"Stories We Never Tell"

Pooja was different from most women around her. While others filled their time with endless chatter and gossip, she was always learning, growing, and shaping her own world. Her days were full—waking up early for meditation, journaling her thoughts, sipping Hasmuklal tea while scribbling down new stories, looking after her skin, and most importantly, waiting for the moment she could talk to Prabhat.

Her mother, however, didn’t understand.

“You never sit with me,” her mother, Sunita, would say with a sigh. “Always busy with your books, your phone, your thoughts. You don’t have time for me.”

Pooja felt the sting of those words. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. She loved her mother deeply, but her way of showing love was different. She participated when it mattered—helping when needed, listening when necessary. But she couldn’t engage in meaningless gossip or negativity. She valued her energy, her peace.

One evening, as she was about to head to her room to write, her mother said, “You’ve changed, Pooja. You’re not like other daughters who sit with their mothers, who talk and share everything.”

That night, instead of brushing it off, Pooja did something different. She made her mother’s favorite tea, just the w

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ay she liked it, and sat beside her.

“Tell me a story from when you were my age,” Pooja asked.

Her mother’s eyes softened. She spoke of days when life was simpler, when letters were handwritten, when love was found in the smallest gestures. She spoke of her struggles, her dreams, the things she once wanted but never got to chase.

Pooja listened—really listened. And in that moment, something shifted.

Later that night, she told Prabhat about it.

“You found a way to connect in your own way,” he said. “That’s what matters.”

And he was right. Pooja didn’t need to change who she was to show love. She just needed to meet her mother where love existed—in shared stories, in small moments, in quiet understanding.

From then on, Pooja found little ways to make her mother feel included—without compromising her own peace. She didn’t gossip, but she listened. She didn’t waste time, but she made time. And slowly, her mother began to understand that love wasn’t about being present in noise—it was about being present in heart.

And as Pooja lay down that night, waiting for Prabhat’s call, she smiled. Because love, in all its forms, always found a way.

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