The August Silence

The first days of my service in Udala carried a strange silence. The town sat far from the restless noise of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, cocooned by the deep forests and undulating hills of Mayurbhanj. The air smelled of wet earth and mahua flowers. Evenings fell quickly there, shadows creeping down from the mountains, swallowing the narrow roads in darkness.

I had rented a room at the house of Dr. Dilip Dixit, a respected teacher everyone called Masterji. His family was delighted to host me—the young Sub-Divisional Officer finally filling a post that had lain vacant for months. My room was on the first floor, with a balcony that opened to the drizzle-soaked street. On those lonely evenings, I sat there with my old laptop, scrolling through LinkedIn, trying to connect with the wider world.

That night, as the rain tapped gently on the roof, a new notification blinked. A connection request.

Swati Mishra.

Without a thought, I clicked accept. A message appeared almost instantly.

“Hi.”

I smiled. “Hello.”

From that single word, something began.

At first, she doubted me.

"Are you really an officer? Or just pretending on LinkedIn?" she asked.

"Yes, I am," I replied, attaching a photo in uniform.

There was a pause. Then came her laugh—soft, almost musical. “Okay. I believe you.”

She was from Kendujhar, working in an NGO. Her voice carried a brightness that contrasted with her story. Her mother had died when she was a toddler; she lived with a stepmother who, she admitted, never loved her as her own. Yet she wasn’t bitter. She was kind. Curious. Full of life.

Slowly, her presence seeped into my days. Her eyes, her smile—tiny details from her profile picture began to linger in my thoughts. Every night, we spoke longer, until our calls stretched into hours.

"Why do you keep the blanket over your head when you talk to me?" she teased once.

I chuckled softly in the darkness of my training hostel room in Gopabandhu Academy of Administration, Bhubaneswar. My roommate Abhishek lay on the other bed, pretending to sleep.

"Because if Abhishek hears me whispering all night, he’ll throw me out," I said.

"Then let him hear," she replied. “I want the world to know you’re mine.”

I stayed silent, my heart pounding.

Her care was unlike anything I had known.

"Had lunch?”

"Don’t skip dinner today.”

"I want to hear you sing.”

And so I sang for her—old film songs, sometimes out of tune. She clapped softly through the phone, as if I had given her a concert.

"I like your sneeze," she said once, laughing. “And your snore. Even your silence.”

Under the blanket, I smiled like a fool, while Abhishek muttered, “One day, you’ll suffocate under there.”

For her, it was love. For me… it was a war. My past weighed heavily. A girl I had once loved had betrayed me, and the scar had not healed. Swati was everything my heart longed for, yet I could not bring myself to say the words she wanted most.

"We’ll always be friends,” I told her once.

There was a silence on the other end. Then, softly, she whispered, “Friends… for now.”

Still, I promised her something. One day, I told her, I would travel to Kendujhar, stand at her doorstep, and gift her a book—It Started With a Friend Request by Sudeep Nagarkar. A story of love born from a chance connection. “That’s our story,” I told her. “And I’ll prove it when I meet you.”

She laughed, her voice trembling with hope. “I’ll be waiting.”

The three months of training passed in a blur of lectures by day and whispers under blankets by night. We built a fragile world of our own—tender, secret, almost sacred. I told my sister about her. I told Abhishek, too, though he already knew from my late-night murmurs.

Then came that night.

Mid-August.

She called once. Twice. Thrice.

I was in a meeting, buried in official discussions. My phone buzzed against the table. I silenced it. Later, I told myself. I’ll call her later.

She sent messages too. They flashed on the screen, but I didn’t open them.

Later never came.

Days slipped by. When I finally remembered, I dialed her number. No answer. Again. Again. Nothing.

"Busy," I told myself. “She must be busy.” But the unease coiled in my chest.

Then came the truth.

Months later, in Kendujhar, my friend Avinash and I spoke over the phone. I told him everything about Swati. He listened quietly. Then he said, “Yes, I know her. She works in that NGO. She’s… a good girl.”

My heart raced. “Can you connect me with her? Please?”

That evening, Avinash patched me through on a conference call.

Her voice came on the line.

Not the bright, laughing voice I remembered. This one was heavier, distant, soaked in silence.

"Swati… it’s me," I whispered.

There was a long pause. Then, she spoke.

"That night… when I called you… my stepmother was forcing me into a marriage I didn’t want."

I froze.

"I called you again and again," she continued, her voice breaking. “I thought you would save me. But you didn’t answer.”

My throat dried. “Swati… I—”

"By the time you called back… it was too late. I was already married."

The line went quiet. Avinash didn’t speak. Neither did I. The silence pressed down heavier than words ever could.

Even now, when I close my eyes, I see myself standing at a doorstep in Kendujhar with a book in hand—It Started With a Friend Request. The book I had promised her. The story I had wanted to make ours.

But I never reached that doorstep.

Our story began with a friend request.

And ended with a missed call.