In my Bones-I

Your love teleports me to such times and such places which I don't think exist in real. they have been inspired by older times and foreign places but sans any tragic element, only some sweet melancholy. Your love feels so real (unreal) and yet feels like the most unreal (real) feeling in my life. 

Tum  jo the,
Mere nazmon ke wajah bhi tum the,
Unke lavzon ka nasha bhi tum the,
Unse milti jo rahat bhi tum the,
Unki kahi ibaadat bhi tum the,
Unse bante jo naghmein bhi tum the,
Un naghmon ke lamhein bhi tum the,
Un naghmon ke taraanon mein tum the,
Taraanon ke bayaanon mein tum the.
Nazmon se le ke naghmon tak,
Jo bhi the bas tumhi pe the, tumhi se the.


Ab jo mere naghmein hain,
Tum jo paas the wo mere naghmein hain,
Tum jo saath nahin wo bhi naghmein hain,
Tumhare khayalat kuchh ke nazmein hain,
Khayaalon mein mere halaat bhi kuchh naghmein hain,
Tumhare mohabbat pe likhe gaye kuchh hain,
Nafrat ke shuruyaat pe bane kuchh hain,
Tab ke bechaini pe kuchh hain,
Unse mile chain pe kuchh aur hain.
Khayalaton se le ke nafraton tak,
Jo bhi hai bas  mere naghmein hain, naghmon mein hain.

LOVING THE ABSTRACT

o LOVING THE ABSTRACT

Bored of the working world and the work and the world, my eyes caught sight of the rainfall outside, through the slightly open window of my office room. There were trees where the window opens out to. Now a peacock could not resist that (for that is what my mother thinks I must have been in my last birth)! I went out of the room to get a clearer view of it (the rain) from another big window on the opposite wall of the building looking out to the opposite side.But the view consisted of the canteen, students, vehicles and chattering s all around. So I looked up to get a picture of the virgin nature, untouched by all these worldly adulterations.
I first saw the beautiful rain falling down almost straight, not in an angle, towards the dry ground and inducing life and a unique, uncategorised fragrance into it. Then my eyes went beyond to see the new, light-green leaves of the cedar trees and against it the transparent drops, together appeared like a disturbed, transparent, light green curtain. And the delicate, light but bright green leaves hung against the perfect, homogenously coloured grey sky or rather dark clouds. One of the rarest but one of the most perfect colour combinations and combination of things, it was.
This fairytale-ish image should have put a smile on my lips, but it (the smile) could not get properly even to my eyes, lips were far away. How would you feel when you love somebody so much that you keep feeling you can die for her every time you see her, but again, you know you can never have her in your arms for she is abstract for you? It just swallows you from inside and you keep sinking within. A highly bitter and slightly but satisfactorily sweet pain you feel, don’t you?
I feel the same when I see my sweetest, dearest rain against the green leaves against the dark clouds. You give me a melancholic happiness or a happy depression, my dear. And my love will live on, because you are unachievable for me.

Train of Thoughts I

Train of Thoughts I
I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. Of course you will call 3.46 a.m. as early morning but a person who sleeps at 2.30 a.m., may not. But it also looked like the middle of the night. Though there were big street lights illuminating the road, the sky was still dark, and more so because of the rain clouds. And so was my room, getting only some light thrown into it from the corridor through the wide sky-light covered with frosted glass-panes. But as my eyes opened they saw only darkness, may be because sleep was still clinging to the lashes. So when I woke up, practically only one of my five senses (for I doubt my sixth sense) was working with its full strength, the one that actually woke me up, my auditory sense i.e. my ears.


In the dead of night I heard the rain falling quietly and at a constant rate. The sounds that the drops made were almost the same at any point of time. For almost fifteen minutes from the moment my eyes opened to the dripping sounds, I kept lying motionless like the night, on my bed, listening to the rhythm of the regular drops and the music of the stillness beyond. Strangely no crickets were shouting or any frogs croaking. On the whole I was almost numb except for my ears, lying on the bed, feeling heavy and strength-less to move. I tried but failed to move even a finger. My mind felt heavy too, recollecting slowly but surely all that you have done and I have done and my life has done to me. The deepest and the heaviest of thoughts and memories invaded my brain. And to my disappointment, I only kept missing the best and the sweetest times. The next moment, realising that you are no more there in my life, the best memories gave the worst pain. Anyway, my tears have dried and at that moment I was cold and numb. So I did not cry for you anymore. Rather it seemed that the sky was heavy with sorrow and the clouds worked as its tear glands.


