I Want To Meet You Again

I Want To Meet You Again
It was only when it rained all night that I realised you have left. There was a loud rumbling of clouds; they pushed me into a deep pit every time they growled. The sky joined me in mourning your exit. We didn’t part on very good terms, I know, but it wasn’t that bad either. I wish I could tear out my heart to show you how much I love you; I still love you with all fervour and warmth, and I’ll continue loving you with an equal passion as long as I live.

I can’t do anything positive about your absence but  I never wanted to lose you if I could. I didn’t want you to go away to a distant place, or to any place other than where I can’t make my presence felt. I want to be with you for a long time, and a still longer time. I only want to hold your hand. It is irrelevant whether we discuss anything or not while we are together; your presence is all that counts. I have a firm mind never to leave your hand once I get a tight grip on it. a realisation of your absence has pushed me atop a pile of negative thoughts, but I’m glad I’m not alone in my misery: it has been raining cats and dogs for several days. The heavens have been mourning too. There can be no other reason for all these tears all these clouds have been showering on me for a long time.

Your absence has brought out many aspects of my life that were not clear before me till now. I discover deeper swamps full of self-pity and depression around me with every passing moment and I let myself sink into them every other moment because you are not a part of my world now. it makes very little difference to me whether I sink in a swamp or walk on solid ground. Your company is all that is relevant now.

Navigating through any of these swamps hasn’t been a pleasant experience. My feet yearn to tread on a firm ground, particularly the one that lies beneath your feet, but I can only sink deeper into all these swamps before me. The very sight of a level ground you tread on makes me realise you are better than me. I didn’t realise how important you have become for me and my happiness till you went away.  I guess this is how the importance of almost everything in life we take for granted is brought to the fore.

It didn’t take a long time for me to convince myself I’m in love with you; it remained concealed within many folds of my mind for a long time. It only had to be brought out, and your absence has done the trick.

I don’t doubt it now. Yes!! I love you.  I do wonder if this feeling can be called by any other name.  I wish I could spell all my feelings into some other words. I search for new words everyday and discover many ready to spill out, while many more prefer to remain behind veils. Yes!! I love you. These are the words ready to pop out whenever I think of you.

I simply long for your company. I want to be with you forever and a day. I yearn to paint my life with all colours of a rainbow whose colour-combination is a secret known only to you. it is quite a powerful one, one that can make many lives beautiful, I know. I’m glad you chose to splash my life with all these colours. I don’t know if I can equate myself with any of those I see canoodling on park-benches, but I can sit with you on a park-bench for my whole life holding your hand. I’ll let our hands do all the talking.

Our hands are believed to contain a record of our past experiences, while many believe they contain a hint of our future too. I don’t know if life has given you a set of experiences different from the ones it has given me. Let us begin with whatever we hold in common. I don’t know how  long they can keep us together, but it is going to be quite a long time. There is so much to say to you, and  I don’t have all the words required to bring out everything within me. I know you have a lot to say to me too. You have witnessed quite a few cycles of sunrise and sunset too, I know. Let us let the gaping silence between us right now begin with all the talking.

Silence speaks louder than words, it is said. Let us check out the veracity of these words. There is so much to talk of, and a lot more to discover within each other. Perhaps the silence between us can help us bring down walls created by verbosity of our pasts.

I want to spend my entire life with you yearning for yet another life to share a lot more. Somehow, I know this yearning in me for your company is going to vanish into thin air the moment you are with me. the truth is I only want to be with you for a long time. I only want to feel the warmth of your hand as it touches mine. I want to be happy because you are happy, and I know this is going to happen only when we are together. The duration of our company is not going  to be relevant when we are together, I know. Time is going to pause at this juncture, I know.

I really don’t want time to move away from a point where I hold your hand because it may bring me to a point where I may have to leave your hand. I don’t want to let go of an iota of whatever warmth I discover in your hand. It is destined to be toned down, I know. We are destined to part, I know, but before that we are destined to meet. I really don’t want to part ways with you, but I certainly want to meet you once again.

I want to meet you every single day of my life like it was the first time because each time we meet is going to bring with itself a typical freshness and novelty with itself. The feeling is going to fade into the ether sooner than I can imagine, but  I do want to experience the ecstasy again and again. This is the only way to capture even a bit of the novelty that threatens to run away as soon as it is discovered and found.

I hope we meet again and again.

I Wish I Knew

I Wish I Knew
Yes!! I crave for company. I yearn to hold someone’s hand, I want to kiss her hand, and I want her to hold my hand a bit more tightly than I can hold her hand. I don’t want her to ever let go of my hand, while on my part, I never want  to leave her hand. I have complete confidence in her grip, it is quite strong enough, but I fear she will be snatched away from me by force by a ruthless flow of time through my being. Several entities have found an exit from my being in a similar fashion. Time has been flowing on in a  typically rough and cruel manner through me destroying almost everything it has come across. This has come to mean almost everything dear to me.

I want a change in my life. I want a change from facing a reality where almost everything dear to me has found itself I a pit, I want a change from this world, perhaps a sojourn atop all the different worlds that ever visited the Far Away Tree. I have been waiting for this change for a long time. I wonder how much longer I shall have to wait for a sun to rise in my world and make it bright and good. I have been waiting for a long time for a change to occur in my life.

Somehow, I know only she can change my world. She can bring about all sunrises in my world I have been yearning for ever since. She is the only one in the whole world who can change my life. While I have been waiting for her, there has been a longing inherent within me, a yearning to be with her for ever. I want her to be with me for as long as I live. Somehow, I know life is not going to be very easy for me even if she graces it with her presence, but I feel she can make all the crests and troughs a bit bearable by virtue of her presence. I can give away almost all I have today for an assurance that she shall be with me tomorrow, she will be with me for ever and a day. This realisation has made her all the more precious for me. All said and done, there is certainly a typical joy ingrained in all this waiting. I really don’t want this joy to leave me.

This joy won’t be a part of me when she is finally here. I certainly want to hold her hands, I want to touch her, I want to be with her for an eternity, and I want a lot of other things that simply can’t be brought out on a paper or even a computer. The list is endless, and all stationery in the world is going to exhaust itself if I only begin to inscribe all my thoughts on it. But at the same time, I realise there is a typical satisfaction ingrained in all this yearning for company. I didn’t want this, I never ever want to be downer, there is no pleasure in this, but I don’t think I would like to part with the yearning I  have for her today. It is better than what I may face tomorrow.

Tomorrow may be a lot worse than today. It may bring with itself worse problems before me, and I may not be in a position to do anything concrete to tackle these problems. Even the thought of my inability to do all I should be able to do brings me back to my present which is fraught with a typical yearning for her.

There were times when I wanted to be with her forever. I wonder if I was better in those days. All said and done, I think differently today. I don’t think I would like to hold her, to kiss her, to embrace her or do anything with her at all. No, I haven’t developed a dissonance for her now.

No, nothing has gone wrong between us. We are still the best of friends, but I guess I will be content with simply thinking of her for a longer time. I’ll dream of her every time I go to sleep, and I’ll sleep more if only to dream more of her. Her silent thoughts shall be an abstraction for me and yet they fill me and my being with an elixir with the potential to drown all holes created within me and my being by virtue of her absence. These holes need to be filled up before they can create vast legions of sorrow within me. A typical music is to emanate when water flows through these holes if I don’t fill them up soon, I know.

There was a pin-drop silence around us while I held her hand, I remember well. This was how our story began. I wonder if it is fated to end in a similar fashion. All relations begin with a loud silence---a silence symbolic of death as well as of birth. There was a huge silence between us while  I held her hand for the first time. What was important at that moment was that we should understand each other’s silence. All nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives were sure to create their typical mess around us at a later instance. They were going to be easier to understand. The incumbent challenge was to understand only a fraction of silence crying itself hoarse in each other’s eyes.

The silence in my eyes was trying to articulate my inability to give her all she deserved. I often wonder how  I know what she deserves.  I don’t even know what I deserve. I only know she deserves the best of everything in this world. I don’t think I can give her all of it, but I can certainly give her a lot of my love.

