“Tere naam naal loki jod’de ne yaari
People associate your name with loyalty/committment

Mere naam naal jod’de gadaari ve
People associate my name with betrayal

Ajj vi mashook dhokhebaaz main kahawaan
Even today people call me a dishonest lover

Saukhi siweyan ch vi na main vichari ve
I can’t rest in my grave, such is my helplessness

Kehda das daag (3) ve main ishqe nu laaya
What stain did I put on love?

Tere layi main das hor ki kara, ve mirzeya
Oh mirza, what else could I do for you

Je tu mare naal main maraan
In your death, I have died too. “

I was never meant to be a prisoner of my own heart, but here I am. If they ever remember me, they will call me traitor, coward, heartless. They will say I did nothing while he bled — while Mirza bled out under the very sky we had once dreamed beneath. They won’t know that I loved him. That I loved him with a ferocity that would have shattered the world had I dared to speak it aloud.

My name is Sahiba. Daughter of a house that demanded loyalty above all, duty above all else. I was raised on a diet of obedience, whispers of power, and the relentless pressure to bend, to submit. The men of my family, they ruled with iron fists. And I? I was nothing but an extension of their will, an heir to the name of Jalal, a woman meant to stay quiet, to smile, and to serve.

But life, it finds ways of sneaking past even the tightest defenses. That was Mirza. A storm. A wild thing. He came into my life like a flash of lightning — bright, intense, uncontainable. From the first moment we spoke, I knew he would change everything. He was not bound by the chains that held me, not bound by the roles we were born to play. He was a man of freedom, and he showed me a world I had only dared to imagine. He made me feel alive — truly, madly, alive.

And I fell. I fell with every breath I took.

But we both knew the price. Nothing in this world is free, not even love. I was promised to another, my fate already sealed by the blood that ran through my veins. And so was he, bound by the weight of his own burdens. Yet we loved, desperately, like thieves in the night, stealing moments, kissing in the shadows, as though the sun itself would never rise.

And then, when it all came crashing down — when the men who sought to destroy us struck their final blow — I could do nothing.

He was there, lying in front of me, blood staining the earth beneath us. I could taste the salt of my own tears as they mingled with the dirt. His eyes, those eyes that had seen the world differently, those eyes that had looked at me as though I was more than just the woman I was born to be — those eyes flickered, dimming. And all I could do was watch.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t make the choice, not then. To save him would have been to defy everything I had ever known. To save him would have meant to betray my family, to betray everything I had been raised to uphold. I stood frozen, paralyzed, with the weight of my loyalty to them crushing me, suffocating me.

He was dying, and all I could think of was what would happen if I crossed that line. If I defied everything for him. If I took his hand and ran, would we have lived? Or would they have come for us both, dragging us to the edge of the earth and beyond?

I made my choice.

And that choice was silence. A silence that I have carried in my chest ever since.

They say loyalty is what you do for the ones you love. But no one tells you that loyalty can feel like a knife in your soul, twisting deeper with every second that you do nothing, that you watch as the world rips apart the person you swore to protect. My silence cost him his life.

I know how they will remember me. I can already hear their voices, their accusations, their pity. How I didn’t move when he needed me. How I let him die.

But what they don’t know is this: I was loyal to him, always. Even in that moment. Even in my silence.

Because the truth is, I loved him too much. I loved him so much that I couldn’t bring myself to drag him into the darkness I was already drowning in. I couldn’t let him face the same fate I would have faced. I couldn’t let him be destroyed by my family’s anger. So I did nothing. And in that nothing, I lost him.

And after that night, after the finality of his absence, I couldn’t bear to stay. My soul — it withered without him. The walls of the world I had built around myself began to crumble, and I could no longer walk through the halls of the house I was born into. The house that was never meant to love me.

I wandered for days, though the days meant nothing. The world became a blur, all light and shadow. I could feel the weight of his absence, his last breath, pulling me into the abyss with every step I took. I was drowning — drowning in my guilt, my love, and my failure.

And then, one cold night, when the stars were hidden behind a veil of clouds, I laid myself down, beneath the same sky we had once shared dreams under. It wasn’t a decision. It wasn’t a choice. It was just the end that had always been coming for me.

They will say I died by my own hand. They will say I was weak. But no one will understand. No one will know the burden I carried, the love that tore me apart, the silence that ate me alive.

I am not asking for forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. But in my heart, I know the truth. I loved him — I loved him fiercely. And in the end, I was faithful to him. Always.

And that, I hope, is enough.

• Writeup by Richa Mehndiratta