Meeting a friend who meant more than a friend at one point can stir up more than feelings. Life as it is can become a train wreck, if passions are not bridled, as Zoravar and Ashima find out. When fraternity and religion overshadow a friendship as long as life, as passion as strong as a flame, what comes out of it can only be damaged. Talking of life in perspective, of their past and their decisions.

Rain fell in gray sheets outside the modernist windows of the living room. Ashima was lounging on the couch, warming her hands on a cup of coffee. It was mid-June, beginning of the torrential monsoon rains that lashed Mumbai till September. The cool was a boon, but the wet...it was better to stay inside and remark how pretty the weather was, rather than trying to step outside.

This rain wasn't like the ones they used to get in Delhi, light showers where you could dance outside and not catch pneumonia. These rains were as if the gods wanted to empty their heavenly reservoirs. She smiled a little, remembering Kerala. Kerala, where her husband had been posted after their wedding. Kerala, where it rained so incessantly that you felt as if your very soul was damp. Kerala, where she had finally found Zoravar...

Ashima and Zoravar hadn't been neighbours. They hadn't met each other till they began school. They weren't the beloved of each other's parents. They didn't know where the other lived. But they were friends. Friends, who never told others that they were friends. They never felt the need to - simple. It wasn't romantic, not even platonic. He was there for her when she had a problem, and she was always there to hear him out. They made music together sometimes, she singing, he on the piano. He played her Bach and Beethoven and Mozart. She sang him Asha and Lata and Madonna.

Towards the end of school, she had found out that her parents wanted to fix her wedding. She was stunned. She had never particularly confided her dreams to her parents, and they didn't know of her desire to go abroad for further studies. She wanted to teach someday. Her parents didn't think that their daughter would need any more education that twelfth grade. If her husband was liberal, maybe a BA from any local college. It was on her husband though, they were done with her education.

Numb, she had dialed Zoravar's number. Between stifled sobs and choking wails, she had told him of what her future held for her. She had asked him to help her out.

"I can't, Ashi" he had said quietly, "My family will never accept a Hindu."

"What's it got to do with your family?" she had asked wildly.

"I don't want to marry you without my parents' consent, Ashi" he had clarified, "I want them to be happy too."

"I'm not asking you to elope" realization had dawned, "I want to...escape...I want to go abroad, Zo..."

"That's it, is it?" his voice had been so distant, "Maybe I was an idiot for thinking you wanted to be with me. But then again, what would you do with a muslim like me?"

"ZO!" she had been appalled at his reaction.

"Sorry, Ashi, I'm not rich enough to fund four years in college for you." And the line was cut.

She hadn't seen him after that. He vanished. She tried to trace his family, and failed. She had heard snatches and rumours that he was preparing for the engineering exams. In August of that year, when preparations for her wedding were on, she had heard a passing whisper that Zoravar Fahad Qureshi, son of the local bookstore owner, had cracked the IIT exam and had got into one of the more prestigious IITs. That was all.

She tried to drive him out of her head, but he never left, just crawled into a corner and lay dormant. She focused on the boy her parents had chosen. Haresh was nice enough. Easy-going, bumbling, a little clumsy. His spectacles were always askew, his hair endearingly disheveled. She told him of her dream of studying abroad.

"Ashima..." he had sounded very uncomfortable, "I'm a bank manager...not a millionaire. I earn enough to sustain a family...not much more."

Her heart had stilled.

"You...you can study in a local college, can't you?" he had entreated, guilt large in his eyes, "I'm sorry I can't...provide for more..."

Her heart had melted a bit.

"But you'll let me continue?" she had asked again.

"Definitely" he had nodded, "Whatever it takes."

She hadn't thought twice after he had said it. She cast away the memory of Zoravar into the crevices of her mind, and fell anew in love with her absent-minded and lovable husband. He stayed true to his words. When they shifted to Kochi, he helped her enroll in a college nearby. He helped out a bit at home. She loved him, more than anything else.

Then the rains started. She found out a hobby of Haresh's. He loved to listen to Western classical records when it rained. From Chopin to Saint-Saens, he had them all. Preludes and sonatas and partitas and symphonies would play on a low volume all day long.

Ashima had felt as if she would go mad. Every note of piano that she heard brought forth an image of Zoravar to her eyes. If Haresh decided to play a piano piece, all she had to do was shut her eyes, and she could envision Zoravar on the school piano, playing to her. Haresh was so in love with classical music that she didn't want to ask him to stop. She daren't tell him about Zoravar too.

It's stupid, she had reasoned, Zo had just been a friend. Would it matter?

And then she would realize that Haresh had never once told her of his past, or his friends, and neither had he asked. Maybe he would take offence if she told him.

Love makes liars of us all, her conscience had smiled. Was it love? She wondered.

She carried on, dreading the rainy days. She finished her Bachelor's degree, and started her B.Ed. Two years on, she finished her B.Ed too. She started teaching at a school nearby. Haresh was over the moon. Her parents were not.

"It's been six years!" her mother had never been known for being subtle.

"Only six" she had muttered defiantly, "I'm just 25. Haresh is 29."

"My point! You're 25, without a child! I was seventeen when I had you!"

"And I'm not you!" she had shrieked, banging the phone.

Her mother never had a chance to complain again. Three days later, on an exceptionally rainy day, Haresh's car skid on the road and hit an incoming car. Both cars turtled, and Haresh died on the spot, his music player still playing the ending strains of a Wagner piece.

Ashima wept and wept, more at the thought of her dismal future, than at the loss of her wonderful partner. Her mother's words made sense to her now. A child would've distracted her at this point. Sure, living would have been hard, but she was earning, and she could draw Haresh's pension...she wouldn't be short of money.

Money.

Hope fluttered in her heart. She could go abroad. She could do her doctorate, she could still teach at a university. Her heart set, she began to tie up the remains of her life here. She donated Haresh's clothes. She drew out her gratuity. She applied to various colleges and universities abroad. Her parents wailed and whined, but she was beyond caring. Two months later, all that was left in her apartment were a few pieces of furniture and all of Haresh's records.

She hadn't been able to give them away till this day, but she couldn't delay any longer. She had been accepted for a doctorate in literature in UCLA. She was finally, finally leaving all this behind.

She boxed all of Haresh's records, a lump rising in her throat. This music had meant the world to two men in her life. There was a music school nearby, affiliated to the church, where she was planning to drop off all these records. The nuns were nice, and took all of them. They remarked on what a nice collection she had. The lump in her throat became harder to swallow, but she managed a smile as they took it and thanked her for the donation. She walked back towards her car, her steps meandering, and her head full of memories.

She stopped involuntarily near a music room. Strains of a Bach partita were audible through the door that wasn't quite shut. She peeped it, and teetered back in shock. The playing stopped and she heard the sounds of the pianist making his way to the door. The door opened, and there he was, in flesh and blood, after seven years.

"Yes?" he asked politely, seeming confused.

"ZO?" she breathed.