I feel everyone deserves a lot of love, and I may be unable to give her all the love she deserves. I can only promise to give her a lot of peace and  tranquillity, quite like what one experiences when one lends an ear to ocean waves roaring. I wonder if she is going to assign a value to all this more than to what she deserves.

I don’t know if material happiness translates into love for her. I don’t know if she equates these two entities. There is no way of knowing this.

While Our Hearts Throbbed

While Our Hearts Throbbed
She looked up at the sky for a while as if thanking The Almighty for a blessing. For a while, I wondered if I was the blessing she was being thankful for. I really don’t know why she didn’t show it to me, or was it that I was unable to perceive her gratefulness to me. I felt sure she considered me a valuable asset. She didn’t take me for granted.

I tried to recount all the entities I was taking for granted, and I ought to be grateful for too. I began to shiver with fright: it is to take  a lifetime if I begin thanking Allah for everything He has bestowed upon me. I wonder if the list included her too in it for she is certainly an asset for me. I really don’t know which of us is more grateful for the blessing we found in each other.

Life is to begin for both of us in a while, and like everything else in life, it is certainly not going to be easy. I had left behind quite a bit of myself, most of it is irrelevant now. I was glad to be able to  move on. For the time being, we held each other’s hands a bit more tightly. None of us wanted the incumbent moment to slip away before it was completely wringed of all happiness it contained within itself. Time insists on moving on.

There is very little we can   ever do about the legions of time that are to come our way, but we can certainly make the most of all aeons of time flitting by begging to be recorded in our memories in a more tangible form than they are in. we pulled closer to each other to be sure to absorb all the ecstasy ingrained in every single moment.

We could almost hear each other’s heart throbbing wildly in each other’s presence. We heard a ferocious lion roar within both of us as our blood ran wildly through our arteries and veins. It needed to be cooled down before it could swallow up a large part of our happiness. I could sense a whole lot of words running ahead of all this contention within both  of us to pacify the beast. They were the only weapons we had to deal  with the crisis.

 I heard her unarticulated confession of love long before she moved her lips. A similar confession found itself in my eyes. The beauty of the situation was that we didn’t need to say anything in words. Our lips didn’t have to move in any manner to articulate a message at that time. There were already a whole lot of messages being exchanged at a metaphysical level; a lot of them were flowing through our hands which we were simply not prepared to leave. There was quite a lot going on at a paradisal level although we still had our feet on the ground. I was certainly not going to leave her hand.

As we inched closer to her on the bed, I began to wonder how much was I going to honour my resolve. The paradisal level we found ourselves in wasn’t going to last for a long time, I knew, and so wasn’t the ecstasy we found ourselves in. like all good things in life, it was to wither away in a short while. We were certainly to descend to a lower level sooner or later. The plunge might take us straight to the bottom of a deep well, and it can prove to be quite uncomfortable; scaling up the steep walls of a well isn’t practical, I know. It is a lot better not to dive deep into such murky and dirty waters, but we didn’t have any options before us.

The problem is we are going to find ourselves pushed high up in the skies every single day, but we shall also be pushed into deep dungeons every single day. we are going to discover the joys of a bungy-jump every single day from now on. Viewing the world from a point no one has ever been at ever before, and diving deep into a deep and dark abyss the very next moment is certainly going to be quite exciting. A firm belief that we are to be elevated to a zenith despite before being pushed into deep dungeons is quite exciting in itself. Thoughts of touching a zenith negate all contentious and negative thoughts associated with it. I hope I can maintain my outlook towards this zenith forever and a day. I shall fall to the ground the next moment, I know, but there is nothing like looking at success, even for a while.

We can never do anything positive about this cycle. Rather, this is what is going to make our world come to life. What has dawned on me is that I am not paying heed to the moment that is passing by. It was begging to be recorded in some form. I can capture a bit of its beauty in the form of words, but a major part of it shall remain unrecorded.

There is a moon ready to show us a path over which we shall walk. It is going to be a relief from the utter darkness of night that surrounds us at as of now. Light from the moon shall brighten up several paths before us, but for the time being, it was rushing ahead with the speed of time, and I felt helpless before its waywardness: there is nothing I can ever do about it. I can never convince time to delay its termination. It shall take quite a bit of the typical beauty enshrined in the silent beams of moonlight. This moment is about to be over in a while, and it shall never be back again in its pristine form ever again.

There is always a choice before me to mourn the evanescent nature of the passing moments or enjoy them to their complete potential. The latter is a lot better.

I Move Away

I Move Away
I dream more often than I sleep: I sleep every night, but I dream every single day. Nights are short, but days are always long; days are when I can see my dreams walk and even dance. Though my dreams always last only short while, yet they dictate the direction I move in while I am awake and under a hot sun. I have to bear the scorching heat of the sun for a longer time, but I don’t mind because the days are when my nocturnal adventures come alive. I love to dream, and I love to sleep too.

 I don’t know if I was born this way, but I do know I began to dream once I learnt how to close my eyes voluntarily. I wonder if she appeared in my first dream, but I do know my favourite dream is the one she figures in. she is a bit shy of appearing in my dreams, but when she does, makes them really beautiful. My dreams are lit up with more lumens than the sun lets down on a bright sunny summer day, while there are always more joules of warmth and energy when she is around than when the sun shines. I begin to wonder if paradise is going to be any better than a dream she figures in. My dreams always collapse in the morning or when I open my eyes, and she disappears like she never was with me. I badly wish there was no end to my dreams. I want to   sleep on and on if only to dream of her; but she simply vanishes when I open my eyes.

When I get up in the morning, my bed is drowned by waves created on my bed-sheet reminding me of dreams that made me hop around my bed all night. I wonder if I yell out her name during my nocturnal adventures. I think I do. I wish there was a way to express an iota of the joy I experience when I see her in my dreams; I wish there was a way possible to capture all those emotions in a tangible form. When I get up in the morning, my night-suit is crumpled-up reminding me of her clandestine visits. I wish there was a way to keep sleeping for ages if only to be able to dream of her. There isn’t, I know. I think a proverbial ‘sweet dream’ envelopes all this and more.

I dream of driving a car to my workplace. I see a lot of cars whizzing by while I watch the scene from behind it’s dash-board. It is like time rushing by.  I want don’t want time to rush by as madly as it does because I feel     the time when she is to be with me is only a few aeons away, but I can only watch the show as it enacts itself before me. This is a grim reminder that I shall never be able to do anything positive about anything in life. time will move on at its own typical speed, and I shall never be able to run faster than time.

In another     dream, I see myself holding hands with her. there is nothing else around us, except silence and a lot of silence. It is perforated by some melodious tunes she hums. my company pushes her to a   fresh zenith just as her company effects a similar magic on me. I find it quite surprising, but it is only our company that pushes us to a fresh height every moment we are together. We discover a new definition of paradise in every aeon of time as it passes by. A whole lot of definitions are to be discovered, and a whole lot of time is to pass by.

The mornings that are here after these dreams are quite distressful. I don’t want to wake up. I badly wish there was a way possible to push my sleep aboard a train headed for nowhere. I want to dream endlessly about her. I badly want to get away from a day when I can’t dream of her. she is the elixir of my life, she brings the magic of life to life within me while I dream of her. life without her begins in a senseless void and ends in a void too.  I look out of my window every now and then for a glimpse of a dream which is a beautiful contrast to what life shows me.

The window-seat is my most-preferred seat in a car. I get a chance to see life rushing by so closely as if it were driven by a rocket-propeller.  I see a lot of dreams whizz by without knocking on my door everyday. Of all these, my favourite dreams are the ones she figures in. Some of them shall certainly be back in one form or the other. One of them might be a fleeting thought rushing home after a late dinner, while another might enter my heart one day through my eyes, while yet another might find itself before my eyes while I sleep. I can’t do anything except watch silently as my dreams passes by me. I can only make way for them to move on smoothly. I do move away.

