THE VOICE THAT RUN AWAY

Episode 1: The Girl in the Mirror

The automatic tap clicked off with a sharp drip... drip... drip. The airport washroom was cold — not just in temperature, but in silence. Smiksha leaned over the sink, her trembling hands struggling to stay still. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, not recognising the girl who stared back.

Red eyes. Smudged kajal. A face pale from the weight of unwanted truths. And beneath it all — a storm. A voice that had been choked for too long.

Behind the bathroom door, the world moved. Boarding announcements echoed through the speakers. Laughter, rushing footsteps, dragging suitcases. Life was going on. But inside, Smiksha’s world had collapsed in one phone call. One sentence.

“Shaadi pakki kar di hai.”

That was it. No conversation. No opinion. No dream considered. Just a statement — like a death sentence disguised as a future.

She had overheard the conversation just minutes ago while walking behind her parents. They weren’t even trying to hide it.

“Ladka foreign mein settled hai. Business karta hai. Achhi family hai. Smiksha ko samjha lenge, samajhdaar hai.”

Samjha lenge?

Was that what she had become — someone who could be convinced, adjusted, bent?

She splashed water on her face again. Cold. Sharp. It reminded her she was still real. Still here. Still… resisting.

She looked into her own eyes again. That girl — the one staring back — she wasn’t weak. She had dreams. She had a voice. A voice that had sung in school competitions, that had narrated stories to her younger cousin, that had argued with teachers when injustice happened, that had once whispered to herself under the stars — “Main kuch banungi. Main kisi ki likhi hui kahani nahi banungi.”

And yet, here she was.

Flashback:

A week ago, Smiksha was in her room — her diary open, pen dancing across the page.

"One day, I’ll board a plane not because someone tells me to... but because I have a destination of my own."

She had planned it all. After her exams, she would secretly apply for an art fellowship. She wanted to learn voice acting. Animation. Visual storytelling. She wanted to give sound to things that didn’t speak — a feather falling, the silence of pain, the heartbeat before a confession.

But her parents had other plans.

Marry. Settle. Quiet down. Disappear.

The automatic air dryer burst into life as someone exited a stall. Smiksha stepped into one, bolting the door shut. She wasn’t ready to face anyone. Not now. Not with swollen eyes and a heart that felt like it had been carved out and left bleeding.

She took out her phone and opened her gallery. There was a video — from a school performance. She was on stage, narrating a monologue about a girl who had lost her voice. How ironic. She turned up the volume.

"They said her silence was graceful,

Those loud girls were shameful.

So she buried her voice…

Until one day, she forgot where she left it."

Smiksha couldn’t finish watching it. She slammed the phone down on the toilet roll stand and covered her mouth to stop the sob.

Was that going to be her life?

A forgotten voice. A buried dream. A girl remembered only through wedding photos.

She pulled out a tiny silver pendant from her pocket. A gift from her grandmother — shaped like a quill. “Likhti rehna,” she had said once, “Tera kal tere lafzon mein basa hai.”

But now it felt more like a memory from a different life.

She thought of her friend Nia.

“Tu pagal hai,” Nia used to laugh, “Tujhe har cheez mein kahani dikhti hai!”

Yes. Maybe she was pagal.

Maybe she was still crazy enough to believe she could write her own ending.

She unlocked the stall door slowly, walked back to the sink, and opened her journal — the same one that had travelled with her for two years.

On the first page, it said:

"Don’t speak unless your voice shakes the world."

Today, her voice was shaking.

Not the world — but her own soul.

She turned to the next blank page and began writing. Her hand still shook, but she didn’t stop.

"August 22.

This is where it began. Or maybe this is where it fell apart.

My name is Smiksha.

And I am not running away from home.

I’m running away from silence.

This is not an escape. This is a reclamation."

She wrote like a woman possessed. Her pen moved faster than her thoughts. Memories flooded in — her first award, the first time she heard applause, the first time she cried alone, the first time she felt her voice meant something.

Back in the terminal, her parents were still waiting, scrolling their phones, probably messaging the boy’s family, planning things. She could already imagine the wedding hall, the fake smiles, the heavy lehenga, and the tight bangles that cut into her skin.

And then — a life of cooking, compromise, and being “a good girl”.

But what about her?

What about the girl who wanted to create characters who would outlive her?

What about the girl who dreamed of animating a world where girls ruled kingdoms and married when they chose, or maybe never?

What about the girl who wasn't ready to be given away like a gift?

She looked up at the mirror again, and this time — she smiled. Just a little. But it was real.

A voice inside her said, “You still have time. This is not the end.”

And she believed it.

She zipped up her bag, fixed her hair, and stepped outside the bathroom.

The terminal felt louder, brighter. But she was different now. A little braver.

She wasn’t sure where this path would go — maybe she’d board the plane, maybe she wouldn’t.

But whatever came next…