The Joy Of Being Together

The Joy Of Being Together

I maintained a stoic silence as she walked away from me that day. I expressed all my sympathies with the loud silence she left behind herself. It was going to miss her too, I’m sure. She was not going to come back, ever again. I wish she had an idea of the tumults she created in my heart whenever she made her presence felt beside me. They fluttered around wildly in my being when she looked at me.  She took away quite a few of them when she rose to leave the bench in Lohia Park.  She created many more when she walked away from me. This happened everyday.

The clouds were full of emotions and feelings; they threatened to burst unless I brought out some of my feelings. Words seemed to be the best vehicle for expression, but the problem is my intangible feelings can never be captured using the coarse meshes of language. It was like trying to capture the essence of an odour using a fishing-net. Silence was the only form of expression I had.

The evening had sunk to dusk and it threatened to sink further into night in an unexpected manner. The slow but sure transition into darkness symbolized our relationship. We were in love. Like in all relationships, there was a time when our relations touched the zenith, but they had touched a nadir now. We were looking at each other when I took my eyes away from hers suddenly as if I was caught stealing something that didn’t belong to me. I did doubt if she still belonged to me.

The clouds created by virtue of our looking at each other were black and ready to burst. Her eyes were accusing me of many things I had not done. She was accusing me of not being worthy of accepting her in a nikah. I wish I could tell her about the host of issues hounding me. My life has been pushed out of the realms of any ordinary life because of them. I felt quite uncomfortable when she looked at me or even both of us looked at each other. I was rather glad she had gone.

With her gone, I felt the possibility of a secret fusion of the two of us that would have been capable of emitting ten times the energy trapped in a hydrogen bomb was now gone, and it was now gone forever, I was sure. I found myself at the heart of a penumbra of a deep sadness now that she had left me, but I thought it best to moderate these impressions. But then, I really wasn’t sure whether to rejoice at her having left or be concerned at its awkwardness. Her presence had made me feel uncomfortable, and yet her absence made me all the more unhappy.

I wanted to share my life with her. She seemed to be the only one in the world who could ever be an audience to all the ramblings of my heart and even my mind. There is an innate urge in all of us to share our thoughts and feelings. This is why language came into being, and it has developed to such great heights. I wanted to use whatever limited skills at language I have to share all I had in my heart with her. I wanted a companion in my life. I wanted someone who would be with me through all the crests and troughs that life puts up before its subscribers. I wanted to enjoy life to its fullest, and the pity is life can only be enjoyed if there is someone with whom one can share all the joy and happiness in life.

She too had a similar feeling in her heart. She had an innate urge to belong to someone. She wanted to care for someone, she wanted someone to take good care of her. She wanted to love someone, she wanted to dedicate her whole life to someone, and that someone was to be me. She wanted to love someone to the extent  of  madness; she wanted to be loved by someone to the extent of madness. She wanted the impartial and disinterested love of someone.

She had realised the purpose of life was loving someone. There wasn’t another aim in her life. She too had had her share of clouds in her life, and now she wanted to experience their showers. She too had felt the excitement of being loved, and she had experienced the joy of holding hands and snuggling up to me once in a while. But she wanted more from life. She wanted them to be a part of her life forever. She wanted to remain in my company forever and a day. She didn’t want us to part ways once we were in company. She didn’t want to go away that day either.

This had been the worst part of the day for both of us for the past many months. We did find eternal bliss and happiness in each other’s company while we were together on the bench in the park, but we also experienced remorse and sadness of parting when we had to part ways later in the day. It was quite disgusting, but there wasn’t a way out. This was the time of the day that repeated itself everyday. This was when our hearts throbbed with a tragic intensity. We had to be assured of the other’s presence beside each other for our heart-beats to be reduced to normal.

We yearned to maintain a normal heart-beat everyday, although it ran away with the wind everyday when we went the different ways indicated in our destinies. We pined for each other’s company while we were away from each other. There was an immense sense of dissatisfaction within both of us. Both of us felt like we had missed the last ride on the Metro that day. Of course, there were other modes of transport available in the city, but they had their own drawbacks. Nothing could ever be compared to a ride on a Metro. The safety and security provided by even the last trip on the Metro was unmatched. We might be robbed on board a public bus or a ride on an auto may even be ambushed by a couple of thugs. There was a typical sense of security associated with a Metro ride. We needed to be close to each other to experience the sense of security; we wanted it to be a part of our lives forever and a day.

We needed to be in each other’s company for the feeling of satisfaction and security one experiences in a masjid. The experience is like being washed in a bottle of distilled water every single moment we were together. All our sins were washed away with the purity and chastity of love. We emerged from the experience like we were born the very moment. We wanted to preserve the novelty of being born everyday instead of letting it whither off with time as does the sweet fragrance of an agarbatti.  This was when we went our own ways to our homes.  There was nothing exciting about going home after the beautiful experience we discovered in each others company everyday, but it only added to the excitement we felt the next day when we were together again.

This time, the excitement was never to be felt again. She had left me forever and a day. We were never to meet again. She was to embark on a journey the next day, and the journey may bring her face-to-face before many new adventures that may not have been a part of her life had the journey been completed with me. I shall also  experience some different adventures with someone else.

I wonder if this was the positive side of a plea I had made before Allah. There are three things that are to happen when one a plea before Allah isn’t accepted : you get an equal and equivalent amount of sabaab in the world hereafter, or one of your sins is pardoned, or an untoward event headed for you will miss you. Is the someone else fated for me going to be better than the one I know? I did pray vehemently for her as a life-partner, but the dua has not been accepted. Should I be happy that one of my sins has been pardoned? I do wonder what untoward event was fated for me before my plea was nullified. Am I better off without her being a part of me?

Allah knows the best. 

She Paints A Portrait On The Canvas Of My Life

She Paints A Portrait On The Canvas Of My Life

My life provided a canvas large enough for any kind of sketch or picture to be painted. A rudimentary sketch of the first rays of the rising sun was being sketched on it as she walked into the room. My eyes were reduced to chinks by virtue of the sharp light she brought with herself into the room. She brought with herself a lot of hope and happiness into the room along with herself. These are some of the elements of a healthy life that were missing from my life, although there seemed to be an abundance of these feelings in everyone else’s life. Hope and happiness seem to have forgotten the address of my being while on their tour over the world.

She should have been in the room a long time back, but she had been waiting for the appointed time to enter the room. It had been a long wait for me, but I’ve a lot of patience. Because I was sure she would surely enter the room at the appointed time, it is only my patience that is being tested, I have waited. Time seems to have been playing a game with me. The watch I held in my hand had the typicality of being either  too slow or it didn’t work at all. Either I had to wait for a long time for the appointed time to come for a lot of events in my life, or the events which had been promised by my fate to occur didn’t happen at all. It has been quite frustrating to see others enjoying the fruits of youth, while I have to wait for the appointed time which doesn’t seem to come. I feel I wasted quite a bit of my youth in waiting for events to occur, but the fact remains I’ve never had much of a choice in life but to wait. I tried to make the watch work the way I want it to  by shaking it and thumping on it, but my actions to this end have been of no use. I could never have done what my fate didn’t want to happen; I’ve been a mere puppet in the hands of time. Making an estimate of the time from looking at the position of the stars and moon and sun hasn’t served any purpose. It has been a waste of time.

