Of Memories and Leftover Fragrances

"It is his memories that help me feel his presence. And the sublime fragrances of those memories make me fall in love with him again and again." ,  Dated: 7th Jan, 1985

Bluish ink was strewn on one of the pages of your old tattered diary. Was it your attempt to demolish the monument of some of your memories? Word by word you must have raised a castle with wide open windows and it took you just a splash of some ink to bury it in the coffin of time forever. A pale green dried peepal leaf rests on it. A tombstone may be.

The ink and the peepal leaf were both engulfed in the mist of time. Time! I have always strongly felt that time has its very own fragrance which seems different to different beings. How the combined fragrance of them all can always teleport me to an era where I was a fountain pen connoisseur and my nights were the passionate strokes of colors on the mesh of peepal leaves!

You, who have not mentioned your name in any of the pages, how dare you remind me of someone who is long gone, leaving behind the box full of fountain pens and tethered peepal leaf paintings to stay with? I can smell the fragrances of your nameless existence in these dried, tethered, and old ink blots, words, pages, and this leaf. Please don’t take me to down memory lane anymore. Sometimes it hurts too much.

On a page dated 31st august, 1985, you have written how much in love you were with this corner of your house.

 “This corner of the puja ghar is my own li’l world. Today, I hand painted it with my amateurish childlike strokes to give it an aesthetic look. Ochre yellow, black, and hints of red. Maa dismissed it at her very first glance. Said, I just ruined the whole look. Oh! How my heart sank. Poor Maa, she doesn't know a thing about Modern Day Art. Ok, See, I just got this small table from the store room. So from now on it is going to be your new King-size bed. Don’t you worry; I will pamper you lavishly with new fountain pen, leaves, and loads of flowers. Do you want me to paint your case as well, dear Diary?” 

Well, I love the way you write. Nothing so great about it... but its simplicity kind of connects me to you. I wish I could touch you. I wish I could smell you... from beyond the pages of your diary. But what is it with the usage of the words ‘amateur’ and ‘childlike’ together? I am pretty sure, you, girl, are in love with redundancy. Yes, pretty much just like me.

Ironically, your ‘corner’ which was once a part of your pujaghar, is now an ignored corner of my store room. I have simply stashed every box of my memories up there. Locked, per say. Your Modern(Day) Art still exists, deep buried in the layers of dust and cobwebs. Your diary’s king-size bed is now dilapidated beyond recognition. Will you be fine, if I tell you that now in place of your diary, her small antique kerosene lamp is rusting on it? I just don’t go there anymore. The leftover kerosene smell invokes dizziness in me. It’s lethal as it frantically makes me search for her. One fine day she just disappeared. Just like that. Tell me please; is it really this easy to leave everything behind... just to be with the clouds? It’s dangerously haunting. And I have just caged them in that room. I am sorry, if I have hurt you. But that’s how your words make me feel sometimes. Your words lack the basic quality to comfort a rugged soul. I am pretty sure you were a dangerous woman, just like her.

Hmmm... so, you girl, are an ardent lover of mogra flowers. How uncanny! The more I explore your diary, the more I am scared. People associate the fragrance of it with love, romance, and piousness. I, for that matter have always been allergic to it. But, you know, I can’t deny that even today when the vine in my balcony blossoms and the fragrance fills the air, her presence engulfs me in a very sweet way. It reminds me of how passionately we have been in love with each other. I guess we still are. It’s just that there are layers of unknown worlds in between that separate the two of us and that we both simply cannot cross it. How much I want to; perhaps she as well. But it does not matter.

Well, you! Girl, I just want to say sorry to you for invading your personal diary. It was my serendipity to be able to put my hands on this treasure trove. The rag-picker, I am sure would not have valued it ever and so please be sure that I will take care of it till my last breath. Today I am in mood of sheer honesty and hence this is what I want to tell you,

It is your diary, girl, which made me live through her memories. And the sublime fragrances of your memories tied together in words make me fall in love with her again and again. My tears are a proof of that. And my occasional flash of feeble smiles...well, I just don’t know what meaning to give them. I wonder if I am nearing towards her. 

Today is just an ordinary day. Nothing special... as far as I dig deep. Still felt like wearing this mauve colored shirt. May be I will prepare some favorite green tea with loads of ginger and black pepper. She used to pour in a generous dash of lemon juice in it. When she was around, I never liked it a bit. But with the passage of time, her absence made me to admire the tangy taste of it. Strange, no? I know it is strange. That is the irony of human life. Huh!

