The Thief

‘The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either-

But right through every human heart.’

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The fair is again, packed with people, bustling with joy and excitement, their eyes running wildly from stall to stall and in the midst of all, landing at my table too. The items I have kept on my table are few but precious. Surely, they are. The board behind me reads, ‘Items of Partition’. Trade fair is among the few places where I can earn something by selling all that I had earlier. From my childhood, my youth, all my life’s possessions now displayed on a table. My grandson says, “Dadi, you should only sit at the stalls. It will give a nice touch to the stalls. An old lady selling items from her time. Such great vintage feels.” I sometimes don’t feel like doing it but my son hasn’t sent me any money in a long time and possessions don’t fill your stomach, money does. My old age has told me this too often.

 A small girl came running at my stall and picked up a bangle.

“How much for it, aunty?” She asks in a cherubic, soft voice and my wrinkled face turns hurtfully in a smile as I say, “Just one hundred, my dear.”

She looks in her small bag for a while then, looks at me with sad eyes and leaves. Without the bangle. People continue to swarm in, picking up items from my  table, buying some, clicking pictures of others even though another small board behind me reads, ‘No photography please’ but they don’t see it, I guess. Like many other things nowadays people ignore like the news of another burned woman found on street side after being raped.

I took a deep sigh and look at the bangle that the small girl wanted to buy earlier. I looked at it and suddenly, I remembered it. Just the way even a stone has a story to it, the bangle did too.

One of my earliest possessions, it was. I tried to force my slowly degenerating brain to remember the details because details are important. Everyone knows the story but details, it is the details that make all the changes.

It was a great day for Bauji who was glued to his television, listening to a man speaking on the mic, talking about some ‘India awakes while the world sleeps’. I didn’t know him then nor I asked Bauji about it. For a seven year old girl, her world was far more important than political victories and newly gained rights. Later in my life, someone told me that it was the day India got independence from all the tyranny and shackles of the past rule. But I clearly remembered my mother stuck in the kitchen on that day, wiping sweat off her forehead by her sleeves, making tea and paranthas for Bauji while he sat glued to his television, under the fan. So I had a really hard time believing about independence that we got that day. Interestingly, later on, my husband told me the difference between independence and privileges. Independence may had been for all but privileges still remained in the hands of few. This, he told me, as he let me sit in the verandah in the evenings because he was liberal and used to feel pride to allow his wife to leave the four walls of bedroom or kitchen unlike other men. Because he was liberal and kind. And loving and different from other men.

But I remember one thing. I remember a train. A bangle. A thief. Most importantly, the thief.

I was roaming along the train tracks that day, walking on the narrow metal tracks, trying to keep myself balanced and falling often, just to start again when I saw the train, a bit ahead of the station.

I had been on trains many a times but still the thrill of running in an empty train was something my innocent heart yearned for at that time. So I myself took that train that day so that in future, when my whole body trembles due to its memory, there won’t be anyone to blame except me.

The train smelled of something really bad. I didn’t know the smell then but now, if someone asks me what the smell was of, I will say it was death. The smell of death, as if it had just left from there, collecting souls in its dark, long arms and leaving for a Beyond that no writer or poet ever speaks about.

There were stains on the floor of the train and walls of the toilets. The rays of the afternoon sun got into the coach of the train and the stains reflected their color. It was red. Not the red of a bride’s dress on her wedding day nor the red the evening sky is. It was the red color of blood, horrifying blood because it wasn’t blood given as sacrifice or given while fighting bravely. It was the blood that left a foul smell of fear, fear that gave this blood in the end. The source of the blood and the fear wasn’t far away. My legs wanted to turn and run at once but there is a small devil that resides in all of us that sometimes, makes us do things we often regret later on.

Curiosity.

I walked few more steps and saw people sleeping peacefully, lying in strange postures, some on top of another, some with a missing leg, some with a missing arm but what got my attention was a man with a missing head.

The old maid in our house that my father used to see with disgrace much used to tell me that there are monsters with no heads that roam to eat up children. When I used to ask Bauji about it, he just used to wave off the topic, saying, ‘It’s just low caste stories made to scare their kids. You don’t have to listen to this non-sense.” How were stories divided on caste, I never got a chance to ask him.

The man with the missing head on the train had blood splattered all over him. I carefully walked passed them, not touching even one part of them and on a different seat, laid the body of a woman, her clothes torn apart as if a vicious animal had feasted on her. Her face was disfigured. I withdrew my eyes from that scene. There was a moment I was deciding to go back when my eyes fell on something shiny and glittery. It was a bangle. In the hands of a small girl my age, lying at the floor of the coach, right next to the lady with the disfigured face. I looked at the bangle with amazement because it was beautiful and I wanted to have it. There was a desire in me, as strong as any other desire a human could have and it wanted to be fulfilled. So I tried to raise the girl’s arm to get that bangle but her hand was stiff, tight and rigid like a statue, holding to the folds of the salwar of the lady with the disfigured face.

