Shadows Have Weight Too

Meera stepped off the train into the thick, humid air of Kolkata. The station was alive with vendors calling out and selling their items, the clatter of suitcases rolling over uneven concrete, the occasional shout of a ticket collector trying to keep the rush in order. The city smelled the same—diesel, frying oil, fish, the salty edge of the Hooghly River hanging in the distance.

She adjusted the strap of her bag and searched the platform. Her mother stood a few feet away, her sari pressed neatly, her face unreadable.

“You’ve lost weight,” her mother said instead of a greeting. Meera is in her late twenties, but her mother still worries about her health. 

Meera forced a small smile. “The heat always does that to me, maa.”

They didn’t talk much on the way home. The yellow cab weaved through the traffic, past streets lined with old colonial buildings, hawkers selling fruit under tattered umbrellas, cycle rickshaws ringing their bells. The city had moved on in the years since she had left, nine years ago. She had tried to do the same.

But home was still the same two-bedroom flat in Salt Lake, where the fan whirred too loudly, and the air carried the scent of naphthalene from the wooden cupboards. Sofa-sets were neatly covered with her mother’s handmade embroidered cushion and sofa covers.

Meera dropped her bag on the floor and stood in the doorway of her father’s study. The door was slightly open, but the room was dark. She didn’t need to step inside to know that his books were still in their place, that the framed certificates on the wall hadn’t been moved. His glasses still kept neatly on the study table.

The ceiling fan creaked in her father’s room as it spun in slow, tired circles. Meera lay on her father’s bed, staring at the cracks on the wall. It had been weeks—no, months, actually years—since she had felt anything close to normal. Some days, she couldn’t even get out of bed. Other days, she moved through life like a puppet, going through the motions but feeling nothing.

The texts from friends had stopped coming. The calls from her boss had turned into silence. The world had moved on, but Meera was still here, stuck in the same place, carrying the weight of things she didn’t want to talk about. Earlier, the word ‘home’ used to mean something to her. Now it felt like a place where she would have to explain why she was like this. And Meera had no answers. Coming home wasn’t her decision, really. It was just easier than saying ‘no’ to her mother when she had called a few days back. “Come home for a few days,” her mother had said. Meera had almost laughed.

Suddenly her mother’s voice broke through the silence. “Beta, We will eat Dinner at seven. I try to eat early. My stomach needs a four hour gap between eating and sleeping.”

Meera nodded.

It was the same as always. As if nothing had happened.

But something had.

The Road Left Behind

The next morning, Meera woke to the sound of vegetable vendors calling out in the street. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the city come alive outside.

It had been nine years since she had left Kolkata. After she had taken the job in Bangalore, and moved into a modern apartment with a city view, she spent her days managing numbers and spreadsheets at the finance firm where she worked. She had been good at her job, too. Until she wasn’t.

In her Kolkata home, the morning sun streamed through the window, casting a glow on the old wooden floor. Meera sat up, rubbing her temples. Fan was constantly running, giving no respite from the intense heat. The AC wasn't working. Meera let the door open to get some fresh air, but along with fresh air also came houseflies, making the heat more miserable. She wandered outside, drawn to the familiar scent of damp earth. It was hot and humid.

Her mother was in the kitchen, slicing mangoes with the precision of habit. “Beta, I made tea,” she said without looking up. “Come inside.”

Meera poured herself a cup and sat at the dining table, watching the dust shift in the sunlight. She looked outside. The garden was overgrown. Her father’s chair sat in the corner, empty. The sight of it made something inside her twist.

Meera opened the door and went outside into the garden. She knelt near the jasmine shrubs, her fingers brushing against the leaves. Her father had planted them years ago, telling her, "Even in the worst of storms, something always blooms."

Her mother’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Meera, don’t you think they need trimming.”

Meera came inside and picked up the shears from the storeroom. She tried cutting off some of the dried leaves and stems. It was a small thing, but for the first time in months, her hands felt steady.

“Why now?” her mother asked suddenly. 