The task of waiting was being done by her with equal patience. I realised that she had also been waiting anxiously for someone to knock on the doors of her heart. She seemed to be waiting  for me to knock on some more doors in her heart before she opened all gates even as she sat on the bedstead. She gave me a broad smile, and I took it to be in response to the activity of my knuckles on her heart. She had a deep feeling that someone would surely one day   walk up to the bank of emotions she had, and knock a door so loudly that the sound would reverberate all across her being. She had been waiting patiently for me to knock on her heart all these years. There was a inarticulate thankfulness stuffed into the air between us. I wanted to thank her for being a part of me, and she wanted to thank me for accepting her as a part of my life. Both of us remained silent; we would thank each other by exchanging a lion’s share of love and attention in the coming years.

She looked like the quite and docile lady I’d been looking forward to welcoming into my life all these years. I did need someone to tone down the evil effects of time and destiny. She too had been through a considerable amount of bathos in life. Life is never easy for anyone, it had not been easy for her too. But is this merely a false perception one develops when one can’t seem to find happiness in one’s own life? The yellow world perceived by a jaundiced eye came to the fore before me.

She was all set to handle the oars of my life from now on. There was a tingling excitement within both of us when we were able to perceive our future in the present moment, at least a part of the future was before us, we had already set out on a journey that was to be a long one. The future has quite a bit of the past, but I have had had enough of my past and even my present doesn’t seem to be exciting at all. I want to move on to the future now. It was waiting to be embraced by me dressed in red, and it was all in white for her. The contrasting colours didn’t signify a different future for both of us, but it was all about discovering the beauty of some of the most beautiful moments of our lives together while the colours splashed all over to provide a beautiful experience.

The experience would have certainly been a better one had the colours splashed at an earlier instance, but I would never have been able to acknowledge the beauty of the experience to the lady before me. It would have been given to a different person. No one can be better than the lady before me, I’m sure. I wonder if I can safely say this, I do wonder if I am at a stage when the intellect is sharper than emotions. I can never claim myself to be at the brightest period of masculine growth as my intellect and emotions are yet not wide apart: I still use my heart to take some decisions. But I have certainly crossed the stage of life when youth indiscriminately mingle decisions and impulse.

The only positive point I seem to score above everyone else is the gift I seem to have for using language to describe beauty when I see it before me. The lady before me seemed to be searching for a looking-glass while she looked at me. Apparently, she wanted me to delineate all her beauty in words that a looking-glass may never have been able to articulate. The satire was that my intellect seemed to have gone for a break from that very moment. She parted her lips to say something I couldn’t hear in the medley of emotions rushing through my heart at that moment. I perceived a faint blush on her cheeks even though she was heavily covered in make-up. The blush reflected the miracle effected by my words even though I had said nothing.

She seemed to be quite like the pair of socks people wear before they put on shoes to provide warmth and security. Many people manage to go along without using socks, but I have never used shoes without socks. She was indispensable for me. She was someone who was going to bring a lot more than warmth and security in my life: she was to bring hordes of happiness and mirth into my dull and serene life.  I really don’t know if I am correct in expecting anything from her, I don’t think I should harbour any expectations. I should be willing to accept her in whatever form life presents her before me.

A sluggish day was breaking in the world outside the room all this was happening in it. The night had declared an end to the day preceding it and it had crept up at an unusually fast pace without our knowing it. The bright and sharp light of the rays of the sun she had brought into the room by virtue of her very presence still illuminated the room, and I hope it continues to do so as long as we live. 

We Run Away

We Run Away  

There certainly were not a lot of options before us when we chose to run away from our homes. The safety and security of home is where one can find paradise, but we didn’t see our paradise in our homes. There simply wasn’t the attention we were looking for in our homes. None of our family members could possibly make our hearts beat wildly when any of them looked at us, they could never give us the feeling of being on the seventh sky each time we inched closer to any of them on the sofa. There was a feeling of social harmony in the family, and we wanted something more than this.

We lived with our families, and our family members often interacted with each other. There was a perfect bonhomie between our family members. It was such that the two families living in different homes and yet the households were considered to be one. The good relationship was what came between our dreams of being one. There was simply no way our parents could understand the platonic relationship we had formed. Both of us had formed the relationship because there was something missing in our respective homes. We did get all the love and attention of our family members, but their love was the love of family members. It was equally divided among all the family members. We wanted something more than this. We couldn’t tolerate the indivisibility of love. We wanted disinterested and impartial love. We simply couldn’t live without it. Gradually, over a period of time, it became more important than anything else for us. The two of us were the only ones who could give it to each other, we were well aware of this.

The need for disinterested love is a part of the transition from adolescence to adulthood. All of us reach the stage of life when we need huge amounts of disinterested and impartial love. The two of us had touched the points in our lives when we needed something more than the selfless and unconditional love of our family members, and we found it in each other. The two of us seemed to be the ideal person each of us was looking for. We complimented each other because both of us had the typical yearning to be loved by someone. The longing is a part of everyone’s personality, but in our cases, it was ingrained in a typical manner. We seemed to be the ideal persons for each other right from the first time we met.

We met a long time back, when we were quite young. We were in school and the feeling of love wasn’t a part of our lives to the extent it had become now. There were bubbles of puppy-love between us, and we enjoyed the excitement to the full capacity. Even then, our hearts beat wildly while we were together. A pacemaker would have been inefficient to control the fast rate at which our hearts beat. There was a ton of excitement in being together, and we were often together courtesy the good relations of our parents.

We could not retain the values of childhood for a long time, and as adults, we wanted to capture the excitement forever and a day. The problem with emotions is that they are ephemeral and can never be preserved in any single unit of time. This is also the best part of emotions. Had it been possible to preserve grief and sorrow in a block of time, some of us would certainly have done it. There  are moments in everyone’s life when bathos dominates the scene and one dives so deep in sorrow that one begins to wish life were submerged in it forever and a day. Likewise, the best part of our lives is always so short that it disappears soon after it has begun. One is left groping in the air as the sweetest moments of our lives disappear into thin air.

Our feelings were certainly meant to fade into thin air as none of us had the courage to confess the affection we had  for each other before our parents. A confession may have brought the situation to a nadir. A fraternal relationship was believed to be existent  between the two families. A knowledge of our love-story would have been more of a rude shock to our parents. No one would have been able to understand things and look at them from our points of view. The episode would have been brushed under the carpet of daily interaction and everyone would have forgotten all about it in a few days.

We didn’t want our love-story to be scribbled on foolscap papers by scholars and added to the pile of rubbish that accumulates over time in dumping-grounds. We were not prepared to give up the passion of love  for anything in the world. We made a firm mind to run away from home and establish an independent set-up which would not have any of our family members. We didn’t want to be a part of a family that was inimical to our love.

