Life in words

Elara had always felt out of place in the modern world, drawn instead to the past—historical archives, ancient manuscripts, forgotten legends. The dusty corridors of the old library were her refuge, a place where stories whispered through centuries. One evening, while sifting through a collection of Renaissance-era journals, she found a letter folded neatly between pages that hadn’t been touched in decades. The ink had faded, but the words still carried weight: "If destiny allows, we shall meet at the edge of time itself." Intrigued, Elara searched for records of its author. She uncovered a name—Leo Montrose, a scholar from the 1700s whose writings hinted at a mysterious gathering place. The deeper she delved, the more she sensed a hidden truth woven into history itself. That was when she met Adrian. He was a researcher visiting from another city, specializing in historical cryptography. Their paths crossed when he noticed the letter in her hands. “That’s not just any no...

  Aryan had always found solace in equations. Molecular interactions followed predictable rules, and chemical reactions unfolded with precision. The universe, to him, was a vast system of calculated probabilities. But love—love was the one equation he had never solved. He met Mira at a bioinformatics conference, where science and passion collided in a heated debate. Their session focused on molecular docking strategies, and she was quick to challenge his approach. “You’re underestimating ligand flexibility,” Mira remarked, her dark eyes flashing with certainty. “IC50 values alone won’t tell the full story of inhibition. Molecular dynamics play a crucial role.” Aryan leaned forward, intrigued despite himself. “Statistical models provide reliable predictions,” he argued. “A well-structured QSAR approach can—” “Can approximate reality, yes,” Mira interrupted, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. “But molecules behave unpredictably, much like people.” That was the moment Aryan realized...

It was the first rain of the season in Kolkata. The kind that made the city smell like old earth and nostalgia. Maya stood beneath the half-torn shade of a secondhand bookstore on College Street, clutching her dupatta and watching the raindrops turn the dust into dark, wet patches. Her eyes followed the water trailing along the edges of the pavement, catching discarded betel leaves and broken dreams. She loved the monsoon. It was the only time the city slowed down, as if offering her time to breathe. Maya, a final-year literature student at Presidency University, had always believed that the rains told stories—hidden in thunder, in puddles, in the sigh of the wet wind. She wasn’t one for fleeting crushes or dramatic declarations. She believed love, like rain, had to come when the soil was ready. She was admiring the script on a weather-worn edition of Gitanjali when she saw him. A tall, thin boy walking down the middle of the road, unbothered by the downpour. He held no umbrella, wo...