Read my love ... I have poured my heart out to write this rendition.......
Dedicated to my love my Pearl.
Today my soulless brain took me back to my colony, which after 30 years, is presumed dead and lifeless. Where I see myself standing in the middle of the badminton court, the court that shares so many soulfull memories of my love and me together. I stand there alone now in this dead environment, with broken swings, desolate surroundings and abandoned houses, with the feeling of my lost love, remembering the small badminton games we used to play during our first close encounters, where I first shared my feelings with her; writing ILU on the mud........but I have nothing now, my dream shows me I am standing there in the court alone, with no one present, with an empty desolated colony all around me……………. Suddenly!!!, I see it’s the evening, the sunset is there, the colony, slowly becomes lively again, with friends and kids playing around, families chatting, and this is the same evening when my love was going out of the station with her family for the first time since we fell in love. When I first got the most cherished moment of my love journey with "time and space may keep us apart but you are always in my heart" written on a piece of paper …...... it’s the same evening, the same environment, the same feeling, the same desperation, and disappointment of not being able to see my love for 10 days. I can feel it all along…………standing there alone in the middle of the court, in the middle of the colony, which is empty, deserted and dead now. The closed abandoned houses, old rusted lawns, broken swings and the empty silence, with just the wind breezing around, seems so very haunting, making me realize, how alone, lost and deprived, I am now…….......Then, wiping off my few tears, I decide to take a round.........And suddenly it’s the night, the fresh night of the winters, with the smell that no fragrance can replace, smell and freshness of your first innocent love with your sweet window, showing its fluorescent light, that used to be my heartbeat for all the nights to come, in that colony ........The colony is lively again, with parents roaming around, kids playing, and I see my few friends, as if they are still there, in that era of Friday night movie breaks, asking me to take a round with them. I pretend to keep walking beside them as if they are still there. We walk around the corner and then pass your kitchen window……….… Wait; I see someone, someone in the darkness of the kitchen ...but I know it’s not my pearl; it must be someone else's shadow. My pearl has left me, left me years ago. It’s just me, my solitude and my memories now.......I then pass your other window, presuming that faint fluorescent light is still coming out of the curtains, that light was my inspiration to study at night, for years to come. I still try to have a peek from between the curtain lines, maybe I can have a glimpse of my life there, but no, I realize, it’s just an abandoned house now, I know I am alone, with just my emptiness and nothing else. We keep walking and get past, Ashimaa’s house, that sweet little princess who was our alibi on so many occasions, to be able to spend few minutes together…......and then I come full circle and stop in front of my love’s best friend’s house; Payal……………Suddenly, it’s not night, but a bright, summer morning, the friends are gone, the air fragrance has changed, probably its a Sunday morning, as I have a feeling of waiting, expecting my pearl to show up to go to Payal’s house. I am waiting, waiting, I still can feel that urge and prayers that I used to give to God, to be able to see my Pearl, even for just a few minutes …....... And suddenly there you are walking down from your house to hers, with a smile I can die for, like 100 times. You have the same divine walk, with your simple cotton suit and slippers..... I see you coming close to payal’s house, smiling, winking with your twinkling eyes, with the ever warmth of love and affection......walking slowly towards me. I expect you to see me, talk to me, but I forget, it’s just a dream and in reality, I am alone standing in the middle of a dead colony..... Slowly and slowly as you come near me, you start to fade away, the bright fresh summer morning slowly, gradually, starts to turn into the dead, windy, haunting, present colony ..... I try to reach you, spreading my arms to grab you, hold you....... screaming, PEARL don’t go...don’t go .... I am here.... I am still here, I would always be here,........don’t go....... but nothing, nothing stops you from fading into the thin air ..... And as you reach payal’s house and near me....you completely fade away into fragments, and all I feel is your fragrance in the moist air. I am in the present again standing alone there in the middle of the same dead empty court, closed houses, old rusted lawns, broken swings and empty silence, with only my loneliness and my memories of my lost love ...... I just walk out slowly...slowly fading into my vast emptiness, of what I call my true present.....