We ran away from our homes. We didn’t have a choice because she was supposed to be the host before a visiting family the next day who were to be there to discuss the final stages of a matrimonial alliance with their son. We felt like Romeo and Juliet out of the Elizabethan world out to fight the contemporary word on our own terms. We were determined not to immortalize our experience like the protagonists of the play. Killing ourselves was certainly not going to be the solution to our  problems. We had not broken conventions to kill ourselves: we had done it to enjoy the fruit of each other’s company as long as we lived. Our company was going to give us more satisfaction and happiness than the safety and security of our homes. It was to propel a feeling of being in paradise while we were together.

I hope the feeling  never leaves us.

A Miracle Happens

A Miracle Happens

There was a lot to share in the few hours before us. It was certainly not going to be a night without end for any of us, and although we were quite exhausted after a day’s hectic schedule, we did our best to savour the beauty of the passing moments at least with our eyes.

Our eyes had been the most enthusiastic tasters of the ecstasy that had come into our lives over the past few days, but they were drooping with fatigue now.  We did our best not to let them close.  Both of us were like new books to each other. The books were yet to be opened, and their chapters were to reveal the entire story as told by the protagonists themselves. Each chapter had a different plot with a different setting, but with the same characters. The two characters in the first chapter we had just opened were attracted by the novelty each presented before the other. We made sure our eyes remained open despite all attempts by the eyelashes to bring down the eyelids like shutters on a shop. The books were screaming for attention. We could not ignore the appeals. They had to be browsed through, the pages had to be flipped through if they could not be read comprehensively at present. The typical smell of paper did thrill us, but there was a sweet scent of a room-freshener in the room dominating over the other scent. It was a good beginning of an exciting journey where the passengers were supposed to share their entire lives with each other. We did our best to draw as much reference and wisdom from the first few chapters of the books before us.

Both of us were at our wits’ end as to what to talk of at that moment although each of us were simply dieing to tell the other one a thousand secrets buried in our hearts. There were several stories waiting to be told and several characters were waiting to be unfurled in the books each of us held. The opening pages of the books before us were to define and determine a  lot of our future interaction with each other. They contained the important introductory paragraphs on each of us. A complete comprehension of the first few chapters was required to propel a train of happiness through our beings. It had already begun on a long journey with the two us as its passengers. The journey was to be quite a tough one, it was to be long enough too to give us enough time to know each other; all chapters of our lives were now to be opened and read with great enthusiasm. There were to be many stations on the way---quite a few platforms and some halts were in the menu served on board. They were the important points of embarkation and even of disembarkation of some passengers who were to play some important roles in our lives. They were to be some important stations in the journey. A combination of all of our senses was required to understand all the milieu that is exchanged at these stations. Zeenat was sure to get on one such station, and she was supposed to be on the train for a long time. She is going to be the most important passenger I’ve been looking forward to welcoming on the train. They are  to be some of the most beautiful moments of my life.  While my olfactory senses absorbed the beauty of the present moment with their expertise, my visual senses were blinded by the brilliance and magnificence of the miracle before me.

We were together for the first time after a formal nikah. I wasn’t expecting anything wonderful from life at this stage, but it was certainly going to be a memorable moment for both of us. A miracle was about to be staged, and I wanted to savour every bit of it to the best of my abilities. The miracle was all about our compatibility and how we got along together. We were quite different, we hardly knew each other till a few days ago, and yet destiny had put us together on the same train and on the same journey. We were to come across several new sights through the windows, while there were to be several new faces we would get to know. Quite a few were to hop on, stay on the train for a while, and hop off a few stations later. The two of us would be the only ones who proposed to complete the journey of the train. We were to form a gel that was to bind us together for a long time to come.

I fell madly in love with her right from that very moment. I didn’t have much of a choice, to be very frank. She had been chosen by the elders at home, but she was the only one in the world who was going to love me and only me, I know. The marital bond meant I was going to get someone who was to love me to no end. There is a typical joy related with being loved by someone, and I looked forward to cherishing the joy for a long time to come now that I had found that someone.

One of the best things about this joy is that it comes without any charges. All it takes is a reciprocation of the same emotion in the same quantum. I was ready to give her all my love and attention. This was all she asked for in return for the priority she was to give me over many important things in her life and even in mine. She was someone who was going to stand with me even if I went to the Tundra or to the Sahara desert. In return, I was also prepared to forego all I had for her.

She was also going to command a lot of my time and attention now. Given my unemployed status, I have a lot of time to give to her, and she is most welcome to enjoy all the attention I can possibly ever give anyone. I did wonder if she thanked her stars for my being unemployed.  Had I found myself employed in any respectable capacity, she may not be able to get all the time and attention from me that she can get now. It would have been a different world for both of us had I been employed in some capacity. It would have made me a completely different person. I may have been in a better position to tackle the world and its problems, but I may not be able to give her the time and attention I can spare now. The difference would have been in tackling the world’s problems, and tackling her problems. I wonder if I stand better before her because I can tackle her problems better than I can tackle the world’s problems.  I wonder if she likes me all the more because I can give her all the attention she wants me to give her. She had certainly become the most important person in the world for me now. She had now become someone I had to care for as long as she lived. She was a part of me now. I was going to have to fight with the world for her and perhaps even be maligned in the process. The miracle before me was saying a lot of things I wanted to hear, and I wanted to give an ear to everything the miracle spoke of.

The beauty of the moment before us was ephemeral, and yet there didn’t seem to be an end to the ecstasy the moment gave up. I wanted to bathe in all the ecstasy it showered while it occurred. The only way to do this was to stand at the centre of the miracle and be drenched in all the ecstasy it showered.  I positioned myself at the centre of the miracle and let my world and all the suffering it was surrounded by go for a short leave. I wanted to forget everything about my sufferings, but the problem is that suffering in the world can never be ignored; it has to be lived with, one has to learn how to tackle suffering in such a way that it appears to be non-existent.  The moment one’s sufferings appear on the surface of one’s life, it steals quite a bit of the beauty inherent in life. The positioning of one’s sufferings does make a lot of difference when one considers the view one puts up before the world.

The world is certainly the most beautiful place one can ever live in, but for this to be possible, there should be happiness and satisfaction in our lives. The miracle was to propel a lot of it into our lives. Let us hope the world remains the most beautiful place it became for us for a long time. I hope the effects of the miracle never fade off.

The Direction Of The Wind

The Direction Of The Wind
My heart leaped up when the wind brushed past me. It blew from the west of the town where she lived. This was all I knew about her. The wind probably knew the complete address of my betrothed. I wish I knew where she lived, but it was a mystery for me. I wish she would make my heart her home forever and a day. I wanted to ask the wind if it reeled when it touched her lips, or if it liked the touch of her hair. I’m sure it did cause some ruffles in her heart as it went over it.  I wanted to know if she had inhaled the same air about an hour ago, or had the honour been given to a different gale of wind. I took a deep breath of air considering myself lucky to be able to inhale from the same gust of wind that went through her nostrils.

