The smell hit me first—that distinctive aroma of aged paper and forgotten time, tinged with the faint scent of neem used to ward off insects during Gujarat’s hot summers. Musty, yes, but comforting in its own way. I ran my fingers along the spines of books that hadn’t been touched in decades, their covers bearing the telltale marks of Ahmedabad’s dust and heat.
The estate sale at the old haveli in Paldi ended in fifteen minutes, and the remaining items were sold for only fifty rupees each.
That’s when I found it. Wedged between two water-damaged volumes of Gujarati poetry was a slim book bound in faded silk, the colour of kesudo flowers. There was no title on the spine, just the ghost of what might have been gold embroidery once upon a time. I pulled it free, feeling something shift inside the cover as I did.
Collected Poems by Niranjan Bhagat, 1975. A Gujarati poet I had studied during my literature courses at Gujarat University. I flipped through the pages, many of which were uncut—meaning no one had ever read this particular copy. But someone had read something. Throughout the margins were handwritten notes in faded blue ink, cramped and urgent, sometimes in English, sometimes in Gujarati.
“Fifty rupees,” I told the elderly woman managing the checkout table. She nodded without looking up from her chai.
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I didn’t think about the book again until three days later, when I needed something to read during my AMTS bus ride across the city. I pulled it from my bag and opened it to a random page.
The poem was titled “The River Front,” a meditation on the Sabarmati flowing through our city. But in the margin, in that same blue ink:
“L, if you’re reading this, turn to page 47. I know it’s been years, but please. —M”
My name is Lakshmi.
Despite the April heat inside the crowded bus, I felt a chill rush through me. Pure coincidence, obviously. L could be anyone—Leela, Latika, Labhuben. Still, I found myself flipping to page 47.
The poem was titled “The Old City Walls,” but I barely registered the verses. Along the margin was more blue handwriting:
“I told them it was an accident. I’ve been telling that lie for thirty years. The key is hidden where we buried the myna bird. Remember the neem tree near Ellis Bridge? I’m sorry. I never stopped loving you. —M”
My hands trembled. This wasn’t meant for me. These were private words, a confession meant for someone named L from decades ago. Yet I couldn’t help feeling drawn into this mystery, this glimpse into someone else’s life preserved between dusty pages.
I turned the book over and examined it more carefully. Inside the back cover was a bookplate: “From the library of Manjula Desai, 1926-2018.”
Manjula. M.
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The internet made it easy to find information about Manjula Desai. She had lived her entire life in Ahmedabad. There was even a small obituary with a grainy photo—an elderly woman with sharp eyes and a closed-lip smile in a simple cotton saree with a Patola border. She had been a professor of Gujarati literature at H.K. Arts College, had never married, and was survived by nieces and nephews.
I should have stopped there. But something about those desperate notes in the margin pulled at me. Who was L? What accident? What had Manjula been hiding for thirty years?
I found myself taking an auto-rickshaw to Ellis Bridge the following weekend. It took hours of searching the riverfront area before I finally saw it—an ancient neem tree that stood slightly apart from the newer landscaping along the Sabarmati Riverfront Development. It was one of the few remaining old trees that had witnessed the city’s transformation.
Nothing was evident near the tree, no freshly turned earth or markers. I was being ridiculous. I turned to leave when my foot struck something hard. Brushing away decades of accumulated leaves revealed a small, flat stone with crude letters etched into it in both Gujarati and English: “Mithu (Black Myna), 1951.”
A child’s pet grave.
I hesitated. This was trespassing. This was desecration. This was none of my business.
And yet...
The earth was soft beneath the stone. I didn’t need to dig far before my fingers touched metal. Inside was a small brass dibiya (box), tarnished but intact. Inside was a key, just as Manjula had written, along with a yellowed photograph of two young women sitting on the steps of Gujarat College, wearing similar cotton sarees, arms around each other, smiling in the sunlight. On the back, in that same blue ink: “M & L, Gujarat College, Summer 1952.”
The key was to a locker. The number was engraved on it.
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Bank of Baroda still existed, though the branch near Lal Darwaja had been renovated many times since Manjula’s day. I showed the manager the key.
“This is very old,” she said, frowning at it. “We haven’t used this type in decades.”
“It belonged to my grand-aunt,” I lied. “Manjula Desai.”
The manager’s face changed. “Professor Desai? Oh, I remember her. Every year, she came in on the same day to access her locker. Very particular about it. April 17th.”