Meera wrapped her hands around the warmth. “I don’t know what to say, maa.”

Her mother sighed. “You never talk about what happened.”

Meera didn’t answer.

Because she didn’t know how.

Meera knew what her mother meant.

She hadn’t come back when it happened. When the call came from the hospital, when the doctors said the words no one ever wants to hear. She had told herself there was nothing she could do. That coming home wouldn’t change anything.

So she hadn’t.

“I just needed some time, maa,” she said finally.

Her mother nodded, but the silence between them was heavy.

“You should visit the bank,” her mother said after a while. “They still have some of your father’s things in the locker.”

Meera hesitated. She didn’t want to. But maybe it was time.

Why Do We Carry The Ghosts?

The bank smelled of paper and dust. The clerk recognized her mother and led them to a small room where an old metal locker sat in the corner.

Meera turned the key and pulled open the drawer. Inside, there were a few documents, some old photographs, and a pocket watch.

She picked it up. It was her father’s favorite. He had carried it everywhere, winding it every morning at the breakfast table. Meera had observed her father do that since she was a little girl.

Five years back, the last time she had spoken to him, it had been over the phone. He had told her about a minor chest pain, something the doctors were checking. She had barely listened, distracted by an upcoming presentation. It never occurred to Meera that her father was getting old, that he is not immortal.

"It’s nothing serious," he had said.

And then, days later, it had been. A massive heart attack. He had collapsed in his study, alone, with no one there to help.

Meera clenched the watch in her hand.

She had missed the funeral.

She had told herself it was because of work, because flights were booked, because grief was easier to handle from a distance.

But standing there, in that dimly lit bank locker room, she knew the truth.

She hadn’t come because she was afraid.

Afraid of facing what she had lost. Afraid of what people would say. Afraid that if she came home, she would have to accept that he was really gone.

She exhaled slowly.

She wasn’t sure she was ready even now.

But maybe she had to try.

They came back home from the bank. That night was hard for Meera.

That night the memories came back. They always did, just before sleep, which followed her in her dreams.

In her dreams that night, Meera saw the hospital hallway, the long stretch of white tiles, the smell of antiseptic, and the dull hum of machines. She saw herself sitting in that chair, hands clenched into fists. She saw the doctor’s face as he spoke the words that changed everything.

"We did everything we could."

Her father had been there, and then he wasn’t.

Meera had walked out of that hospital and never said his name again.

Suddenly Meera woke up with a jilt.

Meera still remembers that after her father passed away, in the weeks that followed, she had gone back to work, back to routine. But something had cracked inside her. People said time would make it easier, but it didn't. It had only made her numb.

And now, sitting in the house where he had once lived, she felt like she was drowning all over again.

Her mother must have sensed it. The next morning, she placed a small folded piece of paper in Meera’s hands. It was a note. Her father’s handwriting. “Your Baba wrote this.”

"You don’t have to carry everything alone."

Between Then and Now

The river had always been a place of stillness. Meera wasn’t sure why she had come here today, except that her feet had led her to the same place where she and her father had once sat on lazy Sunday evenings. Back then, he would sip on a small earthen cup of chai, his eyes tracing the path of the ferries that crossed the Hooghly, always caught between here and there.

Today, the river moved the same way, but Meera felt like she had never left the banks at all. It was she who had remained stagnant, locked in the moment she had learned her father was gone. The world had moved forward. Even her mother, in her quiet, disciplined way, had found a way to continue. But Meera had kept everything inside, wrapped tightly in a space where time had frozen for her.

She lowered herself onto the stone steps by the riverbank, watching the murky water shift under the dying light. A small group of children played hop-scotch nearby, their laughter drifting into the breeze. Somewhere in the distance, a temple bell rang. Life continued. It always did.

Her fingers traced the outline of the pocket watch in her palm. Her father’s handwriting had been clear and steady on the note she had found earlier: “You don’t have to carry everything alone.”

But that’s exactly what she had done.

