...excerpts from my diary (2005)...
In the month of July I cried more water than all the dark clouds in the grey sky…
I thought they were my true companion on this endless painful journey…but then they too died on the way and on a Sunday morning I woke up alone, without tears for the first time in a year…
It was scary…
I was getting so used to them.
Then one evening shuffling through my books, I came across a piece of paper she had scribbled upon “I love you”…I stared at that small writing in red, three innocuous words that sometimes become your story of a lifetime. In seconds, the word ‘love’ on the paper became soggy and I realized my tears had not died but simply gone into hiding in some deep crevices of my heart.
They were back, n strangely I was happy that I was still human…may be she would also come back someday…
A light bird-feather glided in to my window and as I lay on my easy chair with myriad thoughts of her, it came down swiftly to caress my wet cheek. It stayed there, glued to moistness of that single drop of tear which had failed to slide down. Its touch reminded me of her soft lips I had felt many a times. I let it be there for a while… then removed it slowly still feeling its softness on my skin. I gave it back to the playful winds watching it fly away in to the rains now reduced to a mild drizzle…
It went around the Asoka tree and then Neem and then around the green leaves of many more trees in circles and circles…
I followed its movement from my window through the transparent curtain of gentle rains…its free flight…the way it moved…up and down…high and low and then it would suddenly swish to one side…Were the mischievous winds playing with it or did the rains somehow breathe life in to that lonely feather…Was it moving from tree to tree carrying messages of love or was it simply being playful…or was it telling them of all the sadness in my heart and the intolerable pain of parting that was of mine to endure…?
I thought about that white feather. Did some bird shed it on its own free will or did it separate from the bird out of its own wanting? Did the winds sent it my way to know the story of my broken heart and share my grief, so they could carry the knowledge of it with them to where ever she lived and detail it out to her? Did the merry yet wise winds know where to look for her or would they sense and search her out? They carry her smell to me often so they would know where she was? Or would they tell my story to many others of how one loved selflessly and then cried inconsolably, alone, while the world danced to the first shower of rains…
I would never know that…
But I know for a fact now that wishing isn’t enough in life…it doesn’t translate into actuality of things, I have realized that bitter truth…for if that were so I would wish to fly out of my window like that feather and away with those little birds in the sky… floating and gliding on the air current; or mount on top of the grey fluffy clouds to sail where she was…to where she lived …and then as it would rain over across her balcony, and I would look down from the clouds ,my salty tears will mingle freely with the falling drops…as she would in laughter look up for the rains…they would fall up on her angelic face …trickling down her cheeks, on to her honey lips, and, at least one will find its way to her tongue and then maybe she would taste my sorrow…
As she would stretch her delicate beautiful hands to feel the sparkling drops…I would, high up in the sky on top of the clouds, beg to persuade its falling water to carry on its drops the small innumerable pieces of my broken heart…so that they too would fall and splash across her open palm…then she would perhaps understand what she has done to my fragile heart…breaking them into a million pieces…each one still loving her…
But nothing like that happened…the winds didn’t blow anymore instead quieted almost to a halt…it continued to drizzle but the feather I could not see any more flying, I strained hard and noticed it lying on one side of the small lane leading to my building…lifeless…may be it too eventually realized it was too incomplete once detached from the bird
…its destiny was to make the bird fly and not fly on its own
…the winds were just playing with it…tossing it around for their own gratification…
I know wishing alone doesn’t make things to happen…I know the rains this time would last much longer and the skies would for a while continue to remain grey n dark…yet I realized, like my tears, I can’t control my wishing too, so I wished again n yet again…that when they get over…she would be lying by my side…in my arms…her beautiful face resting up on my chest and her lustrous hair blowing freely with the winds…
…looking out this window when the rainbow comes out…
In the month of July I cried more water than all the dark clouds in the grey sky…
I thought they were my true companion on this endless painful journey…but then they too died on the way and on a Sunday morning I woke up alone, without tears for the first time in a year…
It was scary…
I was getting so used to them.
Then one evening shuffling through my books, I came across a piece of paper she had scribbled upon “I love you”…I stared at that small writing in red, three innocuous words that sometimes become your story of a lifetime. In seconds, the word ‘love’ on the paper became soggy and I realized my tears had not died but simply gone into hiding in some deep crevices of my heart.
