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.