There seemed to be a typical musical accompaniment along with the gust of wind.  The music signified a lot of facts buried in her heart.  Apparently, she was happier than anyone else in the world. She had to be happy; she had to be a lot happier than me for she is supposed to propel a train of happiness through me in a few days. There has been a severe drought of mirth and laughter in my life created by the flow of Time through the ravines of my being. The intensity of the draught in my life has been multiplied manifold over the past couple of years by my inability to reach out to a source of happiness. I wonder if she can guide me to such a source when she joins forces with me.

I wonder if she is also thinking of me at the present moment. She must have an idea of me; she must know my name and some other relevant details. I don’t know anything about her. I do wonder how many times my thoughts cross her mind: I’m sure she thinks of me: I do wonder  if I am I a part of the dreams she dreams with her eyes closed? I’m sure she spells out my name on the slate of her heart with kaajal borrowed from her eyes. Does she look at my photograph and mutter my name? Or is it an involuntary phenomenon that repeats itself several times over and over again through the night when she dreams of me?

At times, I wish I could at least talk to her. I want to tell her a lot about myself. I don’t think she has a comprehensive idea of what lies in store for her. I do wonder what ideas she has about the partner she is to find in me. I want to make sure she isn’t under any delusion. I can never be the Prince Charming young girls dream of being with. I’m certainly not what any young girl ever dreams of. I’ve been pushed down by my fate to join the company of the unfortunate. I don’t want her to join the same league, but being a part of me, she would also have to embrace bad luck. This has been a trait of our family. But then, if I think of it in a positive manner, she might bring a bout of good luck and my fate might decide to change its course when she is a part of me.

This is sure to happen in a few days. While she proceeds to fill in some gaps in my life, I will also punctuate some sentences in her life. There are always some copies to be edited in everyone’s life. While the newspaper of my life has had quite a few unedited copies, I’m sure her life has also not been an easy one. She would never have been a part of me had she enjoyed the luxury of an error-free copy in her life. The problem has been that there has been no one to correct any of them in my case. I wonder if she has had anyone to do something more than merely rectify the grammatical errors and spelling mistakes that life has pushed before her.

I wonder if this is merely a facet of human nature to perceive a yellow world if one has an infection of jaundice.  Is this a consolation I give to myself because there have been quite a few issues hounding my life and I can’t do anything positive about them? I’m sure she has her had her share of sorrows and grief. Life is never easy for anyone, I know. Everyone has his or her share of problems, and it is the expertise with which one hides one’s grief that spells out the image one casts upon society. I wonder if she has been able to stash her share of problems like students hide material they can copy from in examinations when an invigilator approaches them. I hope she can teach some skills to me too.

There are many things I must learn from her. I badly need instructions on how to find happiness in life and how much of it my life can take in. I only hope I haven’t been hoping to get a lot more happiness than what is destined for me. One can never get more than the share of bliss that is destined for one, I know. The problem is there is no way one can  get an idea of the amount of bliss one is destined for. This is probably why everyone does one’s best to stuff one’s life full of as much happiness as one can. There seems to be a severe draught of happiness in everyone’s heart. As a corollary,   there seems to be no end to the happiness one can stash into one’s life. Because a limit has not been defined, everyone does his or her best to fill the bag to the very limit. One really doesn’t know when the bag gets full, and this is when the bag begins to accept sorrow as a part of its routine filling. She has a comprehensive idea of the amount of happiness that is the ideal, I’m sure. I certainly don’t want my life to accept sorrow and grief as the norm.

No one wants sorrow and grief to be a part of his or her life, but there is very little one can do about it. I only hope the two of us can row the boat over the turbulent oceans of our lives using the limited capacity of the oars I hold. I also doubt whether I’m skilled enough to handle the oars on my own, but then I’m consoled by the thought that the rowing is to be done by the two of us. It is not to be a one man show.  The rowing is going to be quite  tough considering my inability to do many things my peers can: life is going to be quite tough. She would have to do the major part of the rowing. I only hope she is strong enough to bear through all the strain ordinary life puts up.

She hasn’t been life’s subscriber for as long as I have, but this doesn’t mean she doesn’t have an idea of the intricacies life is to put up before us. The duration of subscription to life is never proportionate to what one has learnt from life. She has already had quite a few lessons from life, and she is sure to have solutions to all these problems our life puts up. Life reaches out to everyone who cares to learn from it with the most elaborate lessons, and I’m sure she has been an ardent student of life. She would be in a better position to tackle the problems of life than I would be.

My experiences with life have certainly taught me several important lessons, but the most important and the best of these has been that there must be a dream all of us must see that awaits fulfillment. The dream is what pushes us to make positive efforts in life. The fulfillment of this dream is what keeps us kicking and alive throughout our lives. In my case, the dream is that of Zeenat. The very thought of Zeenat tingles me with a freshness I haven’t ever known before. The lady hailing from the west may bring along with her chances of my living a second life in the dream I call Zeenat. Zeenat may not remain the dream she has been for a long time if she joins me.  I hope she acknowledges my inclination for Zeenat as a part of me.

The wind blowing from the west is quite likely to change its direction tomorrow, but I shall pin up most of my hopes of an easy life when the wind blows from the west. I hope life is a bit easy for both of us whatever may be the direction of the wind.

She Left Many Leagues Unfathomed

She Left Many Leagues Unfathomed

I did cause some sparrows to flutter up in the sky as I walked into the courtyard. They only regarded me wearily from a safe height, and then descended to feed on whatever they found on the ground at a more respectable distance from me. This happened several times as I walked across the courtyard for a while. Apparently, the birds lived in a world that did not want them; their case was similar to mine. There seemed to be a magical thread of fellowship that united my life with theirs.

She had walked out of my life like the shadows of tall buildings closely follow the heels of dusk and eventually fade into the night. I felt really bad about it. She was the only beam of light in the dark world for me. She had brightened up quite  a large portion of my life with light borrowed from a couple of jugnu and sweetened the sour portions of my life with flavour borrowed from some jalebi. But there was to be a change in all this now. The luminosity of the light had come down, while the sweetness of quite a few portions of my life had been scaled down. Things would never be what they used to be.  

I felt like someone who is thrown out of a room where the cool aura of a desert cooler on a hot and dry day in April prevailed. This had been done in quite an unceremonious manner, and considering the delightful hour I had spent in the room, it was quite a punishment. There was a hot ‘loo’ blowing around the city, and the cooler had provided a considerable amount of relief from it while I was in the room. I had to bear the warm weather of April with a smile on my face, but this was simply not possible now when I had been pushed out of the room.