They were back, n strangely I was happy that I was still human…may be she would also come back someday…
A light bird-feather glided in to my window and as I lay on my easy chair with myriad thoughts of her, it came down swiftly to caress my wet cheek. It stayed there, glued to moistness of that single drop of tear which had failed to slide down. Its touch reminded me of her soft lips I had felt many a times. I let it be there for a while… then removed it slowly still feeling its softness on my skin. I gave it back to the playful winds watching it fly away in to the rains now reduced to a mild drizzle…
It went around the Asoka tree and then Neem and then around the green leaves of many more trees in circles and circles…
I followed its movement from my window through the transparent curtain of gentle rains…its free flight…the way it moved…up and down…high and low and then it would suddenly swish to one side…Were the mischievous winds playing with it or did the rains somehow breathe life in to that lonely feather…Was it moving from tree to tree carrying messages of love or was it simply being playful…or was it telling them of all the sadness in my heart and the intolerable pain of parting that was of mine to endure…?
I thought about that white feather. Did some bird shed it on its own free will or did it separate from the bird out of its own wanting? Did the winds sent it my way to know the story of my broken heart and share my grief, so they could carry the knowledge of it with them to where ever she lived and detail it out to her? Did the merry yet wise winds know where to look for her or would they sense and search her out? They carry her smell to me often so they would know where she was? Or would they tell my story to many others of how one loved selflessly and then cried inconsolably, alone, while the world danced to the first shower of rains…
I would never know that…
But I know for a fact now that wishing isn’t enough in life…it doesn’t translate into actuality of things, I have realized that bitter truth…for if that were so I would wish to fly out of my window like that feather and away with those little birds in the sky… floating and gliding on the air current; or mount on top of the grey fluffy clouds to sail where she was…to where she lived …and then as it would rain over across her balcony, and I would look down from the clouds ,my salty tears will mingle freely with the falling drops…as she would in laughter look up for the rains…they would fall up on her angelic face …trickling down her cheeks, on to her honey lips, and, at least one will find its way to her tongue and then maybe she would taste my sorrow…
As she would stretch her delicate beautiful hands to feel the sparkling drops…I would, high up in the sky on top of the clouds, beg to persuade its falling water to carry on its drops the small innumerable pieces of my broken heart…so that they too would fall and splash across her open palm…then she would perhaps understand what she has done to my fragile heart…breaking them into a million pieces…each one still loving her…
But nothing like that happened…the winds didn’t blow anymore instead quieted almost to a halt…it continued to drizzle but the feather I could not see any more flying, I strained hard and noticed it lying on one side of the small lane leading to my building…lifeless…may be it too eventually realized it was too incomplete once detached from the bird
…its destiny was to make the bird fly and not fly on its own
…the winds were just playing with it…tossing it around for their own gratification…
I know wishing alone doesn’t make things to happen…I know the rains this time would last much longer and the skies would for a while continue to remain grey n dark…yet I realized, like my tears, I can’t control my wishing too, so I wished again n yet again…that when they get over…she would be lying by my side…in my arms…her beautiful face resting up on my chest and her lustrous hair blowing freely with the winds…
…looking out this window when the rainbow comes out…
5 comments:
Its only love that makes us all human. And the amazing person you are just shows how intensely you must have loved.
Glad to be your friend dearest :-)
wonderful....
Pravin:
i enjoy reading your article, let me give you this sentence in spanish that in relation with your artcile:
y morirme contigo si te matas y matarme contigo si te mueres, porque el amor cuando no muere mata y amores que matan nunca mueren.
Rania Rafiq
I just luv the way you express yourself. An amazing photographer and wonderful human being. God bless.
it may sound beautiful to most of the readers and no doubt it is...but only a few would feel the pain behind those words. And that hope "…may be she would come back someday…" keeps you going on afterwards....and suddenly makes you superstitious and give yo thoughts like may be this is not a bird its an angel from heaven or who knows a Jinn who may pity on me seeing me crying like a child and would just make the things exactly the way it was before. As stupid as it may sound but it happens.
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