Written By Payel Mukherjee
Vivaan Arora, the beloved face of children’s fantasy films, once clapped thrice to teleport and rescue lost children. He was a hero who felt pain, healed souls, and gave away his joy. On screen, he glowed. Off screen, he dimmed slowly – forgotten, broken, and alone.
But now, Vivaan sits in a quiet room of an unfamiliar place, scribbling a letter under a flickering yellow lamp. His body is aged, legs paralysed from an on-set accident years ago. Vivaan writes one final letter.
Dear Kashi,
Tomorrow marks 27 years since our first film. You scolded me for dripping water on your script. I thought it was theatrical. You called it ‘training’. I called it trauma later.
But you made me a god in children’s eyes. I clapped, and I was in Ladakh. I snapped, and I healed a bruised child’s heart. How powerfully you built me … despite knowing how weak I truly was. Thank you for sending me away each time to ‘live’ my characters.
Let’s meet for lunch. Just us. Old soup. Older ghosts. You always made me feel powerful – even when I wasn’t.
Vivaan
Apartment: Shanti Vihar, Wing D
The next day
Director Kashi now an acclaimed filmmaker with international awards, cancels his press event and drives to the address. The name of the building unsettles him: Shanti Vihar – a name that ironically means ‘Peaceful Dwelling’, but the iron gates and eerie silence scream otherwise.
A gatekeeper stares too long. A servant limps forward, unblinking. They lead him to a dim room filled with the scent of medicinal balm and betrayal.
On a dusty table lies a file marked ‘Project: Vivaan’.
Kashi flips it open.
What he reads cracks his façade. Inside the file: Letters. Dozens. All addressed to him.
“The day I auditioned, he slapped me for smiling.”
“You made a co-actor lie in ice water for hours – she was hospitalised.”
“You shot a scene of me trapped in a box with live ‘Botflies’ – my legs were never the same.”
“You told me real pain makes for good cinema.”
The final note shakes him.
“The asylum taught me I was not a savior. I was your puppet. But worse, I became you. I don’t want to live with that reflection anymore. I’ll kill it.”
Kashi’s hands tremble. He stumbles back, drops the file, and reaches for his phone. Before he could react, the wheels roll in.
Vivaan enters.
A shell of his former self, but his eyes still carry a storm. He is calm, almost meditative. Kashi stares, waiting for anger. Vivaan just smiles.
Vivaan: “I did travel, Kashi. Not across places. Within. To the heart of who I had become.”
Kashi: “Vivaan, please. Those letters… you don’t mean them.”
Vivaan: “I did. I do. But today isn’t about revenge. It’s about release. No drama Kashi. Please! Silence!”
He looks out the window, then claps three times.
No teleportation this time. Only a slow exhale.
Vivaan closes his eyes. His heart gives in.
The media explodes: “Superstar Vivaan Arora Dies Mysteriously in Mental Care Facility.”
Speculation. Investigation. All leads cold. The world mourns.
But Kashi never speaks.
He disappears from public life.
Now, months later, Kashi sits alone in the same room. The same chair. By the same window where Vivaan clapped for the last time.
He stares out, empty.
The file lies beside him – burnt at the edges, unreadable now.
Perhaps he never left Shanti Vihar.
Because somewhere deep inside, the claps still echo.
And finally, he has begun to write just as once Vivaan did-
“Some journeys are not through space, but soul. Some travels begin … only after the final curtain falls. In real life, sometimes the hero must destroy the myth of his own glory – to finally be free. For the greatest journey … is the one within.”