With her gone from my life, my future was no longer a mystery I wanted to solve applying principles of companionship and love. Love and companionship had given us solutions to almost all problems we encountered over the past few years. Several enigmas of life had been solved by virtue of our combined efforts. When her physical self absent from my life, I began feeling the importance of its presence all the more.  I didn’t look forward to the future at all now, a future that would not have her in it. There doesn’t seem to be a future at all. She was the one who held all keys to the gates secured by Time, and with her gone, these gates are to remain closed forever and a day. There was no one to love and no one I could call mine.

There has never been a dearth of people willing to part with unconditional and disinterested love whenever I needed it, but here was a stage of life when I needed to love someone. For a healthy sustenance, it is important for all of us to have someone to love. This is why many of us keep pets. There is an innate urge to love someone ingrained in all of us. This is what makes babies so special for mothers, and for everyone else for that matter. We live to serve Allah, but while we live, there must be someone to live for, and someone we can even die for. Things would have been quite different had not the instinct to love someone been ingrained in all of us. Park benches would certainly have been weeping for company in such a scenario!

They are a host to quite a few adventurous couples who dare to dream dreams that violate the norms and standards set out by society.

The two of us did see quite a few dreams together. With her gone, I wonder if it is to be the end of the road for all of them. Dreams fade away when one opens one’s eyes after a deep sleep, but some of the dreams we had seen together lingered on for quite some time even after we opened our eyes. Quite a few of the dreams we saw together left irremovable marks over the fabric of our lives while they rang quite  a few sonorous bells throughout our lives. I’m sure they shall still linger on for quite some time.

I did wonder if she took away the most important aspect of my life when she walked out of my house and life. I was looking forward to looking at a dream called Zeenat with my eyes open. Looking at dreams with open eyes does push in a lot of confidence. I want to feel confident. After all these years, Zeenat has emerged as the most important dream I have ever dreamt. I strongly feel Zeenat is someone alive and kicking in a distinct part of my being. I badly want to see the dream come true.  I love Zeenat more than anything or anyone else in the world. She knew this when she walked out of my life.

I sometimes feel she doesn’t deserve the attention I have been giving her. She would never have left so many leagues unfathomed had she been worthy of any of it. But one can never blame just the captain of the ship when it sinks to the bottom. Disasters always occur because of the inability of all those on the ship to pool in their efforts to keep the ship afloat. All the same, there is a white flag signifying an emergency that needs immediate attention.

I wonder if the white flag signifies the terminating point for all my dreams. With her gone from the scene, I don’t think my dream is ever going to be a reality. She might come back one day in another form and she just might ring the same bells as she did when she was here, but some things can never be the same again. I don’t look forward to giving an ear to the same chimes being rung all over again, but with a slight variation, some melodies can be quite pleasing. I wonder if she would be willing to accept the variations I would like to see in our lives. Most probably not.

There is certainly a huge void left over by her in my life. A lot of different voids have been created within me over time and all of them seem to be waiting to be filled in by someone with love. The pits have to be filled in by someone special who will love me in a special way. The voids apparently can never be filled in by anyone but her self. She was the one who held the magic wand with powers to quell the wildest fires burning in these pits. She did help in filling up some of the pits over the past few years, but quite a few maintain their empty status. I don’t think anyone else would be able to do what she did. I wish I could fetch her back into my life.

The morning has assumed a different meaning for me now. The sun had set a long time back, but it refuses to rise again. There doesn’t seem to be an end to fajr. Though I offered the due namaaz a long time back, yet the time seems to have been extended to infinity in my case. I guess Allah wants me to offer some nafl namaaz in the extra time. I wonder if I should thank Allah for this or should I curse my destiny for the extension. The extension could have been granted  in order to enable me to score some more points in my favour in the test Allah conducts. I guess this is the ulterior motive behind all tests Allah conducts with his faithful followers as examinees. I ought to be grateful Allah considers me to be His faithful follower. I ought to cash in on the opportunity.

The time during daybreak is the time when offering namaaz is makruh. I don’t have a lot of time with me if I want to score some brownie points.  She has certainly left at quite a crucial time, but this is the time when all the birds in the courtyard I walked into emerge from their nests for a fresh new day. Life still goes on.

The Diver Touches The Bottom Of The Pool

The Diver Touches The Bottom Of The Pool

She was the physical manifestation of the wish I’d made when I saw a shooting-star in the sky. It was quite a dark and yet clear night, there certainly was a new moon in the sky to alleviate the darkness of the night when I witnessed the celestial event. I badly wanted her to be with me that night.

She was walking out of the park while I was walking in through the gate the next day. Wishes made on looking at a shooting-star are usually granted within a day, I’d heard people say, but I never expected my wish to be granted so soon. There were a lot of other people in the park; I did wonder if any of their wishes too had been granted by the shooting-star. I considered myself lucky. I wish I had made a dozen more wishes.

I was a bit perturbed because she seemed to be all set to enter my heart once she was in my  eyes, the distance between the two not being much. She was already standing at the doorstep of my heart. I didn’t want anyone to enter my heart, it is where Zeenat dwells. There was no way of stopping her, she was already at the doorstep with one of her foot inside the precincts of my heart.

She was going to be someone who would help me get through many things in my life including my past. There have been so many horrifying experiences in the past that I was looking forward to forget all of my past and plunge into the future that stood before me. I’ve been looking forward to the future for quite some time now. There would be the excitement of discovering new adventures everyday. There is certainly nothing exciting about my past now; I only have the future to look up to for some amount of fun and adventure.

My life badly needs a strong dose of fun and adventure, and here was a chance to claim everything my heart ever wanted. The point is that I had been daunted by images of some ghosts of my past till now. They threatened to tear me to pieces if I moved towards the future. I hope they stop tormenting me once I’m a part of my future. I’ll certainly be beyond their reach, but some of them shall continue to torment me for a long time to come.

 I felt like a diver who is faced with a dive so deep that he thinks twice before jumping in. He has never attempted anything so deep ever q before in his diving career although all fellow divers have dived to deeper depths.  The very thought of touching tingling cold water on a cold and frosty morning did take away some of his enthusiasm, but then he thought of the immense excitement, pleasure and satisfaction that would emanate from the adventure.

I was already dripping in the ecstasy and excitement of the future I saw in her eyes even while she stood at a distance. The very thought of diving into all the new adventures I saw in her eyes was quite exciting. There was a mystery lurking in the shadows beneath her eyes. Did they hold a clue to the future? I did wonder what the future would appear to be if I took a deep breath and dived at that very moment.

In the normal course of events, I would have found myself deep in the water a long time back, but then, very little has been normal in my case. I simply can’t expect such an important aspect of my life to have followed the normal course too. Very little in my life has flowed the normal course. There is a huge amount of frustration and anger within me because things haven’t turned out the normal way in my case. Zeenat would have been a part of the world a long time back in the normal course. I would not have had to suffer the way I have suffered had things followed the normal course.

I don’t feel I have been treated in a special manner, but I feel like having to jump on the last bus home at the last moment. In fact, it is not even a jump; it is more of a push. I’m being shoved on the bus because everyone else has reached home, while I still loiter around the bus-stop. The diver has been pushed into the water because  everyone else is already in the pool; he was the last on the spring-board. He didn’t have much of a choice.