You know, the truth is I still don’t like the taste of it. What! you just called me a lier? Listen then, It is the fragrance of it.... of ginger, lemon, black pepper, sugar, and green tea- all mingled together to raise a heavenly concoction, that I am mad for. Actually we first dated over cups of such a heavenly green tea on the bylanes of Saket, Delhi. While she gulped cups after cups of it, I, for your information, dived deep in the lethal aroma of her.

One more thing, girl, there is a secret for why I wore this mauve colored favourite shirt of hers today. And I guess you deserve to know it. I just read one of the pages of your diary. And can’t get those lines out of my mind. Perhaps I don’t want it to. Yes, it soothed me in a very pensive way.

Thank you, Nameless Girl.

तेरी कमीज़ की सिलवटों मे आज भी 'मोहब्बत' बसी है

पलको में छिपाए जूस्तज़ु कई, हम उसमे 'महका' करते है

~*~

This post has been written for Indibloggers' "Smelly to Smiley" contest in association with "AmbiPurIndia." 

Do visit Ambipur's facebook page here at- https://www.facebook.com/AmbiPurIndia

Cherapunji: A 55 Fiction

"Once you land here, you can feel that everything smells of rain. I come here only to get drenched in this pure rain. A new Me is born whenever…"

"Shhhh…Let the clouds of pain that are hovering in your eyes take the shape of rain today.

Let you say, a true me is born today."

~*~

P.S: I am again hit by the writer's as well as reader's block and hence I am M.I.A. Dug this very old write-up ( may be about 4 yrs old ) out of my draft folder and decided to finally post it because I can't give it a miss when it is a prompt by Vidya on Write Tribe.

Vidya has written an amazing 55 Fiction Tutorial there on Write Tribe. And do not you dare to miss it.

To a certain Someone-

आपमें और मुझमें
कई परतो की दूरी सी है.
कुछ रेशम के धागो सी
तो कुछ रंगीन शामों की.

वो ग़लती से मेरा तुझको छू देना
ग़लती तो शायद ही थी!
तेरा मुस्कुराना भर ही काफ़ी था
धड़कनो को बे-लगाम करने के लिए.

उन हवाओ संग बहते हुए
मेरी ज़ुल्फो में कुछ तमन्नाए सी थी.
कुछ सैलाब सा था जो
गरज बरस के इंतेज़ार में बंजर सा रो रहा था.

तू आता है तो एक
सुकून सा महसूस होता है.
तू जाता है तो भी
सुकून सा ही महसूस होता है.

रूह को शायद
तेरे होने भर से ही...

एक लगाव सा कुछ हो गया है.

मरासिम

इस अजनबी सी दुनिया मे 

इत्तेफ़ाक से ही शायद 

कई मोड़ पे तुम हमे मिल गये l

रन्जिशो को सांसो मे दबाए 

दबि हुई आवाज़ मे- कई बार तुम्हे 

पुकारा भी l

दस्तक तो तुम्हारे दिल ने भी सुनी थी शायद

हा ! सुनी थी न? 

पर जज़्बात उन आँखों से बयाँ ना हुए l

हमने  कई बार - कभी रुक के 

तो कभी मुड़ के  

चोर नज़रों से तुम्हे जताया भी l

यकिनन छूती थी तुम्हे  

हवाओ मे बहते हुए ये शब्द 

पर जानकर भी अन्जान से रहे बने तुम l

वरना हैरानगी ने तो कम से कम 

तुम्हारी नज़रों से मेरी नज़र तक का सफ़र

तय किया तो होता ll 

~*~

Cigarette~ Part I

“Cigarette?” Ana finally broke the awkward silence with her shrill voice.

A puzzled smile ran across Madhavi’s face. A kind of smile-whose genuineness was shrouded in mystery-, was all she could reply for.

"O! common girl! You are a smoker and still you don’t smoke. I mean how do you manage to do it?”

“Hang on! Hang on! I only know how to smoke but I don’t.”

“So?”

“So I am not a smoker at all, you stupid girl”

Madhvi’s life was dancing at her own tunes but suddenly a beat was changed by this unexpected re-entry of Anima in her life.  Today, without any prior information, Anima was standing at the threshold of her small apartment. After a while, it becomes easier for you to avoid those innumerable phone calls, mails and letters from your loved ones. But that does not prepare you to do the same when one of them is standing at your doorstep. Uninvited.  Anima had forcibly intruded her world and Madhvi had no choice other than to accept her with open arms.

The eerie silence prevailed throughout their stay inside the apartment. “Madhvi has changed for sure!” Anima retorted to herself little knowing that the caricatures on ones walls are not always the reflection of their souls. There are layers of layer in between and by the time the reflected images hold your attention, they are all contorted.

