To the women who walk alone,
To the men who understood silence,
To the cities that bled without being named,
And to the language that held me when people could not-
Thank you.
This book carries the fragrance of many hearts:
The old woman who whispered her story in a Delhi train.
The girl who sent me a poem
The friend who cried at a tea shop and pretended it was the steam.
Some stories come dressed as fiction, but they are truer than any truth spoken aloud.
These stories have no beginning or end. They arrive like memories-uninvited, urgent, incomplete. They speak of borders-not just of land, but of body, identity, and belonging. They ask uncomfortable questions and sometimes answer them with poetry.
You may read them as short stories. Or as confessions. Or as dreams.
Whatever you find in them, may it stay with you like the scent of wet earth after rain-faint, familiar, unforgettable.