The diving adventure might result in a disaster as some of my peers have reported. The aquatic atmosphere is going to present some remarkably new challenges and novelties for someone like me who is totally new to it. I do wonder if I am fit for these challenges. I hope my muscles are strong enough to bear the strain. I’m aware that I’m many leagues behind my peers in many ways.

I do wonder where I took the detour that brought me to the end at such a late point of time. I wish I could go back in time and rectify all that went wrong and whenever it went wrong. Had everything gone well in my case, I would have been all set to plumb new depths today.

On second thoughts, it could be that Allah kept me away from the depths because I may not have been able to handle the extra pressure I would have encountered at these depths  had I touched the depths at an earlier instance. There is certainly a lot of pressure and tension to be found when one dives to great depths as compared to what is found on the surface. I wonder if I could have handled all the pressure and tension marital life throws upon its subscribers had I embraced the novelty earlier. Allah knows the best. I don’t think I should ask any such questions: the diver is already half-way to the water, he is about to touch the water.

The novelty of the experience is going to be with the diver for only a short period of time. The part of the pool he has been forced to dive in is not as deep as the part where his peers have dived. He is sure to touch the bottom of the pool in a short while. 

The night is set to get a lot more dark and somber as time passes by. I hope to discover many  more adventures wrapped in the clouds that would be a part of the night the next day.

The Draught In Our Hearts

The Draught In Our Hearts

A severe draught prevails in my heart. Happiness seems to have forgotten the location of my heart when it is out on its daily tour. Its itinerary doesn’t seem to have my heart in it. This is the scene you are to find in my heart.

The first step you take into my life is to be observed with a big celebration. The event is anticipated and awaited by everyone I know. Everyone seems to be ready with gifts and presents to welcome you into my life. There are to be several surprises unpacked when we open these gifts. I’ve a good mind to preserve the wrappers as memoirs of those who were a part of our happiness.

Besides these gifts and presents, there shall be several doors leading to happiness you will open. Happiness seems to be trapped within the chambers of my heart.  You are the one who holds keys to some of the strongest locks clamped on the chambers of my heart by Time. The gates need to be opened for a sustainable flow of emotions through the chambers of the heart, for there to be happiness in my life.

These locks on the chambers of my heart are so strong and powerful that all my efforts to open them have been futile. I have even hurt myself in my attempts to uncork happiness. This has been like trying to open a bottle of Coke with one’s bare hands. A bottle-opener is required to uncork the horde of happiness packed in a bottle. I’m sure you know how to use a bottle-opener to the best of its worth. The locks shall ultimately be opened.

Time has all the keys to all the locks on the chambers of my heart, but it refuses to unlock any of the chambers before I reach a definite destination. I do wonder if you are the destination I am headed for. Will you step up to unlock the chambers of my heart with keys borrowed from Time? I find myself unable to provide any help in unlocking the gates to my heart because I’m unable to cover the path that leads to the locks.

My efforts to conquer the long and arduous track set out by Time have not been successful in any manner. I’m sure you can cover the distance with ease and elegance and you will surely help Time open up the locks on the chambers of my heart with the keys it has. There are layers of rust on these locks. They have been waiting for a long time to be opened.

I wonder why you refused to be a part of me at an earlier instance.  You were at several junctions at which the train of my life had stopped for a while, but you chose to board the train at the very last junction. The steam engine had almost run out of steam and coal by this time.

I don’t think I’m in a fit position to declare you a late comer because the junction at which you were to join me was fixed a long time before I was born. This has been a part of my destiny just as you have been chosen for me by destiny. I don’t think I hold any rights to question something done by Allah, but I  do wonder why destiny chose you to be a part of me. There must be something special about you. I wonder if there are any similarities between us.

I do wonder if you are also faced by a similar draught in your heart as I am. Is it like the one I find in my heart, or is it a bit different? There seems to be a famine in everyone’s heart. There is a universal draught of love in everyone’s heart all over the world; the biggest paradox is that love is found in everyone’s heart all over the world, and yet everyone seems to be dying to taste a few dregs of the potion of love.

The problem is that people fail to recognise the  presence  of love in their hearts. I’m sure you are going to help me identify the small bits and portions of love I fail to identify. Love is scattered all over my life but in small bits and pieces like the different pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I only need to recognise the different and yet congruent pieces and organise them into a whole to form a complete picture, but I need your help in doing this. I can’t do it on my own.

 My entry into your life is also to be celebrated with equal vigour. I shall also fill in several voids in your life. I do wonder if the pits I would proceed to fill in your life with my love are deeper than the pits you propose to fill in my life with your presence. The love in these pits is bound to splash over when the wheels of an automobile run over them. This is to happen quite often, but this doesn’t mean the quantity of love is going to be reduced. The splashes  are going to make our lives all the more exciting and interesting.

The biggest excitement waiting for me seems to be at the mythical end of the rainbow. Zeenat is someone who stands at an end of the rainbow, a place no one has ever visited. She is like the pot of gold believed to be present at the terminating-point of every rainbow. Zeenat is going to bring brighter colours in my life than the seven colours of a rainbow.  The pot of gold at the end of every rainbow is certainly fictive, but for me, Zeenat is worth more than all the real pots of gold in the real world.

The path to the pot of gold is strewn with thorns and pebbles. Zeenat is going to be someone really difficult to find, I know, but your company is going to make a tough and difficult task relatively easy. Nothing in my life has been easy, but your company is going to change the equations, I’m sure. Zeenat has been a dream I’ve seen with my eyes closed; you are going to show me the dream with my eyes open.  I’m looking forward to welcoming Zeenat into my life with more zeal and enthusiasm than I look forward to welcome you into my life.

Zeenat has dominated my heart and my being for such a long time that she already seems to be a part of the life you propose to enter in a few days. I love Zeenat more than anyone else in the world. I wonder if I can maintain the same statement with an equal zeal  once you are a part of me.

There are bound to be some changes in the nature and number of occupants of my heart once you step into my life, but I don’t think I can ever give up the place allotted to Zeenat to anyone, not even to you. At the same time, I will appreciate your presence in my life because you are going to be the agent who is going to make my dream of Zeenat come true.

Zeenat is certainly going to alleviate the drought in my heart, and I’m sure she will scale down the drought in your heart too. I sometimes wonder why Allah chose to tackle the drought at such a late point of time. The world would have been a different place today had Zeenat heralded an entry at an earlier point of time. On second thoughts, it has not been my purview at all. The time of Zeenat’s entry into my life is predestined. I certainly don’t hold any rights to curse my fate for anything.

I sometimes wish I could make her life a bit easier than mine has been. I wish I could do something to make sure she doesn’t suffer the way I’ve suffered. She will certainly not go through all that I had to go through if she has you with her. The most I can do is pray to Allah to give her all the health and happiness she deserves and more. She is to have you by her side; I hope you give her all your selfless love and attention even when I’m not a part of this world. She certainly deserves all that, and being a part of you too, she deserves a lot more than that.

