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.