...Of Anticipation

Two wet drops rolled on to his neck and mingled with his sweat. She clung closer, as if she wanted to say something and yet she seemed to have lost speech. His smell was familiar...so very familiar...the same man smell that filled her every time she breathed. She clung even closer, trying to settle down in the security of his warm being. This is where she wanted to be...

She didn't need a man. She never had. But somewhere it was because no man had ever needed her. And she couldn't care enough. She had liked men who had told her that they didn't like her. She had learnt the hard way that it was not meant for her and that it was how it was supposed to be for the rest of her life...

But there she was beside him...clinging to him like a child...resting on his promises to keep her safe from the cruel cruel world. It was something that she had never felt before...affection. He had given her the only thing she ever wanted...a sense of belonging. He could be with any woman he liked but she only had him and him alone...to love, trust to and belong to. With him, she didn't need to pretend to be strong always. She looked at his face, lost in slumber...his tender lips almost sealed in a smile...at that moment realised that this was the man she wanted to grow old with because she would still be his, even when he didn't have a single tooth left or even when he walked with a hunch. She would hold his hand and be by his side...and bear all pain for him for he was her own...her very own. She kissed his hand softly and whispered..."if only you give me a chance...if only..."

...Of Rememberance

The narrow lanes run helter skelter, almost as if on an eternal quest to spirituality...the sides are lined with tiny shops selling things of this world. Bright coloured Chadars hang in most, with trays of red roses melting away to the heat. Colourful rosaries wait to be prayed on. Fat packets of sweet meats sit piled on one another for a vulnerable customer. Stacks of audio cassettes stand lined up for those searching for an audio spiritual high, some playing age-old qawwalis in loud, throaty voices. Hasty feet, tired of the constant pestering, rest their shoes under over populated shelves. The remaining journey must be traced bare foot. Shoulders jostle as duppattas and skull caps draw to cover bare heads at the sign board that orders a display of such modesty in 3 different languages. Nimble feet tiptoe over dirt, graves and beggars to catch a glimpse of the dome of the Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah. A colourful tapestry of the toiling millions covers the courtyard in front of the tomb. Burqa clad women sitting with kohl-eyed, underfed children, waiting for their men to return from their tributes to the great Sufi saint, bearded old men with rosaries in hand who eye the donation box more than they pray, young boys with rolled up jeans in last minute bargains with God before exams, men with families with rose garlands in hand praying for a promotion or a pay hike, tourists with cameras clicking away to glory, feeling completely out of place, young girls in salwar kameez, desperately looking for their boy friends....

And in the middle of all this lies he...he who has been forgotten in all this mayhem, with a board hanging outside his door to keep women out. Hardly any of the thousands that visit him everyday remember what he really stood for. Beneath all the gold embroidered chadars that people bestow on him, lies a man who lived the life of an ascetic, who had given up on every worldly love for the love of God. Would he really have appreciated if he were to see the rosary armed men outside waiting for money to drop into the donation boxed? He was a man who stood for love, compassion, peace...and all he is now is a commodity, visiting whose grave is seen as a tourist attraction, an entertainment of sorts. Where is the spirituality? Where is the love for God and for humanity that had earned him the title 'Mehboob e Ilahi"?

And where is the devotion of a disciple like Amir Khusrau who for his beloved Shaykh had said,

"Jo kuch maange rang ki rangaii, mera joban girvi rakh le,

Tu toh Sahib mera, Mehboob e Ilahi, mohe apne hi rang mein rang le"

...Of a History in Divide

In spite of the whispering, giggling people that had piled into the room, it remained untouched...as if still in antiquity, wrapped up in history. The wooden floor beneath creaked as feet shifted, trying to catch a glimpse, struggling to capture fleeting moments in a 21st century camera. And it stood in the center of the room, captured in history, mute to what it had witnessed. If only it had struggled, burnt the plans to ashes, if only it could raise a voice, she was sure it would have...

She looked around, at the bunch of people that had gathered around and she instantly knew that no one had felt the chill run down their spine. It was not much, really. Just a circular wooden table with 3 wooden legs. Not really a big deal. As the tour guide started speaking, she floated away, somewhere in time...his voice seemed to drown in the muffled screams of massacred lives in a world gone mad...mad. This was it. This was where it had been planned. This was where a bunch of selfish people had sat down in comfortable chairs over cups of steaming coffee and had planned it all...planned the partition of hearts...planned hatred...planned bloodshed...planned loss. This is where the drafts had been laid...the date...the kilometers in exact precision....the exchange of people based on what they called their god. What they had not planned was the date when it would all end...the hatred...the striving for power...the bloodshed...the partition. That table had watched it all, silently and if only it could speak, what it wouldn't say!

(Written from memories of a visit to the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, where one can see the table on which the Partition of India was decided)

Musings of Confusion :

I cannot live in fear. I cannot live fearing God. I cannot fear Hell Fire. I cannot fear punishment. I cannot fear at all. I cannot do in fear. My biggest fear is fear itself. I cannot live in greed. I cannot live in greed of things. I cannot live in greed of blessings. I cannot live in greed of a Heaven. I cannot practice a religion in greed of a reward. I simply refuse to follow. I refuse to be a puppet. I only follow the Law of the Universe where I am a mute spectator of change. I wait and I watch. I appreciate as brown leaves swish and sway to the melody of the wind and dance their way to earth. I watch in amazement as innocent blossoms peep out of unfurling green wings. I feel the wet grass beneath my feet and bathe in the smell of moist earth. Everything is a miracle, a miracle everything is, if you drop that guide book with a long list of do’s and dont’s. The sea washing the sands, blazing in the sun say much more about the omnipresent than guide books do. The feeling of nothingness that overcomes the heart when the gigantic waves come crashing, leaving everything soaked in its glory makes one feel tiny in the great scheme of things. You don’t need books to tell you God’s Word…its written all over…in tiny droplets of rain, in the lilting melody of a nightingale’s song, in the flight of a lark, in the gleaming rays of the sun, in the twinkling of the stars, in the silver moon beams, in the scarlet blood of a rose, in the foamy, crashing waves of the sea…the Almighty’s words cannot be written in inverted commas with chapter and verse number at the end. He is written in the red, burning flames of fire, in the cold, moist feel of water, in every molecule, in the tiniest of particles, in every pore of the universe, within and without. He is written in love, in compassion, all in a language the world can’t decode, let alone get a translation done. He is in the impermanence of things and the permanent of all. He is the Law of the Universe…the law that controls and connects in fine, invisible strings, every tiny bit of the universe. He is playing an instrument with uncountable strings, in perfect harmony, melodiously for all to hear. We just find not listening the easy way out for we like living in fear and greed. Little do we realize that the reward that we want for the good we do is right here, right in front, all around, that its cradling us and making us listen to its melodious lullaby played on that instrument with a million strings. Listen, fools, forget ‘I’ for a moment an listen…