[ACT 1 - The Collision] Veer & Vaani: The Dance of Self and Shadow
The Friction of Two Halves Finding Their Whole
ACT 1 – The Collision
Ardhanarishvara: The Self Meets the Self1
Vaani had never really believed in Tinder. It was a necessary evil—a game of ephemeral connections, where attraction was fleeting, and conversations often ended in ghostly silence. But tonight, she swiped right, almost absentmindedly, on a profile that felt oddly familiar.
Veer
Something about his bio amused her. It wasn’t the usual attempt at charm or humour; instead, it was a single sentence: "I am not here to be understood, and neither are you."
It was both arrogant and intriguing.
She waited. A match.
Veer messaged first.
Veer: "You hesitated before swiping, didn’t you?"
Vaani: "I did. I usually don’t match with people who sound like they think they’ve figured life out."
Veer: "And yet here we are."
Vaani: "Yes. Here we are."
Veer didn't flirt. He dissected.
Vani didn't seduce. She provoked.
They were both architects in their own right. Vaani, in the literal sense, though she hardly practiced. Stories were her real blueprints her true construction sites—intricate structures built on human frailties crafted with the precision of a master manipulator of emotion. She wrote about love the way one sketches a ruin before it collapses.
Veer was different. He built nothing. He deconstructed. Everything about him was a dismantling—a stripping down of beliefs, illusions even people. It wasn’t cruelty. It was necessity. To him, nothing was worth keeping unless it had survived the brutality of being questioned.
Veer: "Tell me something you won’t admit to yourself."
Vaani hesitated. Not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she had spent years crafting lies around it. The truth sat heavy in her throat, waiting to be acknowledged.
Vaani: "That I am deeply drawn to people who mirror my own darkness."
Veer smirked. Not in amusement, but in understanding. He took a sip of his whiskey, letting her words settle.
Veer: "I was going to say the same thing."
Vaani wanted to ask him—where did his darkness come from? But she knew better. People like them didn’t reveal their wounds directly. They let them slip through in contradictions, in half-truths, in casual remarks that carried the weight of a past never fully healed.
Vani: "What’s the worst thing you’ve done to someone?"
Veer: "I never let them see what they meant to me."
Vani: "Cruel."
Veer: "Necessary."
Vani: "Or maybe you’re just afraid of what happens when you surrender."
Their conversation wasn’t the playful dance of strangers testing attraction. It was war. A cold, calculated unravelling of each other’s defences.
Here they were, drawn to each other like opposing forces in a game neither of them had agreed to play.
Veer: “Tell me, do you like being dangerous, or is it just something you wear?”
Vaani smirked, sipping her drink. “Dangerous? Is that what you think I am?”
Veer leaned forward, voice even. “No. I think you like pretending to be.”
Vaani: (mocking) “And what does that make you? The one who sees through the act?”
Veer: “No. I’m the one who doesn’t flinch when the act slips.”
She paused, searching his face for arrogance, for some trace of the games men played when they thought they had her figured out. But there was none. Just that unnerving stillness.
Vaani laughed, but it came out thinner than she intended. “And here I thought you’d be charming.”
Veer: (shrugging) “Charm is a performance. You didn’t come here for that.”
Vaani exhaled sharply, shaking her head. “You talk like a man who’s been burned before.”
Veer: “Haven’t we all?”
Vaani: “Some burns heal.”
Veer’s jaw tensed. “Not the ones that teach you something.”
For a second, the air between them shifted, no longer playful, no longer a game of quick jabs.
Vaani: "It’s strange, isn’t it? How you can crave something for years and never get it… and then when you finally do, you’re too afraid to reach for it."
Veer: "Or worse. You get it from the wrong hands, and suddenly it’s ruined."
She looked at him then, really looked at him. He was careful with his words, but not with his gaze. There was no performance in the way he held her eyes, just a quiet, steady unravelling.
Vaani: "I was married for years, and not once did I feel wanted. Not once did a touch set me on fire."
Veer: "And I spent years being touched when I didn’t want to be. I flinched every time and pretended I didn’t."
Silence.
Vaani: "When I finally felt fire in the touch, I realized that it was one that was shared by many. I was one of many."
Veer: "Maybe that is how life is. Trust is a thing men take with their hands."
Vaani: "Maybe. But what do we do now?"
Veer exhaled, leaned back. "Maybe this time, we wait for the touch that doesn’t make us want to run."
Vaani tilted her head, considering his words.
Now, she played with fire, but only when she held the match.
Veer saw it in her. The way she tested boundaries, daring men to either chase or leave. But he was neither a chaser nor a leaver. He was a mirror, standing still, letting her see herself in ways she never had before.
And that was the most dangerous thing of all.
Vaani: “Let me guess. You don’t fall easily.”
Veer: “No.”
Vaani: “But when you do—”
Veer: “I don’t fall. I choose.”
Vaani smirked, shaking her head. “So careful. So disciplined. But let me ask you something.”
Veer: (nods) “Go on.”
Vaani: “What happens when you meet someone who doesn’t want to be chosen?”
He looked at her then, really looked at her.
Veer: “Then I stop playing.”
Silence.
The air was thick, electric, crackling with something unspoken.
Vaani: (softly) “Good answer.”
But her fingers were gripping the edge of the table, her pulse just a little too fast. Because for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t sure if she was the one holding the match.
She threw questions like knives.
Veer caught them.
And for once, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to let go.
And yet, here they were, drawn to each other like opposing forces in a game neither of them had agreed to play.
Veer: “Do you believe in fate?”
Vani: “I believe in patterns.”
Veer: “And we’re a pattern?”
Vani: “Something inevitable.”
The moment was dense with meaning. They knew where this was heading, knew that meeting in the flesh would take this from an intellectual seduction to something they might not escape. She sent him a location. A café. No emojis, no hesitation. Just a place. And Veer, who never let himself be pulled into the unknown, typed a single word back:
"Tomorrow." The word felt too final, too irreversible. He stared at the screen for a full minute before pressing send.
Ardhanarishvara is the composite form of Shiva and Parvati, representing the perfect balance of masculine and feminine energies. Veer and Vani are drawn to each other not just out of attraction but out of recognition—they are different halves of the same whole, each mirroring the other’s desires and darkness. Their tension is the friction of opposites seeking equilibrium, just as Shiva and Parvati, in their cosmic form, are neither separate nor truly one.