She was standing there and biting her lips as if it would help shed her responsibility or two from her just perfect shoulders. It did therefore make sense that she wore a dress which revealed her beautiful neck bones. No! She wasn’t concerned about the crowd that was watching; a few in admiration and others in aspiration but many in adulation. All waiting for how it would all come up with flash lights on, on the ramp.

Her curls hanging from her bun were being suggested to not disturb her at work. Her gown looked like silent sea at the Dawn.

parting....

The clouds were dancing in the sky; too much were the heavens in love with the earth. It was raining. I was returning from college. My stubble was out of proportion, my hair out of shape.I was envious of the freshness that the Gods had sprinkled around; searching for a similar freshness in me.
My hair had become everyone’s worry. Some were too kind to call them nice, while many others were too honest to dislike them. I had to do something about it. I had grown them for ages, I never wanted to part with them. They had become my identity, a reason why I looked at myself into the mirror, a reason I would enjoy my bath. I also liked to believe then that they also represented the careless, wanderer and nomadic artist in me. But that’s what only I believed. Others giggled at the thought.

It was romantic for me to imagine some fingers running through the duck tail I had grown at the back of my head. I always thought that it must make me look sexy. “What a disbelief”, don’t you think?

I landed up at the barbers shop on my way home. Our eyes met. With hair as long as mine he was blushing to have found a custumber to get hair re-bonding treatment(some kind of expensive hair straightening). I did not want to disappoint the loyal friend in him, but the greedy foe in him was too mean for my pocket. As I asked him to cut my hair short, I could see his smile turning upside down. I felt two contrasting emotions at one moment. Guilt and pride.

I sat on the salon’s chair, the mirror intact on its place and inside it I saw myself. Too much I was in love with myself to not make faces; smile, turn , pose. I raised my eyeballs upwards. My forehead was a playground of facial viral warts. I have to get them cured”, I said to myself... Later...
I saw my hair for the last time. I thought of changing my mind. But then I thought it was too late. I thought I should just let it go as let them go.

Thoughts triggered my mind. Different thoughts. I lived them all. Good ones, bad ones, sad ones. Consequences of how those will comment who do matter, and how those will react who don’t.

I got them cut. Short. But parting was tough. Been there feeling.

Few evenings later, I had to get my mandolin repaired. My mandolin; my company in my aloneness, the joyous song in my sorrows, the beholder of a promise made to teach it to someone dear, the friend indeed, the attention seeker, the cute little music in my hand, the eight stringed friend of mine was now 6 stringed minus one key.

The man at the music instruments shop, told me that it will take him 2 days to repair it. I asked him what it would cost me, the reply came, “eksaw pacheees”. Thinking Rs. 125 was too less for getting my friend with a fret repaired, I thought it was a good deal.

Couple of days later when I went to collect it, it was still getting repaired. The man at the counter making faces in disbelief that it was difficult repairing it. He asked me, “ kitna purana hai ye?”

I thought… I raised my palm to count on my fingers. Class 4th,5th.... 12th, plus three more years…. 12 years. “ barah”, I said. “ abi kisi tara se mei theek kar deta hai, par mai bolega aap naya lelo”, his hand still trying to cling the new wire on the board as my mandolin lay flat on the table, just like a patient on the bed of a hospital. I did not like the thought. Unfortunately I knew exactly why.
I picked up the mandolin with a new cover. Cleared all dues and left for outside. It was still raining.
For how many more days will it rain?
For how long shall the freshness remain?
Till when will my fingers comfort the strings
Which amplify the songs that me sings?

Till when will I have to part
How often will this break my heart?
From when will I learn to be numb
To the needs of my emotions
Till when will I succumb?
Parting is really tough. To be continued…

an encounter with myself...

To meet my aloneness, I have to shut the doors of my world, where I live.
The windows of which, were once made of iron have now rusted and make noise.
But once they are shut I am at ease.
At ease with my own sorrows, and my own melancholy.
I see my aloneness sitting, bent with hands joined on the stares of my true address;
I meet him not with the cross in my hands,
Neither do I tell him tales of my loved ones, nor do I ask for questions unremembered.
I look at it and bow down
In silence
In my self pitied helplessness….

