Between Breath and Moonlight
Prologue â The Quiet Spark
Anvi had never grown up in temple walls.
No bells ever echoed through her home. No chants shaped her mornings.
The world around her moved for money, jobs, deadlines, social status. People who worshipped things they could touch, count, or display.
And yet, somehow, He slipped in.
Not through rituals, not through family teachings, not through anything Anvi could name. Just through a voice she stumbled upon one sleepless night, a Maharaj ji speaking softly on YouTube. Words that were old, familiar, sacred, yet landing in her life like a gentle spark she didnât know sheâd been waiting for.
Since that night, she had kept Him secret.
She didnât talk about Him. Not to friends. Not to family. They wouldnât understand. Theyâd laugh. Theyâd dismiss it. And Anvi couldnât let that happen.
Her devotion didnât need their understanding.
It didnât look like devotion at all.
Sometimes she wove garlands for Him in her room, quietly, imagining their colors circling Him.
Sometimes she tried to cook kheer, fumbling with sugar and milk, whispering prayers no one would ever hear.
Sometimes she laughed at Him, muttering threats to shave His head, or teasing Him for being too perfect, too hidden, too unknowable.
And yet, He never appeared.
Not in the flicker of light. Not in a voice answering back.
And yet, somehow, He was always there.
She felt Him in the breeze that brushed her hair.
In the bhajans that played unexpectedly on her feed.
In the moonlight spilling over her steps.
In the silence of the night that folded around her like a familiar hand.
She called Him by many names. The world might call Him God.
To Anvi, He was simply Him.
Chapter 1 â The Quiet Restlessness
Anvi could never quite name it â that strange emptiness pressing against her chest in the middle of ordinary days.
It wasnât sadness. Not really.
Sadness has shape. A reason. Something you can point at and say, thatâs why it hurts.
But this... this had no name. No direction.
It followed her like an echo. Through crowded streets, through her workspace filled with screens and clipped voices, through nights where everyone else slept and she stared at the ceiling wondering what exactly sheâd lost.
Sometimes, she blamed the world, the monotony, the noise, the way people spoke without meaning, chased without feeling.
Sometimes, she blamed herself, for being too quiet, too still, too unwilling to pretend that all of this meant something.
But there were nights when she stopped fighting it. When the ache felt less like loneliness and more like... a calling.
Like something, or someone, waiting for her to listen.
It started small. A passing thought in the middle of a busy morning, a fleeting warmth when she heard an old bhajan playing somewhere in the distance.
Then the signs multiplied. One video suggested after another, a Maharaj jiâs voice slipping through her earbuds at midnight, words that shouldnât have fit her life but somehow did.
Each time she tried to ignore it, life went oddly quiet.
Each time she turned back, something answered, softly, like a whisper behind her breath.
She began lighting a small diya by the window.
Not because she was told to, but because it felt right.
Sheâd sit beside it for minutes that stretched into hours, fingers tracing the patterns of light, her thoughts scattering like petals on still water.
She didnât know who she was talking to, only that He was listening.
Some days, sheâd speak softly. Other days, sheâd mutter threats under her breath, the kind that made even the gods smile.
But slowly, the restlessness began to make sense.
And though Anvi didnât know it yet, every unanswered question, every quiet sigh, every unspoken prayer, was already making its way to Him.
Chapter 2 â The Unseen Dialogue
Anvi didnât know if He ever noticed her.
Sometimes she thought He must, somehow, because the moments kept coming; the way a bhajan she never meant to hear would drift through her headphones, or how the moon seemed to tilt its silver face just so, over her steps.
Some days she tried to reach Him. She wove garlands in secret, twisting each bloom with care, imagining them circling Him, though He never appeared to take them. She cooked kheer she would never taste herself, whispering the half-formed prayers that clung to the tip of her tongue. She even threatened Him in jest, fingers poised over nothing, laughing into the quiet, because He seemed to deserve a little chaos too.
And yet, He remained hidden.
