The Final Draft, The Everlasting Story

By Devanshi Tyagi

3rd Year, BA Sociology Honours

'Abhi na jao chhod kar, ke dil abhi bhara nahi' whispers all around me. I see everyone in college, saree-clad, some crying, some laughing, and yet, all clinging to what will soon become nothing more than a memory. We’re taking pictures, hoping to freeze this moment — a moment we won’t be able to capture again. It’s unsettling to see the faces you’d see every day and the ones you’d seldom notice, all coming together, only to walk away to places you don’t even know.

The times you gallivanted through the corridors, the solidarity that came the night before the test, flash before your eyes. But somehow, even if you try, you can’t hold on to them. You knew everyone, yet somehow, you don’t know them at all. You built close ties with some, waved at many, and even avoided a few — and yet, you want everyone to come together one last time, before you walk out to live lives on different roads, never again to be under the same roof.

And just like that, you go to places, find people, seek home, only to leave one day, with a promise of meeting again, without ever closing the door. While the door never shuts, you realize you can’t go back. Even if you do, it won’t be the same anymore. Everyone has moved on, and no one lives there anymore. It becomes the castle in your memories, the picture in your pocket, and the occasional phone calls that remind you of the home that lives in your head — no matter where you go.

For someone like me, who’s never lived in a place long enough to call home, neither do you become acquainted with it nor does it become a part of you. Yet, somehow, you become a part of it — slowly, and then all at once. You've left so many doors open that you no longer visit. But knowing the door is still open, even if you can’t visit anymore, is all you need to know. The creases in your saree will remember the day you almost tripped — but a hundred hands rose to catch you before you could fall. The shirt that bears the stains of iced tea will also be recalled in between lunch breaks and classes. You tried to do it all, and maybe, in the end, a part of you will wonder if you could stay, if you could say ‘Abhi na jao chhod kar.’ But you'd stand far away, only to say that maybe we were never meant to hold on forever.

Maybe we were meant to live it once — fully, foolishly, fearlessly — and then carry it gently with us, a secret tucked away for the days when the world feels too empty.

You’ll walk out the door again, saree clutched in one hand, laughter and tears swirling inside. You’ll move to a new place, and you won’t look back — not because you can’t hold on, but because you know the door will remain open, even when you leave, and even when you don’t.

The door was always meant to stay open. Things were never meant to change. And it was only you who had to walk out, leaving a piece of your heart behind, to remember it someday.

But as you take that step, you won't look back with sorrow. Instead, there’s quiet gratitude in knowing that what you’ve left behind isn’t truly gone—it’s woven into everything you carry with you. The laughter, the tears, the days spent running through those corridors—they don’t fade. They simply nestle into the spaces between new memories, waiting for you to reach back, even when the door’s no longer there.

In the end, the moments we once clung to, the faces we once knew, they don't disappear. They settle somewhere inside, tucked away for those days when the world feels a little too empty. And maybe that’s all we need—to know they’re still there, even if we can’t touch them anymore. Because the door was always meant to stay open.Not for us to return, but for us to carry what was once ours, gently with us, wherever we go—humming ‘agar mai ruk gayi abhi toh ja na paungi kabhi, yahi kahoge tum sada ke dil abhi nahi bhara.’