In the suburbs of a big industrial city, there lived a girl named Aashka. Aashka Thakur was a 19 year old, humbly heightened girl with perfect features yet imperfect demeanors. She held fire in her soul yet the silence of a funeral in her eyes. She would get angry at petty things but wouldn’t react until anything pierced through her heart and caused an ache. She was everything and nothing at the same time.  She remained engaged in her own thoughts, thoughts that made her miserable, suicidal, over the edge but not lonely. With them she felt accompanied. 

Her family thought of her as the silent one, the one who doesn’t make troubles until upset, the one who’s okay being on her own and therefore, never cared enough for her cause the son, her elder brother, the heart of family and the heir to the property was the focal point of the family. So, she grew distant and more and more solitary and would find new muses in search of her ultimate solace. 

It was the summer of 2000s  when her friend made her meet this boy. With innocent looks in his eyes, delicate figure and skin as if kissed by sun Gagan stood in front of her looking at her radiant beauty he’d thought she was way out of his league, which she indeed was. But they started talking, spending evenings together. Aashka loved sunsets and Gagan was falling in love with her so he would try to love everything she adored. His perfect manners made her believe that the world could be a colourful montage for her as well if only she gave it a chance so she did. After pushing the guy away for years when her heart finally melted she fell in his arms wanting him to embrace her, her flaws, her insecurities and all of the mess she made wherever she went. What neither of them realized then was asking themselves did they really have to be in each other’s arms to be happy or do they needed to be happy to have found each other. But the young bloods in their early 20s didn’t care about the  consequences and went all in for it, at least Aashka did. She believed she had found her soulmate in him and he thought of her as the greatest prize of his life. 

Months passed, they grew closer but Gagan was beginning to resent her and Aashka kept putting all her heart on stake only to lose each time. Aashka’s fiery soul seemed to diesel his desires and he was running out of excuses to vindicate his distant behavior. What Gagan didn’t realize upon winning Aashka was she knew she was a handful yet wished to give her all only in expectancy of love in return but she was taken for granted. As if a prize had been won by Gagan put at the top of the shelf for everyone to see but never to be touched, experienced or loved again.  

After months of fighting and resentment towards each other Gagan grew tired of her and asked to be left alone. After everything Aashka had been through, this was the last thing she was hoping for. Her world shattered and she began begging to a man who didn’t deserve her at all. She couldn’t believe her fate at first, she only wanted to be seen by him but he was too weak to lift his eyes to do that. So she cried until her eyes dried out and soon her heart became content with all the crying and shouting and losing her mind. She’d think to herself that it was the part in the story where the main character would never recover from but that narrative soon changed. All the rivers that she cried, she began building a bridge over it. She smiled again, found happiness in herself again, felt alive again. The one she had surrendered to assuming as her soulmate was nothing but a side character in her story. If only she knew that earlier.  If only she knew, he was not the one for her after all.