When Meera stepped into the small one-bedroom apartment in Rishikesh, the first thing she noticed was the absence of a mirror.
Not a single one—no wardrobe glass, no bathroom reflection, no silver eye to echo the face she was trying to forget.
It felt intentional, as if the universe conspired to shelter her from the image that carried so many regrets.
For most people, starting over meant new clothes, new neighbors, a new SIM card.
For Meera, it meant invisibility. Not to others—but to herself.
She had left Mumbai behind, packing only two bags and an old diary filled with ink-stained apologies she had never sent.
Her mother’s words had followed her like a bell that refused to stop ringing:
“You can’t outrun what lives inside you, beta.”
But Meera had looked back once, her voice softer than her mother’s fear:
“I’m not running, Ma. I’m returning.”
Returning to what, she didn’t fully know.
Perhaps silence. Perhaps nothingness.
Or perhaps to herself.
⸻
Part 2: What Broke in Mumbai
In Mumbai, Meera had been someone—by the world’s standards.
A published poet, a creative editor at a reputed magazine, someone invited to lit-fests, someone loved.
Or so she had thought.
Love, for her, had come dressed as Aarav—a fellow writer, older, enigmatic, with the kind of sadness in his eyes that made you believe you were the cure.
They had shared poems instead of promises, nights instead of plans.
But it was Meera who had fallen deeper.
And Aarav—he had simply left, one cold morning in November, without a word.
No closure, no explanation—only a note that said:
“You were too beautiful to stay a wound. I didn’t want to ruin that.”
That betrayal wasn’t just of the heart.
It reopened every scar she had stitched with words—about being ‘not enough’, ‘too much’, ‘too intense’.
The magazine too, slowly edged her out. Her poetry turned darker, her performance suffered, and the world began to call her “moody,” “unreliable,” “unprofessional.”
By January, her mother had found her curled on the bathroom floor with a bottle of sleeping pills in her lap and a diary clutched to her chest like a coffin.
⸻
Part 3: Rishikesh – The City That Hears in Silence
Rishikesh wasn’t just a city. It was a silence that listened.
Each morning, Meera swept her small room, lit a diya, and watched the Ganga flow like time—unapologetic, unmoved by memory, but never forgetting.
She took up a job at a quiet ashram bookstore tucked behind the Lakshman Jhula.
Books, after all, didn’t ask about your past.
They let you touch lives without revealing your own.
One day, a stranger entered.
He was neither young nor old. His saffron robes weren’t rigid like those of monks she’d seen on television.
They flowed like the river—unassuming, ancient.
He picked up a thin book titled “A Million Broken Pieces Still Shine.”
Meera gave a faint smile. “That one doesn’t sell.”
He looked up, voice calm and piercing, “Then it must be true.”
⸻
Part 4: The Monk Who Brought the Mirror
He came often. Sometimes he bought a book. Sometimes he didn’t.
But always, he left something behind: a question, a silence, or a truth wrapped in metaphor.
One evening, as dusk descended over the Ganga like prayer beads unraveling, he spoke:
“You have no mirror in your home.”
Meera paused. “I don’t want to see who I used to be.”
The monk nodded. “The mirror doesn’t show the past, Meera. Only the one who is watching now.”
“But what if I don’t trust the ‘now’? What if it’s just another mask?”
He closed his eyes. “Then sit with it. Until it stops being a mask and becomes a face.”
⸻
Part 5: The Diary and the Windowpane
That night, Meera sat in the dark.
She lit no lamp. She just opened her diary—the one that carried letters never sent, grief never cried out loud.
But this time, she didn’t tear any page.
She wrote instead:
“I forgive the version of me who didn’t know better.
And I honour the one who kept breathing through it all.”
She exhaled as though it was her first true breath.
And when she looked up, she saw her reflection—not in a mirror, but in the windowpane.
It was soft. Honest. Silent. Real.
⸻
Part 6: When the Mirror Arrived
A week later, a package arrived.
No name. No note. Just a small mirror with a cracked wooden frame.
The glass wasn’t flawless. A thin line ran diagonally through it like a scar that had healed.
She placed it in a quiet corner, where morning sunlight would touch it gently.
At first, she looked only for a second—long enough to feel the sting of who she had been.
But over days, the sting turned to silence.
And silence became understanding.
⸻
Part 7: Returning to the Fire
Months passed. Meera found rhythm in routine.
She laughed more. She wrote again. Not for magazines, not for anyone. Just for the woman she was becoming.
Then, one day, a letter arrived.
It was from Mumbai. From Aarav.
“I saw your recent poem online. It felt like an apology to yourself.
I’m not asking for anything.
But if you ever want to meet—not to fix anything, but to simply acknowledge it—I’ll be at the café we used to haunt.”
Meera held the letter as if it weighed a lifetime.
The past wasn’t chasing her anymore.
It was waiting.
⸻
Part 8: Closure Without Expectation
She went.
Not to return to Aarav.
But to stand beside the girl who once believed silence meant safety.
He was there—older, humbler, quieter.
They didn’t cry. They didn’t scream.
They just shared silence.
She asked him just one question:
“Why did you leave without a word?”
Aarav looked at her and whispered, “Because I thought you deserved someone who could stay. And I wasn’t him.”
She smiled. Not because it healed anything, but because it didn’t hurt anymore.
When she returned to Rishikesh, her room didn’t feel like escape.
It felt like home.
⸻
Part 9: The Final Entry
One saffron evening, as the sky sang ancient lullabies and the Ganga glowed like molten gold, Meera lit a diya before the mirror.
She opened her diary and wrote her final entry:
“I am not what I fled.
I am what I faced when fleeing stopped.”
She watched her reflection in the cracked mirror.
And for the first time, she didn’t flinch.
⸻
Epilogue: The Mirror Within
The past didn’t disappear.
It bowed. And walked beside her.
She whispered to her soul:
“When the soul is no longer ashamed of its scars,
even the past becomes a pilgrim on the path to light.”
And that’s when she realized—
The past doesn’t follow you to punish.
It follows to see if you’re finally ready to walk beside it—without fear.
The room had no mirror because the soul wasn’t ready to witness itself.
When it was—life sent one.
React
