Ishita Malhotra believed life was meant to be felt — in the rhythm of anklets against marble floors, in the sway of dupattas in the wind, in stories passed down through lullabies and kitchen secrets.
At 23, Ishita was a whirl of colors in a world that often tried to dim her light. She had the kind of energy that entered a room before she did — not loud, but full of emotion, full of life. In Delhi, she was known as the "Kathak ki Pari," the girl whose feet told stories, and whose eyes held centuries of tradition.
But not anymore.
When her Dadaji’s health began to fade, Ishita packed her ghungroos, folded her dreams, and left the stage behind. She moved to Ratanpur — a town she barely remembered from childhood summers — to care for him. Everyone said it was noble. She smiled and nodded. But only she knew how much it hurt.
Her days were now filled with quiet routines: making tulsi chai for Dadaji, helping with his medicines, and walking him through old photo albums. At night, when the house stilled, she danced — softly, barefoot, in the hallway. Just for herself.
She missed the music. The late-night rehearsals. The stage lights. But most of all, she missed being seen — not as a caregiver or dutiful granddaughter, but as a woman full of fire and rhythm.
Ishita found escape in her journals. She wrote letters to people she missed, to versions of herself she feared were slipping away. Letters she never sent. Poems she never shared. Her heart was too full for the quiet life, yet too loyal to leave it.
Still, she believed in romance. In gestures that weren’t showy but sincere — in finding her name written in someone’s diary, in a stranger remembering her favorite song. Love, she thought, should feel like dance — unchoreographed, raw, beautiful.
And though she had no intention of falling in love in sleepy Ratanpur, fate had other plans — plans that would begin, quite fittingly, with a quiet boy and a page of Urdu poetry.
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