Meeting With a Stranger

Meher was 25, and from the outside, she looked sorted.

A stable 9-to-6 job at a digital firm in Pune. Gym every morning. Green smoothie posts. Quiet dinners with her parents in their Tier 2 city home on weekends. Her neighbours called her “sanskaari yet smart.” Her manager called her “reliable.” Her friends called her “the strong one.”

But no one saw her at 3 a.m., sitting in her rented flat, crying into a pillow because the silence was too loud and her mind wouldn’t stop spinning. Or the mornings she woke up feeling nothing, dragged herself to the gym just to prove to herself she hadn’t lost control.

She wore her lipstick like armour and timed her smiles like clockwork. She said “I’m good” so many times she forgot how to say anything else. She was doing everything right — job, health, performance — yet there was this dull ache inside her, a weight she carried alone.

Some nights, she would stare at the ceiling and wonder if this is what adult life really meant — surviving, not living.

Her parents, loving but traditional, thought “tiredness” was just part of a modern girl's life. “Shaadi karlo, sab thik ho jaayega,” they’d joke. Meher would laugh too. What else could she do?

She had been bottling everything inside: the constant pressure to succeed, the fear of not being enough, the isolation of living alone in a fast city, and the exhausting loop of proving herself — as a daughter, an employee, a woman.

Then one evening, she ran into someone at a quiet café. A stranger at first — Tara. Meher had been crying in the restroom before stepping out and putting on her best face again. Tara, seated at the next table, noticed. She didn’t ask questions. She just looked at Meher and said, “Rough day?”

They talked. Slowly at first. Then freely. Tara had no job, was living on savings, had just left an abusive marriage, and was still somehow calm — even hopeful. “I’ve got nothing right now,” she said. “But I’ve got clarity. I’m finally living for myself.”

That night hit Meher hard.

She went home, washed her face, looked at herself in the mirror and whispered, “I have everything, yet I feel like nothing.”??

It wasn’t some grand miracle. Her mind still raced. Tears still found her at night. But slowly, things shifted — she started sleeping on time, eating mindfully, saying no without guilt. She stopped wearing her pain like armor, and began opening up — first to herself, then to a few safe spaces.

For the first time, she asked herself: Why am I in a race that only teaches me to compete, not to feel?

Years of silent survival — proving herself, defending her worth, just to bury one mistake she didn’t even make.

She’d spent six years trapped in a life of meaningless competition — not for joy, but approval. Maybe it was society whispering that as a woman, she had to fight harder, be stronger, stay independent, even if it meant staying broken.

A series of painful relationships had taught her to expect loyalty in a world that barely knew its meaning. And so, fear silenced her — until she came across Tara.

Tara, who was battling her own storms, but still shone with quiet hope. Something in her felt safe. So she texted her. They began talking — daily, in bits and pieces. And slowly, she began healing. Not because Tara had the answers, but because she listened like no one else did.

Tara unknowingly became her mirror — her listener, her safe place. And one night, over a quiet phone call, she chose differently. For the first time, she chose herself.

That was the night she chose differently.

She booked her first therapy session the next morning. She didn’t tell anyone. She just went.

She and Tara kept meeting. What started as a coffee chat turned into long walks, deep conversations, shared journals. They had different lives, but the same hunger — to create something meaningful. Three months later, they launched a small platform together — a safe space online for women to talk, write, share, breathe.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was theirs.

And more than anything, it gave Meher purpose beyond the performance.

One year later, she still goes to work. Still takes her protein shake. Still meets deadlines.

But now, she feels.

She heals.