I, ultimately, decided to drop those worthless thoughts and with the strength of a moment pulled myself out of the spoiling, soft mattress and switched on the light to help me come back to reality. I sat back on the bed for some seconds, thought of making a cup of tea or coffee but was too sleepy, lazy, tired, hesitant and sad for it. I switched off the light again, hit the pillow with my head, curled up, closed my eyes tight, switched off my mind too and lost myself in some unknown land where you were not there to bother me anymore.

The Lane I Cannot Visit Again

I was walking down a lonely lane. It was breezy. Draughts of breeze kept passing by, touching me softly. Sometimes it was cool, sometimes cold. And sometimes it used to stop; it was warm during those moments, as if time had come to a stand still.
I walked a few steps ahead, most of the times looking at the ground. I noticed some familiar pebbles scattered on the way. I picked them up. Some were transparent like crystals. I could not recollect seeing some of them before. But I could recognise some signs the others had.
While I was observing this, suddenly it started drizzling. The droplets were small. I wiped those off from my cheeks. It started raining a little more heavily. The pebbles were damp now. I could not bear holding them longer. So I dropped them there and moved ahead.
Slowly the sky cleared and I saw the sun smiling soothingly at me. There were some more pebbles, dry and clean, reminding me of the happy times. They just brought a subtle but says-it-all smile on my lips.
Suddenly, I heard somebody calling me from far behind, almost from the end of the road. The voice was coming from far away and, from the place I was standing, it sounded absolutely unfamiliar. My eyes tried hard to see and eventually gave way, they opened and I realised where I was. I was at this end of the memory lane where the sequence of memories ends, i.e., in the present. And the voice was of the most recent inclusion in my life, my husband. I got to know that I cannot go back to the memory lane again but in dreams.

Chand ki thandi ye chandni,
Us se ubalta hua ye paani,
Is garm-thande paani ke kinaare,
Bane honge jaane kitne kahani.

Kaeen chale honge nanhe kadam,
Kaeen jale honge rasm-e-dharam,
Kaeen beete honge mausam-e-bahar,
Khile honge jaane kitne jawaani.

Ye ped aur ye jhokhein hawa ke,
Kitne patte, kitne jhokhein gawa ke,
Khamosh khade samete jaate hai,
Yaadein…kuch sukhe, kuch suhani.

Zameen ne peee wo aansu geele,
Aasmaan suna jab hasin khile,
Dunia se door duniyaan base yahan,
Aaj phir chali ik aur ki rawani.

Lamhe aaj hai naye-puraane,
Kuch pehchaane, kuch anjaane,
Par baat ek ab bhi na badli,
Tu hi inka raja, aur mein rani!

Was staring at the sky,
Somebody walked by,
My eyes alighted, alighted with a sigh,
Impatient and restless,
They hunted low and high,
My heart beat fast,
Oh please don’t cry!
Puzzled and bewildered,
I kept asking my eye,
Did you see something true,
Or is it another lie?
Did someone enter my life,
Or someone bade goodbye?
Tell me, is it the same old love,
Or someone new has touched by!?

Those Eyes Unknown

Those Eyes Unknown

In the station’s crowd,
My eyes hit a face,
Appeared good,
Till a second glance.
Not something to wait upon.

I lost the face, to face it again,
Inside the train.
Didn’t realise it was the same,
For I just met the eyes.
Mesmerising,
I kept gazing on.

At a distance they were,
The face was hidden,
But those two.
They weren’t looking my way,
But I couldn’t help.
The hidden face seemed handsome,
Just for the tranquil eyes.
And thus…
My observations went on and on.

A little bit swollen, a little elongated,
An odd combination, but so perfectly balanced.
Shaped like canoes with pupils mounted,
Which were half hidden behind heavy, fleshy lids,
As if hanging down from them.
The sleepy canoes looked drunk,
Looked like rowing in a stream of dreams,
Dreams of the future less than the bygone.

Deep and loaded,
Heavy you may call them,
Difficult to decipher,
What all they bore.
Shy when stared at,
Conscious the next moment,
Irritated if you persist,
But with a poise of their own.

