The Stone Nymph
In the clamorous ecosystem of the engineering college, Murchana was an anomaly of silence. She moved through the corridors like a wisp of mountain mist—present, yet barely tethered to the ground. Subham often watched her from a distance, noting how she avoided the noisy clusters of students, preferring the company of her own melancholic thoughts. She was a petite girl from a tribal district of Orissa, average in her studies and entirely invisible to the hostel gossips.
It wasn't until the third year that the mist began to lift. Subham noticed that when she did smile, her face transformed, revealing a quiet, startling beauty. He found himself manufacturing reasons to speak to her. By the final year, their quiet companionship had earned them the moniker "The Silent Pair."
One mid-September afternoon, she handed Subham a printed sheet.
"I made this especially for you," she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "You town people—you Sahari Babus—don't consider an invitation real unless it’s printed on expensive paper."
Subham read the text, his heart performing a nervous somersault. "You are getting married?"
Murchana laughed, a sound like water over pebbles. "Read it properly, Subham."
It was an invitation to her sister Archana’s wedding in Sohin village, Kandhamal. "You thought it was me?" she teased, covering her mouth with her palm. "When that day comes, mister, you will be the first to know."
The bus journey to Phulbani was an overnight descent into a different world. Subham woke as the bus groaned down the ghat sections, the morning sun unveiling a landscape of rolling green hills that made the city feel like a distant, grey memory.
When he stepped off the bus, the silent, shy girl from college was gone. In her place stood Murchana, vibrant in a yellow and black checked sari worn in the tribal style. She looked regal, rooted, and entirely at home.
"You look beautiful," Subham said, the words escaping him before he could check them.
"Is it? Thank you," she smiled, introducing her young cousin, Babuna, who mechanically took Subham’s backpack.
"It is eighteen kilometers by road," Murchana declared, "but only five if we take the hill path. Can a Sahari Babu manage it?"
"I am not as fragile as I look," Subham countered.
"We shall see."
She was a revelation on the trail. The girl who walked with hesitation in the college corridors now hopped over stones and swung her arms with rhythmic grace. When Subham lagged behind, gasping for the thin hill air, she laughed. "What happened? Taai taai fisssss! All out of steam?"
They rested under a colossal Peepal tree at the ridge's crest. Below them lay the valley, cradling her tiny village. "I walked this way every day for school," she said, her gaze sweeping over the forest. "My life was confined to these hills. I had no great ambitions then. I was just a simple tribal girl."
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Babuna appeared with a handful of Khir Koli—sweet black berries gathered from the brush. Murchana fed one to Subham. It was sweet, wild, and tasted of the earth. For a moment, watching her eat the berries with unselfconscious joy, Subham felt he was seeing the real Murchana for the first time.
The village was a cluster of twelve houses, their walls adorned with intricate tribal art. Murchana’s father, a tall man with the glowing face of a sage, welcomed Subham with a dignity that commanded instant respect.
Inside, Subham met the family—her shy mother, who was Murchana’s mirror image, and the bride, Archana. Archana, a scholar of English, laughed when Subham described Murchana as silent.
"Silent? She is the Chandi of our village!" Archana exclaimed. "Her mischief is legendary here."
That evening, the light had begun to fail, turning the small guest room into a soft, grey cocoon. Murchana burst in to call him for the festivities.
“Hey Sahari Babu, come outside they are preparing for the dance”
“Stop calling in that name, else I will kill you”, Subham warned her as he got up from the bed.
"See, you can’t kill me, can you?" she whispered.
She was so close that Subham could see the faint pulse fluttering in her throat. A scent drifted from her—not the synthetic perfumes of the city, but something rawer: wild jasmine, woodsmoke, and the damp, sweet earth of the valley. It was the scent of the hills themselves.
In that suspended second, the "Silent Pair" tag felt like a lie. There was nothing silent about the noise in Subham’s heart. It was a sudden, violent ache—a realization that the girl he sat next to in lectures was merely a shadow. This was the reality. She was a melody he had been trying to hum without knowing the tune.
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He didn't think; he simply reached out.
His fingers closed around her left hand. Her skin was warm, rougher than a city girl’s, grounded and real. He held on tight, not out of aggression, but out of a sudden, desperate fear that if he let go, she would dissolve back into the mountain mist she seemed made of. He wanted to anchor her here, in this moment, with him. He wanted to drag her into his arms and steal the laughter from her lips, to taste the wildness of this place.
If I let go now, he thought, I will lose the music forever.
She froze. The mischief evaporated from her eyes, replaced by a glistening, liquid sorrow. She didn't pull away instantly. For a heartbeat, she let him hold her, and in that hesitation, Subham felt a crushing weight. It was a mutual confession without a single word. She knew. He knew. But the world outside—the wedding, the village, their different futures—stood like a wall of glass between them.
"Leave please! Please leave!!" her voice cracked, pleading not just with him, but perhaps with herself.
Subham’s fingers loosened. The connection broke.
As she turned her back to him, standing frozen at the door, Subham stared at his own empty hand. He realized then that you cannot hold onto a mountain stream; you can only dip your hands in it, feel the cold shock of its life, and watch it flow away.
Later, they watched the village dance. The men and women formed circles, moving to the hypnotic beat of drums. Murchana stood beside him, composure regained, and explained the song. It was about a heavenly nymph who wandered these forests. A tribal boy, enchanted by her voice, followed her into the deep woods and returned years later, holding only a stone—the nymph had turned to rock to escape the mortal world.
"Are you awake?"
It was late night when Murchana knocked on his door again. The village was asleep, bathed in the silver light of a half-moon. They walked in silence to the Devi temple by the stream.
"You know why I am silent in college?" she asked, her voice blending with the sound of running water. "I am scared. Scared of the race. Scared that in the competition and the show-off, I will forget who I am."
She turned to him, the moonlight catching the planes of her face. "Do you love me?"
The question hung in the night air, heavy and absolute. Subham knew the answer; it was beating in his chest. But he also felt the weight of their different worlds—the city and the hills, the career and the forest.
"Yes," he said finally. "I do."
But the words felt hollow, spoken too late, or perhaps not loudly enough to cross the chasm between them. They walked back without speaking.
The wedding the next day was a blur of rituals. Subham watched from the sidelines, feeling like an intruder in a sacred painting. Before he left, Archana placed a hand on his shoulder. "Be a good friend to her, Subham. Always."
He promised he would.
Epilogue
Years later, the hills of Kandhamal seem like a dream to Subham. They both graduated; he went on to an IIT, and Murchana flew to Germany on a scholarship. The silence between them grew vast, bridged only by the occasional email.
In her last message, she wrote that she had met someone—an Indian man in that foreign land. She signed off with her new nickname, "Mrich."
Subham often sits by his window in the city, listening to the noise of traffic that never ends. At times, he remembers the story of the tribal boy and the nymph. He feels a kinship with that boy—the one who reached for a song in the forest, but came home holding only a stone.
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