Later in my life, when my son learnt in his medical school that this stiffness of corpses is called rigor mortis, only then I was able to understand why it took so hard for my seven year old self to get that hand rid of the folds of the cloth and get the bangle out of it. After a lot of struggle at that time, my possession was in my hand and I simply ran with it.

As I was about to jump out of the train, I saw, in another compartment, a head lying on the ground. I wanted to scream at the top of my voice, telling everyone that the man with the missing head had lost its head in another compartment but I didn’t. I had a bangle in my hand and I felt I had done something wrong.

I ran with the bangle to a hand pump where I washed off the stains from it and wore it for a moment. Then, I cried. My mind which had processed everything a bit slowly back in the train was putting all the pieces together and the only thing I could do was cry. For then, I had seen a train full of corpses, humans slaughtered and butchered.

Later in my life, when I got to know about the incident and that horrifying train, my mind raced me back to that memory that I used to hold still so carefully in one tiny corner, I trembled. I looked at the bangle that I had hidden in one of my wooden boxes and wept. On that horrifying day, humans had killed other humans. For reasons no one can explain sensibly. No one was victim. No one was a criminal. It was an act that took toll on both the sides. Stories spread that it was a battle to protect a religion from other religion. But my mind, as my husband said didn’t understand much, constantly asked me whether religion protects people or kills people. In the end, all my seven year old self saw in that train was humans should fear humans only for they are the worst kind.

Rigor mortis is the state of stiffness and hardness in a corpse that makes it hard to move. But I don’t think it was some biological phenomenon that was making it hard for me to remove that small girl’s hand away from her mother.

It was her love, her fear and her last hope that had held on even after her death. I could imagine the small girl, hiding under the seat of her mother while people screamed all around her, splashes of blood landing at her feet. She was crying and trembling at the same time, holding on to her mother’s clothes. Then she heard the cries of her mother as men, several men, had ripped off her clothes, torn her skin with their bare hands and she would have screamed at the top of her lungs but no one would have listened. In the end, when all would have turned silent and only the whimpering of the little girl could be heard in the train, one man who had been looting the dead, would have found her hiding under the seat. He would have driven her out, kicked her in the stomach, spat on her and yelled, ‘Bloody dirty blood! How can you live!”

And just before he would have slashed her with his blade, she would have thought, ‘What does dirty blood means?’

I looked at that bangle for long in nights of my teenage and I could hear screams of the mother of that small girl and sounds of various other people raging in my ear. In the end, those screams used to get so loud that I had to keep that bangle back in the box. What in fact, dirty blood means when all the blood I saw in the train looked the same. The blood of men, women, children, old and young alike, blood was the same and the problem didn’t lie in the blood but the fact that it was spilled like colors on Holi.

I had dreamed many a times, going in that train again and again, the head lying in a different compartment staring at me, calling me, ‘THIEF! YOU STOLE FROM DEAD’

 I ran away from him and stopped in my path as the small girl looked at me with tears in her eyes. ‘What do you mean by dirty blood, dost?’ The way she called me a friend even in dreams hurt me.

I got back to the present suddenly when the girl came back. This time, she was with her parents.

“Aunty, do we get any discount on this?” Her mother pointed at the bangle.

I immediately took it from the table. “I..I am sorry. This is not for sale.”

“But she just told you were giving it for hundred rupees.” Her father said.

“I…I might have misunderstood for something else. You know, old age does this to me.”

 I gave an apologetic look and they went away, the girl looking at me with upset eyes.

I couldn’t give it to her at any cost. The bangle looked at me, the screams slowly rising again in the back of my mind. The bangle seemed to accuse me, blame me for whatever happened to its real owner. It was as if the bangle was breathing, breathing the same air as me and questioning my very existence, asking me, “How can you live when my real owner doesn’t? How come your blood still runs in your vain while my real owner’s got spilled on the train’s coach?’

 The crowded place suddenly seemed suffocating to me. I wanted to run. Run away from it. Just the way a thief does. After his theft. But who was the thief in this story of the bangle? Was it me? The one who stole from the dead?

 Was it the humans who killed each other? The boundaries in the name of which they killed each other?

Or simply the thief which has existed since the beginning of times and shall remain till the end of times too?

Death?

Story of a Burning Wick

Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers

To turn on the light. – Dumbledore

 

“You want another story? I mean like seriously? I am literally burning my midnight oil!” The wick  laughed at his own pun he swore never to use again. But it was the third time in the night. The stars above and candle beside him were the proof. Yet, everyone’s gaze were on him. He was an amazing storyteller. That’s why only he was the one still burning while all his other mates slept peacefully. Some young and straightly standing candles like soldiers on a drill looked upon him like an idol. His flame was what drew everyone’s attention! His flame stick to him even in the chilly winds just the way a lover does to his love in the hardest tests of destiny. Oh his flame! Such romantic being

“Got it guys. You  still look up to me so I got to give it to you. Let me narrate this very particular tale of mine. Its astonishingly very plain and commonly but well, it has a charm to  it. Ah, just like me.”

