PEREGRINATE

EPILOGUE

My journey back in time did not leave the world altered. It was the same as I had left it. All the eight billion inhabitants continued with life, lived, loved, and died. But it was I who had changed. It taught me how to value those around me, my strength, and my ability to overcome problems. It gave me my once-in-a-lifetime love.

Those few months gave a girl desperate for a family, a bit more time with one and it gave an incomplete family their daughter back for a bit longer

My travel made it possible for an honorable king to be present within the pages of history while his brother met his demise.

It was for my travel that a young boy lived to feel the love, admiration, and respect of one of the greatest men to have ever walked on Earth.

And then I came back. The last school year was difficult, to say the least. I used studies as an escape. My decision to get into medical school had me clear one of the toughest exams in the country, and that took most of my time. Still, in the day when my walls were down, one or two heart-clenching thoughts would pass by. Instead of chasing away the pain, I embraced it. It was my cross to bear.

For the rest of the year, I maintained a healthy distance from the Randhawa family. My connection with them was that of the past. I did not want it to continue in the future. However, the day I left for my medical college back in Delhi, they showed up at my house.

My father looked at me with confusion after opening the door, as if expecting that they were my guests. But I was at a loss, too.

Ananya Aunty told us they had heard that I was moving away and had come here to give me their best wishes. They gave me a gift basket full of stationery like notebooks, diaries, pens, and markers. Along with them, there were a few printed photographs of Ranjgarh. Some of them were also of the castle and the solarium.

As she moved away after hugging me, she whispered in my ear, "No matter where you are in the world you will always have a home with us. It is your house too."

Anyone else would balk at her words, but I had time-traveled, saved a prince, and lived to tell the tale, so I smiled at her words and mouthed thank you. Ishaan hung back most of the time but in the end, gave my hand a firm shake and wished me well.

And then I was off. Off to a journey into the future, full of scientific knowledge and methodologies with no place for whims and fancies like love.

I achieved what I had set for. I became a doctor, worked with various organizations, treated patients in the rural areas of the countries, and gave it all to move on.

I also did a year of traveling, collecting souvenirs for someone who was no longer here. Still, I hoped that one day, on one of the roads, I would find him again, in a new life, as a different person. Our love was not meant for just a few months, I wanted a lifetime.

Twelve years later, one phone call had me coming back to where it all started.

I returned to Ranjgarh. My father no longer lived here, having moved away to our ancestral house after retirement. I lived in a hotel for a few days and walked the same streets as I did almost a thousand years ago and then again half a decade back. It had changed and yet remained the same- an improbability that only this place could pull off.

It was no longer the sprawling kingdom of the 1100s or the rustic village of the 2020s. Buildings and proper roads had crept upon the empty land. Our old house was even demolished and in its place, I found a shopping complex. The only things that remained untouched were the castle and the Randhawa house.

The main reason for moving here was to replace Ishaan's father, Vikram Uncle as the head physician of his hospital. The small clinic had grown over the years and I was grateful for the opportunity.