Shifting fast wasn’t a trait,
Moved slow, stayed at places,
To make sure of things around.
But not much bothered did they seem,
About anything,
Be it loneliness or the crowd.
Weren’t good as mirrors of soul,
Expressed nothing but stillness and indifference.
Accustomed to this life, they seemed to have grown.

Beautiful eyes, nonetheless!
Beautiful when just rose from sleep,
When closed, seemed pencil-drawn.
The way they looked, was like eyes of girls,
Though they didn’t look like a girl’s,
Had the best of both,
But showed none.
Were either bored of the crowd,
Or were all alone!

COMPARE...

It is one of those typical Indian villages, like those you find in Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh. (Don't worry, I will not take you to the extreme conditions of Gujarat or Rajasthan.) Around 2.20 p.m. it is i.e. the sun is burning almost right above the woman's head. All the doors are closed, the place is desolate, dry, in every sense of the word, and the loo has made a dense layer of the fertile soil (which can be called sand in its dry condition) in the atmosphere, denser than a fog, and it is coloured too, brown. The density, the colour and above that, the sand particles were not letting her see around properly. She had come out to take some water from the village well, but she could hardly even see the water level inside. With whatever little she could manage to pull out, she is tracing her footsteps back. People at her home have even run out of their saliva. So even that little amount of water is a desperate need for her, her family. But as she walks, I can see her sweating profusely, almost melting and the water in the pot over her head is evaporating towards the ever-thirsty sun above. What an ironical sight! And we here, sitting in front of the television, under the fans or air conditioners, complain of heat, humidity and sweating!!!

VIRTUAL ESCAPISM

VIRTUAL ESCAPISM
While working on the boring, mundane assignments my mind, which is not called the fastest vehicle for no reason, suddenly drifted away to the lower parts of the slopes of a hill. It was partly rocky and partly green, a very coveted combination for hills. Tranquil, the surrounding was; and to add to that, a creek was flowing on the brown and grey, polished and shiny pebbles, by the slopes which hardly made any sound unless you strain your ears to listen to the almost inaudible gurgling. Some very soft-spoken birds also chirped from the tree-tops. But they were also as inaudible if not given attention to.
I was sitting by the side of the water-body, on the pebbled which were a little rougher on the banks. There was a very well-shaped rock too, to sit on. But I chose to sit on the ground to feel that I was closer to nature and the earth.
Clouds covered the sky. Not fully dark they were, but also not white. As they say, there are also shades of grey in this world. But it was evident that they were rain clouds and they were beautifully shady. To top it all, a very slow and soothing breeze was blowing. It used to touch my left cheek and pass and I felt like soft cotton balls caressing my cheeks. And my eyes did not need any deliberate effort to close themselves, as if the breeze was passing a soft hand over them. The whole part of the country seemed to come out of Europe, specifically somewhere from Scotland.
I had had hard time thinking about my future and present work the whole of that day and, without any physical strain, I was frustrated and, consequently, tired. I was wearing a loose, white top with its button going up to the neck. Feeling the breeze, I wanted more of it. So I opened the most uncomfortable button on my neck and, seriously felt a lot relieved and relaxed. Really, even clothes have such effect on our mood.
Then, I stretched my legs towards the creek and leaning back a little (I know this is a very common way of relaxing but I cannot be unique all the time), dreamt of my future, not think. And, to my surprise which could not be pleasanter, I was blank! I saw nothing in front of my eyes except for the beautifully, dully coloured clouds. Just now and then I got glimpses of a beautiful lover or a cosy home at the foothills and a content life. But the next moment, I loved to be blank and alone, and happy that I had got that moment. This was an escape from the unpleasant reality and I took shelter in my dreams, but of course, trying to place a harmony between the two. This sudden fantasy made me relaxed for at least three days and may continue further. People say dreamers are impractical; you should come back to the earth. But who can survive all these earthly tensions if we won’t have dreams!?