The Loaf Of Bread

The Loaf Of Bread

The street was unusually still for the hour of seven in the morning: an incessant drizzle beat down from the sky since dawn. Street lights were switched on, but they were quite hazy: it was as if a gauze piece were kept over them that filtered the light. Water trickled down the steep slope in the road in a continuum at a slow but regular pace. There were dark clouds over my head. I was out for a loaf of bread.

She had rung several bells of happiness in my life over the past couple of years, but I still waited for the most vibrant chime of all---Zeenat. Life had sounded a variety of cymbals in my life before she joined forces with me, there had been a lot of  entropy in my life, but she was someone who had managed to capture all that went astray to bring home a lot of joy and happiness.

It was as if I had been ready to jump off a moving train and she had clutched my hand at the last moment to pull me into the security of the coach. The railway track rushed by while I stood at the gate of the coach. She had done more than just hold my hand: she had pulled me into the coach too.

The coach provided security and safety toe both of us. our lives had pushed in several  elements of bliss and happiness into our lives despite the realization that life would have been entirely different fore both of us had I not have been blessed with a couple of handicaps. But then we would never have met each other. I do consider myself unlucky to be fated for so many issues, but then I also thank Allah for her company.

It has brightened up my life. There has been a lot of verbosity in the silence of  the morning ever since. Quite a few thoughts rush to my mind, but it is not possible for me even to think of the facets of life I would have had to see if these problems had not been a part of my life.

There would have been a n entirely different set of problems for me. I sometimes wonder if I would have been better off with these set of problems. Life would certainly have been different, and although I would still have had problems,  I may not have had her company. There would have been someone else in her stead. I do wonder if the other person would have been better than her.

I may not have dreamt all the dreams I have; I may not even have thought of Zeenat. The very thoughts of Zeenat have ignited a fire within me. There has been a roar of flames in my heart, and I’ve been forced to divert my mind to a dark corner of my heart. Zeenat’s thoughts have been strong and vibrant enough to illumine all my life.

As she is a part of my life, she too has to bask in the light shed by Zeenat’s thoughts. Before we had met, I did wonder how she was going to react to Zeenat and her presence in my life. We had decided to let Zeenat be the dream she is. Zeenat will never be anything to her; I had said this to her several times. She had agreed on not claiming any rights on Zeenat.

Zeenat is an ideal I have created in my mind. As matters stand, ideals are never   a part of ordinary life. They are shattered by the ruthlessness with which life flows. I don’t want my ideal to be shattered and destroyed. I don’t want it to be a part of real life.

I don’t think the Zeenat I have in my mind will ever be a reality. There re simply no perfect entities in the real world: ideals shatter when they clash with reality.

Should I stop dreaming of Zeenat? I would have to curtail my sleep for this to be possible. Cutting on the hours I sleep is going to imply a curtailment of the freshness I experience after a comprehensive sleep. I dream of Zeenat whenever I sleep. I don’t think I could ever stop sleeping or even of dreaming of Zeenat.

Zeenat seems to bet he driving force behind all my efforts for success. Whatever I do, I do for Zeenat. I want to continue to move towards success, but I don’t want the dream of Zeenat to come true.

I came back home without the loaf of bread--- I didn’t want any after all. It had stopped drizzling, and the street lights had been switched off.

A Call For Company

A Call For Company

We were together in Lohia Park for the tenth time in the past week, and none of us had had enough of each other’s company. We were happy when we were together: our company made us feel good. We came together again and again if only for a few dregs of the potion of love and satisfaction that our company brewed. Love is the elixir that makes life a lot more pleasing than it actually is. It certainly pushed our joy to the zenith.

We made sure we stayed in each other’s company for quite a long time. It did push our feelings to a new high  everyday. Her company made me feel more special and important than anyone else in the world. It pushed down feelings of inferiority ingrained in me by Time.

Love has the potential to switch on a couple of floodlights that expose one’s nature and character before the other person. This is why one has to be very honest when one is in love. The lights are quite like the lights thrown on celebrities and sportspersons. They add values to the realization that loving someone is all about making the other person feel as special and happy as possible.

We only had to inch closer to each other on the bench in the park to make each other feel special and good. I wasn’t sure if I gained more than her in the barter of emotions that went on while on the bench in Lohia Park. We clutched each other’s hands whenever we felt ourselves sinking in the well of emotions. There was always a sudden gush of hormones rushing through our bodies while our hands touched. We tightened our grips to capture all of them.    

Luckily, the park was visited only by couples like us. There was no policewala eulogizing on the positive aspects of an arranged marriage this time.

Lectures on this aspect of life were superfluous for both of us. Exposure to the society and its values over the past few years, and particularly an exposure to the Indian media was more than sufficient to give us a comprehensive idea of the merits and demerits of platonic love and its consequences.

At the end of the day,  none of us was prepared to break the norms of the society we lived in although we loved each other quite a lot. We came together on different occasions only for the joy and ecstasy associated with  being  with each other. We wanted to bathe in the wonderful feeling one has when he or she is loved by someone. Our being together could never be more than this.

All of us need love, and the joy of being loved is universal. Both of us were prepared   to give and take love and affection from each other.  The barter had to be conducted in a special manner because we knew we couldn’t love each other forever. There were differences which spoke louder than our wish to be together.

Most of the couples hanging around Lohia Park and other parks are well aware of the finite nature of their love-stories. They hang around because while they are close to each other, their emotions and feelings create a furore within them.  This is quite like the din created by a couple of naughty children splashing water in a swimming-pool.

Water in the pool wasn’t deep enough to drown the kids.  There certainly was a lot of water in the pool, but the water could never have taken their lives. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience for the children had they found themselves submerged in water.

But the children knew which part of the pool to stay away from to be clear of any form of danger. The kids knew how to swim, but they stayed away from deep water. They were in the pool only to enjoy the cool water and wet atmosphere.

We too look forward to the next meeting in the park if only to enjoy the bliss and happiness we find in each other’s company.

She Loved Me After All

She Loved Me After All

She wasn’t conscious of the looks I  was giving her. Her presence certainly added to the ambience of the mall. I found myself looking at beautiful shops, beautiful people and even the elevator seemed to have gained a remarkable aspect by virtue of her presence. She was the most striking of all of these.

I looked at her as she stood straight on the metallic structure holding the railing with one hand. There was a look of victory in her eyes. She seemed to have conquered the world. It hardly made any difference even if she had won the ICC World Cup that day. It was my ego that was hurt by a defiant wife.  I tried to make out if there were any regrets of the tiff we had had in the morning that day. All said and done, she was coming down from a great height---the second floor of the mall.

She was my wife, and she was descending after conducing some transactions on the second floor.  She was certainly coming down from the dominant position in the relationship. She did occupy an upper floor in the building of our relationship, but she was descending to a lower floor now. The second floor of the mall was where the jewelry store was, and I was sure she had gone there. She had been adamant on buying the expensive gold necklace. The price had scared the wits out of me, but she was bent on owning the jewelry.