My worst dream is the one where I see her sitting on a bench with her back to me. she appears to be in deep conversation with someone else.  I can’t see him; I   can only hear his voice. I feel jealous of him. There is competition around, I know, but some giggles and laughs, assure me she is happier with him. She has certainly been a chandelier hanging from a ceiling and lighting up the entire dark and musty room I am.

I badly wish she would step into my dark and miserable world and light it with some of her brightness one day, but I quietly move away.

A Lonely Warrior

A Lonely Warrior
Some battles are to be fought alone. There is simply no one else who is to be a part these skirmishes. these clashes are certainly some of the toughest battles in life particularly because they are fought without a lot of arsenal. There is just one sword to counter the countless blows dealt by your foe. To cap it all, you are the only one who is to deal with all its intricacies, and bear all the stress and    strain of losing it. you are more likely to lose it, you can be sure. This is not a pessimist’s view, but a part of the several realities of life I have learnt. The ordeal is made all the more tough by the truth that the sword is made more blunt with each blow it counters.

A blunt sword works against your priorities of winning every battle, and to cap it all, it cannot be sharpened, nor can it be changed with a sharper one. It is only to get dulled with each passing aeon of time as you win one battle after another. These battles cannot be made any tougher or easier than they already are. There is simply no sense in trying to make them any easier or tougher than they already are; there is no need to. The inherent level of difficulty adds to the mirth you are going to discover whenever the battle is finally won. You are going to win a lot of battles, you can be sure. You have to fight every battle you step into. You are never given a choice.

They are always customised to suit you and all your intricacies. The only point to be borne in mind is that you have to be a solitary warrior marching on towards your foe, you have to do it alone. You are not going to get a companion in this battle, you have to fight it alone. It is never easy, but it isn’t as tough too as it all appears to be. At the end of the day, you are the only one who is to be celebrated as the victor. This is quite a relief when you realise you are the only one who is to be crowned; even the thought of being coronated is in itself quite exciting. Victory is always sweet, and it is the sweetest when it is achieved after a long and bitter battle.

These battles are quite tough, they really are, but they have to be fought and won, and they have to be fought and won all alone. There is simply no other option but to win the battle. This is a part of a pact all of us have had with our fate. Our fate seems to be determined to counter our efforts in the best possible manner, but the best part of the deal is that everyone is assigned his or her share of artillery which is enough to counter all blows dealt on oneself. The share of shields and armoury one has access to always seems to be insufficient, but it is actually always in proportion to the number of blows to be dealt on you and potentials of your foe. There is someone who has a precise count of the number of blows you are going to have to bear, and He has issued instructions to your fate to cease all blizzards aimed at hitting you once the count is up.

The count always seems to be more than what you can bear, but it is always in proportion to your capacity to bear pain. You writhe and wince in pain, but it is never more than what you can bear. Had it been unbearable, a lot of us would not have been walking the world today. Everyone has been tried and tested, but everyone’s trials have been of the kind one can bear with. They have never crossed a particular limit set out by  your fate.

There is always a typical catharsis you get to swim in once you are out of all this mess. The water isn’t very deep, but it isn’t very shallow either. It is only good enough to make you feel good. Practically, you get to float on it, and this is what makes you feel on top of the world. This is what being victorious feels like. All contentions that held ground before you plunged into the battle seem puny and insignificant from the height you float at. It may not be a very high platform one gets to stand at, it may still be a bit wobbly,  but what is significant is that it appears to be high and lofty before the depths one was at only a while back. The change is significant. What counts is the fact that you have won a race against time that seemed to be impossible some time ago. You find yourself at the top of the highest point in the whole world.

This is a world where silence speaks louder than words. A lot of silent monoliths scream out a lot of other truths of life. Life is to go on, and it is  going to bring you before countless other battles, and they are certainly not going to be easier than the ones you have been through. This is when you are going to call all battles you fought at an earlier instance ‘easy’.

Practically, everything appears easier than today. All problems you stand before today, all contentions you have to face today, and all avenues you have to cross today are, or at least appear to be tougher than any you have ever come across. There is simply no way of making them easier or even tougher. They are certainly the most important ones. The only way out is a firm belief in the Persian adage ‘this too shall pass’.

All of us need a ring with these four words inscribed on it like King Solomon.

Secrets To Be Discovered

Secrets To Be Discovered
A giant-wheel in the background of the picture on my desktop boosted its values. It reminded me of the day I a similar picture on her desktop. It was an image-file she had downloaded from an email. The image was going to mean a lot more to me than the entity it represented.

I looked closely at her picture for about the hundredth time. I might  be able to glean something about her nature and character from it. She was someone who was to handle the oars of my life for a long time, I wish I knew something more about her. we had met just once. This was when I saw the image on her desktop. There was a similar picture on my desktop today, and I had her image in my mind too.

Pictures never reveal an entire story, I know. There is always a lot of pathos and bathos buried deep beneath all the colours that bring life to it. I began to wonder if I really wanted to be a part of all that went into making the caricature come to life. I may not like all its different colours, but some of them were certainly going to collate with me. Different colours of life had been used to paint an entirely different portrait of life in our minds. There was certainly an element of commonality in the different images we held in our minds because the same brush had been dipped in all different colours again and again to produce the final contrast.

It was a beautiful final picture painted in our minds. All kinds of different shades had been used to produce the final effect. I myself had a lot of these emotions churning up quite a potent potion within me for quite a long time. I don’t know if I could do with some more of it. I have already had had enough of it, but there is always some more of it to be put up with. All contentions reach a zenith within me while some more dark shades are employed to produce a bright colour. It is certainly going to be a long time before the appropriate combination of colours required to produce the final beauty can be arrived at. Till then, there are going to be occasional splashes of different shades of colours, and I shall have to find a way of putting up with them in their original form.

I am not in a position to change the shades however much I want to. I shall have to adjust myself to suit the merits of their combination. I shall have to change my likes and dislikes. They will have to be tuned with the different shades of colours I find splashed on me from time to time. I wish there was a way possible to change at least some of the different shades of colours that find themselves on me at different intervals. It is quite exasperating, but I can do very little about it.

Practically, I can never do anything about the patches already on me. My past can never  be changed. Different shades of  colours that are being spilt on me now whether I like them or not and those that will find themselves on me in my future shall also not be volitional. I find myself at a dead-end where I want to walk out of this prism of colours I find myself trapped in.

There is another prism of colours life puts me through everyday. The variety has its own typical effect on me. I see so many colours around me everyday that I almost forget the dark alleys I have been walking through for a long time. The truth is I  want to forget all about the world around me when  I am with her. it is a bad-bad world around me, I know, and the only good about it is her being in it. Somehow I know there is a similar contention about life within her when she is with me.

She is going to change every bit of it, I feel sure. The change is going to be quite subtle and minute, and yet it is going to change my world to a format I always wanted it to be. I know all this is and my realisation is   strengthened when our eyes meet. We see a world with limitless possibilities in each other’s eyes. This is quite unlike the world around us where a whole lot of limitations are put on me by virtue of me being incomplete.

I often feel bad about it, but then I look into her eyes for a hint of my future for some relief. What I see in her eyes always rejuvenates me. This is  a secret to be discovered in her eyes, and I dig around in her eyes with all vigour and fervour possible. I feel sure she does her best to dig out all secrets buried in my eyes too.

I don’t know if I should reveal the results of my explorations to her. Here is a secret I should guard even from her, I know. I should keep them behind some impermeable barriers that can’t be penetrated even by her sharp and beautiful eyes. They are skilled enough to dig out the best kept secrets, but I shall do my very best to conceal them from her. Afterall, she doesn’t seem to be in a position to appreciate all that she finds in me. I wish there was a way to know what she discovers in me. I want to know what opinion she holds of me, but she is someone who keeps her eyes tightly closed throughout the day because even a solitary beam of light is sure to rob her of all her secrets.

On the other hand, I have been willing to share my secrets with her like a parched man pines for a glass of water. Sharing my secrets with her is going to bring in satisfaction greater than what the thirsty man is going to experience when he drinks the water. There are certainly a lot of secrets within me that are simply dying to come to the fore, but all of them shall remain behind barricaded walls and locked doors till she steps in to unravel them.

