The world feels incomplete
when there is something
I cannot name.
The sky is still blue,
the streets still hum,
the evening arrives
as it always does.
Nothing is missing
that anyone else can see.
And yet,
there is an empty space
between one thought and the next,
a silence where something
used to be.
Perhaps some absences
do not leave.
They simply become
part of the world
you learn to live around.
I met Yolky on my way to breakfast one morning. It wasn’t different by any means—just another routine stop at a tiny place near the office, a modest outlet known for its steaming idlis and dosas. What was unusual, though, was Yolky!
Yolky was not like other street dogs. She had standards. For one, she never ate egg whites. Her disdain for the rubbery, tasteless fluff was legendary among the vendors and office workers who doted on her. She would sniff delicately at a tossed scrap, turn her nose up, and trot away with an air of aristocratic indignation if there wasn’t a hint of yolk.
Her appearance matched her personality perfectly. Yolky was tiny—off-white, with scruffy fur, and a bit plump around the middle. Her paws were soft, though worn down by the rough terrain, and her eyes gleamed with a combination of street-smart cunning and a sweetness that softened the hardest of hearts. She wasn’t an abandoned dog. She had grown up here on these streets, her home among the bustling sounds of the traffic, the honking horns, and the chatter of office workers. This was where she belonged. She wasn’t lost; she was in control, and in this concrete jungle, she had carved out a niche where she ruled.
There was something undeniably endearing about her single-mindedness. She would hover by the breakfast place, her small, plump frame an odd contrast against the commotion of the busy street, watching as the gym-goers around me discarded the yolks without a second thought. Yolky would waste no time, scurrying over to the yellow orbs, treating them like the finest delicacy. She didn’t care about the egg whites, no matter how fresh or tempting they might look. Only the yolks.
At first, I thought it was a quirky habit—a strange preference for something so simple. But over time, I comprehended it was part of who she was. And why the name, you wonder? I happened to notice this dog as I walked to my usual breakfast spot. She sat near the table, patiently waiting, her bright eyes fixated on a gym-goer who had just tossed a perfectly good egg yolk. She moved with a strange kind of grace, her tail held high as she padded over and snatched the prize from the ground, leaving the whites untouched. Hence, she became YOLKY to me.
It was then that I realized—I’d found someone who, in a world full of chaos, knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it.
She didn’t want to move.
She had set up a life she could finally call home. Colleagues-turned-friends, a job she loved, and Jugnu. There was no one who didn’t adore Jugnu. A feisty, firecracker of a dog—tapri-born, gully-bred, and big on drama. Their first meeting wasn’t exactly love-at-first-sight. One day after a gruelling brainstorming session, she along with her colleagues decided to go to the nearby tapri for chai. During their animated conversation, she heard a low-throated growl. Brushing it off as her imagination, she continued. But then, there it was again; a little louder than the previous one. This time one of her colleagues heard it too and froze, because he was terrified of dogs.
The hunt led to a tarpaulin covered table. As the group neared, the growls grew louder. “She’s harmless. Just bark and no bite. But ferociously protective of her territory”, offered the tapri-wale Bhaiyya. He lifted the sheet and there sat Jugnu! Sizing up everyone minutely, as if deciding whether these mere humans were welcome in her zone or not. A sprightly little creature with upright ears and baring teeth. “If you want to befriend Jugnu, give her a bun. She will take an instant liking to you,” intervened Bhaiyya.
From then on, it became a ritual. She would get a bun for Jugnu every day without a miss. Jugnu also had started looking forward to these visits and would run to greet her. On days she was late, Jugnu would turn into a drama queen, avoiding eye contact and sporting a grumpy look.
And then a day came, when she was forced to move. Pune, for all its comfort, could no longer hold her life together. So, when an old colleague forwarded a job opening in Bangalore, she said yes before her heart could say no.
She packed, went to the tapri to bid Jugnu goodbye and looked back at everything she had lived, one last time.
