Enduring all, yet always fair
Bharathiyar’s flame, and Jackie Chan’s charm along.
Radhi had always been a girl of contradictions.
Soft-spoken, almost shy, yet with a quiet strength that few could see. She came from a large, influential family — the kind that looked perfect from the outside, polished and proud, but within its walls carried sharp edges and shadows.
Her parents lived together but never truly with each other. Conversations often ended in silence, and silences carried more weight than words. Her father moved through the house like a visitor, quick to blame, slow to care. Her mother endured, her strength mistaken for weakness, her warmth hidden beneath layers of resignation. With three younger siblings watching, Radhi often felt as though she had to be both shield and anchor — too young to carry such weight, yet old enough to understand it would always be hers.
Love, to her, was never something she saw — only something she imagined. It lived in movies, in her own words as she wrote love stories and romanticized about a guy she had never met, trusting in God’s perfect timing, in the fleeting tenderness of stories. In real life, it remained an unanswered question, a longing that made her firm yet fragile.
School had been her safe harbor. She studied in an all girls Christian convent, where mornings began with hymns echoing through long, arched corridors, and discipline was stitched into every hour. She wasn’t Christian, but something in her heart leaned toward that world — the soft glow of stained glass, the solemnity of prayer, the rhythm of psalms that made even silence feel sacred. She never sought the safety of crowds, never hungered for attention. For Radhi, trust was a rare jewel, and silence often spoke more than words.
College was different. Louder, freer, filled with voices that didn’t carry the same discipline of her convent days. Boys and girls mingled with easy laughter; everything felt like it moved faster than she was used to. Radhi carried herself carefully through it, holding on to her sense of self like an anchor. And in that new world, she found her comfort in Bells — her old friend from school, warm, a thread of familiarity in the unknown.
It was with Bells that she first saw him.
The moment was simple, almost fleeting. They were boarding the college bus one evening when Radhi’s eyes strayed toward the tennis court. There, under the fading sun, HE was playing. His strokes were sharp, his footwork light, the rhythm of his movements almost musical. His serve sent the ball arcing high against the dusky sky, his racket meeting it with effortless confidence and precise control. He looked like someone who belonged there, fully, effortlessly.
“That’s JB,” Bells murmured beside her, following Radhi’s gaze with a smile. “He’s into everything — tennis, music… one of those people who does it all.”
Radhi didn’t answer. But the scene — the echo of the ball against the racket, the brightness in his stride, the way the court seemed to bend to his energy — stayed with her. It etched itself into her memory like the opening line of a poem she would never forget.
Later, Bells introduced them near the PT block. It wasn’t dramatic, just an ordinary moment — a name, a smile. His was easy, boyish, filled with warmth. Hers was small, shy, almost hesitant, like a secret she wasn’t ready to share. A few days later, she saw him again — this time inside the PT room. He had dropped his tennis bag in the corner, laughing with his friends, filling the space with his presence as if the walls themselves bent to listen.
Others noticed Radhi too. There was a senior once, bold and reckless, who etched her name as a tattoo on his hand. It terrified her — not the ink itself, but the weight of what it meant, a promise she had never asked for, something far too heavy for her heart to carry. She never let him speak to her. Instead, it was his classmates — the girls from his batch — who approached Radhi, urging her gently, “Just talk to him once.” But how could she? For what he had done, without even having spoken a single word to her, only frightened her more. She quietly conveyed through one of those girls that she was not, and could never be, the kind of girl he imagined her to be.
And then, just as quickly as it had begun, the storm passed. He had to prepare for an interview, and Radhi saw him step forward, redirecting his life where it needed to go. In some quiet way, she was relieved — not just for herself, but for him too.
Another boy, gentler, never crossed a line; he only admired her with a kind of quiet respect, content with small exchanges that asked for nothing. There were others who tried to approach her, but Radhi was never truly approachable. She kept her world guarded, afraid of what it meant to open the door.
And yet, despite that wall, she found herself doing things for JB that she had never done for anyone else. She baked her first cake — soft, simple, uneven at the edges — and placed it in a little box. She didn’t understand why her hands worked with such eagerness, why her heart beat faster as if it already knew something her mind refused to name. Perhaps it wasn’t courage at all, but a tender helplessness she couldn’t resist. When she gave it to him, he smiled and said only, “Homemade?” — but the way he held it, carefully, as if it meant something, lingered with her longer than the words.
The next day, when he returned the empty box, she found a band inside — pink and plain, yet somehow more valuable than any other jewel she had worn before. She slipped it onto her wrist and never removed it, as though it had quietly become a part of her. For Radhi, those little fragments mattered. She collected them the way others collected souvenirs.
It was in moments like these — small, fleeting, almost childish — that Radhi felt something dangerous take root. A sweetness she wasn’t supposed to taste, an addiction to a happiness she had never known. She knew it wasn’t right, knew it could never end well, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. It was the kind of joy that felt like stealing, and though guilt pressed at the edges, her heart refused to regret.
