Diya

Music. And Aman’s smile. Two little pieces of stolen happiness that lit up my days. I loved the rehearsals. They were a light in my life. But Aman insisted I was the light. I was the sunshine. That’s what he used to call me: ‘sunshine’. He said that when I stopped singing, the sun went behind clouds and the day became dark.

I loved it the most when the two of us sang together. Aman loved experimenting with fusion, mixing western jazz and Indian classical. He sang in English and I sang in Hindi. Yet, when our two voices came together, it always sounded amazing. The rest of the band began to get excited about it as well. We had to start locking the doors of the auditorium because so many people wanted to hear what we were doing.

One day, we were rehearsing when someone began hammering on the door. Aman hated the rehearsals being disturbed, but the knocking wouldn’t stop. An extremely angry Aman finally flung open the door. His friends swarmed in and began singing ‘Happy Birthday’, laughing when he tried to throw them out. They wanted to carry Aman off with them, but he refused to go. ‘Rehearsals first,’ he said. ‘We’re working hard here.’ They left reluctantly, demanding a treat. We went back to practising. But when we were packing up, Aman held back.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him.

‘I really don’t want to celebrate,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the fuss that’s made over a birthday.’

‘Why not? It’s nice to have a birthday celebration.’

He looked at me with sadness in his eyes. ‘It’s not just my birthday. It’s also the day my mother died.’

I was stunned into silence. ‘What would you like to do?’ I asked.

‘Run away,’ he said.

‘Come on,’ I said on an impulse. ‘Let’s do that. Let’s run away.’

We ducked out of the hall from the backstage entrance. ‘Come, I’ll show you my secret place,’ said Aman.

I was surprised when he led me to the little chapel that stood in one corner of the campus. There were wooden steps that led up into a belfry. Below the dusty bells, there was a wooden platform and a small window with a view of the campus.

We weren’t the first to discover the place. The platform was covered with names of couples carved deep into the wood. Some of them had carved dates. Lovers had been coming here for eighty years.

The space was tiny, and our knees touched as we settled down.

‘Now what do we do?’ I asked.

He laughed, ‘Did you really have to ask? You know me.’ He pulled a book out of his backpack. ‘I’ve got a new book of love poems.’

He read to me, and lovers down the ages spoke to us of their joy and their pain. Then we just sat there in silence, content to be with each other, reading the names on the floor.

‘I didn’t know it was your birthday. I don’t have a present to give you,’ I said.

He smiled at me. ‘You could give me your hand.’

I didn’t know how to react. In a moment of blind panic, I decided to pretend I hadn’t heard him. He waited for a moment. Then he found a new page and continued reading. I looked at his hand, lying there casually, within reach.

I pretended to move and brushed against it. Then, trying my hardest to make it look casual, I sort of slipped my hand into his very warm one. For a second or two, he didn’t respond, and I really thought he was too busy reading to notice. Then his hand tightened on mine, and he looked into my eyes.

‘Best present ever,’ he said softly.