A Bird Flies Away

A Bird Flies Away
My phone began to ring loudly. There were quite a few messages from her waiting   to be read too.  It was the same ring-tone, the one I knew so well. My phone was tuned to ring out a particular jingle when she called. I jumped up into the air when I realised she was calling me; I felt honoured and glorified at the same time. I wondered if she experiences a similar excitement when I ring her up.

A meaningless conversation was being carried on at that time between us at a metaphysical level. It was a wordless conversation, and yet it rung some sweet chords within both of us. We were looking into air and yet we were smiling. Each of us had the other one in one’s thoughts. I’ve often wondered what lovers talk of while they hold hands, and I felt I was on the verge of discovering some beautiful secrets. We were not holding hands, we were miles apart from each other, and yet the contact was as good as if we held hands.

Eventually, I felt our grips loosening; there was a dark shadow on us. Its darkness covered up all the wonderful powers love had aroused within us over several years. It loosened our grip. We found ourselves drifting apart, and all the pathos and bathos lent by the dark clouds above us added to the misery of being apart. We simply went different ways.

There were ravines of doubt and mistrust around us and they had come up between us, and our car was running at a steady pace between them. A deep and dark shadow was cast on our car as a bird flew by, we did our best to avoid falling prey to these dark tips of nature, but none of us was strong enough to tackle nature in its purest form. A small amount of doubt and mistrust had already found its way within both of us.

It happened in a jiffy before any of us could realise what was happening. Our entire presence was drowned by a dark shadow. I was a bit surprised by the alacrity by which it covered us, but it did happen. It was to shower its wrath over us in a short while, and both of us were sure to be drenched in absolute misery if we didn’t rush for cover.

Love certainly has the powers to make life live, but it can also make life miserable too. We realised this now. We experienced the presence of boulders around us like one experiences  the presence of skyscrapers while going around a modern city. Once the novelty of looking at high-rising-buildings wears itself away, what remains is only the strain of looking up at the top floor. There is always a temptation to look up and be at the top. Everyone of us makes efforts to get to this top. Eventually, we realise the top is a dream that keeps shifting away from us. We only have to strain ourselves a bit more to look at a fresh new top every day.

These buildings were bent on squeezing every bit of happiness from our lives into a void even as we did our best to pass through them without making our presence felt. Practically, we were miles away from each other, but at a different level, we were travelling in the same car through tall skyscrapers.

There were dark and formidable curtains over all windows of these buildings. I wondered what purpose they served for no one was tall enough to be able to peep through any of these windows. It dawned on me they shielded the rooms from harsh sunlight that falls on these buildings every day. I wondered if all of them were good enough to guard all inhabitants.

One size never fits all, I know, not everyone finds solace from the harsh sunlight even behind such blinds. Everyone is exposed to different amounts of sunlight; there is a different size of curtain for all of us, I know. This is why each window of every room in these skyscrapers has a different kind of curtain over it. Each curtain does its job well, and yet all inhabitants look at each other with jealousy floating in their eyes. Everyone believes the other one has  a stronger curtain than what covers his or her window.

As I peered out of the car’s windows, I found all those on the streets or footpaths had straw-hats over their heads. They had broad rims to shield their users from the sunlight. I began to wonder why the sun sends so much evil in its incarnation every day. A solitary beam stole into the car: its message was clear: you are going to be found out one day wherever you may hide yourself. I was trying to hide from miseries life inflicts while in the  car.

Even the car we were in had curtains over its windows, but they let in the beam of light. A sinister aura appeared within the car. We were able to see some of the tall buildings through the windows in a while. The sight did intimidate us for a while, but we soon got used to it. For a change in perspective, I tried to look out of the car’s dashboard. I might get a clue of our destination. We didn’t know where the car was taking us to, we  were simply being carried by the car through a jungle of skyscrapers with blinds drowning their windows.

Quite soon, all of it was accompanied by a loud roar of a waterfall around us. I began to wonder what the source of the noise was. Its sound was loud enough to drown all signs of life the city made. I was a bit scared I held her hand a bit more tightly. She dug her nails into my hands. It did hurt a bit, and I began to wonder if it was her love or her animosity. I wanted to be loved, but not in the manner she loved me. I wanted some more of the elixir called love, but I began to doubt her intentions.

As I held her hand in the car, I felt like a cage in search of a bird called love. It insisted on flying further away from me despite all my efforts to placate it. Seeds of mistrust had been sown between us a long time back, and they were now growing into plants and      trees.

This bird will eventually find its perch on a different tree, while I may have to be content with another bird in my  cage.

When I Saw A Rainbow For The First Time

When I Saw A Rainbow For The First Time
I can never be sure if it was her sight or the sound of her voice that pulled all breaths of air out of my lungs. I stopped breathing for a while. Without knowing it myself, I christened those moments as the best moments of my life, although I’m sure several better ones are to come my way. I’m not sure if this moment has been the best ever for there have been hundreds of such moments over the past several years. All said and done, I wish it was possible to  extend the moment to an infinity.

I became conscious of the rush my heart was in to absorb every bit of these moments within itself even as it insisted on galloping ahead faster than anyone ever can. It had to  slacken its speed to maintain a harmony with myself. Gradually, it did paced itself down to tune itself with the incumbent emergency. I heaved a sigh of relief, but soon, I realised she had pulled out all signs of life out of all my organs in a jiffy. I had been through a similar experience in my past, but each time the experience has been absorbed within me with a typical freshness. It has always seemed to be like the first time. There has always been a sense of novelty associated with it, and it has made it all the more exciting and special.

It was the first time once again, and it made all the world around me being born again. I was a part of the genesis. I felt like the first man on earth. I can understand the wonder and awe that were in his eyes when he beheld a rainbow in the sky for the first time. A rain had washed away all signs of posterity from everything around me, and whatever was left behind was new. Everything attracted me by virtue of it being new and it was not in my powers to change anything. I didn’t want to change anything. I didn’t want life to change. I only wanted to live my entire life in these moments.

She was before me, and I was looking at her with the wonder in a baby’s eyes when it sees an angel and hears the flutter of its wings too in its dream. The baby was sleeping quite a sound sleep. I hope it doesn’t get up soon. There are many more dreams to be dreamt. Had it been volitional, I would certainly have stopped all my  body functions to syphon all my energy to my eyes and ears. They had to be the most attentive at that time.

I was struck speechless when I heard the sound of her voice. A head-mistress was admonishing a school-boy for being late for school. I was very late, I know. Being in time for school had not been in my control, I wish I could tell her, but she wasn’t prepared to give an ear to any explanations. Like  a typical reserved and grumpy headmistress, she only wanted her students to be on time. I didn’t have a choice but to give an ear to whatever she said.

The truth is I wanted to hear her voice again and again. Even her words of admonition rang some loud and vociferous cymbals of love within me. I guess there are to be similar sounds when I knock on the doors of paradise pleading for an entry. A confidence of being admitted in without any of the alleged accounting being done entered me because she was with me. I felt like I was already in paradise while she was scolding me.

I wanted to be an audience to these sounds for my lifetime. I became conscious of some new dreams lurking in my eyes while I looked at her. She looked at me for a   fraction of a second, and I felt really honoured by the attention she bestowed upon me. I wish I could ask her if she had a similar set of dreams in her eyes. Her eyes were focussed on my presence; realisation of this fact sent me to heaven instantly. I came down to earth in a few moments because she was on earth, not in heaven.

Her presence before me breathed a fresh life into everything around me. The world had become so beautiful at that time that I wanted to look at it again and again. I wish I had a couple of more eyes if only to drink the elixir before me with. She was still scolding me for being late. The session was to go on forever, but I kissed her lips the very next moment. She paused for a while, and I kissed her lips once again.

They were moments when I wanted only my ears and eyes to be functional. I wanted to hear her words aimed at pushing me down into a deep abyss of embarrassment and shame. They actually pushed me to a higher heaven than any promised to man.  I blessed Allah for the sweet face my eyes beheld. Her sight pushed to discover greater joy than what was experienced by Wordsworth when he looked at a rainbow for the first time. This was when I didn’t care about the functionality of any of my organs. It was going to spell death for me, I know, but I was prepared to die again and again if only to enjoy the novelty of looking at her and listening to her voice.

