Ayaan Qureshi believed that silence had a sound — like the slow turning of a page, the hush of early morning prayers, or the gentle drag of ink across paper. He had built his life around those sounds.
At 26, Ayaan lived a life far removed from noise, chaos, or spectacle. He wasn’t one to be found at weddings or festivals unless absolutely necessary. Most days, he stayed tucked away inside Nazm, his little calligraphy studio and bookstore, nestled on a sleepy corner in Ratanpur. It had no flashy signage, only an old wooden board with the word "Nazm" painted in faded gold, and the faint aroma of sandalwood, old paper, and chai leaves drifting from its windows.
Ayaan had grown up in this town, raised by his Nani Ammi, the formidable Ayesha Qureshi, after losing his parents in a car accident when he was ten. His brother, Rehan, had left for Mumbai soon after college, leaving Ayaan to tend to both his grief and his grandmother in the same breath. While Rehan built a life of ambition and skyscrapers, Ayaan built one of stillness and poetry.
He was known in town as the “shabd wala ladka” — the boy with words. He taught Urdu at the local school in the mornings and returned to Nazm by noon, where he would spend hours lettering poetry, both old and his own, into bookmarks, wedding cards, or framed scrolls for lovers who didn’t know how to say what they felt.
But for all his talent with words, Ayaan had never told anyone about the girl from college who once made him believe in magic — or the heartbreak that followed when she left without a goodbye. He carried that memory like a pressed flower between the pages of his favorite book: hidden, delicate, and slowly fading.
His world was simple — chai with Nani Ammi at 6, prayers at 7, classes by 8, and ink-stained fingers by noon. He never complained. But some nights, when the town slept and the monsoon tapped at his windows, Ayaan would open an old diary and write verses he’d never share.
He believed love existed — not in declarations or dramatic gestures — but in details. In remembering someone’s tea order. In fixing a fallen dupatta. In the pause between words, and the silence after laughter.
He just didn’t know that love was about to walk into Nazm, wrapped in a lemon-yellow dupatta, and completely rewrite his story.
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