And I jumped. (Oh not me, guys. Diyas and candles don’t jump. I means the lead of this story. Well, not the lead. One of the two main leads. Forget it! I am not explaining more. From now on, figure out on your own)

I closed my eyes tight. I didn’t want to feel what it is like to crash into a still lake from some height and hear your bones breaking one by one and slowly, your breath gushing out of your body, drawing everything out of you like a vacuum. So, I closed my eyes and remembered.

Three days back, if anyone would have given me even a hundred rupee new note, I won’t have jumped into this river. I couldn’t be forced by anyone to do anything. I was a master of my will. If someone would have asked me how was life, it was good, I would reply. It was Diwali’s time after all.  My father’s peak business time. To all those who don’t know, he sold colors of Rangoli. It was in great demand. I heard from someone that these things are not much in use because people in cities buy readymade but huh! Who listens! People always find time to make rangolis even if they are the busiest of people, like in big cities, I have heard.

So yeah, life was good. My younger sister, Ruhi was excited to celebrate her seventh Diwali this time but the first one in which she had plans to do various things. She was excited to see the city’s market in all its charm and decorations. Baba had promised to take us with him during this Diwali to the city. That was the reason why we were hauling ourselves along with big cloth bags stuffed with packets of various colors in a bus packed in all proportion with people.

That day, our father looked strange…quite different. He was the same old man but not the man we knew, but a stranger who was dressed in father’s skin. We could see his face but couldn’t identify it properly. It seemed like the smile had been stolen from his lips and pain and sadness had been plastered on it.

On reaching upon the place, we both helped him set up his stall and after savoring on our packed lunch by Maa, me and my sister were given commands to stay in the market only and not go too far. We both nodded our heads in unison.

I took Ruhi’s little hand in mine and went on a tour of the market. It was splendid. The whole decoration seemed like it was a big wedding of a sahukar or someone. There were sweet shops from which obviously we had to divert our gaze because 1) they were costly and ten rupee coin won’t help much! 2)Eating without permission was still not legalized.

We looked around for some police constables too, of whom we had heard a number of stories about their big, fat bellies and their hobby of removing of stalls of people who had put them up without permission. Baba had been a victim of such constables a few times. But this time, there were none to be seen.

Life was definitely good.

I decided to check on Baba once and asked Ruhi to not go too far from the sweet shop and I knew she wouldn’t.  Her eyes were glued to Kaju barfis. I knew she was thinking of relishing its taste just by seeing it only. When I went back to the stall, it looked completely normal. Same as we have left. And that was the big problem. Baba was sitting in one corner and by the look on his face, it was clear that no customer had come till now. People looked at us like we were a pitiful scene and that irritated me. A person came and start looking at the colors but when I approached him to ask what he wanted, he just sighed and left. I suddenly understood why Baba was sad. I had no words to comfort him and just like from the perspective of money, I was now poor even from the perspective of words.

Then, Ruhi came. With a big, half toothed grin on her face. “Bhaiya, come with me. I want to show you something. Come, quickly!”

She took my hand and dragged me along her. I wanted to stay with my father, comfort him and try to act like a grownup male member of the family. But his eyes were fixed at a far distance. He didn’t look at me. Nor did Ruhi stopped.

Soon, we were standing outside a shop that had beautiful diyas lined up in rows, ranging from small to big ones, from  one colored to multi colored, some even had designs upon them, some had god-like figures on them too. But what caught Ruhi’s eyes was a medium sized Diya, which had various ribbons attached to its outside shell and a beautiful curve at the edge where the wick would stand.

“I want that, bhaiya. Please, buy it for me.” She looked at me, with her round, hazel eyes.

All colors drained from my face. Just by the look of the diya, I knew it was costly, not by normal standards but for me in the current circumstances. I couldn’t ask Baba for any money. The ten rupee coin weighed heavy in my pocket.

I gathered courage and asked, “Bh…Bhaiya! How much it is for?” I asked the shopkeeper.

“Oh this one! Just fifty rupees!” Those words were  lightening that struck me hard.

“Ruhi, go back to Baba. I will come back with your diya.”

Remind me people! If I ever write a  book on my damn life, let me write a big essay on why one shouldn’t make promises that we can’t keep. The promise that I made to Ruhi gave her hope and that promise along with her hope weighed me down.

“Okay bhaiya. You are the best brother.”

I got a few more bags of burden on my back.

She went back and then, I decided to try all my tactics to buy it. I negotiated with that man but still, he didn’t come down to ten rupees.