And what was it about him? He wasn’t the bold senior who tried to claim her with reckless gestures before even knowing her. He wasn’t the distant admirer who never found the courage to step forward. With them, she felt only pressure or unease, the weight of someone else’s expectations. But with him, everything was lighter, quieter — a companionship that asked for nothing and gave more than she could understand. He called her Ami, a name that seemed to fit her better than her own, and when he spoke of airplanes and skies, there was a conviction in his voice that made his dream of joining the Air Force feel not like a fantasy, but a certainty. She could almost see it already — the way his gaze lifted to the sky as though it belonged to him.
And yet, wasn’t this the contradiction? She, who had turned others away so easily, was now the one crossing invisible lines — daring to give, daring to feel.
On his birthday, she had gathered every ounce of courage and bought him a T-shirt — the first gift she had ever chosen for a guy. She picked it with care, her heart quietly full of affection, and in silence she admired him, choosing the gift with a tenderness she never spoke aloud. Yet when it came to giving it, she hesitated. She didn’t want him to mistake her gesture, didn’t want a simple gift to be read as something more. After all, with so many girl friends around him, one T-shirt from her should not, must not, become a sign. And though she felt that little skip of a beat whenever she thought of him, she was careful — careful not to let him see it, careful to keep her feelings folded safely away.
And the first time she saw him wear it was on stage — a mic in his hand, the lights falling sharp across his face. Somehow it felt as though her small, trembling gift had followed him there, carried into the glow without him even knowing.
The hall was thick with silence, a thousand eyes fastened on him, their gaze pressing like weight on his shoulders. Yet his own eyes were elsewhere — not scattered across the crowd, not lost in the lights. They were carved into one single point, etched on her, as if she alone carried the rhythm he sought. For everyone else, it was a performance. For him, it was a dialogue between his music and her presence.
Radhi felt it in her very cells — as if they had been asleep all this time and his voice was the one waking them, commanding them to rise. He let the keys confess for him, each note carrying the unspoken promise, the quiet words he could never say aloud.
And then the words fell — “Thendrale thendrale mela nee veesu…” — familiar, aching, beautiful. A song that carried the tenderness of wind brushing across skin, a song from a time when love was sung not with spectacle but with longing. His voice carried it with startling honesty; it wasn’t flawless, but it was alive, raw, unguarded. As he touched the keys, hesitant at first, then certain, the melody flowed out into the hall like it had always belonged to him.
The crowd swayed, especially the girls. A guy who plays an instrument isn’t just pressing keys or strumming strings—he knows where to touch, where to linger, how to draw the music out of it. That kind of confidence, that kind of connection, is irresistibly hot, but Radhi sat still, rooted. For her, the song wasn’t in the hall at all — it was inside her, echoing through marrow and breath, as if the wind in his voice had found her very core. It felt less like a performance and more like a secret, sung into the air between the two of them.
His voice carried traces of where he came from, trained in the quiet corners of a church choir, softened and strengthened by hymns that once filled echoing halls. Perhaps that was why, when he sang, it was never just sound — it was depth, a resonance that seemed to reach further than the room itself.
And Radhi, listening, felt a strange alignment in her heart. She thought that must have been the reason she had spent fourteen years in a convent school — all those mornings of bells and prayers, of hymns she never fully understood — only to be made ready to receive this voice.
Their story unfolded in fragments — long bus rides to towns like Karaikudi, where she played basketball and he played tennis, each chasing their own victories. They returned glowing from state-level championships, carrying the thrill like a secret only they understood. Quiet evening followed, at college filled with laughter and ease, where being with him at his best — confident, effortless, entirely himself — felt like sunlight spilling into shadowed corners of her heart. His world — his music, his friends, his calm certainty — slowly wove into hers. She still spoke softly, still felt shy around others, but with JB near, the world felt less intimidating.
And through it all, there was a thread of care, stronger than either of them admitted. In sickness and in health, they showed up for each other. A fever, a missed class, a small worry — they were present, steady, without needing to explain. That presence, unspoken and unwavering, became the foundation of what they shared.
One evening, she stayed back after college. She had a few records that needed to be signed, and he had rehearsals to finish. He asked her to wait for him until he was done. When the hall finally grew quiet, he walked over with his guitar, playful yet sincere, and sang just for her—turning an ordinary delay into a moment she would never forget.
This is for you from “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths (1986)
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-tonne truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine*
Their lives were not the same, but in the spaces between them, it never seemed to matter.
In his home, love was the air they breathed. His father had married for love, and it glowed in every corner of the house — in the warmth with which he called his wife “Ma,” in the gentle care that made even silence feel safe. His mother, once an army nurse, carried her strength like an invisible shield, yet her touch was soft, her voice kind. Trust and tenderness held that family together, shaping him into someone who believed that love was steady, dependable — a promise kept without needing words.
For Radhi, love was something entirely different. She had seen its cruelty, its power to wound without leaving a scar the world could see. In her family, love had been a storm, tearing apart what could have been. She remembered someone from her family— how his laughter dimmed when he was forced to leave behind the girl he adored, bound instead to someone chosen for him. She still carried the image of his eyes, heavy with quiet resignation, a heart broken not by rejection but by surrender. To Radhi, love was not a promise but a risk — beautiful, yes, but dangerous, fragile, and never guaranteed to last.
