The Silent Fortress and The Kite

The boardroom was silent but for the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock! Across the long, polished table, Arvind Arora sat like an immovable fortress—calm, composed, and utterly unreadable. His fingers formed a steeple as he listened, his sharp gaze fixed on the man opposite him. The opponent shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his voice carefully measured.

"Mr. Arora, we’ll need time to—"

Arvind leaned back slightly, exuding quiet authority. His voice, though even, left no room for negotiation.

"Just give a good thought. Take it or leave it. It's your choice."

A tense pause filled the room. The air was thick with unspoken consequences. Arvind's face betrayed nothing, but the weight of his words pressed down on his opponent like an iron hand. Finally, with a slow, reluctant nod, the man agreed.

Arvind gave a curt nod, closing the file in front of him. Another victory. Another deal was sealed.

A Different Silence

Hours later, he stepped into his home—an expanse of marble, glass, and muted opulence. The silence here was different. It wasn’t the charged, expectant silence of a boardroom but the kind that settled in forgotten corners, gathering dust.

His wife, Anaya, was already at the dining table, her long fingers absently tracing the rim of her tea-cup. She barely looked up as she pushed a plate toward him.

"You’re late."

"It was an important meeting," Arvind said, shrugging off his blazer. He didn’t add that every meeting was important. That winning, for him, was second nature.

Anaya didn’t argue. She never did anymore. Instead, she gave a small, resigned nod and returned to stirring her tea, as if the motion itself could dissolve the growing distance between them.

Arvind sat across from her, picking at his food. He could negotiate million-dollar deals with ruthless precision, yet in his own home, words failed him.

"Aryan called today,” Anaya said after a while, her voice deliberately light.

“He was asking when we’re planning to visit.”

Arvind’s fork paused mid-air. His younger brother was still at the ancestral house.

“He asked when we’ll come.”

“We’ll try next month,” Arvind said—an old, familiar line. Polite, Non-committal and automatic.

Anaya’s lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but then she only sighed. Try!? It was always try…

Memories of a Kite

Later that night, unable to sleep, Arvind stepped onto the balcony. The city stretched before him—glowing, buzzing, alive. Yet, for all its brilliance, it felt distant.

A cool breeze stirred the air, carrying with it an old memory. He closed his eyes and was transported to a younger version of himself—standing in an open field, his fingers curled tightly around the string of a kite. Aryan, then just a boy, had laughed beside him, eyes wide with wonder.

"Hold it steady, Bhaiyya!"

The kite had danced in the wind, dipping, soaring, always tethered to his firm grasp.

"You won’t let go, right?" Aryan had asked.

"Never!" Arvind had promised.

But somewhere along the way, he had loosened his grip.

Now, standing on the balcony, he wondered if the string had already slipped through his fingers completely.

The city below blinked like a restless dream, but all Arvind saw was the image of a kite, fading into the sky.

The Silent Fortress - The Boy Who Never Left

To the world, Arvind was a fortress—strong, unyielding, untouchable. A leader whose sharp mind and composed demeanor made him an enigma. He had mastered the art of control, of calculated indifference, of wearing the perfect mask. Yet beneath the layers of strategic silence and power-driven actions lay something else—someone else.

A boy who once ran through open fields, his laughter ringing like temple bells. A boy who collected pebbles, who loved the smell of wet soil after the first rain, who marveled at the stars and wished upon every shooting one. A boy who had once believed in magic.

Until the world told him:

"Hide what you are—no one likes a soft-hearted fool."

"Be ruthless if you want to survive."

"Be a man!" they said.

And so.. He did…

A Mask Worn Too Well

Arvind mastered the language of politics, money, and ambition to stay at the top. Every deal, every battle, every move was calculated—crafted with sharp precision. To colleagues, he was the epitome of control, a strategist who cut through chaos with unflinching focus.

While the world swirled with emotion—ambition, frustration, desperation—Arvind stood apart, untouched and analytical. Emotion, to him, was inefficiency; he operated on logic alone.

His career was a masterclass in leadership: he foresaw risks, defused conflicts, and commanded loyalty. His team revered him, yet they often misinterpreted his silence as detachment.

“Does he even care?” they wondered.

At home, his wife smirked as their little one pouted and said, “You never come to see my dance.”

Each word felt like a blow, but he swallowed the hurt and pressed on, believing his sacrifices would one day be recognized.

