What Tara loved about being a playwright was not, surprisingly, the creative freedom that came with it, but rather the absence of writing rather long, unnecessary descriptions and complex environments(according to her). In all other forms of writing, the sky was blue, with little sprinkles of gold and red and white, and there were little frothy waves that cascaded like a ocean above. But in screen writing, the very same sky was only 'blue and partly cloudy', and yet miraculously, the story would go on. This was the very reason she considered them as 'lazy man's literature.'

"The HOD of the English Department was asking for you." Her friend Priya said. Nodding, Tara set off to the room, wondering what she'd done this time.

Her professor Dr. Kannan wasn't what one would expect the HOD of the English Department of a college to be. With a long grey hair that he sometimes put a knot at the back, and a permanent stubble that made him look more of a failing actor, than a doctorate in English Literature and Anthropology, he'd always looked to Tara more like a mean villain than a professor. Tara had long decided that if she ever were to write a story with an epic villain, he'd look exactly like him.

It wasn't that he was villain material, it was just that he never ever encouraged the students' creativity. He'd never made anyone write at least a single work of their own. Tara believed it was due to his own life's incidents. He'd been a best selling author of a string of historically accurate books about a period of history that was rarely written, and had achieved instant fame and stardom. But, as comes with such genre, and since truthful history wasn't exactly sweet to read about, there was widespread denouncement of his books, and he'd vowed never to ever write again.

Tara liked to think that he was actually looking out for them, by not getting their hopes up. But there was the whole dilemma, could a teacher really throw away his own painful experiences and inspire his students' sagacity?

"Good evening, sir." She said with a short bow of her head.

"Yes. Nakshaktra. Good evening. You might be aware that the World Health Day is coming up tomorrow?" He questioned.

"Umm..Umm. No. No sir. I wasn't." She fumbled.

"Anyway. The World Health Day is coming up tomorrow. The principal wants the English Department to do a skit on the effects of cigarette smoking. You'll do it, I hope? Since you are always running about, asking to read one of your plays. This might be a good chance." With that sentence, he looked back into his laptop, and started typing something, and didn't even care for her reply.

One time. It had been just one time, when Tara had requested him to read one of her works, and he'd never given an answer, and she'd simply stood there feeling foolish, and with that her only hope and excitement for her writing had burst into dust like a rocket cracker on Deepavali.

"Yes, sir." She replied anyway, though her professor was now in his own world, but with much conviction as she'd said it for herself.

She walked towards the classroom, daydreaming, suddenly lost in the world of playwrights, for they were, as a rule, always playing scenarios in their head, churning out dialogues after dialogues, hoping they don't sound as corny or as stupid as they felt it to be.

"Good heavens, Tara. You look lost in thoughts, as always." Her friend Priya chimed in, bringing her back to reality. "Why did the devil summon you for?"

"He asked me to write a skit for the World Health day. On cigarette smoking. Have any ideas?" Tara asked, with a smile on her lips, for she knew that Priya wasn't the one to take interest in things like these. Probably the only person she knew inside out apart from her parents, Priya was a constant star in Tara's life. Nineteen years of being next door neighbours as well as best friends had formed an invisible wall around them and the rest of the world that they were now half-siblings, half- best friends.

"If idiots want to smoke, let them. Why do we have advice idiots who're only going to think we're annoying?" Priya said, with a small shrug of her shoulder. Tara laughed, feeling that that this one little sentence had summarised Priya's entire character in a nutshell. Contrary to popular belief, people were, according to Tara, what they spoke.

"That's not how a responsible society should work. Besides, passive smoking is more dangerous." Tara said.

"Huff. Fine. What's dangerous is the secret you haven't told me! Apparently you were seen with a boy in the Velvet and Silk yesterday. Now what is that?" Priya asked her.

"There weren't any other tables free so we had to share the table. That's what happened."

Priya nodded, the answer was acceptable to her. But since she knew too much about Tara than her own self, she continued with an onslaught of questions."You aren't the type to share a table with a stranger. You'd rather get up, and walk away and eat on the way home."

Tara flushed at her friend's sentence. It sometimes frightened her that someone knew almost, almost entirely the way she was, except for some little parts, the parts that she herself didn't know and was ever in a quest to find out.

"I...I thought he was interesting."

