The room was barely a room.
A mattress on the floor. A window that didn't close properly. A bulb with no cover, hanging from a frayed wire. But for Aarav, it was freedom. It was silence without judgment. It was a place where he could finally fail without having to explain himself.
Rent was ₹2,800. He split it with a college dropout who worked nights at a printing press. They spoke only when they had to, mostly about splitting the water bill or which noodle packet was whose. The guy's name was Ketan, but Aarav called him "Bhaiya" because that's what Ketan preferred. Bhaiya didn't ask questions. Aarav didn't offer answers.
Aarav learned to live small. One plate. One spoon. One pair of good jeans. Rice, salt, and leftover daal were meals. Tea was a luxury, and he didn't mind black coffee. It was bitter. Honest. Like most of his days now.
But there was always ink.
Even when food ran low, even when his parents stopped calling, even when he walked for an hour to save ₹15 on bus fare, he always found a way to buy ink for his pen. The city taught him that there were two types of hunger: one that made your stomach ache, and one that made your hands shake until you wrote something.
Except the pen had started to betray him.
It skipped. It smudged. The grip had worn out. But it was the same pen he used the night he first wrote about Niya—about that dumb joke, the stolen glance, the warmth of her hand. He couldn't throw it away. It was like holding onto proof that once, something had been soft.
He tried repairing it—new refills, duct tape around the grip, even oiling the tip with a drop of coconut oil Bhaiya had in the corner of the kitchen shelf. But the pen had its own moods now. Like it too had grown tired.
He began writing in corners—on old receipts, bus tickets, the margins of newspaper pages. His stories didn't need approval anymore. They just needed space. And breath.
One evening, with nothing but ₹20 in his pocket, he submitted a short story online. It was about a boy who didn't want to be an engineer. The title was: The Silence Between My Name and Theirs.
It was 1,200 words. He didn't edit it much. Just uploaded it to a small contest site he had found through a random Reddit thread.
Two days later, he got an email.
Subject: "Congratulations – You've Been Selected."
The cash prize? ₹300. Not much. But it meant three things: rice, data for a week, and a reason to write again.
He sat at the foot of the mattress with the email open and the ₹300 Paytm notification glowing on his phone screen. He didn't cry. He didn't jump or scream. He just sat very still for a long time.
Then he made tea. Real tea. With milk.
---
Work came in strange forms. Proofreading local tuition ads. Rewriting SOPs for clueless cousins of neighbors. Copying notes for someone's online coaching videos. ₹50 here. ₹100 there. Enough to keep the light bulb glowing and the stomach from growling.
Sometimes, he took calls at night—random freelance helplines that paid per call. He hated the fake smiles in his voice, but he memorized scripts and made it through.
One night, while walking back from a xerox shop job, he saw a poster.
Local Short Story Open Mic
"Bring your words. Leave your shame."
It was taped onto a lamppost, edges curled from monsoon dampness.
Aarav stared at it for a long time.
He tore the bottom strip with the WhatsApp number.
---
The open mic was held in the backroom of a used bookstore. Fifteen people, three tube lights, and a fan that sounded like a groaning cat. Aarav waited, knees shaking. Not from fear, but from having walked three kilometers after skipping dinner.
When his name was called, he stepped up. He didn't look at the crowd. Just opened his notebook.
"I'd like to read something called I Waved. She Didn't See."
There was a murmur. One person in the back whispered, "That title's... painful."
He read it slowly. Voice even. No performance. Just a boy saying goodbye in words.
When he finished, no one clapped loudly. But someone said softly, "Thank you."
That was enough.
---
He walked home with a new kind of hunger. Not the one that made him look at biscuit wrappers in trash bins. The kind that made him want to write for the rest of his life—even if no one ever paid him again.
The next morning, the open mic host messaged him:
"Hey Aarav, do you have more pieces? We're doing a print zine. We pay ₹200 per story."
He replied, "I have too many. Send me a deadline."
He sent three pieces. They used two. He got ₹400.
With that money, he bought two things:
1. A new second-hand pen.
2. One cup of cutting chai at the stall near the railway tracks.
He still kept the old pen.
Wrapped it in cloth and placed it beside his notebook. Like a veteran kept near the battlefield.
---
He didn't talk to Yuvaan much. They texted now and then. Memes. Jokes.
One time, Aarav sent him a screenshot of the ₹300 prize money with the caption: "First salary."
Yuvaan replied with twenty heart emojis and: "Your pen's richer than mine."
Aarav smiled. Then typed:
"She'd have laughed at that."
Then deleted it before sending.
---
One night, the electricity went out. Heavy rain. Candle melted too fast. Phone was dead. No Wi-Fi. Just him, the leaking window, and a notebook he could barely see.
He scribbled anyway. Wrote a piece called: Monsoon Without a Mug.
He described how rain sounded different when you had no one waiting for you to get home. How chai tastes like apology when you make it for one.
He submitted it to a small lit blog.
Two weeks later, it got published.
The editor messaged him: "More?"
He replied: "Always."
And that's how it continued. One word at a time. One page. One piece of light in the dark.
He didn't need a degree. Or a desk.
He just needed ink.
Even if it skipped.
Even if no one saw.
He wrote anyway.