Aparajita and the Unspoken Boundaries
A story about the delicate balance between friendship, respect, and silence. Aparajita, a resilient single mother, experiences the sting of an unexplained distance from her close friend Kamal.
Aparajita and Kamal were fast friends from the moment they met at the new job, each finding in the other a well of shared ideals and calm. Both were true listeners, careful thinkers. Aparajita, a single mother who balanced life with a graceful resilience, found Kamal’s insights refreshing, and he admired her resolve and warmth. Together, they cultivated a camaraderie grounded in deep respect.
But one day, Aparajita noticed that Kamal hadn’t replied to her messages. She sent a polite follow-up, only to find that he had blocked her. She understood almost instinctively: Kamal’s spouse, she thought, may have misread the closeness they shared. Rather than confront him, Aparajita held back. She cared for his peace, and her respect ran too deep to press. She didn’t need an explanation to honour his decision, even though, in some quiet corner of her heart, she wished he had trusted her enough to explain, to work it through.
In the days that followed, Aparajita pulled back. She shortened their meetings, smiled only in passing, and created a softer distance. She told herself that’s what real friends do—they respect the choices of others, however much it stings. Then, without warning, he cut her off entirely on social media as well.
This time, Aparajita felt the sting more sharply. She had known him as a kind and thoughtful friend, someone she believed valued authenticity. Her self-respect, so carefully guarded, felt grazed by the silence, as if all she’d done to honour his needs had been trivialized in a single, quiet act of dismissal. Could he not have spoken? Could he not have shared his struggle?
Their next encounter, brief and unexpected, came in the elevator. Aparajita, calm but resolute, turned to Kamal and spoke, not with anger but with a steady grace.
“You know, Kamal,” she said, meeting his gaze, “I never needed you to explain yourself to me, but I always believed you respected me enough to do so.”
Her words hung in the air, neither an accusation nor a plea, but a quiet reminder—a request for simple integrity. As the elevator doors opened, Aparajita offered him a gentle smile and stepped out, leaving him to consider what he had lost.
From then on, their worlds moved in quiet parallel. Aparajita continued with her life, her head high, her spirit unbroken. And Kamal, with every unspoken word weighing on his heart, perhaps realized that respect demands courage, and that silence can sometimes echo louder than words.
That night, after the silent encounter in the elevator, Aparajita sat by her desk, her pen hovering over the blank page as she prepared her story for an upcoming magazine. But instead of words, her thoughts wandered back to the man she once thought she understood. She mused on the strange beauty of their names, chosen by fate, it seemed, to meet in one another’s lives. Aparajita, the blue pea flower—delicate, swift to bloom, and unafraid to open fully at the first touch of sunlight. Kamal, the lotus, slow and deliberate in his unfolding, protected by layers, shielded from the world.
Both flowers held sacred significance to Goddess Durga, symbols of strength, resilience, and beauty, yet their distinct blooming patterns mirrored the gap that had quietly opened between them. The blue pea flower’s quick, full bloom reflected her own readiness to be open, to trust, while the lotus, unfurling carefully and only at dawn, captured Kamal’s hesitation and guarded nature.
As her pen began to move across the page, Aparajita felt a quiet peace. Perhaps they had crossed paths only to show her this truth—that even in friendship, as in life, some blooms stay shielded from the sun, hidden by their own design. And so, she wrote, weaving into her story the lesson of patience and the bittersweet beauty of unspoken respect. For as much as flowers may differ, each is beautiful in its own time, and each carries its own meaning.
With a final flourish, she signed her name, embracing her own nature, and let Kamal’s memory rest like petals drifting into still water.
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