I knew that he was not the only one owning that diya. I could find it anywhere and so my next plan was to check each and every part of the market. The city market was swarmed by customers, sellers and beggars, by that time. The trio was in perfect harmony in the market. It was only this time that no one had a problem with the other. The sellers gave items at rate what people said so and people even weren’t reluctant to give the offered prices of the items. It was a beautiful scene. Also, whatever ten or five rupees they got as change went into the jholis of the beggars who always made sure to shower their blessings upon people. It was a beautiful scene. But in this holy and utterly serene place, I was the one struggling. Struggling to find the diya my sister wanted.

After travelling the whole labyrinth, I was back at the same shop where I started my journey from.

“Oh. Oh bache! Listen!” Someone called me.  I looked around to see a young man calling me from the shop. I ran up to him.

“Hey, I listened when you were talking to Lala sahib. He has thick skin. Won’t listen to your bargain. But I know a place. You know, the lake – the one at the outskirts of the city. Not much far from here. Go there. There are people selling similar diyas at very cheap rates. You will find your one there only.”

I hugged that guy. He was greater than God to me at that moment. I thanked him and then, ran. Soon, realization dawned upon me as it was my first time in the city and I didn’t know where I had to go to find the lake. I asked many people and then, walked down the path of my destiny.

It was evening and I was drenched in sweat and dust. The cool winds of November blew straight at my face and as I approached the lake, the winds became cruelly colder. I shivered.

I saw the market from a distance. I gathered my remaining strength and ran for the market. But as I closed towards it, I found people running with their items, their stalls and whatever else they could get hold of. I didn’t understand what was happening. I tried to stop a man from running to know what was happening when he yelled.

“GET ASIDE KID! THE HAWALDARS ARE HERE. WE DON’T WANT TO END UP IN LOCK-UPS DURING DIWALI!”

A rocket went up in the sky at that moment and burst with a small poof and then vanished. Just like my luck!

Accepting my defeat, I sat at the edge of a small cliff, my leg hanging in air and the sound of the water below was light and yet it attracted me. The burden of promises and expectations pulled me down too. My mind wanted to let go off things. It was tired of hearing Ruhi’s voice full of expectations and innocence, thinking that I was the best brother she had. I was the worst. I couldn’t fulfill her smallest wish. I stood up and took a deep breath.

…..and then I jumped. Out of nowhere, a hand pulled me. I was thrown on the ground.

I opened my eyes to see a shabby looking face grinning at me. “So keen to die brother?”

I stood up and looked at her properly. She was a girl of around my age. She had wiry, dirty hair tied back in a pony and wore a long skirt and a loose fitting shirt. She had sparkly green bangles in her one hand and a yellow bangles in the other. She also wore mismatched pair of slippers. She had a bag on her shoulder. A rag picker!

“What’s the point dying today? Today’s Diwali. Enjoy it! Look we got so many gifts today. Thanks to the police.”

She pointed out to the place where the market had been an hour back. It was barren land now except some of her other mates who were picking up a thing or two.

“Come Rani. Quick. Or else we will take your stuff too.” One of her mates called.

“No one even looks at Rani’s things.” She shouted back and then, looked at me. “Are you coming or still want to jump?” She asked. I felt like a duty to follow her. She kept humming as she picked up the things. There were all sort of stuff, whatever people left behind from their stalls. Probably, it is a waste to them but here, it was a gift for these kids.

“Huh, a diya! I don’t need it. Diyas don’t burn on water!” Rani picked up one and was about to throw it when I asked for it. It was not the same but it was good. I kept it my pocket.

“Thank you.” I said.

“Oh needless, friend. Consider it a gift from Rani. Rani has a big heart and today is Diwali. I love this festival. I celebrate it with my friends. But look at you, you look like a family folk. Go back to them! Celebrate with them! Why drowning in such dirty lake today? Look for some other day and some better lake, I would suggest!” She grinned and left to find more “gifts” of Diwali.

When I came back to the stall of Baba, it was already midnight. He had slept. Ruhi was sitting, watching some small candles burning. I went up to her and she hugged me.

I handed over the diya but she kept it aside.

“Where have you been? Never go away for so long. It scares me.” She said.

We both sat, poured some oil in the diya and made a small wick and watched its flames till our eyes fell heavy and we slept.

“The light of yours will always be more than this diya. Never let it be consumed by darkness.” She murmured before sleeping.

I smiled, realizing that all this while, I had been standing on the casted shadow’s side of the diya. Now, I  was in the light.

 

Voice of the Anklets (Part 2)

The sound of his tears was all he heard for a while. He wanted to see and touch those eyes that were crying but he cursed his luck again.

“Qasim, I don’t know why is this happening but my mom is suddenly now pressurizing me to get married to a person who has a severe mental disorder. I met him and he is kind of violent too. I could look it in his eyes, the way he looked at me and stuff. When I told my mother about it, she just said, I would get someone like this only. I don’t want to get married to him. I want someone else. Someone better.” She sobbed and I could hear it properly now. We had grown good friends by this time, so I put a hand firmly on hers to calm her down but she just wrapped her arms around me. I didn’t know what to do. I became motionless and so did the time around me.