Today was April 17th.
The locker contained a single envelope, addressed to “L.” It wasn’t sealed. Inside was a handwritten letter and a small, antique silver anklet with tiny bells that made a delicate sound like rain.
“My dearest Leela,
If you’re reading this, I’ve finally gathered the courage to send you the poetry book, or I’ve passed on, and somehow, you’ve found your way to this letter regardless.
The accident wasn’t an accident. You always suspected, I think. Professor Rawal discovered us that evening by Kankaria Lake. He was so angry. When he lunged at you, I pushed him away. I didn’t mean for him to fall down the steps. I didn’t mean for any of it.
The police called it an accident, a tragic mishap. No one questioned why the department head was out by the lake that evening. They didn’t know about us. About what he’d threatened to expose if I didn’t end things with you, how he’d ensure neither of us would ever teach again, and how our families would be shamed in the community.
I’ve carried this secret for so long. I watched you marry Natwarlal, have children, and live the life that was expected of you. I watched from a distance, the unmarried professor teaching generation after generation of students with her books, her parakeet, and her Gujarati poetry.
But I never stopped loving you, not for a single day.
The pajeb was my grandmother’s. I always meant for you to have it, in another life where we could have been together openly. Remember how you always loved the sound it made?
Yours eternally, Manjula”
I sat there in the bank’s sterile consultation room, tears rolling down my face for two women I’d never met, for a love story buried in the margins, for a secret carried for a lifetime.
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One week later, I stood before a memorial stone in the small cemetery in Shahibaug. "Leela Shah (née Mehta), 1926-2005. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother.”
I placed marigolds and roses on the grave and tucked the letter and pajeb into a waterproof container beside them. Some secrets deserved to rest with their keepers.
As I walked away, I noticed an elderly woman placing flowers on a nearby grave. Something about her face—the shape of her eyes and the set of her jaw—reminded me of the young woman in the photograph.
“Excuse me,” I said in Gujarati. “Did you know Leela Shah?”
The woman looked surprised. “She was my mother.”
I hesitated, then asked, “Did she ever mention someone named Manjula? Manjula Desai?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Manju Aunty? She was my mother’s best friend from college. She used to come over every Sunday for lunch, for as long as I can remember. She smiled softly. “Even after Papa died, she was there. They have shared an old house in Navrangpura for the last twelve years. Inseparable.”
“Inseparable,” I repeated.
“Mom was buried with Manju Aunty’s silver kada, actually. She never took it off after Aunty gave it to her. Said it reminded her that some bonds cannot be broken by time or society.”
I looked back at Leela’s grave, then thought of where Manjula was cremated at Thaltej Crematorium, as mentioned in her obituary. Not so far apart after all.
“Thank you,” I said to the woman. “I found a book that belonged to your Manju Aunty. It had some beautiful poetry in it.”
“Oh, she loved her books,” the woman said. “Always writing in the margins, though. Mom used to tease her about it. Said she was leaving secret messages for future readers.” She paused. “After they both passed, we found dozens of books they had exchanged over the years. They would hide them in each other’s bags during their weekly chai meetings at Law Garden.”
As I returned to the main road to hail an auto-rickshaw, I thought about the book of poems on my nightstand. It is about stories hidden in the margins of other stories, about secrets finally finding their way home across time and social boundaries.
And I wondered what messages I might leave behind, and who might find them, long after I’m gone—in this city of heritage and tradition where the old and new coexist, where the Sabarmati flows with stories untold, and where some must be written between the lines.
Deep in thought, I decided to go to the Riverfront for an evening walk. As the evening sun cast long shadows across Ahmedabad, I walked along the Sabarmati Riverfront, where countless lovers had once strolled. The book of poems nestled against my chest felt heavier now, weighted with memories not my own.
I thought of Manjula and Leela—how their love had survived decades of silence, hidden in plain sight between carefully chosen words and marginalia. In their story, I found both heartbreak and hope. Perhaps that’s what the ancient banyan trees of our city have witnessed all along—love that bends but never breaks, finding its way despite every obstacle.
As Niranjan Bhagat once wrote: “Some stories are written in ink, others in breath and blood. But the truest ones are written in the spaces between words, where only the heart knows how to read.” And standing there, watching the river flow through my city of heritage and hushed secrets, I finally understood—we are all just marginalia in someone else’s story, waiting for the right reader to find us.

- Lamiya Siraj