What they didn’t see was the boy who still peeked through the cracks.

A boy who still felt shy when someone complimented his new shirt, just as he had when his mother once said, “You look like a prince in this.” A boy whose gaze lingered on a plate of sweets, yearning for the Sundays when his mother made them, humming old hindi songs.

That Which Was More Than the Most

Meera, was just another name that was added to his vast, formidable team—a team he built with precision, intellect, and an unyielding drive for excellence. Their interactions were minimal, almost nonexistent. His presence loomed large, an authoritarian force that commanded both respect and fear. His reputation walked ahead of him, casting long shadows wherever he went.

“He is ruthless,” she once overheard someone whisper, as if afraid the walls might betray them.

She never bothered to know him. In fact, at times, she felt relieved—grateful for the layers of authority that stood between her and his fire. Like a storm raging beyond thick walls, he was something to be aware of, not something she had to endure firsthand.

But time had a way of unraveling perceptions. Slowly, subtly, she noticed something unsettling—something that contradicted the legend that surrounded him.

Where others saw a formidable boss, she glimpsed someone else. A faint echo of something familiar yet distant—like an old friend rediscovered after lifetimes apart.

With him, words always felt inadequate. It wasn’t curiosity that drew her in but a deep, unexplainable familiarity. The first time she met him, she had been startled.

“It’s… him??”

The thought struck like lightning.

She had seen him somewhere before they even met—an image so vivid, so persistent it felt more like a memory than a dream. A young boy with an easy, carefree laugh, racing a red scooty down the broad streets of an old city, where towering gates and ancient sandstone walls whispered generations of stories.

The boy who once argued with her mom over bringing ripe tomatoes from the farm.

The boy in her dreams had been reckless, full of life, and unburdened. And now, that very boy stood before her—except he was no longer a boy. This version of him was wrapped in layers of silence, responsibility, and an inscrutable gaze that held the weight of unspoken things.

On an impulse, she once asked, “Do you drive a scooty?”—a question born of irrational dumbness…

He had given her a strange look, his brow slightly furrowed, before replying in a measured voice, “I don’t drive two-wheelers.”

She’d felt downright stupid then—wondering why on earth she’d asked that question, to the wrong person, in the worst possible place. But even now, she couldn’t shake the feeling—that somewhere, in some time long before this, she had known this person.

The Glimpses That Unveiled

As their interactions grew more frequent, Meera began to notice things she had missed earlier.

How his eyes softened when he received an unexpected gift. How his fingers tapped lightly on the table when a familiar song played faintly in the background. How he paused for a fleeting moment in front of a kite tangled in the office gate, as if the child inside him longed to set it free.

With a few people—the ones who saw him not as a leader but as a person—he was no longer the towering figure of authority. He was a vulnerable human.

Meera still remembers one instance. The mid-morning buzz hummed through the office floor. Meera sat at the corner sorting the data in a sheet when Arvind walked up the aisle with a serious look as if someone had personally offended him.

“I’m just saying, if we followed the original idea of giving a sample that I suggested, we wouldn’t be triple-checking data right now,” he said, loud enough for Meera and a couple of nearby team members to hear.

Supriya, who had just stepped in with her coffee in hand, didn’t miss a beat. “You mean the process where you forgot to update us about the meeting that you had until someone called you out?”

Meera kept her eyes on the laptop but paused, lips twitching.

Arvind stopped mid-step. “That’s not entirely true.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Supriya said, turning to face him with a mock-serious expression. “You updated—eventually. After three reminder emails from us.”

Arvind opened his mouth and then shut it. Meera glanced up briefly, trying not to smile.

Supriya tilted her head, smirking. “But hey, we’ll let that go because clearly, you’ve got other priorities today. That white shirt, for instance. Someone’s clearly dressing to impress.”

Arvind blinked. “This?” He glanced down at the shirt, mumbled something about the fabric being breathable and quickly busied himself with a file.

“You undersold it,” Supriya said. “You’re almost glowing. Like you’ve just closed a million-dollar deal or had a great hair day.”

A light flush crept up Arvind’s neck, and Meera caught it. She was stunned—Arvind, the boss who stared down at clients without flinching, was was now blushing like a college kid.

Meera turned back to her reports, hiding a grin. In her head, she was laughing—and silently high-fiving Supriya for the flawless shutdown followed by a soft punch of charm.