"Really? Do you know him?"

"I know his name is Surya, and he plays hockey and that he is a second year. But I don't know him, like, I don't know his favourite shirt or his favourite fruit."

Priya smiled understandingly, and it put a glow on her beautiful features. Her long hair was illuminated by the faint light of the evening sun. She didn't say anything but only made a noise 'ooo'.

"So, what happened after that? Did you get his number? Did you plan to meet up after that?"

Tara shook her head.

"Did you meet in the same time around now, yesterday?"

"Yes. About now."

"So, what are you waiting for?" Priya asked.

"You, to finish asking questions."

Tara ran as fast as she could. It was a bit odd that she would run like that for someone she'd met only once. But life was something that constantly put people through a maze, and as long as there was a path, it didn't hurt to run, towards hope, or in search of it.

Through the road, she saw Coffee Dracula sitting in the same chair they'd sat the day before. He looked anxious, and fidgeted with the menu. As soon as she saw him, she felt everything going slow. Whether it was her tired legs that made her slow down, or it a mental hypothetical feeling due to the side effects of thinking about one single person for the whole night, she didn't know.

But what she knew was that he felt the same way, that very same side-effect/sensation, for the menu in his hand did a few somersaults in the air and fell down on the floor.

"I wasn't waiting for you or anything." Coffee Dracula said, still in his games clothes with the logo of her college in the front and back. His voice was unique and deep as she had remembered it.

"I see." She said.

They remained silent for a few moments and Tara cleared her throat. "I am sorry, even though you did say that you weren't waiting for me, I really want to think that you did. Can I?"

"I was just-."

"I-"

"Go on!"

"Waiting would mean that I knew you were coming. I was hoping that you did." He said.

"And I was hoping you'd be there." Tara said.

When Tara was little, a man had appeared in her father's stationary shop with a bruise on his hand. He'd said he had tumbled down the loose step on the entrance to the park. 'All shops are closed now, and I know stationary shops don't have medical supplies. But I was hoping you did.' He'd said. Surprisingly, her father was able to find a roll of bandage, though later he said he had no idea how it'd gotten there. Sometimes miracles happened with a little bit of hope, her father had said. It really was true.

They sat in comfortable silence after that, ordered the same thing they'd had the day before-white chocolate truffle cake. Or was it white truffle chocolate cake? Either way, it didn't matter, for the little boy who took orders at the shop nodded- he got it.

"I...I have a match the day after tomorrow." He said.

"And I have to showcase my skit for the first time in front of everyone." She said.

"I hope the both of us are successful. Hope brings miracles sometimes, don't you think?" He said.

Tara's eyes widened with amazement. It was so close to her own feelings. "Success is a miracle, that rare?"

"Miracles aren't apparitions in the sky, or stones that bleed" He said.

"Then what is?"

"The feeling of right things happening at the right place at the right time, things that make you feel like you've got what you want, and actually do something, finally." He said.

"You're complicating things. Isn't hard work all that's enough?"

"How hard do you work for your play?"

"I try to write when I can. But sometimes I can't." She said, thinking for a moment. "Though it can't be measured that way!"

"Precisely."

She understood what he was getting at. She could write a thousand pages and still not make sense. She would never be proud that way.The real success was when she could finally convey the thoughts in her heart in words she was entirely satisfied with. It could only be a sentence, but if that sentence could precisely resonate the sentiments that she was, she would be proud of it. It would be her words, her work that she lived for. Right now, such a sentence was;

"Thank you. That's true."

His lips curled into a faint smile that made her almost melt at the sight. "Maybe I am complicating things. Maybe that's my excuse for not working hard enough. Is that why I haven't made it to the college team yet?"

"That's true. But who knows, a miracle may happen, and you may actually make it?"

Surya laughed. He was done for. He felt like he sure was complicating things, like Shakespeare Beauty had said. If hard work was what it was going to take, he'd do it.

For the first time in their lives, two people in the Velvet and Silk felt finally at peace at heart. They found the little restlessness that they'd had in their minds, cease, and in its place was a comfort they'd never known before, yet had been searching all the while. The kind of a relief that a lone traveler in a desert feels when he suddenly stumbles upon an oasis, and actually looks forward to his life, and that stars aren't cruel reminders of his nights alone in the desert, but something to help to get home by.