TREASURED TREASURES

TREASURED TREASURES

“I am also human” is just a shorter and more effective way to say that “I also have feelings, attachments, desires; I also want to have some things just for myself.” All of us wish to own or possess certain thing or things. They are not same for everybody, of course, because human psychology is so diverse. And those things we treasure, we hide them, keep them for ourselves, not having the least intention to share them with anybody else, however generous we may be at other times.
The ‘all of us’ that I have referred to above is not meant only for human beings, it encompasses every single creature on earth, to the most unnoticeable one for everyone has got a heart. Desires are different, priorities vary, needs also show such a wide range that the things that we choose to treasure automatically come filtered through all these criteria. Consequences show that some treasure money, some store things, some secure love, some nurture thoughts, some save feelings, some keep people and the list refuses to end.
A few days back I saw a really pretty sight which all of you would have enjoyed. I had gone to the terrace of my hostel. It has a lot of dry leaves scattered around. For good reasons they have not been cleaned by our unbelievably efficient workers. Anyway, why bore you with the internal problems of the hostel. But this dirty terrace of ours was really a strategic point for somebody else. A crow came from somewhere and it was holding a morsel between his beaks. It was something reddish, might have been a piece of flesh or of some fruit. I don’t remember whether I had my glasses on or not but I could not make out what it was clearly and I dared not go near it, lest it would fly away. And I would not have wanted it to, for all the treasures in the world. So it came and chose a spot in the pile of leaves, kept the morsel and covered it with those dry protectors several times, all the time checking and rechecking if anybody was watching him treasuring his invaluable food.
After two or three days I was upstairs again and to my beautiful luck, I saw a crow come for that hidden treasure. I will not pretend to ambitiously identify it as the same one because it might have been another one sharing the secret. And I don’t even know how many smaller morsels had been made of that original one and how many times it had been bitten bit by bit.
I did not think so deeply at that moment, I just enjoyed the way that creature or those creatures, whom we human consider brainless, managed their lives. I couldn’t help smiling to myself.
Then when I reflected upon the incident later, I realised how all of us have the tendency to treasure some stuff just for ourselves or our dear ones and how we turn selfish at that time. Things we keep differ and so do the reasons for doing so. But broadly, the intentions can be classified under two categories viz. ‘need’ and ‘greed’. Need is generally desperate but greed can either be an innocent desire or the ever ‘evil greed’. And having our dear possessions all to us gives unusual happiness, like the way children become happy seeing their treasures that they generally have the habit to collect and hide from potential rivals and robbers.
Turning selfish in such cases, we cannot blame on animals. Man has the same habit. Animals work for their communities and then, sometimes, indulge in self-service. But more than half the time man does not do the former, does he?

WHERE DO DREAMS LEAD TO?

The shade of the golden sun of winter,
The light of the silver moon of summer,
Create a road of dreams for a dreamer,
But tell me, what lies ahead?

The dream road takes me far away,
So far, that then I see no way,
There I may seem most happy and gay,
With no burden on my body or head.

Feels like I have touched the sky,
Feels like there is no more goodbye,
To say to dear ones who left me die,
Halfway on the path they led.

Then suddenly, to my delight, it seems,
That I’m being supported by my dreams,
Supported at every step, by all means,
Even in places I really dread!

But where are they taking me?
An endless, directionless road I see,
Either I have nowhere to be,
Or there is an end that is dead!

WHAT TO THINK?

