given that she blocked them on all social media apps except WhatsApp. Saroj tried his luck and didn’t get any accepted but then got a potential job in a University in Ireland since they went to search for him as he was recommended to the University on some note from his work colleague; however, the company had to find a way to get his work visa approved as it was harder for them to find a way for a ‘husband of a possibly Irish citizen whose wife and her parents were born in India but with Irish ancestry’ even if they could cover for the flight expenses.

The whole rat race for interviews and getting offers to consider ended up taking them around 7 months (putting their romantic relationship time at over 3 years 6 months). The couple took their 3rd year anniversary as sort of a day off away from pouring their efforts on their existing jobs and interviews for jobs in Ireland, the two made sure that when they did get free time to use that time on either having fun with each other—in whatever form of intimacy that both of them needed in those moments of time—so that they would never lose connection with each other and saw each other as their emotional crux to get revitalized for their day-to-day activities.

Suddenly Rosaria, Lakshmi’s mother, sent Lakshmi a message on WhatsApp (the only app Lakshmi didn’t feel like blocking her parents on since the other social media apps could accidentally reveal her location to her parents) saying “I’m sorry but please don’t accept my apology since I know I haven’t changed enough to be a better person to deserve it. Regardless please let me explain myself in a way that is fair to you...” and then another text:

“Even if I used whatever I knew at the time in my early 20s to parent a child as a woman who had to suddenly get into an arranged marriage. How I knew what I knew doesn’t matter if I never listened to you when you where a sweet innocent nonchalant child who was just learning to life at the same time as me. If I had to be honest, I was jealous of your personality at the time since what I saw in you was something what I never had as a young teen girl growing in a society that wanted to put me in a cookie cutter; while I was also living in a time where that cookie cutter was getting more flimsy, it still didn’t help that for the first time I saw a girl child who didn’t cave to the pressures of society. My husband’s desire to control a child to make them an over-achiever was something so fundamentally corrupt that I should’ve realized earlier, I should’ve fought those thoughts of jealousy in my head and left my husband to raise you on my own to reinforce your growingly bold personality. In spite of those subconscious desires of hope that I should’ve emboldened, my insecurities felt too strong to outpower which led me to supporting Ravi in wanted he wanted to do to you. Don’t forgive me though since I’m not a victim who should’ve been courageous enough to help you, because in truth I was the biggest coward who felt insecure at a child enough that it made me abuse that child”

Then continuing with a third text saying “I’ve lied to you this whole time, thinking that scrutiny of habits, overworking for ambitions and control over normal everyday things would make things better than whatever was a child who was passionate for the sake of being passionate. When I saw you looking so mentally desolated and spiritually sunken, I felt such a huge wave of guilt which is why I indirectly aided Oliver to help you get out and tried to make your dad not look at the situation at all. I would be lying again if those were the only two lies: I wasn’t born in India but rather Ireland therefore my Irish Passport came by me being born in Ireland with Irish parents and not solely because I had Irish parents, moreover the second green passport that I ‘badly’ hid (I hid it that way on purpose but since you didn’t check or take it when you were at Mumbai so I had to tell) is actually your passport that I got in the mail when you were one year old (So, no, it was never a dream—I’m sorry for lying about that too now that I realized). If you for some reason still think there are things that could be reconciled, please don’t do it now not until I fully change to understand my mistakes and maybe after I can see to either make Ravi change or divorce him; either way only if you want to and after I contact you again to let you know that it could be the right time to do so. Also, if you are reading this then the parcel, for the old passport, you will get tomorrow is not a scam”

Lakshmi did show the messages (on the same day) to her therapist for the sake of mental healing, however Lakshmi didn’t take much to it since she definitely didn’t believe her mom anymore; Lakshmi then decided to fully block her mom and put her on no contact since the nature of crime her mother committed wouldn’t let her intuition accept an apology regardless if the apology was genuine in any way. However, Lakshmi did get a tiny parcel the next day that contained her passport which made her feel that her mom might actually be genuine, as a result she checked with Nalina to see if the passport is fake—Nalina was surprised after checking to find out that the passport is real, after which they celebrated the idea of Lakshmi and Saroj being able to move to Ireland. Lakshmi then unblocked her mom on WhatsApp to send a text saying “Thanks amma, I don’t think I could forgive you yet but I’ll see If can try... either way I guess I’ll only try after you do the things you said since I feel it in my gut that things can be better. Hopefully we can truly love each other one day” while crying in happiness while thinking in some vague feeling of hope.

Then Lakshmi told Saroj and Jaswanti about the passport which then led to a second celebration with Nalina over going to Ireland; Lakshmi then got her Irish Passport to an Irish Embassy and then officially renounced her Indian Citizenship to renew her Irish Passport—she did have to pay some minor fees but it was nothing for the group whole could to easily compensate in expenses. Once Saroj notified the employers at the Irish University on a call, the employers made a sigh of relief over their work load getting easier to be finally able to formalize his work visa and book his tickets for Ireland, since it was only 20th June 2030 and the Irish University would start their year by 5th September so they got their flight tickets for 10th August 2030; Nalina and Jaswanti then decided to live in Goa and to only go to live in Ireland when they felt their business grew enough to deserve it. On the day of the couple leaving to the airport Nalina and Jaswanti tightly hugged the couple for many long minutes while crying before saying their heartfelt good byes; by then Lakshmi and Saroj knew, like resilient flowers on land and in water finding the sun, their life began anew.

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About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar offers a platform for writers worldwide to showcase their literary talents. Celebrating creativity and diversity, the competition invites poets and writers to express their unique voices and perspectives. With no constraints on style or theme, it encourages participants to push the boundaries of their imagination and storytelling. This competition stands as a testament to the power of words in connecting and inspiring people across the globe.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Kevin Jacob Reguel for his enchanting submission, "The Lotus and Sunflower," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Your work brings warmth and laughter to the realm of romance-comedy, leaving readers with a renewed appreciation for love and friendship. Thank you for sharing your creative journey with us, and we look forward to seeing more of your literary endeavors in the future.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.