I could never understand the affinity ladies have for jewelry. It seems to be ingrained in their genes. She seemed to have a similar affinity for me till a few months ago. This was when I accompanied her from her office to the bus-stop. They were some of the best 20 minutes of the day.

Twenty minutes of company every day was enough to usher in a wish of being with each other for a longer time. It was clear that she was to be the earning partner if the two of us entered into a bond. I considered myself quite lucky when she thought of forming a bond despite my being unemployed.  

My state of unemployment did create some flutters in her parents’ hearts, but they eventually gave way considering their daughter’s love for me and her good job. The fog  that had haunted me for a long time did continue to trouble me, but caught in the web of our relationship, it had ultimately given way to heavy showers. At the end of the day, we were happy.

Matters stood at a high when she insisted on buying an expensive gold necklace she had seen on display in the mall. It had been the bone of contention between us for quite a few days. I had been against buying any jewelry. I believed in simplicity. She wanted it as an investment. All signs of the affinity she had for me seemed to have disappeared into thin air now. I did wonder if she loved gold more than me.

She didn’t buy the gold necklace after all. Apparently, she loved me more than the trinket.  

A Journey Called Zeenat

A Journey Called Zeenat

The journey wasn’t going to be an easy one, and she was the only one who was to be with me all through the journey. The dusk of evening was approaching in my case and around me, it was going to be dark soon. Moreover, a dark cloud was gathering space over with me quite rapidly.

I held her hand tightly to reassure myself of her presence beside me. There was a surge of emotions in my heart that gave way to a whole lot of dreams even as my fingers went around her soft and gentle hand. The dream turned out to be multicolored like a soap bubble I blew off a ring I dipped in a soap-solution.

The soap-solution had been prepared after a lot of careful deliberation by A Power. Its preparation was done long before I  was aware of anything in the world. Its ingredients were picked out from a universal conglomerate of emotions. The Power had chosen the best emotions, I’m sure.

The Power had even chosen her for me after a lot of deliberations. It produced bubbles of all sorts and of all different shapes and sizes. They did take a long time in being formed: events in my life have been spaced by a long time-gap. They produced some shrill sounds that echoed all corners of my being. Some echoes did make it to my ears, they  were produced by the most vibrant and sonorous moments of my life.

But I still await  the best and the most sonorous sound of all--- the shrill sound of Zeenat’s cries that shall break all sound barriers within me. She was prepared to absorb all sorts of sounds my life produced: the tone, tenor and decibels didn’t count at all as long as they originated in me. I certainly wouldn’t have liked it if the sounds reverberated back to me.  They could damage many essential parts of my being. The damage can be irreversible.

Thankfully, she is all there to be the soak-pit for all kinds of emotions  and dreams emanating from me. The most important and most significant of these dreams is Zeenat. The abstract form of Zeenat has taught me that love is more of a journey than a destination. The quest for Zeenat is certainly a journey where many events are to occur. The journey has just begun. I want to enjoy the journey, every single bit of it. 

She was to absorb the dream as well as be the agent behind its fulfillment. She is to be with me while I enjoy the journey, and her company is sure to make every joy all the more commendable.

The dark cloud above me may choose not to shower its wrath over me after all.

She Walks Into The Sunset

It was a beautiful sunset that day. The suns rays permeated the atmosphere; there was a typical orange colour, and it was beautiful! But all of it hardly mattered to me now. She was all set on leaving me. There were tears on her face, and a quiver on her lips while she prepared to leave. The parting wasn’t going to be easy for her too, I know.

She would never be back again, I knew. I writhed in frustration, knowing this was the end of our relationship that was never to be mended. There was a fire burning in our hearts only a few months ago, but it had been doused by time. We had grown tired of each other; there seemed to be nothing new in the sunrise everyday, while there was the same old sunset in the horizon every evening.

She walked out of my life and house as if she were walking out of a multiplex after watching a movie that had unexpectedly ended in a tragedy. It was as simple as that for her. She had been in favour of comedies. She wanted to see one when she walked into the multiplex of our relationship. All my appeals fell on deaf ears and all my missives in the electronic medium hardly permeated the thick covering of her heart.

She dreamt of enjoying freedom and a carefree life even after marriage. The tonos of responsibilities marital life put up before her were simply not digested by her. she wanted to soar on her wings to the skies despite the fact that her wings had been clipped by a quintal of responsibilities.

She had married because she could not resist natural forces; moreover, she looked u; at the dignity married women walk with, she wanted it for herself. Somewhere deep in her heart, she knew practically well that she was asking for a few days of happiness at the cost of a life’s discomfort, and the honeymoon had been shorter than a few days for the poor girl.

She had certainly got the social security she was looking for, she did walk with quite some dignity, but the horde of responsibilities she got was certainly not in the bag she expected to find after marriage.

The oppressive aura she found herself in began to encircle her soul. She was suffocated by the atmosphere she found herself in. She wanted to be free after all. I did my best to bring her back to my side of the wall, but all my attempts at reparation were too late to be effective.

She eventually walked into the sunset to leave a dark, dismal and gloomy world behind herself.  

Walking Up The Hill

Walking Up The Hill

          I wanted her to walk a while with me. The walk was not meant to  be a long one, it could never be, but I wanted her to be by my side while trucks, cars, vans, scooters, cycles, rickshaws, motorcycles and even pedestrians passed by.

          The walk was not going to be an easy stroll through a park, I warned her. it was going to be quite a tough one, like walking up a hill.

          Getting to the top of the hill seemed to be the aim of the walk when we began. The need to walk and the urgency to keep up our efforts was pushed into us by The Creator. It has kept us on our toes ever since. We did get a bit tired and exhausted, but life salutes only those who keep walking even through thick forests and over green and thick fields. So, we kept walking.

          A consistent and continuous walk is sure to push us to the summit, we were sure. There was a beautiful scenery awaiting the pairs of eyes that made it to the top.

          I am glad I was to share the joy and ecstasy of having reached the summit with someone. Happiness and joy in life can never be appreciated unless they are shared with someone, and if the someone who shares the joy is someone special, the ecstasy one bathes in can never be imagined. Her company was certainly going to  multiply every joy Allah was to give me.

Her company was sure to give me the biggest joy of my life---Zeenat. Zeenat is sure to bring an entire set of new complications into my life, but I look forward to the  novelty. A typical joy is associated with  handling novelty of all sorts, but the joy of dealing with Zeenat and all thtat she is to bring into the world is certainly going to be greater than that of entering paradise.

I do wonder if I have been asking for a bit more joy and happiness than what is allotted to me. The pedestrians and even the occupants of all the automobiles passing by seem to have a lot more joy and happiness than in have.

I do wonder if I can handle more joy than has been given to me. This could be why Allah has deprived me of the gallons of joy He seems to have given everyone else. I do wonder how much happiness Allah has kept for me in my account, and how much of it  I can withdraw without being fined for an overdraft.

I can never know.