“What kind of a guy do you want?” I asked to break the silence. She simply handed me down another sheet as if she already knew I would ask something like this.

“Someone who has intelligence in his eyes and warmth in his heart and enough room in his thoughts to occupy me.”

“I could have done the other two things but the eyes part, I don’t think so they could hold anything.” I tried to joke but I guess she wasn’t in a mood. She typed something and this time, I asked not to bring out the paper. I read from there only. “Do you like me?” She asked.

“Doesn’t it require someone to see the appearance of the other to like that person?” I asked.

“I will make you see me.” She wrote.

“I have eyes that could make you see, I have ears that could hear your voice, I have a face that has found many appreciators but not even one who could love it, I have fingers that write things mostly for you, and I have legs that are adorned with those anklets whose voice only you could hear.” She wrote and I read. I was mesmerized by how deeply she felt about……me.

“You are more than this.” I brought my hand to her hair and ran my fingers through them. “You have long hair that are just proud to be a crown on your head. You….” I put a hand firmly to her shoulder. “….have a heart that beat for more than just you.”

She wrote again. “You don’t even know where the heart is.” She brought my hand from her shoulders towards the side pocket of her dress and made my hand rest there. I could feel her heavy and slow breathing and the fast beating of her heart inside her chest.

“This….” Before I could say anything, she kept a finger upon my lips as if she had been waiting to get this kind of silence all her life. Then, just for a moment, she removed her finger and brushed her lips against mine.”

 

Mahima blushed. She didn’t know what to ask now. Maybe how they got married and had children? Her mind thought. Sensing the silence in the room, the poet continued.

“The next evening we met, she didn’t carry a typewriter with her. But she had a paper in her hand that read, “I learnt lip reading today. You speak, I will try.”

We tried for an hour and at last, she was able to understand my three words, ‘You are exquisite’. She must have blushed because she withdrew her hand immediately after she understood the words. She didn’t write anything that day but kept on listening my voice as if it was the last time she was listening it.

As she was about to leave the room in the night, I called out to her, “Wait, I want to tell you something.” She came over to me and kept her fingers softly on my lips. I opened my mouth to speak but instead of speaking, I just kissed them softly. She was about to withdrew her hands but this time, I spoke, “I love you, Zulekha.” She didn’t take her fingers back but stayed like that for a while and then, I heard her anklets one more time and she went downstairs.

The next morning came with the harshness of winter that had come in our city and in my heart. I went to the breakfast table but heard no voice of any anklets. “Where is Zulekha?” I asked my mother.

“Huh? Didn’t she tell you she was going back to her home this morning. Her ammi came to pick her up and she left. The classes which she had been taking ended last week only. She stayed till this time because she said she had a project to complete. I think it was completed.”

I stood up and made my way back to my room to check whether she really completed her project or not.

I found a page lying in my closet with a small box on top. I took the paper and began reading it.

“I know Qasim you will be very angry when you will read this but I can’t do anything. There is no reason I could have stayed here. You loved me and so did I. But who has ever listened to two young people in love. And our case was worse, my love, one of us can’t see and the other can’t speak. Our love story would have never found a place in society. I think the last thing the society could have given us was this distance and I won’t have allowed it to gift us this thing. When our love was something we ourselves created, then this distance should have been our own too. Because your Zulekha has never learnt to lose. Till the time she has your love, she would never lose. I want to see you happy. The last thing I want from you is that since I had given you my love and words, I want you to do something to celebrate our love for the rest of our lives. I may sound selfish but I want this. Don’t come looking for me in my home for I live in your heart and your words.”

It was all written in Braille script and the world would have to turn blind to read it. That is why I was fortunate that only I could read it.”

 

“A story that no movie or novel could give! I am splendid to hear your story of love, sir.” Mahima said.

“The letter may sound filmy and all, dear, but it was true and I still have it in my possession. Possession worthy of my life.” He said.

“But you said there was a box too. What did it contain?”

“What it could have?” He asked back.

“Possession worthy of your life….those anklets.” Mahima gasped as if she had just found out the mystery behind a complicated detective case.

“I think you have made your Zulekha proud by celebrating your love for her in whole of the country.”

“Maybe or maybe not. I may became anything you want to call me but the thing I wanted to become the Yousuf of my Zulekha and I guess, I had become that.”

“So what message do you have for your readers and admirers?” Mahima asked.

“In this life of mine which was filled with assumptions and lots of ‘maybe’, I found love that was like the smell of old books in a library waiting since eternity for a reader to come and read it. The time I spent with my love were like the summers after a long harsh winter. I wish I could turn back the clock and bring the wheels of time to a stop.”

“So that you could spend the time again with your love.” Mahima said.