My eyes and ears were getting the treat of their lifetime.  There had been a regular flow of blood through my body till I saw her. My blood turned around another way the moment my ears became an audience to her voice and my eyes became a witness to a mesmerising beauty in her. They needed more energy than any other part of my body. I felt quite like what Ghalib must have felt when he claimed his hands to have lost all powers and potency, but there being wine before him. He was going to drink wine from goblets with his eyes because they had acquired mystical powers. I was witnessing the  couplet being enacted in real life.

I wish this would happen again and again.

Learning Lessons Of Life

Learning Lessons Of Life
Dazzled with conflicting dreams of hope and dread revolving around my conscious and subconscious self for a long time, I looked at her for an explanation for the variety I was before. Apparently, she wasn’t going through a similar dilemma. I’m sure she didn’t have to deal with contentions I had to put up with. She had her own typical share of them. She wasn’t going to complain, she didn’t have any words to say all of it to me; I’ll have to guess a lot of words on their way to expression along with their meaning.

I can never be sure of the  veracity of any of my guesses as her facial expressions refused to reveal any secrets. Her eyes had witnessed several secrets, there can be no doubts about it. None of them needed the support of words for expression. I was going to have to dig deep into her eyes to bring them out. Her black eyes signified the presence of a lot of hard rocks which had to be dealt with before any of them came to the fore.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but it wasn’t going to be tough either. Anyway, I saw a lot of secrets prowling around her eyes in the hope of seeing the light of the day when I looked at her. She had managed to keep all of them behind her eyes while she kept them closed, but she did open them once in a while. I looked for an opportunity in the fraction of second for which they opened, but I didn’t find these windows large enough to be leapt through. Her secrets were going to be some of the world’s best kept ones.

The truth is she was stronger than me. She concealed her feelings skilfully and artfully in a room I couldn’t even peep into. Her room’s window is shaded by quite a strong and dark umbrella. I wish I had a similar umbrella to hide my feelings in a room too. All my feelings are open to criticism and inspection by the cruel world around me. moreover, I’m not strong enough to bear the tides of time. I break down into pieces when a similar situation is put before me. a typically loud jingle is created within me when all these pieces scatter on the ground. My closed eyes are opened because of the shattering noise. It is a long time before they can be closed again.

All my secrets come out with a loud noise quite like a sound made when a tight cork leaves a bottle’s company while my eyes remain open. The sound is often strong enough to be heard by many people around me. I myself can’t help crying out in pain. I am not a bit modest about expressing my feelings. Unlike me, she desired to remain quiet, and feeling it to be her natural inclination to do so at such a time, I did not attempt to break her silence.

It was more sonorous than the loudest cymbals I have ever lent an ear to. I was confident of an avid conversation being conducted between us at a metaphysical level simultaneously. Our rendezvous in the middle of nowhere reminded me of the fact that there were several layers of secrets of our lives burning to come out to the open.  we had managed to conceal them from the world, but all of them couldn’t possibly be kept in hiding forever.

We simply had to share all our secrets with each other now. There was no point in maintaining a mystery about them any longer. There wasn’t an option before us. All of them were coming to the surface like logs of wood pushed into a river. An entire list of secrets waiting to be shared announced their presence, but only a few of them drifted to the top.

Our hearts beat faster than ever as some of them peeped out like a couple of kids playing a game of hide-and-seek. They had spied some of the thieves hiding in the woods. For the time being, we had to be content with the miniscule amount of secrets present before us. Several more were to be discovered in the many days to come. All said and done, both of us had to win the game of hide-and-seek. Incidentally, we were allowed to open our eyes to search for secrets. Right now, she was trying to explain what she experienced when she was put up before a wish to love someone.

It is an emotional and psychological need to love someone, she said. A whole lot of the definition of happiness banks on this theorem. This way, there is a huge big pot within all of us that needs to be filled in with another person’s love. The other person is going to contribute his or her share to filling the pot with love only when he or she is loved in a proportionate manner. Filling in the pot of love within oneself with greater amount of love simply means giving more and more love to the person you love. I made a firm mind to love he more than anything else in this world. The pot of love I had within me was going to be filled to the brim everyday: I was going to love her madly every single day.

Love is quite a selfish feeling this way. You end up filling your heart with with more and more of love when you actually love someone else. You quench your own thirst for love when you give your love to someone. The more love you give someone, the more love you get for yourself. This is a beautiful reality of life, and it is actually true. Both of us had to realise this beauty of life, and we were going to appreciate it in our own typical way. Life was going to teach its lessons to us in its own typical manner.

I only hope these lessons are not too tough.

We Create History

We Create History
I was a part of a never-ending saga while I held her hand that day. I didn’t have the faintest idea of it being able to pull itself for what seemed to be an eternity, but somehow, there doesn’t seem to be an end to the story. The story is going to be replayed by other characters and protagonists in the years to come, I know. I wonder if their story will go through all intricacies our story did. They may find a different end to their story. All the same, we were on our way to create what seemed to be a new history as each track we walked over seemed to be woven over some completely new points.

 Practically, each point added some amount of mirth and happiness to our kitty, though it did bring with itself its typical share of woes. A lot more waited us as we ran across the track before us. The only element of consolation in all this is that right now, she was holding my hands tightly as if she clutched on to her life; both of us were running as fast as our legs could move. There wasn’t an end to the ground we could run over, and thankfully, we had immense amount of energy to do it. We could maintain our run for an eternity.

We had been waiting for this moment for a long time, and it was finally here. It was like we had been waiting for a train on a platform. We knew it was to arrive shortly and take us to our destination. The train didn’t pause at our platform for a long time, but we were welcomed aboard by all other passengers on board with open arms. It was a huge consolation for us to realise we were not alone in the ordeal.

 We were happy when we realised we had finally boarded the train. We were finally on our way to a definite destination. It had been a long and arduous journey till that point. It wasn’t going to be any easier from now on, but what made everything appear to be easy was the  fact that we held each other’s hands. I thought of kissing the back of her hand as it held on tightly to mine; it wasn’t going to be difficult, it was to be a final kiss to my past, but what I badly wanted to kiss was the fore of her palms: I could see my future engraved on it.

For a while, I looked behind me, I was a bit wary of someone behind us, but there wasn’t anyone chasing us. We were all alone in our run. Practically, we were running away from ourselves. We were running away from our past, we were running away to a future that was quite different from our past and even our present. None of us had a better idea of the ideal world before us, but we were running madly towards it all the same.

It is to be an entirely different world we  are going to find ourselves in when we alight from a train we had hopped on to in our haste. We were ticketless passengers, there was certainly a fright of a rowdy ticket-collector who was going to push us off the train, but our company pushed away all our fears into a bottomless pit. We stood firmly holding each other’s hand in the coach. We were going to find ourselves on an unknown platform whenever the disgruntled official did his deed, but we were to be in it together.

I wonder if it is really going to be better than what we have left behind. It   was a  world thriving with people and happiness we were leaving behind in the hope of finding some more happiness. Basically, we were leaving behind all those opposed to our being together. Our run was a revolt against all of them. We were leaving behind a host of relations with many different people. A lot of them were going to be completely negated now.

None of them were going to be back in any form, I know, a huge sense of relief passed through me. I thought of slackening our speed, but she was bent on making a dash as if there was a finishing-line round the corner waited to be touched. I wanted to respect all her decisions now, I readily joined her in the mad rush.

There wasn’t a finishing-line to  be touched after all, nor was there a reason for the rush she seemed to be in. her haste signified her dissonance with all she had left behind her; a similar reason pushed me ahead too. We were never going to come back to the world we were madly running away from, this was certain.

I felt her grip loosen itself as she lost a bit of confidence in me. I clutched her hand a bit more tightly to equate the equations. She looked at me for a while. I found myself unable to answer any of the queries posed by her eyes as she turned to look at me.  I had to pace myself up a bit as we went round  a bend the next moment, I found myself out of breath in a short while, but I was going to be with her through all bends, twists and turns despite all my shortcomings.