Haji ali says...

I had almost finished my one sided conversation when a man from behind pushed me and made me realize that there was a queue. I bowed down, stepped back and closed my eyes as a finale. Gratitude. The flowers I had offered were on their place, my prayers heard. I knelt down and bowed again as a reminder of the conversation I had with him, my Peer Baba. Baba Haji Ali.

My words spoken in silence summed up to be my doubts. Many of those were multiples of my gratitude. Another framework of these unspoken words; my trust. About turn and just outside the shrine the sea welcomed me. I could see a patch of land with pieces of concrete art across the sea. Mumbai. Precisely Worli.

I always enjoy the sound of the air. I like it when it rushes through my hair. Mumbai was in the backdrop. It made me feel no less than the Hero of a Hindi film. Cut cut cut!

I walked through many veiled and unveiled faces to reach the cliff where I always sit after my never ending one sided conversations. Sitting and looking around I wondered why I always went to that place. Why it invited me. If at all I will hear God’s words of wisdom. Will my doubts be solved, my prayers answered?

I asked Him to give me strength; to face the difficulties that come my way. Strength; to value my cherished and prized bringing up and hold on to the value system I always flaunt with utmost pride. Strength; to change only for the better.
Its magical that a rock captured my sight. Partly embedded in the sea, partly risen, it stood firmly. I saw strength. I am sure the infinite thrusts of the waves that are born in the ocean gave the rock enough reasons to mould into another shape. But I am equally sure that the rock was honest to its creation. It wouldn’t have changed. It didn’t. It was insulted. Take two. Cut. Take 3. Endlessly. Imagine someone wetting you with a glass of water. But it held its ground. Firmly. I got strength.

I had asked for happiness; for my family, my friends, wellwishers, my love, and for myself. There were enough complaints of sorrow, bitter feelings, grief from all directions. I had to ask for happiness.
I saw a young boy holding the hands of a much older woman, I’m not sure if she was his mother. But I witnessed the intention of the clasps of those hands. It made me think of my mother. He was helping her trek those rocks so that she did not fall.
I saw a couple sitting on another rock, holding hands. I’m sure they were in love.
They were not well dressed. Surely the guy never drove back home in a car unless he was a driver. The girl wasn’t Miss India. But she was his most beautiful woman.
It was happiness I found. Behind the veiled rushes of my ignorance, I thought of all the people who really loved me in all the conditions I put. I smiled thinking about all the times they proved it and all the times they could not. All the sorrows that surfaced, melted away. I was happy.

I asked god to help me move on with the work that I loved doing.
My work. Twice I had failed. It had made me a bitter gourd from within. The resurfacings of those failures haunt me like nothing else. If my life was a film, I would edit it again but…
Those incomplete scripts, dried fountain pens, faded posters, and unedited videos narrow my brows in frustration. I eat my lips, gulp my heart. I close my eyes to think it never happened…I fail. Streams of ego, anger run through my veins, accompanied by disappointment just enough to empty the last few thorns of tears that my eyes bowl.
Amidst these thoughts, a small boy of five or six dressed in torn and dirty clothes came up to me with expecting eyes. He was a beggar. I did not think twice before rejecting his plea to give him some bucks. He must have been disappointed. Like I was? I wondered. I turned my face but could not stop myself to see where he went next.
He went to an old man, then a woman, then to another. Begging, failing, complaining to himself. Begging again. Take 2. take 3. take so on and on. Cut. He fell out of my sight.
I wonder if he ever got a paisa. But I learnt my lesson. I wont stop. I will start again…Alone, if no one ever comes along. Take 3. take 4…. Take as many times to get to do what I have loved and longed for.

It was His work. My doubts were cleared, my gratitude multiplied, my trust strengthened.
I breathed the fresh air and thanked Him again. And as I turned my back to the dargah to walk outside, I was sure He blessed me with more doubts to clear, more challenges to look forward to every morning, more defeats to make me humble enough to celebrate the true victories of life.
So I wiped my face and took a cab to the nearest station to continue my journey.

