romance
Sumitra

1
Sumitra Bose was a woman of quiet grace, carrying herself with a maturity beyond her twenty-seven years. A widow, but not one who mourned—her marriage had been a cage, an unhappy bond that ended in a drunken accident. Now, she lived with her mother in the same house where she had grown up, filling her solitude with books, poetry, Rabindra Sangeet, and old films. Introverted and soft-spoken, she never sought attention, yet there was something about her presence—gentle, unshaken—that made people notice her.
She worked as a receptionist at a nursing home, her calm voice guiding visitors through sterile hallways. Always in sarees, her long black hair neatly braided, and her hazel eyes deep with unspoken emotions, she seemed like a woman from another time. The world saw her as delicate, but she was not fragile—she had simply learned to endure. Yet, on certain afternoons, when the sky turned golden and the wind carried distant melodies, she wondered if life had more to offer than quiet survival. And then, there was him. The man on the terrace next door, whose easy words and lingering gaze unsettled something within her. She hadn't meant to notice him. But she had.