I carried a huge amount of my past with me till that time, it had the potential to create havoc in our lives if it was carried any further, but none of our past was going to figure in our lives ever again. I threw it away with all my might. Our sprint was a cumulative declaration of our triumph over all that was gone. We wanted to welcome a novelty in our lives, albeit our consciousness of it having a lot of what we were running away from.

I hope we are able to extend a warm welcome to it.

A Final Farewell

A Final Farewell
It was a final goodbye, a last utterance before departing. It made the  day  quite important as we prepared ourselves for the final parting. Yes, it was to be the last time any of us saw each other. It was the toughest time of my life, I don’t think it was easy for her too, but the moment was to go away as soon as it was here; it was to be history in a short while, but it was to take with itself a whole lot of each of us wrapped in a miniscule moment and  none of us could do anything positive about it. I wasn’t sure of what I should be saying to her at this moment. It had to be something special, after all, it was to be the last one, which made it special in its own typical manner.

A lot of words remained unarticulated deep within our glottises, some  were banged-up against our lips, and even more remained unborn in our minds. They were never to see the light of the day. A lot remained to be recorded in history books, but our history was never going to complete itself. There were to be a hundred-and-one meeting-points in the city where we could have met without attracting anyone’s attention, there were a lot more such places to be discovered by us, but we were to part ways now. We were not going to meet again, probably never. It was raining cats and dogs that day; I was sure the sky joined me in mourning our parting.

In a short while, our faces were going to be the most sought after entities in the world. There is a typical joy  ingrained within one’s face that is encashed when one looks at one’s beloved. The phenomenon has such intoxicating effects that one is prepared to go to all ends only for a mere look at the other’s face. We were going to yearn for even a glimpse of each other’s faces for a long time to come, if not forever. We had looked at each other at least a million times, and yet, it wasn’t enough. We had not had our fills of each other’s faces; we never could. We wanted to drink more and more of the elixir we discovered in each other’s eyes while we looked into them.

A mystical beauty was delineated in our faces; we were headed to discover it before anyone else could even get a hint of it. Before this beauty could fade into ignominy, another typical beauty was discovered by us. Holding each other’s hands was enough to propel tons and tons of happiness and satisfaction through us. We discovered a lot more definitions of beauty, there seemed a lot more to be discovered, but all of a sudden, she decided to part ways. I often wish I had set out on my explorations within her at an appropriate time, but somehow, it didn’t coincide with the appointed time.

 There was so much to be discovered, and a lot more to be found while our fingers dug into each other’s palms. I wonder if she would have discovered all those secrets I was bent on concealing in my fist. She wouldn’t have liked it had she come to know of them. There were a whole lot of secrets buried in her palms too. I’m not sure if they would have gone down my throat smoothly. Anyway, there wasn’t going to be any such chance.

Our faces had all adventures of our lifetimes inscribed on them at present, this was where all the years we had spent together were going to be highlighted quite prominently. While those around us may never notice anything amiss in our faces from tomorrow, but we were sure to observe quite a few lines missing. The missing element robs us of its ultimate beauty. It was going to be a beautiful sketch painted, but I wonder if it is going to be worth any of the pathos we were going to experience at parting.

 A whole lot of adventures were going to shine brightly on our faces, and they were going to reflect themselves whenever we looked at each other like an image reflects itself in a mirror. There were going to be several instances when this was to happen. We still had to   come to terms with the reality that we were never going to be together ever again. There was an abyss of depression to be leaped over, and it was to  be a deep and dark one. I held her hand a bit more tightly as if it was a lifeboat for someone sinking in a deep ocean.

 I don’t know how I shall manage to pull myself out of the ocean of misery and depression. It was time to give her a final kiss. We hugged each other; there was a kiss. It was the last and final hug before the last and final kiss; I realised that we had been playing a game of cricket, and she had been declared ‘out’. She was never going to be back in the same form again. Never.

I felt quite bad as if a train’s engine was hooting as it declared its preparation for a departure. She was on board the train, I was going to be left standing on the platform, and there wasn’t anyone to pull the train’s chain. I wish I had the courage to pull the chain and keep pulling it for a long time. I didn’t want the train to leave. I didn’t want her to leave.

At the end of the day, I shook myself awake from the delirium I was a part of. Promises I had made to myself  stand out taller than any I ever made to her. Ours wasn’t going to be a love-story like Romeo-Juliet where they killed themselves in the end: we were not going to kill ourselves. Many more adventures await to be discovered by us, but we shall not be able to discover them. May someone else discover them.

I Don’t Have A Choice

I Don’t Have A Choice
I looked quietly at the symbols of silence and retirement before me with awe and wonder in my eyes. There was exhaustion screaming at the top of its voice within me as my feet lay on the ground. I wanted to lift them up to the bed, but somehow, I couldn’t. there was a fiery flow of blood through my body as my feet began to shout out for their share of oxygen; blood rushed to my feet to supply what was the need of the hour. I had a lot of books to read albeit the pain in my feet. In a small way, I found the typical pain a help to my understanding of what was before me on the table. Blood was pounding through my body too with the speed of an express train, and so it ran through my brain. The fresh supply of oxygen to my brain cells brought through blood brought a surplus amount of energy in my brain.

They were days when I was a student in my hostel. Several years have passed by since that time. Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a summer day and a winter evening now they are gone. I sometimes wish I could go back to these days, but on second thoughts, I shall move on in quest of a brighter future. My juvenile experiences matter very little or almost nothing to me now. My past is as hazy as a bed of roses is on a foggy and dim morning. The roses are still there, they will always be there, their fragrance shall always be as refreshing, but their freshness faded off long ago.  

I still regard those days as some of the best days of my life, but what I have to bear in mind is that better days shall certainly be here. I only have to wait for better days to be here. All of us live through days, weeks, months and years, we bear through all kinds of hardships and misfortunes life inflicts on us every single day without a grim facial expression in the hope that tomorrow shall certainly be better than today.

 Life has now become a great and long fairy-tale, and somehow, I feel the most important part of it is about to begin to unfurl itself now. There are a lot of fairies and goblins to figure in the several years to come, and the plot is to unfurl itself in all its paraphernalia of hopes and miseries. I often wonder if the fairy besides me has stronger powers than any of these figures.

She was sitting next to me!! I was so honoured!! I couldn’t help jumping into the air when I realised her presence beside me. She was Hope personified. all my life became meaningful in the single moment I realised her presence. I could see a bright future before me with her in it. Till a few moments ago, there was a future before me of which I knew nothing about.

A distinct fear of the unknown raged in me louder than a lion. It created a furore within me while it walked around with its typical majesty. She held my hand like she would hold her child’s  hand before a lion’s cate while in a zoo. I don’t think I can ever find any words to describe all she stands for me. She said a lot to me while I held her hand, but she condensed them in a few words. How special I felt in one short minute, having her by my side!

Her presence made the patrolling of the lion less distressing. I can now see a way out. I only have to take a woodman’s axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest before me by cutting down each tree till I came to my destination. It is going to be a long time before I touch the finishing-line, I know, because there is a comprehensive jungle of  trees before me, and each tree demands individual attention. On second thoughts, if I chop down all these trees, I shall only liberate the lion of all riddles before itself; it is waiting to dig its fangs into me. I wish there was a way to run away from this picture of life, but  I simply can’t. For once, there isn’t the proverbial way despite there being a wish.

All said and done, If I managed to squeeze all my past, present and future in a single day, it was quite fine in the morning; life was to begin then. Quite a bit of the day was before me at that time, quite a lot was to be discovered, and a lot more to be found. A sinister enchanter stepped into the morning of my life and drew a magic-circle round the epicentre  of my life, and cast a spell too. I’ve been doing my best to walk out of this circle, but I can’t.

The magic is going to have long-lasting effects, I wish I knew this at that time. I couldn’t have done anything concrete about it even had I known about it in advance, and I think I did have a bit of prior intimation of a grim future before me, but changing its course was never my strength. Rather, it capitalised in on my weaknesses, accentuated them, and made life all the more difficult for me. these difficult times ultimately reached a zenith, and the magic ultimately began to loosen its hold on me.