She wondered constantly. Would their story be like the stories people wrote of themselves? Would they be friends? Brotherly? Lover? Something beyond even that? She tried to imagine; tried to pour her colors into Him, to see what she gave, what she left behind.
Blue, for the ache in her chest.
And yet, each color felt incomplete. She hadnât named all of them yet. She couldnât.
She tried to understand what it meant to love Him. Not to admire, not to revere, not to offer something in return, just to try. Outside His qualities, outside His godliness, outside what He gave, what remained of her devotion? Could she love Him then? She didnât know.
Her restlessness grew not from doubt, but from curiosity.
It was a hunger for knowing; not His answers, but the shape of their story. Would she like Him if He wasnât perfect? Could she love the flaws as she loved the light? Could she understand without seeing, without proof, without definition?
Anviâs friends would never understand. They lived for touchable things, careers, money, likes and shares. She hid Him from them, tucked Him behind playlists and offline moments, secret smiles and whispers she muttered to empty air.
Some nights, she would fall asleep thinking she felt Him most there; lifting her from bad decisions she hadnât even recognized as hers, pressing balms on wounds He had never inflicted, wrapping around her nothingness when sleep swallowed her thoughts. She rarely remembered her dreams, but in the nothingness, she felt Him.
And slowly, imperceptibly, the restlessness began to feel less like confusion, less like emptiness, and more like conversation.
A conversation without words.
A dialogue that required only her attention, her heart, her willingness to reach.
And in the unseen, in the waiting, in the tiny secret acts of devotion, Anvi learned that being present for Him, even without Him being present, was enough.
Chapter 3 â The Presence in Absence
It was not a night of miracles.
No divine light, no thunder, no sudden calling from the sky.
Only the moon again, that same companion she had stared at a hundred times before. But tonight, something in its glow was quieter, softer, like a sigh that had found its end.
Anvi sat cross-legged on the rooftop, the wind tugging at her dupatta, the bowl of kheer before her gone cold. The garland she had woven earlier rested beside it, its fragrance mingling with the scent of night-blooming jasmine.
Because for the first time, she didnât wait for Him.
She didnât demand to be seen, or understood, or answered.
The bhajan playing faintly from her phone spoke of a love too vast for words, a love that required no meeting, no proof, no possession. And as the singerâs voice trembled over a single syllable of His name, something in her heart stilled.
Maybe this was it, what she had been chasing all along.
Not His appearance. Not a sign.
But the realization that He had always been there.
In the anger that made her threaten Him.
In the laughter that escaped between her prayers.
In the confusion, the silence, the longing.
He had always been hiding, yes, but not to stay unseen.
He was hiding in her, waiting for her to stop searching outside long enough to notice.
Anvi closed her eyes. Her palms rested open on her knees, empty, but not wanting. She didnât need to see Him in the moon, or the garlands, or the kheer anymore.
The ache that used to burn in her chest now pulsed like warmth.
âAlright,â she whispered softly to the night, âyou win.â
The wind shifted, brushing against her cheek like a laugh half-held back, familiar, teasing, unearthly. And though no one stood before her, she knew. She knew.
She lifted her face toward the sky, toward the unseen, toward the stillness that was no longer empty, and smiled again, not with the urgency of seeking, but with the peace of finally understanding.
Maybe their story didnât need a grand ending.
Maybe it never would end at all.
Because sometimes, love is just knowing someone exists, and feeling them everywhere, even in their absence.
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Well here is a little something for y'all :)
I am not good at writing but looking at all of you guys sharing your emotions and feelings and thoughts about Him.. I wanted to share a little bit of mine here too.. some bits and pieces of my heart here.. to share it with the rest of you Sakhas and Sakhis~
I will be honest, I didnt know how to start writing a story and was hesitant but then I simply wanted to help shape a bit of the feelings and thoughts inside me from a misty fog into something with a form and thus came words, and sentences born out of these words... All connected together to form a little story which is equivalent to a silent peek into my heart.
So here goes nothing :) Hope you guys like it~ And again Lots of Love <3
Also @irantaboutkanha thanks for hyping me up, love~ donât think youâre getting away without eternal credit đ
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