In small crumbs
Or big boulders
Pieces of my heart
Come back to me.
Bruised and trampled
Worn and tired
But with wide smiles
For All to see.
They return to their source
To make me complete & whole
Wandering all those years and miles
To realise -
Stillness was their only goal.
My Beloved Children,
No song
No rhyme
No melody
Is mine
No rainbow
No light
Nor star studded
Night
No friend
No Foe
No high
No low
No seeking
Nor sought
Devoid
Of thought
No future
No past
Eternal moment
Lasts
Silent
& Still
Illumined
Within
Insignificant
But integral
Completing
Infinity.
Dust storms raging far, wide,
Obliterating landscapes out of sight
Storms rage also in my heart
Transforming life with a new start.
Deleting records of my past
Healing scars that painfully last.
My storms swirl in glowing light
Closed eyes, blue & violet bright.
Burnished boulders in umber, gold
Layer hills that incessantly unfold.
Indus curves gently to the right
In colors of jade and frozen white.
Cobalt skies are clear now
Blinding Sun searing above.
Ochre grasses sway out of sight
Poplars rise in groves of naked white.
Willows sport a rusty crown
Wilderness spreading far and down.
Heart is silent in all this wonder
Emptiness sitting in wordless slumber.
Once I was told, with a smile, that I was a crow. I smiled back - broadly agreeing. Crows are one of nature's cleverest scavengers and I do have a strong partiality to scavenging.
It was thus that I spotted a little diary flung on the side of the road walking from Chuchot to Choglamsar in Ladakh. It seemed ragged and worn with its cover gone - small pages were fluttering in the cold, stiff autumn breeze. I picked it up and started reading this most remarkable discovery. In deliberately crafted writing of an artist, in faded letters on semi torn pages, began a love story, of a young girl for a boy, all in rhyming poetry, of the gazal form. I was enthralled , spell bound and immediately sat down under the next shade to quickly finish reading this exciting discovery.
However, my story is not about her love story - let's call her Salma, of pure heart and luminous poetry, because even the dead deserve respect of anonymity.
As with most love stories in this world, Salma's love unfolded with a sweetest and gentlest start - and of greatest miracle - her love was even reciprocated- Allah is great!
Days passed in subdued anticipation, and soon evening and nights in secret meetings, while poetry poured from her inspired young & tender heart. It was meant to be a present for her lover - she was planning to fill it up before gifting him her heart in words.
But, men will be men, and soon her handsome lover tired of her and her quiet ways. He was looking for more excitement and conquests and there were plenty that were ready.
Salma knew that he was more and more distracted in her presence, on his fancy phone and social media, often while she waited for one tender glance or a smile. He now made frequent excuses to not meet her - when earlier, he couldn't wait for the evenings nor bear to let her go when they were done.
Permanent pain in her heart now became her poetry and her everyday life. Her parents were at a loss as to what was happening to their Jaan. Her lover was no longer able to put up with her depression and gave up pretending that he had any interest in her.
In months that followed her sorrow gave way to rising anger and then rage. She knew that now he was openly with another girl from a wealthy background and soon they were to be betrothed.
She started planning her revenge in detail - she was beyond caring. She wanted to end her pain, but before she left this world she'd make sure that he too would not survive.
Pages filled with ways to kill him in that same little diary that had once been scattered with her love lyrics of abandon and bliss.
Finally she decided to give him one final chance and sent him her little dairy, including their fate if he did not return to her.
Bragging came to young men as easily as fish in water. He couldn't wait to read Salma's poetry and threats to his betrothed. Finally, laughing, he tossed aside her diary off Chuchot road, saying what could a silly girl - a mere daughter of a poor car mechanic - really do to them.
That's how I came up Salma's diary almost a decade later. Still reeling from the intensity of Salma's young life and her poetry, I was also filled with a deep curiosity about the fates of this couple.
I kept asking people in Choglamsar, and around Chuchot area if they knew anything of this matter. Finally, I found the answers I was seeking - yes a well to do young man had died in a car accident about a decade back. There was suspicion of foul play that was never proved. Salma's death was explained in the letter she behind - she couldn't bear to live on after her lover had died.
I walked back home and tossed the little diary in cupboard - and it would not doubt be soon forgotten.
Sometimes it feels as if my whole life has been strung out on discoveries of metaphors. I find them everywhere - just accidentally, or sometimes by design - on pondering on the nature of my situation. Sometimes, these metaphors even drop from trees - literally. I found one such, a leaf, just a few days back on my evening walk around Chuchot Yokma. There it was lying there - awaiting me, to be picked up. And it was a perfect metaphor for my this stage in Life.
Withered and brown on the outside, pure radiating gold within and singing with surging life in its emerald green, pulsing, life-affirming veins.
