I have never seen the world through the rose-tinted glasses of naive innocence. My glasses are a concoction of white and black, it is grey. That is what I read. That is what I learnt. And that is how I viewed people, in shades of grey and never of white and black. Yet, there are things you never read in books, and so you never learn. And when this happens, the foundation of your very life is shaken to the point where you can only pick yourself and the scattered pieces of the glasses you have conditioned yourself to see the world through.

Sidharth Mehra came in like a rude shock in my life built on the reign of stories – he neither was the prince to love nor was he the villain meant to hate, he was but grey. He was the line that blurred the dichotomy of a saint and a sinner. He threatened to disrupt the harmony I mastered over my heart after losing the love I thought would last a lifetime, he threatened to raise a hurricane inside me that urged to unveil the masks I never knew existed on the shades of those I loved, of those I knew, and of me, Khushali Kapoor.

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Republished: July 10th, 2019

Music: 'Without a Word' by Sara Watkins