“Oh yes, also, the words with which I would like  to conclude is that words hold the most powerful magic if the one speaking them and the one listening to them believes them to hold.”

“Would you like to conclude with a piece of work of yours?” She asked. He nodded.

 

“The day those anklets would clink again,

I would feel my sanity regain

All its madness and all its love,

Till that time, let be a cave

And me a wild man living within

Breathing in the summer’s winds that blew with your name

And end with it too.

The day those anklets would clink again,

I would know my summer has come again,

And I would walk out of my cave.”

 

VOICE OF THE ANKLETS (Part 1)

“I love thee with a love that shall not die, till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old”

                                                             William Shakespeare

 

“The camera would start recording in a minute, sir. Are you ready or do you have any questions?” The reporter asked nervously. It was her big break. The first time she was taking an interview of an extremely famous personality of the country. If she said anything that would offend the personality, her career would be dead even before starting.

The man in front of her was in his forties with a little speck of white in his hair. He had a few wrinkles on his face as well. A mark on his forehead told he had got into some accident in his childhood. He had kept his eyes closed all this time as if in a deep sense of meditation. By his appearance, he could have passed for any regular man living a stressed life in a metropolitan city but the country and half of the world knew him as ‘The Legend’.

He nodded and the camera began recording.

“So, ladies and gentlemen, today our channel has reached the house of that great personality which has been the poetic sensation of our country and lives in the heart of all those who know the word ‘love’. We have with us, the love poet, Qasim Haider.” The reporter said in an enthusiastic tone.

“You could have told the blind poet too. I feel pride in that title much.” He spoke for the first time in front of her. That’s when she knew why people love his poetry. He spoke each word as if giving it equal respect and love the way a father may love his children. He definitely fulfilled the meaning of his name, the distributor. He was, indeed, a distributor of love.

“Of course sir, as you feel like. But why is that you find honor in the words ‘blind poet’?”

“Well, some people may feel pity for me that I am blind and so on but believe me, girl, if everyone can’t see the person in front of them, it would take them a hard time to understand their emotions, and thus, you would carefully pick your words. And in my case, it was even more difficult for she can’t speak even.” He smiled.

“It shows you had a life full of inspiration that you may want to tell others so that the youth could learn something from you.” The reported said.

“Oh no, no. The person who himself had spent his life learning from someone else and is still getting inspired by her, how can he tell someone what to do in life?” He laughed.

“Sir, you have been using the word ‘her’ in our conversation for so long. Who is this ‘her’? Someone you write about, your inspiration? Or it’s just a random thing?”

“I was thinking when you would come to this? After all, a young mind like you would always want to know something like this? The inspiration behind an artist’s art, a poet’s poem and a writer’s muse. Oh yes, I had one inspiration. She taught me all I could learn. She was full of life, zest, her words could make you feel full of hope and brightness as if there would never be darkness and believe me, if she could make brightness in the life of a blind man like me, she could do anything.” He chuckled.

“Who was she?”

“Correct it to What was She? She was Zulekha. A soul blessed by Allah himself that came to earth to help a needy one.”

“Would you like to share your story?” The reporter, Mahima asked, feeling a bit scared as if she might have pushed the great poet to his limits already. But to her surprise, he began.

‘One dark rainy day. Oh, yes it was dark even then. I sat in my room of darkness without any light but with lot of voices around me. Strange room it was. I could hear the rumbling of clouds and drumming of raindrops against the window. These two sounds were anything in that room worth listening too. Other sounds were all of pity about me that were nothing but boredom to me. But then, just like a moment of salvation comes in everyone’s life comes when they know this is it, either the end or the beginning of the most beautiful journey they had ever embarked upon, a moment came in my life that brought the sounds of anklets in my life. It might look ordinary now and even then too, but I felt warmth that the anklet’s owner was about to bring in my life.

The gates opened, many new voices entered our home but still, the voice of the anklet owner could not be heard. I sat quietly in the corner. Soon, people came and greeted me. I got to know they were some family relatives of mine. Nice people. They didn’t ask much about my health and all. It was nice.

“Qasim beta, say hello to Zulekha. She will be living with us for some time. She is here for her ‘studies’. My mother emphasized on the word ‘studies’ as if it didn’t suit to what she actually meant. I just waved my hand feeling that Zulekha might see to it.

Later in that evening, I was in my room, trying to read my book of Braille to get better at it. But each time I tried to move my fingers over it, the raised dots and dashes just made me frustrated about who I was, about my problem that was a result of a disease in childhood, and feeling that my life was nothing but a waste. I threw my book away and the THUD sound it made, that gave me some relax. The door opened and someone came in. The voice of anklets came with it. My heart raced like the drops on the window panes. A soft hand touched mine. There was silence but I could hear heavy breathing and then, someone placed the book on my lap.

“Zulekha?” I asked.

No answer.