She had carried the guilt of not being here when he had needed her. She had buried herself in work, using numbers and spreadsheets as an escape from the fact that she had ignored the warnings. When he had said it was just a small chest pain, she had believed him—because it was easier to believe that than to acknowledge the possibility of losing him. When he had left her a voicemail the night before he passed, she hadn’t called back. She had been busy. Busy.

Her throat tightened. She had missed his funeral, not because she couldn’t come, but because she chose not to. She had convinced herself that avoiding it would mean, it wasn’t real. If she stayed away, maybe the news would turn out to be a mistake, and he would still be here, sitting in his chair, winding this very pocket watch as he had done every morning.

But the watch had stopped. Just like her father had.

A gust of wind rippled across the river’s surface. Meera took a deep breath, but it felt shallow. Her whole life, she had been taught that grief was something to be controlled, something to be hidden away in neat compartments. But this wasn’t something she could contain anymore. The pain of loss was too much to bear, and even more to not accept it.

For the first time in two years, she let herself feel it all.

The shame. The regret. The unbearable ache of missing her father. The anger at herself for thinking she had all the time in the world. The grief she had held at bay came crashing down, and she let it this time. Her shoulders trembled as silent tears spilled onto her lap. She didn’t wipe them away. She didn’t try to stop them.

The river didn’t pause for her sorrow, but that was the way of things. Life moved forward. It had to. And maybe she could, too.

She clutched the watch to her chest, whispering under her breath, “I’m sorry, Baba.”

She sat there for what felt like hours, watching the river move, the people pass, the sky change colors. The weight she had carried for so long had shifted—not disappeared, but lightened, just a little.

And as the sun dipped below the horizon, the weight that had been suffocating her for so long felt a little lighter. It was a moment of triumph, but not in a grand manner or an external validation. It was quiet, personal, and deeply internal. It wasn't about finding closure—for Meera it was about acceptance.

After the Storm, Only Light was Left

The next morning light filtered through the lace curtains of her childhood bedroom, casting patterns on the floor. Meera sat up, rubbing her swollen eyes. The grief hadn’t disappeared overnight, but something had shifted within her. A quiet understanding that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to stay stuck anymore.

She walked into the kitchen to find her mother already up, rolling out dough for parathas. The smell of frying ghee filled the air, warm and familiar.

Her mother glanced at her, noticing the slight puffiness around her eyes, but she didn’t comment. Instead, she pushed a cup of tea toward Meera.

Meera wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic, letting the steam rise to her face. “Maa, I might visit more often,” she said, surprising herself.

Her mother looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. “You should, Beta.”

There was no resentment in her mother’s tone, no passive-aggressive remark about why Meera hadn’t come sooner. Just an acknowledgment that there was still time to mend the space between them.

They ate in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. The kind of silence that carried understanding, rather than distance.

After breakfast, Meera packed her bag. Her fingers hovered over the pocket watch before she tucked it inside, placing it next to her wallet instead of leaving it behind like she had once intended. This time, she wasn’t running away from home—she was carrying a piece of it with her.

Before she stepped out of the house, her mother called after her. “Meera?”

She turned.

Her mother hesitated for just a moment, then said, “Your father would have been proud of you.”

The words hit her harder than she expected. Her father had always believed in her, had always told her she was capable of more than she saw in herself. She had spent the last five years doubting that, drowning in regret. But maybe she didn’t have to anymore.

Meera smiled—genuinely, for the first time in a long while. “I hope so.”

The taxi ride to the station was quiet. Kolkata moved at its usual pace, the morning crowd filling the streets, the chai vendors serving their first customers of the day. As the taxi crossed the bridge, she glanced out at the river, watching the ferries move across its surface.

For the first time in five years, she didn’t feel like one of them—stuck between two shores, unable to reach either.

She was moving forward. Slowly, but surely.

She leaned back against the seat, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

And for now, that was enough. Meera felt that she had reclaimed her ability to move forward, to let herself feel, and to allow time to carry herself ahead.

Meera fully rejoiced at the moment. It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t dramatic either, but it was profound.