Uththan

Trigger Warning / Disclaimer

The Quiet Glade is a gentle, emotional story that explores themes of life choices, grief, and the quiet weight of contentment. While not containing explicit content, it explores the loss of a parent and the emotional intersection between ambition and simplicity. 

Reader discretion is advised for those sensitive to themes of nostalgia and emotional reflection.

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The morning sun filtered gently through the sheer curtains, spilling golden light over the floor of their modest home on the outskirts of Pune. The smell of warm cardamom chai mingled with the faint metallic scent of gold dust, settling into every corner of the little workshop tucked next to their living room.

Pankaj was already at his bench, a loupe in one eye and a half-finished pendant in his steady hands. It was a delicate lotus—Arundhati’s favorite flower—crafted in rose gold with tiny seed pearls in the centre. He glanced at the time. 6:40 AM.

Like clockwork, the twins came tumbling in. Nanditha with her lopsided ponytail, and Niveditha with her thumb in her mouth, both wrapped in matching bunny pyjamas.

“Appa, did you finish the dancing earring?” Nanditha asked, pointing at his bench.

“It’s not dancing, it’s dangling,” Arundhati laughed as she entered with their chai cups, her long braid damp from her morning bath. “And no, your appa gets distracted when two bunnies come hopping in.”

Pankaj smiled and set the loupe down. “Dancing, dangling, all the same only. You girls bring too much sparkle into the house already.”

The mornings were always like this—filled with laughter, steaming tea, and gold sketches penciled onto butter paper. The family-run jewellery shop, Svarnam, had slowly bloomed into a beloved corner store, known for its handcrafted traditional-modern blends.

But nothing about their lives had ever been flashy. They still lived in the same two-bedroom house his mother had filled with marigold garlands and temple bells, years ago. Her photograph, framed near the tulsi pot, watched over them like she always had.

“She would’ve been proud of you,” Arundhati whispered one evening, as they wrapped up a new bridal set. “Of us.”

Pankaj smiled. “She taught me everything. Even how to love wholeheartedly.”

—

It was a rainy afternoon when Ajay arrived—after nearly fifteen years.

He stepped into the shop with the same grin Pankaj remembered from their school days, though now his eyes held the sharp gleam of boardrooms and business deals. The hug was warm, but the scent of city polish clung to him.

“Abey yaar, nothing’s changed!” Ajay laughed, taking in the modest shop with shelves of velvet-lined trays and hanging strings of marigolds near the cash counter. “Still smells like turmeric and gold in here.”

Pankaj smiled. “That’s the real essence of the brand.”

“I saw the Svarnam Insta page,” Ajay said, pulling out his phone. “Man, you’re blowing up! You’ve still got the touch.”

Pankaj chuckled, wiping his hands on a muslin cloth. “Instagram and Arundhati. I still don’t know about hashtags. She’s the one who told me #handmade matters.”

Ajay looked around. “These pieces… they feel like stories.”

“They are,” Pankaj said simply. “Each bride, each family… they don’t just want gold, they want memories they can wear.”

They caught up over vada pav and filter coffee, sitting under the covered porch as the rain sang on the tin roof. Pankaj passed Ajay a piece of jaggery.

“So AARYA, huh?” he asked. “Even the name sounds global.”

“Luxury label. Started small. Now it’s in Milan, Dubai, Singapore… you know, runway stuff.”

Pankaj nodded, his fingers absentmindedly shaping the edge of the brass plate. “Good for you, Ajay. Always knew you’d fly.”

Ajay paused, looking at his old friend.

“I’m being honest, yaar,” he said, leaning in. “You could be huge. Come to Mumbai. I’ll set you up with investors, a design team. You won’t even have to do the hard labor. Just design. Lead. Imagine your work on international runways. Why limit yourself here?”

Pankaj stirred his coffee, quiet for a moment. The steam curled slowly, like the thoughts rising in his mind.

“I’m not limiting anything,” he said softly. “I’m just… choosing.”

Ajay frowned slightly. “But why choose small? You’re made for more.”

Pankaj looked out at the rain-soaked neem tree, its branches swaying gently. He smiled.

“Maybe I already have more.”

Ajay leaned back, letting that settle in. “You don’t miss the rush? The ambition?”

Pankaj shook his head. “I wake up with my daughters’ giggles. I shape gold while watching the same sun rise Amma used to wake me up to. I love my wife. I create things with my hands, not just ideas in air-conditioned rooms.”

He paused.

“I didn’t stay back because I was scared. I stayed because, this life… it holds me. Fills me. Like a full breath you don’t need to exhale too fast.”

Ajay stared at him for a long time, a different kind of silence falling between them. A respectful one. A thoughtful one.

“Damn, Pankaj,” he murmured. “You make all this feel like a poem.”

Pankaj grinned. “Poems sell too, you know. Only slower.”

Ajay laughed. “Still the same philosopher-jeweller. Fine. You win this round.”