The apartment she found was small. Big windows and the smell of paint still fresh from the last tenant. But it was close to her new office. Same kind of work—long hours, blank documents, and the pressure to make something sound effortless. Only now, she wrote for software products, not ad copies for real estate and gaming websites.
It wasn’t exciting but something to hold on to.
She kept to herself, as if on autopilot. Didn’t go out much, didn’t talk much, and didn’t try too hard to belong. It was easier that way.
Still, the past didn’t stay behind.
Sometimes it came with the smell of the first rain and frying bhajjis—reminding her of chai and newspaper-wrapped snacks on her Pune balcony.
Sometimes it came through old songs playing from nearby autos. And sometimes, it came suddenly—through a “memory” notification, showing her the sunsets, busy roads, and Jugnu.
She missed home. Not just the place—but who she used to be in it.
One evening, after a long day of drafts and deadlines, she saw a cream-colored street dog curled under the awning of the bakery she would go for breaks. Wet, shivering, but alert. A shopkeeper muttered, “She’s been around all day. Won’t go away.”
On instinct, she stepped inside, bought a bun, and knelt down.
The dog sniffed cautiously. Ignored it. Stayed. “She doesn’t eat anything except egg yolks,” he chimed in.
The next day, she was back with yolks. And the day after.
She started calling her “Yolky”—because every time someone threw her an egg, she’d eat only the egg yolk and leave the rest behind.
Soon, Yolky wasn’t alone. Two other dogs followed. A brown one who she named Potato. And the other, Zulu, who’d howl if he didn’t get attention.
No one claimed them. But they claimed her.
Every day at work, her chai breaks became a quiet ritual. She brought three bowls and filled them with water and scraps, only yolks for Yolky. The dogs waited for her now—heads tilted, tails wagging.
She still missed home. But now, she had a routine that felt a little bit like one.
Some days were still heavy. But the wagging tails helped.
One rainy evening, as the city choked under puddles and traffic, she saw an elderly woman near the bakery, holding an umbrella and trying to wave down a rickshaw. No one stopped, so typical of Bangalore autowallahs.
She left her chai and ran out with her umbrella, guiding the woman to a drier corner, calling over a driver, and even giving up her own ride so the woman could get home.
The woman looked at her with kind, curious eyes. “You remind me of someone,” she said softly, “someone who didn’t stop trying, even when life got messy.”
That evening, she thought about what the woman said.
Maybe the city was messy.
But maybe so was she.
And maybe that was okay.
The past hadn’t really followed her. It had never left.
It was still inside her—the version of herself who once believed things would be easy, and the one who now knew they wouldn’t. And somewhere between blank Word docs, egg-loving dogs, and strangers with umbrellas, she had stopped trying to erase that past.
She had simply made room for it.
She learned to carry it, not hide it.
She learned that fresh starts weren’t about forgetting, but about forgiving—especially herself.
Even after a decade, the city felt alien. She didn’t love it yet.
But now, when she walked to the bakery and the dogs ran to greet her, tails thumping on the pavement, she felt something warm rise inside her.
Not happiness. Not yet.
But the kind of peace that grows slowly.
And that was enough.
The year did not soften itself for me.
It moved ahead, indifferent,
leaving me to keep pace
with whatever strength I could gather.
Some days asked for courage.
Others asked only that I remain.
I learned the difference slowly,
and paid attention.
Not everything was carried forward.
Some things fell away without ceremony —
expectations, certain hopes,
the need to make sense of it all.
Time did not explain itself.
It only arranged things differently,
until even difficult days
found a quieter place to stand.
As 2025 steps away,
I do not look back for closure or praise.
I look ahead with a steadier heart,
knowing time moves forward regardless —
and now, so do I.
This is not the silence of sorrow
but the quiet turning of the soul,
a moment when the heart learns
that even endings have their own kind of grace.