“Can’t you speak?” I asked,  irritated by the silence. She took my hand and my palm faced upward, she wrote a word on it, the softness of her finger running on my palm tingled me. She wrote, “NO”.

Definitely, wherever the God of love was, he was laughing at both of us, since the one can’t see and the other can’t speak.’ He took a deep sigh.

“But if such was a case of you both, then how come you ever talked?” Mahima asked out of curiosity. The poet, Qasim smiled.

“First of all, the language of love doesn’t need any word to reach the other person because words are just an external facility for human. Besides, words always have their way to reach each other if they know how it can happen.” He continued his tale.

‘The next evening, she sat with a typewriter. I ran my hand along it and knew immediately it was the Perkins Brailler, a typewriter for the blind.

I heard the sound of keys being pressed slowly as if she was having a hard time writing in the Braille script. At last, she handed me down a paper. I ran my hand along it. It was a short message but I knew that I couldn’t read as I was bad at it.

“I can’t read this. I am a loser.” I confessed to her. But she just held my hand as if trying to say, Yes, you can. May be she meant something else but I took my assumption as the right one and there, I was reading the first letters by her.

‘I am Zulekha. Yes, I cannot speak and I am here to learn sign language but what help would it do to you if you can’t see. So, I tried learning a few things on Braille.” Although, few of her letters were misarranged but I didn’t tell her.

“Thank you.” This was all I could say. And thus, our friendship began.”

 

“What about your love story? When did it start?” Mahima asked.

“Youth and love. Just like flame and fire. Always incomplete without the other.” He giggled and continued.

‘It was almost midnight and I was about to sleep when I heard steady knocking on my door. Before I could say come in, the door opened and voice of anklets came with it. May be she didn’t require any permission to come. She sat near me and began typing at a fast pace. She had got better in a month and even made me better. In between, I could hear very low sobs. I was worried. Finally, she handed me a paper that had some wet spots on it. Her tears.

The Bicycle’s Chain

“Life is a flower of which love is the honey”- Victor Hugo

 

At last, I entered my teenage according to my parents. I had been arguing with them for the last two years that I gained my teenage when I became thirteen yet their statement remained as clear as the decision that my cake would be black forest only, ‘No means no. You still don’t have an understanding of the world. You still need to learn a lot.’ and that used to be the end of discussion.

Finally, last week I celebrated my fifteenth birthday and got lots of new gifts out of which my dearest was my new smart phone. I was definitely going to take it to school when the summer break got over to flaunt it in front of my friends and even in front of Anjali so she might get impressed. Yes, she’s my crush! Now, don’t tell anyone.

Now, when my struggle for being accepted as a teenager was going on, the only person on my side was my grandfather- a respectful figure in our house. Always in a jolly and happy mood, humming some of the old songs out of his favorite collection, he was a man to be seen whenever one feels depressed or sad. Dad and Mom, both worked in office and hardly had any time for me. So, the only person to raise my spirits whenever I felt any setback in my class or felt Anjali didn’t give me any importance, my grandfather used to make me feel better. And for your kind information, my grandfather knows all about my feelings for Anjali; he is frank about all this. “Teenage is an age to experience all this, it is beautiful as long as you take it lightly and feel happy at the end of the day. If you don’t feel happy, there is a problem.” He says.

By appearance, he was a tall and thin person, with hair only on the back of his head, wrinkled skin and sunken cheeks; he was the perfect definition of what a comic writer would look for an idea while making up an old and jolly man. But his heart was young as the spring’s newly bloomed flowers, whose essence spread through his words.

Sometimes, I used to wonder how his teenage would have been? There were no smart phones or social media at that time, so where did his teenage go? In order to get my answers, I demanded another present on my birthday and that was to spend a week in grandpa’s old home in the village. It took some hours for mom and dad to get out of the shock that beside something that costs, I was asking something that required their time.

***

It had been two days and nothing of interest had caught my eyes. The weather was pleasant even if it was May end. The hot winds of the afternoon turned cool as the sun begun to set in the evening. It was a fine Friday evening when I was strolling on my bicycle. I was moving along a complete different path that I hadn’t seen the previous days in the village. There were a couple of odd-looking houses, some of them weren’t even painted. I was looking in awe at a house that was gleaming like a king among the poor peasants when my cycle suddenly jerked and the next moment, I was lying in the ground covered in dust. It took me a while to sit and notice the injuries. Fortunately, I was fine but my left hand’s elbow was bleeding.I stood up slowly, brushing the dust off my face and clothes and then gave a look to the cause of this fall. It was a small pothole that I had ignored. I looked at my cycle which looked fine except the fact that it’s chain had come out and I was no expert at putting chain back.

I took the cycle and begin my walk when a sudden voice stopped me. “Your cycle’s chain too came out? Huh?” I looked around to see an old woman sitting on a rocking chair in the angaan of the beautiful house that I had been looking earlier.

“Yes, but what do you mean by ‘too’?” I asked.

