Sunflower.......

A lazy breeze loiters around the banks of the gurgling brook as it ripples across the grass field, reflecting the late-summer sun. The green grass carpets the entire valley... wait... not quite entirely.... There is a little plant by the stream... and there’s this small bud... a tiny speck of yellow in the ocean of green.... oh, it’s a sunflower, and its opening up... gradually... petal by petal... unfurling a glorious splash of colour in the monotonously green valley-side...

The Sunflower sways lightly in the breeze... its petals straighten a little.... and effortlessly imperceptibly, it now stands facing the sun.... taking in its warmth.... the feeling of being born....

There’s a rustle nearby..... someone’s walking down the hillside... a swishing red skirt... the muffled sobs... tears.... she wipes them on her sleeve... a soft whisper... is she talking to the river ??

“ You remember me, don’t you ?? you knew him too... we used to come here together, always... it was here that our love blossomed... day by day... moment by moment.... that feeling of inexplicable bliss... how foolish I was to believe it would last forever.... and how foolish I am to keep thinking he’ll return....”

She restrains herself from succumbing to that urge to cry her heart out........

There's a faint rustle..... she looks up.... the sunflower is swaying lightly... she twists her fingers around the stem... and in one tug... she has the sunflower... dead.. but not destroyed, it still looks like it could be faintly smiling...

She plucks a petal “he loves me”... then another “he loves me not”....

“he loves me”.... “he loves me not”.........................

The last petal...................................... “he loves me not”...

The sunflower is nowhere to be seen... but there is something bright like sunshine, floating down with the river.... sunflower ??

Far away... there’s a faint outline of a red swishing skirt... walking into the evening....

Her entire life seemed to have been given to that pretty flower...

And as the night descends... there is none to witness this silent death.... of the Sunflower..... this silent murder of her dreams, her faith.... this devastation of two lives....

Left Behind

Tum gae ho kyun ... raat baaki hai

Tum gae ho kyun... saath baaki hai

Tum gae, hum tham gae... har baat baaki hai....

Gae kyun ???

In the loving memory of a friend who left me, possibly forever, at seven in the morning today.... He will stay connected, through occasional wall posts, tweets, mails.... but he’ll never stand in front of me, tilt his head and smile my favourite crooked smile as he makes an uncannily correct guess about the mundane thoughts that torture me.... never will he simply smile and almost irritate me to death with curiousity by refusing to share the not-so-funny-anymore joke....... never again...

But he’ll live with me forever... in those innumerable memories I’ve collected over the past two years... in those countless little scribbles on the last page of my physics register.... in all those picture perfect moments when I had the blessed camera with me and managed to preserve our time together..... in the sugary-sweet fragrance of the kulfi.... in the text messages in my ‘saved messages’ folder.... and in that one long scrap which I have exclusive claim to, those eight pages, dedicated to me, handwritten in his supposed-to-be-splendid but i-think-its-barely-readable handwriting......

Obviously, I hope to meet him some day.... but then, I know what it is like to leave old friends..... when you have been moving to a new destination every few years, travelling miles and miles away to an entirely new place each time your dad got transferred, you know that you’re leaving people behind and you’ll almost surely never ever meet them again... you learn to let go, no matter how strong the ties that hold you.... you realise the inevitability of separation.... and this very inevitability has separated the two of us, but there’s a minor difference this time... for a change, it’s not me who is leaving, I’m the one being left behind, and there’s a world of difference between the two.....

For the first time, I’ve realised, that leaving someone is so very easy..... because you have an entirely new life awaiting you... but being left behind is painful..... Your life remains the same, the place remains the same, everything is exactly the same, except for that missing loved one..... you can feel them when you sit down on your favourite park-bench, you can hear the faint ghosts of their ringing laugh, you feel their faint impressions everywhere you go... and each day reminds you of them, pains you.... To be left behind, is like living with a missing breath... and a skipped heartbeat....... every day, every hour, every moment.....