Not an Enigma

Lately, around his team, he laughed freely, eyes crinkling with joy. He leaned over the table to share bites of dessert, debated the best way to fold paper boats, and told stories of his childhood escapades.

From bringing flowers to lighting lamps, from playing a game to wearing a mask, from opening doors to bringing chocolates, he would fondly do them all for the ones he cared for. In those rare moments, he was no longer Arvind-The Enigma. He was simply Arvind-The Boy Who Never Left..

One day, when someone offered Meera a sweet, Arvind smirked and said, “Yeh dieting pe hai, yeh nahi khayegi.” Even before she could respond.

Her eyebrows shot up in mock annoyance, but her reply was quick, “Aap dieting pe nahi ho na, aap kha lo.”

The table erupted in laughter.

Then there was that unforgettable incident with the chilli. Confident as ever, Arvind popped a fiery green chilli into his mouth to prove his tolerance for spice. For a few seconds, he maintained his usual composure, but soon, his eyes glistened with silent tears.

Meera had laughed at first. “Lagta hai, aap itne aadat waale nahi jitna dikhte ho,” she teased. But her amusement quickly turned to concern as she saw him struggle and arranged for a piece of sweet.

The Dream That Haunts

Many times she felt as though she had spent another life running barefoot alongside him as a child, chasing dragonflies and stealing mangoes from a neighbour’s garden.

Meera often marveled at how Arvind seemed to sense her thoughts before she even spoke. Likewise, she could hear the exhaustion beneath his carefully measured words, the weariness he never admitted. She never dared to check or acknowledge it outright, though—perhaps because she strongly believed that some coincidences do exist, defying all explanations.

The day Meera told him she might leave, she saw it again—the boy who never left. For a moment, the fortress cracked and his guards went down, just for a moment! Then, in a voice softer than she had ever heard, he said, “Mein kaam ki toh baat hi nahi kar raha hun na... It’s not just about the work.”

Meera paused and waited.. Hoping to get clarity. But he said nothing more. He pulled his mask back on, stood tall, and let her walk away.

A few days later, Meera sat by her window, staring at the rain. Her fingers hovered over her keyboard as she typed:

“क्या कभी आपको हमारी याद आती है??”

She hesitated..

Her cursor blinked, waiting…

But instead of sending it, she closed the draft. Some things, she thought, were better left unspoken.

We live in a world that thrives on boundaries—on lines drawn long before we are born. Had there been no barriers, no divisions, no roles imposed upon them at birth, perhaps Meera wouldn’t have waited or second-guessed her own emotions. Just as her eight-year-old self did in her dream, she would have run to him, grabbed his hand, pulled him out of his chair and said,

"Tu chal mere saath..,"

"Chal bagiche mein chalte hain."

"Phir se titliyan pakadte hain, phir se talab ke paas baithke bohot sari baatein karte hain."

But she didn’t. Instead of running to him, she remained still. Instead of reaching for his hand, she folded her own.

And Arvind—who might have happily laughed at the thought of stolen mangoes and barefoot races—sat in his chair, unreadable and unmovable. Just like always…

And the moment passed, just like always!!

A Mirror, Not a Match!

Months later, when the sun dipped low, from a rooftop terrace, a red kite danced against the wind—spiraling, tugging and soaring free!

Arvind stood near the edge, sleeves rolled up, as he helped his daughter steady the spool. “Easy! Samaira, let the wind do its part,” he said gently, guiding her small hands with his.

Anaya watched from the doorway, with a tea-cup in her hand, the golden light catching the softness in her eyes. She didn’t speak, didn’t need to—her presence had always been calm, like the steady breeze that kept the kite afloat.

Their son squealed as he chased the kite’s shadow across the terrace, a paper crown wobbling on his head. The air buzzed with joy, laughter, and a kind of unspoken peace.

For a moment, as the kite rose higher, Arvind’s gaze lingered on the horizon. Suddenly, a quiet memory brushed past—a conversation long ago, over a coffee and silence, where someone had told him, “You don’t have to carry everything alone.”

A voice in his head reminded him—there is beauty in stillness and courage in softness. And that it takes strength to be vulnerable.

He exhaled slowly, with a contented smile on his face, not only because he had conquered life, but also because he had learned to let it in.

And above him, the kite soared—unbound, joyful and alive…

***********

A Silent Fortress