“Oh dear, your grandfather too had this habit of getting his cycle’s chain out many a times when he was young.”

“How….how do you know him?” I had been told not to talk to strangers yet this old lady’s gleaming eyes seemed to be full of some story that I desperately wanted to hear.

“Aren’t you Balwant Raj Thakur’s grandson?” She asked calmly. I simply nodded. “Well, I used to know him when he was a teenager just like you. I was watching you when you fell over fancying my house.” My cheeks turned red as same as the color of her house’s doors.

“Need any help?” she asked. I would have said no flatly but now she said she knew my grandfather, I wanted to know about him. I nodded. “Come in. My granddaughter is good with this stuff. A little tomboyish in nature. But yes, she is the same age as you.”

Within a few minutes, I was sitting with her on a chair in front of her and she helped me bandage my arm and gave me water to drink as well. Then, she began again. “So, want to know about your grandfather or let the story hidden with me only.

“Obviously I want to know. I always wanted to know how his teenage was!” My words burst out of me with excitement.

“Okay. So, sit patiently while I tell you all about him.” Then she began.

“A fine, young man, he was. Just like any other boy of the village, used to spend his afternoons playing in the field and in the evening used to cycle all around the village, knew each and every path of the village by heart. But his heart wasn’t merely made to remember paths. One day, just like you, he took another path, He was trying to experiment new stunts on his cycle when his leg fell hard on the side of the cycle and the chain came out. He somehow managed not to fall but the very next moment, his eyes fell, fell upon someone he had never seen in his life, a very pretty girl who seemed new to the village. She was giggling from her house’s rooftop looking at him and he just stood there staring at her.” She took a deep sigh and I noticed that my cycle was being repaired by her granddaughter. She had short hair that too was tied in a small pony behind her. I couldn’t see her face but knew that a try to see her would be the end of the hearty welcome the old lady had given me after she sees me flirting with her granddaughter, so I remained quite.

“Often people say, once fallen in love, never stood again. But it isn’t true, I had seen it. People take time but in the end they stand again. Your grandfather definitely took a long time….. Now, if you live in a village, people are hospitable and let you know about any person. But he couldn’t get her name known even after trying hard. So, he gathered the courage and sent her a letter the next day he saw her on her roof. He tied his letter to an apple that was on a tree near her house and threw it at her. She saw the letter and stared at him for a while and went away. Your grandfather waited a long time that evening but she didn’t come back on the roof. Now each day, he used to remove his cycle’s chain right in front of her house and repair it sitting there only, waiting for her. It was only one stormy evening when the wind was battling in the sky with thunders and leaves of trees were shaking tremendously that the girl came on the roof and seeing your grandfather sitting with his cycle, her eyes got filled with tears. The rain began to pour on their faces. The girl came down, near the tree where Balwant was sitting. She took his arm and let rain pour over his hand.

“The answer to your question.” She said and when he heard her soft voice, he felt mesmerized.

“It’s rain. Oh, I get it. Megha.” He jumped with joy as he finally got her name and kept on being drenched in rain while Megha kept on giggling seeing a lover for the first time, after all, she too was a teenager and all this was new to her too.

Now the breaking of chain continued but the chain wasn’t repaired by only your grandfather but by that girl too and in the shades of that apple tree, in the soft rustling of leaves and chirping of birds, the love of these two birds too grew stronger.”

She took a deep sigh and I looked around. My cycle was all set. I could leave any moment but now I won’t go till I know how both of them came together and how that girl became my grandmother. Wait! My grandmother’s name wasn’t Megha. Neither was she from this village. Grandfather used to tell me everything about her after she passed away. Then what happened to Megha?

“So how come they don’t meet?” I asked and suddenly saw pair of eyes looking in my direction. I turned and finally got to see the face of the granddaughter. She was simple stunning, not even Anjali could match her. She had no makeup on her yet she was gorgeous with her brown eyes. “Thank you.” This was all I could say. She smiled and sat beside us.

“Oh, dear…. What’s your name?” she asked. “Veer” I said. “Yes, dear Veer, remember that everyone you meet in your life isn’t destined to meet you, some people are just there to give you memories that could be cherished all your life. Memories that are sweet and beautiful. Speaking of your grandfather, soon, he met Megha less and Megha too got busy in her life yet whenever they met, they met with a smile. That’s life, everything should end with a smile, if it doesn’t, then there’s a problem.” She smiled.

“But what would have happened if they would have married?” I suddenly asked while leaving with my bicycle.

“Then Megha won’t have been sitting here telling about the sweet short love story of your grandfather as a teenage.” She grinned and my heart beat loudly in my chest. I turned back and realized that she must have been beautiful in her time.

“Can I come here often?” I asked, as I realized a new Megha was waiting for me.

“Sure, after all your story of love could be here.” She looked at her granddaughter who blushed. “After all, it all needs a loose bicycle’s chain!” She smiled.