Suraj was not expecting anything extraordinary. His university had assigned him a research project on marginalized communities of the Terai. The topic sounded academic and distant. He imagined statistics, interviews, maybe some photographs. What he did not imagine was her. The Musahar settlement stood beside a thin river that changed shape every monsoon. Small huts made from mud and bamboo leaned against each other like tired bodies. Smoke from firewood curled slowly into the evening sky. Children ran barefoot on dusty ground. Women carried bundles of grass on their heads. Men returned from nearby fields where they worked as daily wage labourers. Suraj wrote everything carefully in his notebook. But…

The Illusion Everything seems so perfect until the day comes when you start to see things differently. You know how it goes. You’re living life on autopilot. You notice people in passing… faces, gestures, a certain way someone walks or laughs… and you think you’ve got them figured out. You build neat little boxes in your mind: the loud one, the quiet one, the funny one, the loner. For me, she was the quiet one. There was this girl I’d see almost every day. She was always there… sitting quietly in class, head bent over her notebook, hair falling like a curtain around her face. Or she’d be drifting through…

Every evening, after college, I’d rush home, slip into my jersey, grab my bat, and head straight to the ground. The rhythm of leather on bat, the cheers of my friends. It was all routine. But what became part of that routine was her.Anvi. She walked by the path next to the ground almost every day same time, same gentle steps, the same flutter of her shawl in the evening breeze. I knew her from back in school, but we’d never really talked. Just familiar faces from a distant memory. At first, I thought it was coincidence. But then… it started to feel like something more. She always showed up…

It was August in Biratnagar. I was in my third year at Western Engineering College, waiting outside the main gate with a notebook in my hand while new first-year students searched for their rooms. A small girl came up to me, hair a little messy, clutching her file like it might float away. “Brother, can you show me Block C?” she asked in a shy, light voice. I pointed, then decided to walk with her so she would not get lost. At the classroom door she gave a quick bow. “Thank you, brother.” The word was only courtesy, yet it settled on my heart like a quiet weight. From that…

Rahul wasn’t looking for love when he first met Rhea. She was just another girl in his group project ..smart, expressive, a little chaotic, but kind. What he didn’t expect was how effortlessly she’d start slipping into his thoughts. It began with the small things. The way she laughed more at his jokes than others. The way she’d text late into the night, sharing random thoughts, sometimes even personal stories. How her eyes seemed to search for him in crowded rooms, how she once said, “I feel safe around you.” Hints. Rahul started collecting them like fragile artifacts. Every smile, every message, every slight touch on his shoulder felt like…

The New Girl in the Lane Setting: A newly built society on the edge of a village near Biratnagar. Only a few families live here. Binay sat on the porch, sipping chiya, when a small truck rolled into the society. A middle-aged couple, a teenage boy, and a girl stepped out. He watched quietly from a distance. The girl caught his eye. She wore a yellow kurti and helped her younger brother carry boxes inside. She didn’t look around much, just focused on settling in. [For the next two weeks] Binay noticed her every evening watering plants, helping her mother, sometimes standing quietly on the rooftop. She never looked his…