Meera was in mid-life and still curiously alive. In a way that comes from having lived long enough to recognise how easily routine can dull perception. That weekend, she chose solitude as intention rather than escape. Timed-out without explanation. Movement that needed no justification.

A wrong turn or perhaps an intuitive one, led her to a small musical jamming café that trusted silence as much as sound. Music drifted like it knew the audience's pulse.

The session unfolded like a shared memory.

Someone began Patakha Guddi, buoyant and unrestrained. Another voice followed with Saanson Ki Mala Pe, slower, devotional, easing the room into stillness. Hasta Hua Noorani Chehra drew a ripple of smiles, and when Javeda Zindagi surfaced, the café seemed to breathe together for a moment.

Meera listened before she sang.

When her turn came, she chose Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji.

Her voice settled easily in an unperformed way. Midway through the song, the words slipped away. The tune lingered but the lyrics seemed to leave the stage. She smiled at the pause, neither apologetic nor hurried.

From across the circle, another voice continued the line, steady and attentive, allowing the song to move forward without interruption. Meera rejoined instinctively. Their voices aligned without effort, as though the pause had always belonged to the composition. The song found its ending without rehearsal.

When the final note dissolved, they exchanged a glance. She acknowledged him with a nod, a quiet thank you carried in the gesture. He responded with a brief smile, a small lift of his hand.

Later, during a lull, he walked over.

“I hope that was okay,” he said. “You looked like you were still holding the tune.”

“I was,” Meera replied. “The words decided to wander.”

“They usually do,” he said. “They return more willingly when you don’t chase them.”

She laughed. “You say that like you’ve negotiated with lyrics before.”

“Only as an accomplice,” he said. “I’m Zeh.”

“Meera.”

They settled near their coffees and conversation beginning without ceremony.

“You sing often?” he asked.

“When I’m listening closely,” she said. “Music resists being summoned.”

He nodded. “So do good ideas. And people.”

She noticed the way he spoke in a measured, curious way, uninvested in impressing.

“And you?” she asked. “You stepped in with ease.”

“I listen first,” he replied. “I step in only when silence invites me.”

“That’s rare,” she said.

“Occupational side effect,” he smiled. “I’m an Astrophysicist.”

She looked up. “You’re serious?”

“Entirely. Stars insist on seriousness, you see.”

“And the music?”

“A hobby that keeps me human.”

Their conversation moved fluidly. From Soulful sufi to Kishore Kumar to how certain songs age better than people. From clay cups to why coffee tastes different when made slowly and from constellations to parallel universes. Stephen Hawking appeared, then Bhakti Vedanta, without either of them forcing the transition.

“Do you believe,” Zeh asked, “there’s a version of us somewhere who remembers every lyric?”

Meera smiled. “I hope she’s kinder to herself.”

When Krishna entered the conversation, it did so quietly.

“I follow him,” she said. “Not as a ritual. More as an alignment.”

Zeh listened, then said with gentle sincerity, “Agar aap jaisi Meera ho, toh main Krishn ban-na pasand karunga.”

Her laughter rose unfiltered.

“Zeh, Abhimanyu mat bano,” she said.
“Is chakravyuh se door hi raho. Log andar aa toh jaate hain, par bahar nikalna mushkil ho jata hai. Its not worth it.”

He accepted the caution with a smile.

“What brought you here today?” he asked.

She considered it. “A wish to move through a day without editing myself.”

He nodded. “People reveal the most when they stop correcting their sentences.”

“You noticed the pause,” she said.

“Pauses,” he replied, “are where people leave clues.”

They finished their coffee without watching the time.

At parting, there were no exchanged expectations.

“Good singing with you,” he said.

“Good listening,” she replied.

And they walked away in opposite directions.

Later that night, as Meera placed her bag down and slipped out of her sandals, her phone vibrated.

A simple message.

“Reached home safe?”

She smiled before replying.

“Yes. And just so you know, I’m quite independent. I manage myself well.”

The response came after a pause, as if he had read her words slowly.

“I didn’t doubt that for a moment,” Zeh wrote.

“Independence doesn’t cancel care. I just choose to check on people who matter to me, quietly, without assumptions.”

She stared at the screen longer than she expected to.

There was no claim in his words. No expectation disguised as concern. Only a clarity that felt rare: care without entitlement and attentiveness without insistence.

She typed back.

“That… I understand.”

What stayed with Meera was not Zeh, but the resonance of the meeting. The reminder that connection does not require possession, that familiarity can exist without history and that warmth can arrive without obligation.

*********

A Song Remembered Halfway