After futile attempts at making some conversations, it became almost a necessity to step out into the open. Anima portrayed as in she remembered every beautiful thing, whereas Madhvi retaliated by pretending not to care anymore about anything. Separating their existences, the invisible glass wall stood upright, which they dared not to break.  The reminiscence of all those tears painted on crushed papers of life and the memories of hearty laughter they have shared once, made their hearts choke but not a single drop of tear was rescued.  The ebb and flow of time has thrown these two friends at two different corners from where the road that lead to each other was all weary and zigzag.The element of zigzag only suits some games of puzzle that one solves as a child. Life is all together a different board game.

Life has not been the same again since Madhvi has chosen to follow the path of her dreams. The rebel in her has snatched her away from everything and everyone she has once considered her own and have hold them so much close to her heart. Once upon a time, pulling them away would have teared and sliced many parts of her heart. But she survived.

***

Crossing down nine floors, the lift finally hit the floor. For a moment the left-over of a forgotten childhood engulfed them both. How much they have admired those skyscrapers and gawked at those illuminating capsulated elevators! How much they have wanted to get lucky enough to travel in one such time machine! The nostalgia of the day when they first stepped inside an elevator is still unmatched. It didn’t matter to them that that elevator was nothing close to those time machine kind of ones. The thrill encompassed by the initial feeling of nausea was still afresh in both of their memories. The feeling of that bygone era was so fresh that it could be read in their eyes and then could be rejoiced without uttering a word.

To be continued...(Perhaps)

P.S: Originally drafted way back in 2009. Edited on this very night.

Let me ♥pin♥ us together.

When I was a child, I had this strange admiration towards this simple device called stapler. And the admiration still continues. Like before, it still leaves me stupefied.

And so as the Wiki goes, “A stapler is a mechanical device that joins sheets of paper or similar material by driving a thin metal staple through the sheets and folding the ends.”

A simple machine. That’s what a stapler is.

Simple. Isn’t the word simply beautiful? The most loved and requisite things in life are ones that are most simple and mundane. With such perfection and ease they have blended themselves into us that their existences do not stand out. And that is where the beauty lies. The beauty to behold.

I think you need that something special in you to so conveniently encompass everything around you, with nothing but your aura. And not all are blessed enough to be clichés. When people around say, they are after ‘unique’, I proudly declare that I love clichés.

Feelings in every form are a cliché. Be it associated with love or hatred. What makes a woman so unique? Her ability to womb in clichés in all their shades and density. Her effortless supremacy to encompass the life around her.

A woman is a stapler. And her innumerable clichéd ways are those small metal staples who bind a family by folding the arms. Someone didn’t say for nothing, a haven is there in the enclosure of your woman’s arm and heaven is there at the feet of your mother. Strengthening the bond she nurtures life without even drawing any bound. She protects you and lets you evolve. All simultaneously. Her way is the unconditional way.

I love you. Don’t I? So what our ways seem oft repeated. I will bite off your lips the next time you say, “Baby its so cliché.”, to make you understand the harder way that love itself is a cliché with all its high and low echelon of intricacies. I know you would love it.

You don’t have to show your love by writing my name on the moon by sticking stars. Just hug me. Don’t say a word. Remember! I can decode your heartbeats!

♥ Let the stapler be me and my love its pin. ♥

P.S: I know, with a pat on my shoulder you would say, it's better late than never Pree. And so with this post I stapled my 100^th  post today. Yeah! It took me 3+ years to reach this milestone. Now common! stop giving me that astonished gaze. Don't you think I deserve a big round of applause instead? :D

A li'l Difference - 55 Fiction

“I may not forgive myself ever. I am so ashamed of my behavior that I almost hate myself. I wonder how you could forgive me. May be because these things have never bothered you.”

 

I could not stop smiling. “These things may have bothered me. Perhaps that’s why I have forgiven you.”

~***~

What is 55 Fiction? It is a fiction story, with all the basic elements of a narrative (plot, characters, setting, conflict), in 55 words or less(A non-negotiable rule).

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A day or two back kajal celebrated her 100th post ceremony in a grand way. so here is my small token of love for her.

Dear kajal-the pink orchid, hope you will love this small token of love. May god bless you always. :)

take care :)

THE DOLL: 55 Fiction

“It still lies there untouched for the past 8 years.”

 

“It had become impossible to live with your dad anymore Linda.”

 

“The dusts on it are proofs of my ruined childhood.”

 

“But now for your sake we are together again. We will bring back your good old days”

“Alas! But I have Grown Up mama!”

~~~***~~~

What is 55 Fiction? It is a fiction story, with all the basic elements of a narrative (plot, characters, setting, conflict), in 55 words or less(A non-negotiable rule).

P.S : "The Doll" is my very first step towards writing a “55 Fiction” and I hope I am successful in it.