30 mins with you - II

The evening air was getting cooler. Everything around cast long slender shadows on the grass. The sun’s soft skewed rays sifted through the waving foliage and designed illuminated patterns around you that seemed like ripples on orange waters distorting the moment into a timeless warp.

It’s strange how we never grow old to not like certain things in life. Your smell My flimsy scarf which covered you was now breathing that beautiful smell. I still like it, exactly as I used to like years ago when a gentle puff from nowhere carried your scent to me right across the aisle of the lecture theatre where we used to sit separated from each other by a few steps. It is still the same. Distinct, crisp, inviting and so you !

Couples walked along the garden path. You looked but didn’t notice. Expressions on your face never changed a lot. Like ever, it was an unhurried gradual transition from one thought across your mind to another the subtlety of which can never be evaluated by eyes other than trained ones like mine.The sun in no urgency to set lazes down illuminating the park with beautiful dreamy hues and ushered the time of the day you have always loved .Vehicles rumbling along the street occasionally broke the otherwise evening calm. The last rays of the sun grazed along rendering the park a heavenly purple glow. You run your hand though your hair smooth the creases on my shirt and then snugly settle down your head back on my chest and close your eyes.

There had been countless occasions like this , each of which I remember precisely though, on which we sat besides each other not talking much. Over the years the talking has been less and so has the need for it diminished. We had comprehended in our own specific ways that pristine moments of togetherness were not meant to be wasted by talking about things. It had been this way for long now Just sitting besides each other reading each other’s silence. Occasionally though you dab on my shoulder or clutch on to my arm a bit tighter as if to say something that occurred to you and when I turn to you expectantly you just smile and sometimes nod your head gently. I have wondered what that meant but now I think I know.

This one's for YOU !

It’s not been long…
but it has been great..
Like a soothing song,
a simple dream that wipes all fret.
When it all did start…I never was sure
But that day I shall forever treasure.

How did you become a voice to my thoughts?
How do you know when I am in pain?
Why you always deem me before you?
Why does this bond everyday strengthen?

This selfless care you bestow on me
From hopeless despair you make me free
Boundless attachment bore endless affection
A nameless relation…so let it be

Not much do I have to say to you
But just a million things I want to share
And a little question I ask…
“Can I hold your hand ? “...cause
without you life is now so hard to bear.

Do lafzon ki hai Dil ki kahaani

HE was unassuming but genuine in his own indiscernible way. Most situations he confronted, he approached them with predetermination .A trait he detested in himself but could not help do away with. Self righteous some would say...he couldn't care less, just like million other things he found unimpressive .He didn't smile much....He couldn't. The only freshness that was enthused into his otherwise bland profile was accredited to her presence .On days touched by her, that rare smile instantiated on his lips and perplexed all who knew him....They would ask "HOW !?" She would ask "Why ?"..Unable to answer He would just smile some more...awkwardly....Sometimes at nights, in deep slumber, he would call out her name and woke up startled wary if someone had heard him. Happiness the big elusive emotion in his life mostly meant her company. He never felt Chemistry sizzle when they were together but it was always an inexplicable easiness with her around. She made the world habitable for him. LOVE for sure…Wonder what stopped him from speaking his heart out to her?

SHE had expectations from life…huge ones…. bolstered with equally enormous ambitions that she had. She believed in going all out, confronting any ‘what may comes’ for what she desired .Aggressive some would say…..and that was exactly what she was and was proud of it. With most things in life she was ‘dead sure’ but some things always baffled her...like day dreams of him walking up to her and whispering ‘sweet nothings’ in her ear, music seeming more melodious with him around or the mush, pink afterglow that floated in the air every time they met. With him, She felt not her bold and assertive self but a soul at peace… confiding in his soul… She realized that any pain caused to him hurt her more. Among other things She was always sure of finding….his shoulder to lean and his hand to hold whenever…forever….Often she spotted his eyes betray him and spill the beans…the unbound love for her that hid within….What stopped him from speaking his heart out to her?…She wondered….

"....Maut se darr nahin lagta mujhko.....

Sirf Tumse judaai ka darr hai....."

Courtesy: 'Maahi Ve' - Kaante

Bud

…Simple everyday events have such extraordinary beauty. The sun radiates livening warmth all day long The tall pines sway to the music of the playful winds. The scent of the soil as it drizzles on the parched earth. The little animals that graze all day long on the lush meadows …..and the evenings, when the feathered flocks fly homebound ,the crescent moon peeps up in the azure sky to lit the dark up in a dim idyllic glow….

I, of late though, was hardly noticing all this. I and my Bud were contended together. Ever since it blossomed I was preoccupied with it day in and day out. Every day I woke up not to the Sun’s bright warmth but to the glistening dew on its delicate petals. I admired not the tall swaying pines but the tender twirls of its jejune tendrils. I relished not the smell of the wet dust kicked off by the drops but the intoxication in the whiff of Bud's enamored fragrance. The ascent of the moon appealed to me no longer but my Bud’s wilting like a pliable lass at day end did lit up my nights. Time, in its enchanting company, flew by on rosy wings….

Once I, with my Bud accompanying , ambled along the great river banks. The great river whose waters meandered along swiftly. I fondly let my Bud onto the frothy white crest of the great river to watch it dance gaily on the ripples. Wobbling and swaying merrily on the swell it rode the waves as I hopped gingerly besides it. It slowly drifted away from me and into the deep waters…I panicked and cried aloud but only my wails echoed in reply. I watched as it reduced to a minute speck in the midst of the flow and then soon sank into the benthic bottoms of the great river.

I am losing you

Winter

She walked away through the tortuous path with inert steps Her lithe silhouette gradually dissolving in the dark mist that had crept in to the garden and overhung the place. The sky, at dusk, had donned a hue of trampled lilacs. At this hour the vicinity registered, apart from his grim presence, nothing but a deathly silence. Reality sank in as he waved his arm hesitatingly and tried to utter a desperate cry beseeching her to stop….but the sounds froze on his lips. The only sound that were discernible were the rustle of dry dioscorea leaves on the xanthous dessicated turf and the occasional clank of a blacksmith’s hammer pounding relentlessly on smelted cast from a distance.

A sharp north westerly swept across the plane and slapped his cheek freezing the drops that had rolled down from his eyes. He was broken, mute and rooted .A chilling darkness had ominously encroached upon the garden rendering everything that once stood bright and gleeful into obscure and stygian shadows…..Thus, some day in January ended into a bleak nightfall…Loose ends recklessly left to pine….

…Winter lingered on.

The Freeway

He raced past another milestone.His fingers breezing on the steer wheel as the wind whistled past his ears. The huge sun sinking beneath an unnumbered horizon left the entire basin awash with mellow orange, promising to dawn in hope. The dull stench of the loamy top soil typical to the region entered him intermittently.

He kept smiling to himself all the while. .There were no fetters now No frets either. People, few of whom mattered, had approved…the rest frowned, cursed and raised eyebrows. None of this made sense now. He had ,anyways, left all of them behind.

He had now arrived at that lonely stretch of the highway where very few commuters would bother to accompany.

He again whizzed past yet another milestone. Thoughts of his sweetheart and life (whatever was left of it) with her left his heart warm and peaceful.



The door creaked open as she, still standing tall, carried herself out into the dusk and stood leering into the distance longingly...awaiting him.