Nothing is lost or taken
it gathers into unseen shapes,
a resonance that holds
beyond words and reckoning.
What fades is never truly gone
it lingers in the pulse of thought
in the quiet of memory
in the spaces where presence hums softly to itself.
Requiem, they call it
a word once meant for farewell
but here it is a song of return
a hymn for what endures, not what departs.
And in that vast expanse
where time folds into itself
there is no loss, only change
and the quiet know that light always finds a way back.
At the rim of the world I stand,
where land surrenders to air,
and the horizon is drawn taut
like a bowstring before release.
The wind sculpts my silence,
pulling at thought,
at memory,
at the frail certainty of ground.
It whispers not of endings,
but of thresholds—
the fragile brilliance of almost.
Beneath, the abyss waits unmeasured,
not a darkness, but a depth
that asks what shape I might take
if I stepped beyond the known.
Above, the sky stretches, immense and quiet—
clouds drifting like thoughts that cannot settle.
And here I remain,
not stalled, not afraid,
but steadied in the fierce stillness
between what has been
and what might yet begin.
The edge does not demand;
it listens.
And I, in answer,
learn the language of becoming.
Come here, just as you are.
Let your head rest. Let your heart stop running.
You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to explain.
You can cry. You can fall apart.
And I’ll hold that softness with you — not to fix, not to change,
just to be with you in it.
You’re not too much. You’re not a burden.
You’re a person who’s held on for far too long without arms around them.
And you are still here.
That alone is a quiet kind of bravery the world doesn’t always see.
But I see it. I see you.
So breathe, love.
Let the weight slide off your shoulders, even if just for this moment.
You don’t have to smile. You don’t have to try.
You’re allowed to be tired.
You’re allowed to want a hug that holds all your broken pieces without asking you to put them back together.
This space — right here, right now — is that hug.
No conditions. No questions. No fixing.
Just arms wide enough to say:
You’re safe. You’re not alone. And I’ve got you.
In the soft pause of a fading day, a whisper meanders through the quiet spaces—
a gentle murmur that cradles unspoken emotions and delicate memories.
It is the tender echo in the silence, a subtle invitation to be still,
to listen closely to the heart’s murmur amid the rustle of leaves and distant laughter.
This whisper holds the warmth of shared moments and the promise of hope,
an intimate caress which reminds us that even the softest voice
can carry the weight of our deepest feelings.
It lingers like a fragrance on a warm night,
gentle yet profound, inviting me to cherish the beauty in every silent breath.
Raindrops trace their silent paths on the window,
each one a brief, wandering journey down cool glass.
I sit immersed in this quiet scene,
as the deep murmur of thunder anchors the storm overhead.
The air is alive with petrichor—
an earthy, raw aroma that stirs memories of rain-soaked earth
and moments of quiet renewal.
Outside, the rain splashes in unpredictable arcs,
each droplet a solitary note in the symphony of the storm,
while I watch, transfixed by the unfolding dialogue
between sky and earth.
The day softens into a quiet surrender as the sun dips low,
its fading light draping the horizon in molten amber and bruised violet.
I stand at the edge of time, where the familiar becomes a canvas for the unknown.
The air hums with a gentle pause—each moment stretching out
like a whispered promise between warmth and chill,
where even the silence seems to murmur of stories long past.
In the interplay of light and shadow, I see echoes of my own reflection:
memories ignited in fleeting bursts of color,
reminders that endings and beginnings are woven from the same luminous thread.
As the sun retreats, the sky transforms into a quiet confessional,
revealing depths of longing and unexpected grace.
Every dissipating ray carries the weight of truths I never thought to voice.
Then, in a startling clarity, I realize: the sunset is not merely nature’s farewell.
It is a mirror for my own metamorphosis—a secret confession that I, too, am changing,
merging my fading doubts with the promise of a nascent, hidden light.
In that twilight, the boundary between the world I observe and the self I carry blurs into something beautifully unforeseen.
