Story working on
# Ner Kaathal
(English translation, easy to read, easy to export)
## Chapter 1
Thrissur, 1997
The house smelled of old books and turpentine.
Vinod was ten. He sat behind the wooden pillar, knees to chest, counting how many times his father said the word “mediocrity” and how many times his mother answered with silence.
Father (shouting): “You think marrying me made you an artist? You are painting the same jasmine flower for fifteen years!”
Mother (very soft, very dangerous): “At least the jasmine never leaves me, Raviettan.”
Then a plate broke. Then a kiss. Then the light went off.
Vinod pressed his palms to his ears and made a promise to the dark:
“My house will never sound like this.”
## Chapter 2
Kochi, 2018
Vinod Menon, advocate, thirty-seven years old, unmarried, good salary, no debts, no bad habits except secretly listening to Backstreet Boys in the car with the windows rolled up.
His aunt from Palakkad called.
“Vinodettan, we found a girl. Lakshmi Warrier, Kottayam. Bharatanatyam teacher. Very fair, very quiet. You just meet once.”
He met once.
She wore off-white saree, no smile, eyes fixed on the table.
He thought: quiet is good. Quiet is safe.
They married in forty-five days.
First night.
She went to the bathroom and cried for twenty-three minutes.
He counted every second from the other side of the door, then pretended he was asleep.
## Chapter 3
Two years passed like borrowed time.
Nandita was born. Vinod became a fool who sang “I want it that way… believe when I say…” while changing nappies.
One night he opened Lakshmi’s cupboard to find a baby frock and saw the small wooden box instead.
Inside: dried jasmine, one old photograph, letters.
He read one line and the world went silent.
“Arjunettan, I count the days until the next Theyyam. Your Lakshmi.”
He closed the box, put it back exactly, and went to the balcony.
Rain was falling straight and hard, like punishment.
Vinod to the rain: “Again I reached second place.”
## Chapter 4
Next morning he made filter coffee, two cups, and spoke like a man discussing the weather.
Vinod: “Lakshmi, do you want to find him?”
Lakshmi dropped the steel glass. Coffee spread like blood.
Lakshmi (whisper): “What are you saying?”
Vinod: “We have a daughter. I don’t want her to grow up in a house where love is hiding in a wooden box. We will go to Kannur. If your heart still runs to him, I will leave you there. I will manage.”
Lakshmi: “You are mad.”
Vinod (smiling like it hurts): “Yes. Little bit.”
## Chapter 5
They travelled north. Train, bus, auto, Nandu on Vinod’s hip, Lakshmi looking out of windows.
At night in cheap lodges Vinod told stories he had never told anyone.
Vinod: “When I was eight, Amma tried to swallow sleeping pills. I hid the bottle inside my school bag for three months. Every day I prayed the tablets would lose power.”
Lakshmi listened. First time her eyes stayed on him longer than two seconds.
## Chapter 6
Kannur. Theyyam night.
Arjun became the goddess, face painted red and gold, sword in hand, fire on head.
Drums. Smoke. Blood from self-cuts.
Lakshmi stood between husband and old lover, holding her daughter’s hand so tight the child complained.
After the ritual Arjun came, barefoot, voice broken.
Arjun: “I waited. Every Theyyam season I looked for your face in the crowd.”
Lakshmi cried without sound.
That night she sat on the temple step beside Vinod.
Lakshmi: “Take me home, Vinodettan. I was blind. You are my home.”
Vinod closed his eyes. The biggest yes of his life, and he only nodded once.
## Chapter 7
Four golden years in Kochi.
Lakshmi danced again, this time for Nandu and Vinod.
She learned every Backstreet Boys lyric because Vinod blushed when she sang “Quit Playing Games” in the kitchen.
Vinod’s only remaining dream: to take his girls to London, O2 Arena, Backstreet Boys farewell tour.
He booked three tickets. Front standing. He told Nandu, “Appa will carry you on shoulders the whole night.”
## Chapter 8
London, November 2025
They reached three days early. Red buses, Big Ben, rain that felt like home.
Concert night. Nandu wore glitter cat ears. Vinod wore the biggest smile of his thirty-nine years.
The boys sang “Everybody.” Then “As Long As You Love Me.” Then the song Vinod waited for all his life: “I Want It That Way.”
He had tears. Lakshmi had tears. Nandu waved her little sign: I LOVE YOU DADDY.
Encore. Blue lights. “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely.”
Vinod lifted Nandu higher. Lakshmi pressed her face to his shoulder.
He said, very soft, only for her ears: “I grew up without these words. Thank you for teaching me.”
She answered: “Njan ninne snehikkunnu, Vinodettan.”
That was the exact second the first bomb went off.
## Chapter 9
It was not loud like in movies. It was a dull thud, then heat, then darkness.
Vinod pushed his wife and daughter down, covered them with his body the way he once covered his ears from his parents’ fighting.
He felt pain, then warmth spreading across his chest, then nothing.
When the lights came back, Lakshmi was screaming his name into smoke.
She found him lying on his back, eyes open to the roof, still smiling a little, the glitter cat ears crushed in his hand.
He was already gone.
## Chapter 10
London, three years later
Lakshmi teaches dance in Wembley. Nandu speaks English like a London child and Malayalam like her mother.
Every year on 15 November, Lakshmi takes the Jubilee line to North Greenwich.
She stands outside the O2, now half memorial, half concert hall.
She brings the two cracked light sticks Vinod never got to wave.
She switches them on. Pale blue. Almost dead.
She waits until the light dies completely.
Then she walks to the Thames and takes out the note he wrote on the flight to London, the note she has carried for three years.
She reads it one last time.
“If anything happens to me, remember:
I heard ‘I love you’ back.
I heard it during my favourite song, with my two girls against my heart.
Some people wait a hundred years and never get that.
So don’t cry too long.
Tell Nandu her Appa left happy.
– Vinod”
She lets the paper go.
It floats under the bridges, past the lights, towards the sea.
Lakshmi whispers to the dark water:
“Njan ninne snehikkunnu… eppozhum.”
(I love you… always.)
The river takes his name and keeps it.
End.
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