Chaitanya continued “On his behest I decided to wait for his wedding – and that was a turning point in the whole set of happenings… the days I spent there were one of the most luxurious days of the life I have spent… I was treated fantastic as a royal guest and I had everything I wished for whenever I wished for it… I had learned how to ride a chariot and one day I was on one of my tours in the Amravati kingdom and I had travelled quite a distance from the palace awed at the greenery which we have to normally travel to find in our times… it was abundant there and I was enjoying the serenity of that greenery and forest when suddenly I bumped into a girl – I was wearing the clothes of those times which Prince had provided to me… she was too beautiful to look away from her. With me looking at her she was shy but not angry and was equally intrigued at seeing me there all by myself… I couldn’t stop myself and I approached her asking what she was doing in that forest – she seemed to be alone… she told me that she and her friends were on an expedition and she had simply walked a distance looking at the scenery around which was different from the place she originally was… so I asked her if I could lead her to her group – we could travel in the chariot I was riding… reluctantly she agreed and we travelled to the huge retinue she was with and the leader of the huge retinue was the King of Satisar… when I came to know who he was – I bowed to him as per the tradition of those times and he was amazed at me bowing to him but thanked me for getting the Princess back to the retinue… that was when I realized that I had contacted a Princess. He insisted that I stay with their retinue for few days, they were going to stay put in that location for few days before travelling to Amravati for a wedding and I knew they were there to attend Prince Chaitanya’s wedding… may be she can tell what happened after that…” and he looked at Vishakha his pupils turning heart shaped.
Vishakha blushed, “I remember the first time I saw him – not as one remembers a face, but as one remembers the moment the wind changes direction before a storm…
The sky above Amravati that evening was painted in molten gold. The priests had just concluded the twilight offerings, and the fragrance of sandalwood and ghee still lingered in the air. I had slipped away from the retinue, as I often did, to the quiet grove beyond the river – a secret sanctuary where I could be more than a princess, more than a daughter of a kingdom. There, I could simply be Vishakha…
The river flowed gently, whispering secrets to the reeds. I was tracing patterns in the soft earth with a twig when I felt it – a presence. Not the kind that startles, but the kind that pulls, like the moon pulls the tide.
I looked up. He stood across the clearing, as though he had been carved out of a different world altogether. His attire was strange – fabrics cut in ways I had never seen, colours that seemed both muted and bold at once. But it was not his clothing that held me – it was his eyes. They carried something ancient… and yet impossibly new.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Time itself seemed uncertain, like it had forgotten its duty.
“I don’t know where I am…” he finally said, his voice careful, as if afraid the air itself might shatter.
I rose slowly, my anklets chiming softly, grounding me in the reality I knew. “You stand near Amravati,” I replied. “In the lands of a kingdom that is powerful and vast.”
He frowned, as though the name meant nothing and yet everything. “Amravati… this can’t be… I was…”
He stopped, looking around again, touching the bark of a nearby tree as if testing whether it would dissolve under his fingers.
“Are you lost?” I asked, stepping closer.
He looked at me then – truly looked – and something shifted between us. It was not recognition, not yet. But it was not unfamiliarity either. It was as if two halves of a forgotten story had suddenly found themselves in the same sentence.
“I think… I crossed something,” he said slowly. “Time, maybe. Or a dream I can’t wake from.”
I should have been afraid. A stranger appearing from nowhere, speaking of impossible things – any sensible princess would have called for guards. But I did not because in his confusion, there was honesty. In his uncertainty, there was a strange courage.
“I am Vishakha,” I said softly.
“Chaitanya,” he replied.
His name lingered in the air like a mantra. I thought he was the Prince Chaitanya who had travelled near our retinue to take a glimpse of who he was going to marry.
We walked along the river as dusk deepened into night. He told me fragments – of towering cities made of glass and light, of chariots that moved without horses, of voices that could travel across vast distances without a messenger. I listened, half in wonder, half in disbelief. It sounded like the dreams of sages who had seen too far into the future.
“And you?” he asked. “What is your world like, Vishakha?”
I smiled faintly. “Bound by duty… guided by dharma… beautiful and heavy.”
He looked at me then, not as one looks at a princess, but as one looks at a person. And in that gaze, I felt something loosen within me – something I had not known was tightly held.
“You don’t sound like you belong entirely to it,” he said.
The truth of his words startled me.
“I belong to it,” I replied, perhaps too quickly. “But sometimes… I wonder who I would be if I did not.”
The silence that followed was not empty. It was full of questions, of possibilities, of something neither of us dared to name.
The moon rose, silver and watchful. Its light fell upon him, and for a fleeting moment, he seemed both here and elsewhere, as though time itself struggled to claim him.
“Will you have to go back?” I asked, my voice betraying me.
He hesitated. “I don’t know how I came here… so I don’t know when to leave and should I leave at all…”
Strange warmth bloomed in my chest at his words. It was hope, fragile and dangerous.
Few days passed – or perhaps moments stretched into days. I do not know how to measure that time anymore. He remained near the grove, as though the place itself tethered him. And I returned to him, again and again, under the pretext of evening prayers.
We spoke of everything and nothing. He laughed at my disbelief of his world, and I laughed at his astonishment of mine. He taught me words from his time; I taught him verses from the Vedas. He showed me how he saw the stars – not as gods, but as distant suns – and yet somehow, that made them no less divine.
