A week after the private screening, the film was released publicly across select theatres, online platforms, and festivals.
The response?
Tidal. Immediate. Unrelenting.
Blogs erupted with reviews. Social media flooded with quotes. Critics called it "a devastatingly beautiful elegy of love and loss."
But Meera didn't care about the reviews.
Not really.
She cared about the emails.
Hundreds of them.
People from across the country, strangers, lovers, widows, cancer survivors, and even children—all writing to say: "You gave me back my grief. You made it beautiful again."
On the fourth morning, Meera woke up to one particular email.
No subject.
No name.
Just an attached image of a cedar tree.
And four words:
"He saved me too."
She stared at the image for a long time.
It wasn't their cedar tree.
This one was taller, older, weathered with moss and surrounded by snow.
Curious, Meera replied:
"I'm not sure what you mean. Who are you?"
She didn't expect a response.
But three hours later, it came.
From: anonymous.still.here@protonmail.com Subject: Aarav
You don't know me. But I knew him. Long before you did. Sort of.
It was 2016. I was twenty, living in Delhi, failing everything—school, life, love. I was… on the edge of something dark. The kind of edge people don't come back from.
One night, I was on a forum. A quiet one. Small, raw, full of people just trying to feel seen. And this guy—screen name "A91"—responded to a post I made about wanting to disappear.
He wrote:
"Maybe you're not meant to disappear. Maybe you're meant to reappear in someone else's favorite story—once you survive your own."
I never forgot that line.
We spoke for three months. Never exchanged real names. He just listened. Encouraged. Laughed when I made bad jokes. Told me to plant a cedar tree someday—to mark the day I chose to stay.
That was eight years ago.
And last week, I watched your film.
The first time Aarav smiled on screen, I knew. It was him. It had to be. Even if he never told you. Even if I never knew his face until now.
So I found a cedar tree near Shimla. I visit it every July.
This is it.
(photo attached again)
He saved me too.
Meera's fingers hovered above the keyboard.
She didn't know what to write back.
A part of her wanted to cry. Another part wanted to laugh at the absurdity. And another part—deepest of all—just whispered:
"Of course he did."
She dug into her archived chats.
Aarav's old email threads. His phone notes. An ancient Dropbox she hadn't touched since 2020.
And there it was:
"If I could be remembered for anything," he'd once written to himself, "I hope it's not for being sick. I hope it's for being kind when no one else was watching."
That night, Meera responded.
Subject: RE: Aarav
He never told me about the forums. That's just like him.
He always saved his softness for strangers. Said it felt purer that way. Said love didn't need to be remembered—it just needed to be passed on.
Thank you for telling me. Thank you for staying. He would've wanted that.
I hope your cedar tree grows taller than ours did.
Love, Meera.
A few days later, Meera shared the story anonymously on her author's blog, under the title:
"The Stranger He Saved."
It went viral within hours.
People began sharing photos of trees they planted. Cedar trees.
They called them Aarav Trees.
By the end of the week, there were nearly 200 trees across India, planted by people who said:
"I chose to live today. Because he lived once, and because he didn't get to longer."
One photo caught her eye more than the others.
A little boy, maybe nine or ten, standing next to a sapling. The caption read:
"For my dad. He wasn't saved. But maybe I still can be."
Meera broke down.
Not in sorrow.
But in gratitude.
Later that evening, she visited her own cedar tree again.
It had grown taller. Thicker. It no longer looked like a grave. It looked like a lighthouse.
As she touched the bark, a breeze passed through the leaves.
She whispered:
"They're still here, Aarav. The broken. The brave. The barely-holding-on. You gave them a place to stand again."
"And so did I."
Aarav once said:
"If we leave nothing else behind, let it be a reason for someone else to stay."
Meera never forgot that line.
But now—it was etched in roots, leaves, and sky.
To be continued…