White

In memory of the young doctor in Kolkata who walked into a seminar hall to learn to save lives — and never walked out, losing hers instead.

They found it still hanging—
pressed, clean,
shoulders shaped by the weight of a dream
that once stood inside it.

Her name stitched neatly on the pocket,
faded now,
but still refusing to let go.

White.
The colour of purity.
White.
Her shroud.
White.
The fluorescent light
that didn’t blink
when a girl stopped breathing.

White.
Her coat.

It held her shape like memory does—
not entirely accurate,
but unwilling to forget.

In the pocket,
a pen chewed at the cap,
a candy she’d saved for after rounds.

They scraped her name off the duty chart
like dried tea from a table.
They cleared the room.
Reassigned the bed.
But no one knew what to do
with it.

It stayed.
Too quiet to demand attention.
Too loud to throw away.

It became a kind of ghost.
Not of her,
but of the becoming
she never got to finish.