And somewhere between those shared breaths, love crept in – not loudly, not with thunder, but quietly, like roots growing beneath the earth. I knew it the moment I reached for his hand without thinking.
He froze at first… then slowly intertwined his fingers with mine. His touch was warm, steady… real.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” he murmured.
“And yet it is,” I whispered.
We stood there, bound not just by touch, but by something far deeper – something that defied the rules of time, of kingdoms, of destiny itself. But even as love blossomed, a shadow lingered.
Because I could feel it – the subtle shift in the air, the quiet pull that had once brought him here – now beginning to tug him away.
“Chaitanya…” I said one evening, my voice trembling. “If you have to go back… will you remember me?”
He looked at me with an intensity that made my breath catch. “I don’t think I could forget you, even if I tried.” I wanted to believe him. I chose to believe him.
In that moment, beneath the ancient sky of Amravati, I was no longer just a princess… I was a woman in love – with a man who seemed not to belong to my time, yet somehow belonged to my soul.
It was as if the Gods themselves had woven this meeting, then perhaps… just perhaps… they would not be cruel enough to unravel it. Somewhere deep inside me I wanted to believe him and what he said but something told me he was Prince Chaitanya – I was supposed to get married to… and yet, I couldn’t stop myself from getting attracted to him… to fall in love with him. Then one day he said that he will have to go back to Amravati and he will meet me at the royal wedding… and it was then I will be sure that he is the Prince Chaitanya…”
“Then what happened?” Chaits couldn’t stop himself from getting carried away by their love story.
“The turning point was…” Chaitanya interrupted Vishakha’s flow, “when after a week the King of Satisar entered the Kingdom of Amravati… everyone was excited at the prospect of Wedding of the Prince with the Princess… everywhere there was a din of trumpets and dhols… I stood in one of the galleries of the palace and the King of Amravati was down there welcoming the King of Satisar… my eyes were searching for Vishakha but she was not to be seen… I also wanted to see the Princess who was supposed to marry the Prince – my soul’s counterpart.”
He looked at Chaits and then at Vishakha and continued, “I was aghast when I saw Vishakha get out of paalki and bowing down to the King of Amravati… it suddenly dawned on me that Vishakha was supposed to marry Prince Chaitanya and my love for her actually meant nothing – may be because she could have easily misplaced me with the Prince since we looked the same…”
Vishakha shifted a bit closer to Chaitanya and held his hand tenderly as he continued, “I was in two minds – I was in love with Vishakha and also knew that she was destined to marry Prince Chaitanya who was none other than my own soul’s fragment… I felt like stealing my own wife from me…” he looked at Chaits and smiled, “It was a difficult decision for me… I couldn’t see Vishakha getting married to the Prince – though he was a part of my own soul… and I didn’t want Vishakha to know that I wasn’t the Prince she intended to marry… so I decided to return to the universe I belonged to… the Prince was busy meeting and greeting people – I didn’t know that he and Vishakha met during lunch while mine was served in the section where I was… obviously Prince didn’t want me to come face to face with Vishakha to create any confusion in her mind… I had to wait till dinner was done and over with when I met the Prince… I didn’t tell him that I had already met Vishakha – just told him that I felt homesick and since the wedding was about 20 days – I wished to visit my universe and with a promise that I will return on the wedding day and attend the wedding – which in my mind I knew I wouldn’t… he looked at me and said he would have loved to see the confusion on Vishakha’s face when she saw us together, but then he said that he will definitely want me to return and attend the wedding and I said bye to him… I wore my clothes from the universe I belonged and which I had put aside till I was there at Amravati and with a heavy heart I started to leave collecting my equipment… on the way out when I was leaving and was about to board the chariot which Prince had allocated for me – Vishakha suddenly emerged from shadows she was hiding…”
Chaits looked in wonder at both Chaitanya and Vishakha… as Chaitanya continued, “She looked at me for a moment and fell in my arms melting me completely. I was now sure that I didn’t want to leave her… yet I was not happy about the fact that she had lived all her life as a Princess and I wasn’t a Prince nor do we have any royal life in the times we live… I told her the reality and asked her not to play with her destiny – she was meant to be the Queen of Amravati not a modern day scientist’s wife… she had tears in her eyes but a look of stubbornness in her… she told me that she was ready to leave the royal life and lead a simple life with me… she loved me – not the Prince… it was a difficult decision but she clung on to me and in her emotions – she kissed me to assure me that it only was me that she wanted to be with…”
Chaits looked at Vishakha and her looks showed what she wanted – to be with Chaitanya… “One of the close aides of Prince Chaitanya saw Vishakha kissing me and alerted him… he was mad with rage and asked his special band of guards to arrest me – there was a din as they started to run toward us – Vishakha knew that our secret was out and if Prince arrests me – it would only mean death for me… she jumped into the chariot and asked me to follow… she drove the chariot out of the palace, out of the city with the band of those soldiers and the Prince chasing us… I knew we couldn’t keep running like this and I thought we could escape through the warm hole into my universe – then we would be safe… I asked her to stop and asked if she was really willing to leave everything that was Royal and lead a simple life with me – she was sure about it… I alighted from the chariot and so did she… I opened up the warm hole and we stepped through that thinking we were now safe…”
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