Few thoughts, fewer expressions

We all think. Maybe that’s what we do the most. We do it all the time. This subconscious activity stems our thoughts, imaginations, feelings and beliefs. And I must not fail to mention that our intentions also emerge from our thoughts. But how valuable are thoughts without an expression. I remember arguing once with a friend who believed that man is essentially a mental being. I did not completely disagree. I thought that a significant part of man, or his life involved his mind, his thoughts and emotions but they too result from what has been happening around him, which is how things are expressed in his environment. Since man can not live in isolation, all that he thinks is indirectly a consequence of his bringing up, his childhood, and his present dynamic surroundings at all levels(physical, emotional...).
Music made an impression on me since I was a little kid. i could hardly write or frame decent sentences but my fingers knew the notes of the then bollywood hit numbers and expressed them on my keyboard. It shaped me up and introduced me to the real world of poetry through the songs.
On the other hand, my Nanaji's stories, Urdu poetry developed in me a love for rhymes. Therefore the expressions of someone's thoughts made an impression on my mind and gave rise to my thoughts.
But I question myself. "How far have I been able to express myself?". I haven’t a lot of times. I can lie to the world but to myself. So am I dishonest to myself if I don’t express all that I really feel? Am I disrespecting my genuine thoughts?
Here is a list of a few ways in which we all express/ or fail to express ourselves.
We have an ego. Behind the voluptuous lips, we have the brit stiff upper lip. Maybe a legacy we have inherited from our past. We’d often want to give a helping hand to people in need but our ego pulls our noses back. We think of helping, but we fail to express.
We don’t want to hurt our loved ones. Think of the time your mother decided to cook something really nice for you. You were all prepared to have the meal of your life only before you realized that it isn’t that good. Your mom looked at you with an expecting glitter in her eyes; a glitter you only saw when she watched the interviews of her favourite yesteryear stars. You somehow manage to gulp it down your throat and smile the widest and the most dishonest smile and say, "mom! great food, thanks". Though you have a kind intention yet you have dishonest expression.
It happens when you have fallen in love. You take a good deal of time in deciding that its love you have fallen in. you are sure of your feeling. Your feeling for that special someone is honest, genuine and true. To the most insignificant friend of yours, you can easily explain what you are going through. You can be pretty descriptive to many people about it. But when time comes to tell that special one who should really be concerned about your emotions, about your love, your lips tremble, words don’t step forward.

Then when you part, you want to tell your sweetheart how much love you still hold in your heart. But you shut your mouth, thinking that your happiness is less important
We fall short of words often. Sometimes we have words in plenty but little time to put them to an expression. Its when you have your last ride with your lover after which you never know if you’re going to ever meet next.
Then there are different mediums; music, art. For the skilled, it works in two ways:- conveying messages and earning bread. Some make films, some write stories. You either strum your feelings down the strings or you paint them up on a canvas, or scribble it all over a notebook’s last page, but you express and how!
And I must mention the great Indian melodramatic expression of the satire, horribly put as a taunt. When did you last hear, “Bombay has changed you”, or the same thing put in another way?
I have nothing against the expression. One must honestly express but I wonder how convenient it is to be loyal to your thoughts all the time. It is impractical to spill everything out. There are things we want to keep to ourselves. But we keep more to ourselves than we can handle. It overflows in one way or the other making us bitter. We dream and plan more, and do little. We wish more than we can get. We think more than we can express and I still wish I could express as much as I thought and be true to what I do the most, true to the activity which makes each one of us a unique person employed to sustain the common human body.

eyes...

fulfilling is the sight
of your eyelashes.
for my hungry eyes
they are like
the leaflets
of the most beautiful
greens
in the gardens
of the mornings.
when they are wet...
with the dew
that shines when the morning sun
bids the night
adieu.
like you wash your soul
with the tears that you
pour out
from your heart
to bid good bye
to the fear the guilt
the impatience
that cages your heart
in mine...
i love your eyelashes
they can like a broom
clean my soul
wash my heart
and tickle my senses
i love them on mine
and i love you.