Is this the end?

“Yeah, my flight is tomorrow evening, and there’s still so much left to do. I’m gonna call you back,” I said to someone from work, before turning back to the checklist that still had far too many boxes left unchecked.

“Iru?” Maa called from the kitchen. “Kal raste ke liye kya bana doon?”

“Maa, flight mein hi kha lungi. Don’t worry.”

Right then, my phone rang.

Aditya calling...

“Hey! What’s up? How’s the packing going?”

“Don’t ask. Tiring. Confusing. Even worse than getting a CSAT at work. But who am I complaining to? The top performer of the month? Huh! What do you know?” I said, rolling my eyes even though he couldn’t see me.

“I didn’t call you to discuss work, silly. You’re leaving tomorrow. I’m getting anxious, but I’m also happy for you. Seeing you happy makes me happy. But tell me honestly, Ira. Are you really happy?”

There was something about the conviction in his voice that made lying feel impossible.

“Ads, to be really honest, I do want what I’m about to get tomorrow. Once I take that flight and reach my dream destination and start working there... I mean, the money is really good.” I paused. “But you know what? I wish I had enough resources to stick to my idea of opening a cafe in the hills. And I know that’s something that would actually make me happy.”

My chest felt so heavy with everything I was leaving behind that, for a moment, it almost felt like it might burst.

“Maine toh naam bhi soch liya hai!” I added, suddenly smiling.

“Acha ji?” he said, instantly catching on. “Kya rakha hai apne naam apne cafe ka, Ira madam?”

“Tumhe sab bata doon?” I asked, with the audacity of someone who had already imagined opening it with him.

It was our dream.

And if our paths had been a little kinder, a little more aligned, I am sure we would have been the owners of NO REGRETS Cafe by now.

A little cafe tucked away in the hills. A place where people came to sit with the ones they loved, where phones weren’t allowed, where conversations mattered more than notifications, and where nobody was in a hurry to leave.

A place where people came to remember how to talk.

And perhaps, somewhere between the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the sound of the mountains outside, we would have remembered how to stay. 

Suddenly, I forgot that I was packing and found myself serving coffee in the hills, and what all one would witness when they visit there. 

"So, listen, the flowers will bloom, with the fragrance of brewing coffee all around, the sandwiches would be the highlight of that cafe, and on your DOB the cafe will play the bangers of the DJs you like. That day, everything would be Ads coded, the fragrance you wear, the songs you listen to, the food you like the most, EVERYTHING." 

“Wow,” he said, a small laugh hiding somewhere in his voice. “Ira would really do that. Quite surprising.”

But then, all of a sudden, it hit me, that this was only in my head. And tomorrow, I was boarding a flight to a completely different life. A life that looked nothing like the one I had just described to him.

The world I had created for those few minutes had felt so real. For a moment, I could almost see myself wearing that apron, handing over cups of coffee, watching people fall in love, watching them laugh, talk, stay and feel the nature and the good vibes around them. 

Every little thing felt too real. I felt my voice getting shakier with every passing second.

He noticed. And he went quiet too. The silence between us became deafening. It said everything neither of us knew how to say. I felt a tear slip from the corner of my left eye.

“So?” he asked softly.

“So?” I replied, almost in the same silence.

Neither of us knew what the question really meant.

So, what now?

So, what happens to the cafe?

So, what happens to us?

So, is this it?

“This is it then,” he finally said. “Is this the end?”

I heard his mother calling him for dinner in the background.

“I think you should go. Your mother’s calling you,” I said, trying to sound normal, with a heart so heavy it felt like it might collapse under the weight of everything it had just imagined.

I could hear him breathing through the phone. Neither of us wanted to let go of that moment. Because after tomorrow, neither of us knew when we would hear the other’s voice again.

We both wanted to leave it here. Then and there.

In that moment where the cafe existed, the mountains existed, and for a few minutes, so did we.

But time waits for no one.

“Chalo, okay then. Travel safe,” he said, as his mother called him again.

“Thanks, Ads.” I paused.

“And also... no. This is not the end.”

Another pause.

“Not yet. Not anytime soon.”

There was silence on the other end. And then, somehow, we both heard each other smile through the phone. A certain ease passed between us in those last few words.

Perhaps neither of us knew what tomorrow would look like.

But for tonight, at least, neither of us had to call it a
goodbye.

- Taruna Ghera