🇪🇸 Rudra in Spain — Alone, But Not Lost
The first week in Spain was overwhelming.
New air. New sounds. New court. New pressure.
Rudra wasn't the best here.He wasn't the fastest.He wasn't the strongest.
But he was something else—relentless.
His coach, a stern Catalan man named Diego, noticed something in him.
"You play with your head. But your eyes are somewhere else," Diego observed one evening.
Rudra smiled.
"Delhi," he said. "And a girl who wears words better than dresses."
🧾 Letters from Ruhi — The Ink Between Them
Every week, Rudra received a letter in airmail—handwritten, carefully folded, sprayed lightly with jasmine.
Letter #1:
"I saw our bench again today. No one sat there long.It still remembers us, I think.
Also… Aarav tried to cook pasta. The fire alarm still hates him."
Yours,The girl still writing your story."
Letter #2:
"My new column got 3,000 shares in a day.And 47 hate comments.
I guess I'm officially a woman with a voice.You'd be proud. Or terrified."
Rudra read every one aloud at night.Like prayers with her name woven in.
📓 Beyond the Buzzer – Page 175
"The distance between us isn't space.It's silence, waiting to be filled with your next word."
📰 Ruhi's Column — Loud, Loved, and Loathed
Ruhi's new series in InkFrame was titled: "Things We Weren't Allowed to Say."
It featured diary-style essays:
About love before marriage
About girls who chose ambition
About boys who cried but hid it
About hostel balconies and late-night breakdowns
Some readers worshipped her.
Others condemned her.
One male reader called her "the downfall of sanskaar."
Her editor sent her this message:
"You're doing it right. Because they're not ignoring you."
Ruhi wrote back:
"I don't want to be a writer they tolerate.I want to be a writer they remember."
🎤 Simran and The Red Circle — TEDx Day
Simran stood backstage, palms sweating.
Her topic: "How Women Write to Survive"
She had 8 minutes.One mic.And the ghosts of every diary she ever burned.
She looked out and saw Aarav sitting in the front row.Nodding slowly.As if to say, "You already lived this. Now just speak it."
She walked on stage.Breathed in.And began:
"They told me to write love poems.I wrote about grief.
They told me to write softly.I wrote like I was bleeding.
And somehow, women across cities whispered back,'I feel seen.'"
By the end, the audience stood.
And Simran cried.
Not from fear.
From finally being heard.
📸 Aarav in the Spotlight — A Pressure He Didn't Expect
Aarav's face was now on posters across schools in Delhi."From Failure to First: Aarav Singh's Journey."
He hated it.
Because behind the headlines were sleepless nights, exhausted mornings, and the pressure of always being an inspiration.
One student asked him:
"Sir, have you ever felt like quitting?"
He looked at the child and said honestly:
"This morning.But I didn't.And that's the only difference."
Later, Simran told him,"You don't need to always be strong. You just need to be real."
That night, he removed all the trophies from his shelf.
And replaced them with letters his students had written him.
✉️ A Letter That Didn't Travel
In Spain, Rudra tried to write one letter back.
But he tore it up.And rewrote it.
Then tore that one too.
Finally, he sent just this:
"I tried to write you 4 pages.But I kept sounding like I missed you wrong.
So here it is.I love you.I'm better every day because you believed I could be.
— Rudra"
Ruhi read it twice.
Then once more — into the voice memo app on her phone, like a lullaby.
📓 Beyond the Buzzer – Page 177
"Some stories aren't read.They're listened toIn the quiet of a long-distance nightWhen sleep forgets to arrive."
đź’« End of Chapter 35