My days became fresher and finer as life goes on. A new dawn heralds itself while I feel blood surging into my feet. As life begins to move ahead and it begins to acquire  legs of its own, most of its freshness and novelty faded off into the ether quite like the pain in my legs. It will be here again, but in another form. I shall be prepared for it.

I Don’t move

I Don’t move
I winged my way back to my carefree, calm and untroubled youth while I walked home yesterday; my transmutation from my present to my past was quite unprecedented, but welcome. In knew it was only in my mind that I could travel across frontiers of time; it is virtually insurmountable.  In a small way, my walk cancelled all of my existence before the exercise, particularly the part that had ugly pictures.

It was like walking back to my room in the hostel where I spent some of the best days of my life. They appear to be the best to me because this was a point of time when I was in a position to absorb all its nuances in its comprehensive form. There have been and there certainly shall be some more exciting days filled with even more vigour and enthusiasm, but I regard them as some of the best days of my life.

Those carefree days shall never come back in any form, I remind myself, and I don’t want them to be back. There were certain elements in those days I shall not want to be repeated. Most of these negative elements have lost their power and force with the passage of time, but I know there were certain elements I would never like to be back with me in any form. I look upon them as something dirty, filthy and despicable now. They only added to the tension and spoiled the fun there might have been had they not been there. In fact, I don’t want to walk upon any of the paths that once appeared to be lined with a golden hue. They have lost the tint they once had.

There is still nothing better in my present. My present has never been exciting. I have always wanted to move on to a brighter and better future. There is always a typical dissonance within me for my present created by its nuances. It is always generated  shortly after I land in my present. The wings that shall take me to satisfaction and happiness haven’t been made.

I still have to discover a better and stronger adhesive that shall bind me to my present stronger than anything else has ever been able to. My present is where I shall find eternal bliss, I know, but I want to move on. There is an eternal restlessness within me that pushes me on. My wings want me to soar.

I only want to move on to my future now. My future isn’t exactly exciting and attractive, but since I have to move on, my future stands ready to be embraced. I look at my future as my saviour from all my incumbent misery. Had it not been mandatory for me to move on, it would have been an entirely different story. The very thought it could be worse than all that I have been through sucks out all the enthusiasm there should be a part of me when I think of my future.

I know I can never get back to my past, however good it may have been. I shall have to move back in time to touch the glory of these lost days, but somehow, I know I shall never be able to. I often bless my inability to do so. Yesterday had its own typical values and norms. With the passage of time, norms and values have changed. Today has a whole lot of different norms and values. I don’t think it is going to be practical to travel back to my past.

My misery is heightened when I realise my present isn’t comfortable either. Being in the present is quite like walking on a hot bed of coal-fire. There is a typical dissonance for my present that pushes me on, and I simply don’t have a choice but to move on over the bed of fire before me. There are all chances of my future being as bleak or twice as much full of agony, I know, but I have had had enough of my present now. There are other problems awaiting me at the other end of the road, I know, and I only have to cross the road before me to be before them. I don’t know if I would like to be there now.

At times, my future seems to be waiting eagerly to embrace me. I can visualise a world that doesn’t have any of my contemporary problems. There certainly are other problems, and they are of a different nature, but the very difference is what attracts me to them. There is a typical sense of novelty ingrained in them. The sheer sense of novelty is what pulls me towards my future all the more furiously.

The attraction is like that of a magnet. There is a typical desperateness growing within me as I feel myself pulled by my future. My eyes are full of all sleepless nights  I spend thinking of my future. The agony is recorded in the scattered pleats of my bedsheet. I wish someone would notice them.

I have risen from my slumbers. This is when I want to leave everything that fetters me to my present, and rush on to my future. I wish I could. I want to, but I can’t. there is a heavy load tied to my feet that doesn’t allow me to move on. There is no way I can shake off this load. It is too heavy.

I didn’t want to think of my past or even my future now that I am in the security of my home. The very thought lets loose a typical entropy within me. I wish there was a way to soothe even a bit of it. I can feel everything within me running from pillar to post like a lot of madmen let lose. There is simply no way they can be pacified. I don’t want them to be. I have discovered a typical joy hidden beneath all this pandemonium.

I shall remain where I am.

I Trudge On

I Trudge On
Cracks in the sole of my shoes began to manifest themselves as I tread on wet ground. The ground I usually encounter while on a walk isn’t usually wet, but because of frequent rains, it was quite wet today. Water began to seep into my shoes; soon, my socks were soaked in water, and so were my feet. Anyway, I trudge on simply on because there isn’t another option before me.

I don’t know what would have happened had I had a lot of options before me; what I know is that I must trudge on. I don’t have the slightest image of my destination. I don’t need one now. All I know is that if I pause at this juncture, I face the predicament of being comprehensively soaked in water. So, I move on. It does get a bit uncomfortable in a while. Water gradually begins to drag me down to the ground where I stand, but I am determined to move on to a destination I can’t see.

The invisibility of my destination makes it all the more exciting and enticing. I really don’t know what reward awaits me at the end of the road. It is shrouded in a mystery.  The mystery gets deeper and darker as I move on. All said and done, there is certainly a hope that it is something quite exciting and good I shall encounter at the other end, and this is what pulls me towards it.

The very consciousness of it being sought by others makes it all the more precious and desirable. There are times when I rush ahead in the hope of getting to the other end sooner than anyone else. I really don’t know if it is worth any importance I give it. The anticipation of getting to a lot of excitement rises over and above everything I know.  I begin to doubt if touching  a destination is more important than the journey.

A lot of water has found itself in my shoes over a long period of time. It is bogging me down. The journey has begun to become quite uncomfortable. I only have to take off my shoes and the feeling of being dragged down won’t be there, I know. But then, I’m not sure if I want to get rid of the feeling of being pulled down to the ground. It is one of the elements that make me want to fly high, and I really want to fly higher than anyone else.

I don’t think I would have harboured such ambitions had I not been bogged down by so much water and muck accumulated in my shoes. I wouldn’t have wanted to soar high, and I wouldn’t have wanted any wings to fly high. As it is, I want some wings to enable me to fly to a higher point every single day. A lust for these wings is what is going to propel me to fight against the exigencies of the world I live in. I don’t know if it is as important to soar high in the sky as it has been made to appear to me. I don’t know if it is as important to develop some wings to fly high. I sometimes wonder if I should thank Allah for the cracks developed in the sole of my shoes.

Dissonance generated by water beneath my feet has reached a zenith. I shall certainly take off my shoes  when I reach a dry spot, but there  doesn’t seem to be a dry spot in sight. The ground I’m walking on is completely drenched in water. Apparently, it rained a lot last night. The only consolation for me is the sight of a fellow mortal who also finds it difficult to walk because of the intense humid conditions. My heart leaps up through the proverbial rainbow when it spots the shape of a woman pulling herself along. Apparently, she finds it difficult to walk along too.

This is quite like Adam feeling lonely in paradise, and discovering a companion in Eve. My heart skipped a beat, but renewed its daily toil in a while. As I discovered, her progress was also hampered by virtue of her coat which was rendered heavy because it was drenched heavily in rain. Virtually, both of us were waiting eagerly for the clouds above us to clear away and a bright sun to shine.

It is the only way out of our problems, I realised as several aeons of time went by without a ceremony. More and more time is going to pass by, and ultimately, the sun is going to shine in the horizon. Even then, it is going to take some more time before life limps back to normal, before any of us can walk normally.

I sometimes wonder what made me wander out of the security of my home that brought me to the plight I find myself in. I don’t know what prodded her to wander out in such bad weather. Apparently, we were destined to meet in adverse conditions. The latter add weight to the values of our meeting. We met when both of us were pining for the sun to shine. Sorrow makes strange bedfellows, it is said. The bad weather certainly brought us together, and I hope it is going to keep us together for  a long time. It would certainly have been a different story had the weather been good.