“But,” he added, raising a finger, “let me stay for a few days. Watch this magic of yours. Maybe I need a break from the neon dreams.”

“Stay as long as you want,” Pankaj said, patting his shoulder. “The chai’s hot, the gold’s warm, and the house is always open.”

And as the rain continued falling outside, two friends—one from the fast lanes and one from the quiet glade—sat together, letting the past breathe into the present.

—

The next morning, the sun broke through the mist like a soft promise. Ajay woke up on the woven cot in Pankaj’s guest room, the sound of anklets and tiny feet echoing from the hallway. A little giggle floated in, followed by a gentle knock.

“Chachu! Wake up! Amma said breakfast is ready!“

Two identical voices.

Ajay opened the door to find Nanditha and Niveditha—three-year-old sunbeams in matching yellow frocks—standing there with wild curls and wide eyes.

“Good morning, princesses!” he beamed, crouching down.

They each grabbed one of his fingers and led him to the dining room, where Arundhati was plating poha and toasted peanuts. She greeted him with the kind of smile that felt like home.

“Bas do aur din rukiye na, Ajay bhaiya,” she said warmly. “You’ve lost touch with real breakfasts.”

Ajay chuckled. “Honestly, I think I already gained two kilos just by smelling that ghee.”

They ate at a round teakwood table—Ajay, Pankaj, Arundhati, and the twins. Between bites of soft poha and laughter about school stories, Ajay noticed how Pankaj watched his daughters. Not just with affection, but reverence. As if every moment with them was something rare and sacred.

Later, in the workshop behind the house, Ajay watched Pankaj bend over a half-finished pendant. It was a lotus, delicate and glowing, shaped around a tiny embedded pearl.

“Who’s this one for?” Ajay asked, his voice quiet now.

Pankaj smiled. “A girl in Satara. She just got engaged. Her grandmother gave me an old brooch and said, ‘Melt this into something that tells her story.’”

Ajay blinked. “You talk about jewellery like it breathes.”

“Doesn’t it?” Pankaj asked. “We leave pieces of ourselves behind in what we make. People wear those pieces on their wedding day, their daughter’s naming ceremony… sometimes even when they’re leaving this world.”

Ajay leaned back, the air around him heavier with meaning. “I’ve launched a dozen collections. We chase trends, hire models, flood social media. But it never feels like this.”

Pankaj looked up. “Then maybe you’ve been chasing applause instead of peace.”

That night, Ajay couldn’t sleep. He stood by the window, looking out at the backyard where the neem tree stood like a guardian. He heard laughter from the kitchen—Pankaj and Arundhati teasing each other while drying plates. The twins were dancing in the hallway, pretending to be butterflies.

And Ajay felt something stir. Not envy. Not regret. Just… longing.

The next day, he asked Pankaj if he could come along to deliver a necklace to an elderly couple in Lonavala.

It was a small house, tucked amidst rain-washed greenery. The couple—eighty years old, wrinkled like stories—welcomed them like family. Pankaj handed over a simple mangalsutra, redesigned from the wife’s original wedding chain.

She cried when she saw it.

“This feels like 1968 again,” she whispered. “The year he gave me my first gold chain, when we had nothing but faith.”

Ajay stood still, his throat tightening.

On the way back, he finally said it aloud.

“I get it now.”

Pankaj looked at him.

“All these years, I thought success was building something big. Loud. Unstoppable. But… maybe it’s this too. A quiet room. A memory made with your hands. And someone to share filter coffee with after.”

Pankaj smiled, eyes fixed on the winding road. “We all run, Ajay. But eventually, some of us find a glade to sit in. And we learn to be still.”

Ajay stayed for two more weeks.

On the day Ajay left, he gifted Pankaj a handcrafted leather sketchbook.

“For your designs,” he said. “Or your dreams. Whatever you want to put in it.”

They hugged again, this time without a rush.

“I thought I was coming to offer you a bigger life,” Ajay said with a smile. “Turns out, I needed to see a life that’s already whole.”

When he finally left, he didn’t leave with just pictures of gold or a plan for collaboration. He left with something heavier—an ache, perhaps. Or maybe a seed.

Back in Mumbai, his showrooms glittered brighter than ever, but one small shelf stood apart.

A sign above it read:
“Svarnam: Stories Woven in Gold – From the Heart of Pune”

And sometimes, when the world became too loud, Ajay would scroll through pictures of a neem tree and two little girls who had taught him how to giggle again.

—

That night, as the family sat on their verandah, watching the twins chase fireflies, Arundhati leaned into Pankaj’s shoulder.

“You didn’t choose less,” she said.

“I chose peace,” he replied, wrapping an arm around her.

In the quiet glade of their life, where sunlight filtered gently through simple joys and soft laughter, Pankaj had found a wealth no gold could match.

And in that stillness, they glowed.

—

The End