I managed to wriggle my feet out of my shoes, while she threw away her wet coat in disgust. I found myself barefooted in the swamp around me, while she found herself battling elements of nature with only her clothes that were getting wet with every aeon of time that passed by. My shoes were not in a position where I could find myself in again, while her coat was wet beyond any point of recovery. Practically, we were helpless before whatever Allah had destined for us. I have never had powers to counter my fate; I didn’t have them now either.

I simply trudge on in quest of a higher zenith.

A Sweeter Experience

A Sweeter Experience
Love is the sweetest experience I have ever tasted. I don’t think I want my taste-buds to taste anything else now. Nothing can be sweeter than love. My quest for the holy grail has come to an end. I only wonder why it took a long time for me to be in touch with such a beautiful emotion as love. I was kept away from the sweet nectar for no apparent reason. On second thoughts, there has been an incessant delay in almost everything I have got; I have got all I have wanted from life, but its delivery to me in whatever form it has been presented before me has always been delayed beyond my imagination, although never beyond the range of my tolerance, and love has certainly not been an exception.

We had to fall in love at the same time, and we fell madly in love with each other. It was almost a spontaneous and impulsive reaction to the demand of the incumbent time. The time had come when we had to forget our past and move on in quest of a future that held us together.

 Our experiences with our pasts had not been very bad, there certainly were some beautiful moments, but they had come to a point where they needed to be erased completely before some new and better experiences were transcribed on the slates of our memories. We were going to regard all of our past experiences as teethers and soothers given to babies to help them grow their teeth. We were going to create some more memories some of which are going to be as beautiful while most are going to be even more beautiful and memorable than those swirling through our minds now.

Only love has the potency required for this miracle to happen. The appointed time for us to be in love was here, and the two of us were destined to be together for a long time, longer than anyone could ever think of. It didn’t require a reason or rhyme, but we fell head over heels in love with each other simply because the appointed time was here. I often wonder why it took such  a long time in happening.

The time for it to be with me was destined and decided in advance. It had always been creeping up to me in one form. I had been unaware of its progress. I never knew when the time was finally here, but it was here. It simply pounced on me in all its pristine forms. It was a deep pit both of us wanted to be at the bottom of which. The pit was to be filled in with love and it was to cover both of us completely. Somehow, I knew we were destined to literally bathe in love.

We had to fill the pit with our love before anything else, and luckily, we had quite a bit of it flowing between us. It was enough to fill in the gap over our heads while we stood at the bottom of the pit. The bottom wasn’t very far off from the top, but it appeared a long way off to both of us. Luckily, we had ample quantity of love to fill it with. We only needed to generate some more love with each passing moment if it fell short; I wonder if this is a tough proposition.

The point I couldn’t understand at the moment was that we shall have to go through a lot before we actually fell in love with each other. The whole world was to be tackled before anything concrete could happen at this front. A whole lot of the world was to be confronted, and it was to be done in all its different avatars it chose to present itself in. None of us can never control any of its different forms. The differences had their origins in our histories. There is  a whole lot of history to be dealt with before we can control our present.

A lot of stories had to be brought to an amicable end before initiating the one that was to begin. For a while, I felt bad about all these stories that couldn’t develop beyond the story-board of a movie-director. The story-board-artist had visualised several twists and turns in these stories, but all of them have to bite the dust. The visuals simply didn’t comply with the final message the director wants to convey through the movie.

I sometimes wonder if there are different shells of time where different  story-boards are being enacted. One such enactment contains all those scenes the story-board artist had initially visualised. There is a shell of time where the two of us meet and are together. I can see both of us holding each other’s hands tightly as time insists on flowing on.

Time stops at this instance and doesn’t move ahead. We hold each other’s hands, and keep holding them. The next moment is simply not going to come because it doesn’t exist. We live our entire lives in the present moment while we hold each other’s hands. There is only love that binds us tighter than the strongest adhesive. Our love is translated into ecstasy which stays with us for a long time, perhaps longer than any of us are to live. All the rest of the world simply disappears from our conscious and subconscious minds leaving the two of us to ourselves. Just the two of us exist in this shell of time, and we rule the roost here.

 There is another shell of time where the movie plays itself exactly as per the director’s commands. One of the plays enacted in these different shells of time shall certainly have a happy ending. Lovers shall certainly embrace each other, and in another shell of time, they shall not. We shall be one, albeit in a different shell of time.

Is This Life Better?

Is This Life Better?
I was about to win the most important game of my life when she decided to leave my side. She couldn’t have chosen a worse time. It was  a point of time when I needed her company more than anything else; it was more than a shock for me when I realised she is not to be a part of my reality anymore. It took some time before the truth settled within me; but finally, it did settle within me like silt deposits on the bank of a river. It was to stay there for a long time like an anchor of a ship traveling across an ocean that had paused its engines. 

She was going to occupy a large part of my subconscious mind for  a long time to come, I know: the ship was to remain there for a long time. There was no way I could ever deny her the honour. It was going to be quite tough for me to put up without her now for she had become an integral part of my life in the past several years.

She had been instrumental in bringing me to the point where I stand today as a victor in my life. She was the one who had been the driving force behind all my struggles. Moving ahead is quite a tough task for me now without her. My world  virtually begins with her and it end with her too. I have battled with light and darkness in all their different shapes and forms, but all my struggles seem to have been futile now that she isn’t a part of my life any more. The sun seems to have lost quite a bit of its warmth and shine.

There was a time when the whole world seemed to be opposed to me. My fate was against me, my friends were  against me, everyone seemed to be my enemy, and yet I fought desperately through everything that came my way. I now realise that I only wanted to be able to retain her company by my side. I  loved her more than anyone else in this world. She had become more precious to me than any other possession in my world. I yearned for her company just as a thirsty Bedouin pines for a few dregs of water while in the deserts of Arabia. My feelings were reciprocated by her too; I know she also loved me as much as I did. She was prepared to plunge into the deepest ocean with me if I accompanied her. Apparently, I was wrong.

Today, all these emotions appear to have gone into a waste-bin. There was a faint, dim and yet sure sound of her voice accompanying every move I made till a while back, and the voice prodded me on to my goal. I don’t think I would have been at my goal or anywhere even near it had it not been for her voice prodding me towards my goal. She moved on to  a different destination once I had got to mine. She moved on to a place far better than where I am. Her voice has got dimmer and dimmer with the passage of time, but is still prominent in my world. She has moved far away from me now, but her voice still echoes and reverberates through my being while her presence stands taller than all those around me.

I have a larger than life image of the lady of my life. She has always been and she shall always be the greatest source of joy I ever had. Had it no been for her prodding me ahead and provoking me to make consistent efforts for a better today. I may not have moved ahead with such intensity that has possessed me for the past few years. She created a powerful magic without even a magic-wand. I wish there was a way to recreate even a bit of it and unravel whatever effect it had on me all over again. I shall certainly look into all bins for all magic-wands required for this to happen.

There has been a tremendous amount of angst surrounding everything I do and everything I have because I have been unable to find any magic-wands.  I wish I could thank her for the magic she created over me. I  want to make her feel special just as she made me feel good. There are  a lot of things I want for her, but she has moved ahead to another apex. I feel like a wizard who has been deprived of an audience which cheers at whatever tricks he performs. The poor wizard doesn’t understand why he has been dealt with such a handicap. It makes him inferior to everyone in his world of magic.

His world of magic is all he has. He knows only about this world. A world outside this world of magic practically  doesn’t exist. He doesn’t want to know a better world. All that counts right now is that she isn’t with him anymore. I look around me every now and then, I peep into my past and my future; perhaps she is lurking somewhere in some annals of time, but my vision never encounters a positive result.

In a small way, this has proved to be a blessing in disguise for me. Had she been with me for my lifetime, I would have regarded the security of all those years I spent with her as the final and ultimate reprieve from all anarchy ever around me. I would never have made any efforts to move on to the point where I stand today had she not shown me how to walk. Practically, she taught me how to run.

I consider an iota of success in future life a dim possibility because she is not going to be with me. My world ends where her presence ends.

I’ll live a better life now all the same.