WHAT TO THINK?
“Oh! That was the loudest blast I have heard till now. Oh, another and louder than the previous one. By Jove! Another and still louder. And there, I hear the sound of thousands of guns fired together and mixed with it, also come the painful dying cries of those thousands whose names were written on the respective bullets. They sounded like cries of helpless souls being tortured in hell, most of them, for small or unintended sins. What more bad things can I write about this beautiful, cursed heath? I also cannot ignore the sight of the frightened and directionless running of the other creatures, other than human beings. But to write that sight down is beyond my capacity of framing sentences using my limited vocabulary. In fact, to describe the expressions on the face of the animals appropriately, whom man thinks to be expressionless, is not within a man’s power of expressing himself.”
These and a number of related thoughts passed through the mind of one petty soldier of the victorious army. But, perhaps, he had lost himself in the battle. This drama was in no way new to him nor was it the severest one of his life. He has grown habituated to it now, habituated to the agony that lives suffer due to war, to the indifference the heads of the governments show to the sufferings of their own people whom, they had promised protection with tears in their eyes, as if they had borrowed the pain of other souls and had felt it themselves.
These cries, seeing people getting killed brutally does not make much difference in his world now. He just has to picture the world minus some people and continue deducting some more now and then. Now, he just looks at the battlefield and the tiny, similar looking figures moving around, as an activity that is a part of his daily schedule. And he does not know what to think when his eyes suffer the ordeal of seeing the misery around. He is as blank as a child is when it looks at its homework book. How many more deaths will he brood over!? To stop the pain every time his heart had to bear, he has now stopped making friends.
“Pain!? Feelings for people do not touch my heart anymore. I can no longer love any of my fellowmen. I have turned stone, ice.” That is what he thinks every night. Thinks and believes that he believes it. But I know what he believes in. I know that these are all thoughts of a frustrated man and after all, he is only a human being. He cannot stop loving good people, trusting them and feeling for them. The way he goes on helping his troop-mates proves it.
His life has been, till now, as my readers would call it, a very lucky one. Most understanding parents, a great comrade as an elder brother, well established in his business and a very loving, young sister with a happy family of her own. Touchwood! He himself has also got all he wanted. The only bad luck he faced was in case of his love who deserted him. But she hardly matters now. She has vanished from his mind as if she never existed.
You know what the worst part of being a happy person with a heart is; the sorrows of the world around leave deep impressions on your heart. When you have yourself suffered life, your heart does turn a bit cold to the misfortunes of others because they (the misfortunes of others) only remind you of yours. But when they are new for you, they are like absolutely new, shining, sharp knives hitting fresh meat, making the deepest cuts.
Perhaps that was the reason why Siddhartha was so much affected by only three sights he saw and became the Buddha. But he then started preaching that a person has to stay away from ‘maya’ which is attachment to living beings or things to keep himself away from sufferings. But can any of you please tell me how will a man live without loving the world he lives in or the people he lives with? Even to help someone pick up a paper, you need to be considerate about him first. Then how is it possible to stay away from ‘maya’? And if a man has to stay away from any attachment, for what and how would he live at all? The truth is, man cannot help getting attached to other lives as long as he has a heart.
But this soldier of mine fails to realise this now. He thinks his heart is all butchered and there is no place left on its surface to cause more pain. But he forgets that time heals many wounds and you can never stop your heart from providing space for more cuts. But he will grow up. As for now, he sits on the top of the watch tower at night with his violin, staring at the moon with a blank face but tears rolling down and singing ‘moon river’. I do not know whom he calls the ‘dream maker’ and the ‘heart breaker’. I believe, God. Who else?

WELL, THINK OVER IT, BROKEN HEARTS!

WELL, THINK OVER IT, BROKEN HEARTS

And so the boy went amiss,
And ruined my life's moments of bliss.

All the moments that life could give,
All the moments you need to live.

You need to live without them now,
You need to live without him now.

Without him, how can life be!?
Without the minimum necessity?

But does the minimum necessity,
Necessarily be him!?

Unsung Emotions

Unsung Emotions
All lovers of English literature would know Anton Chekov, the highly venerated Russian writer. He was an expert in painting in words those human emotions which we generally overlook in others but complain when we have to go through them ourselves. The best traits of the stories are they are simple, short but extremely touching just like the emotions themselves.
There is one story by this greatly sensitive and observant writer about a sledge-man, Iona, suffering, in the wretched Russian winter, from the suffocation of not being able to tell anybody his grief that his young son died a week ago. This is why his mind seems lost in those thoughts only. To make things look worse or rather more real, the author has created an air of hostility around him- fellow coachmen shouting at him, passers by swearing, etc. If you do not find these enough then listen about the passengers he gets. The first one is a military man who wants no offence, so gives just a formal, usual consolation and then, very disinterestedly and uncaringly, closes his eyes, as if doing some emergency meditation in the coach or suddenly fallen off to sleep. The next ones are three men, rude, unpolished, coarse men who cannot be called gentlemen in any way. So next you can imagine how they could have behaved with this poor fellow. They instead abuse him when he speaks of his son’s death.
At the end of the day when he goes to the yard, their even he fails to find a listener. In the end if anyone listens to him it is his mare that seems to know her master’s mind. And her master also realizes how people react to other’s misery.
This story, you will hopefully agree, has been named very appropriately as ‘Misery’. I felt the author has illustrated the sledge-man’s misery in various forms. The most obvious one here is his grief on his son’s very untimely death. But what increases this sorrow is his surrounding; everything that is around him very well justifies the title- the pricking winter, the abusive public, his poverty, moreover, he does not get enough fares. And when he gets he tries to speak of his sorrow which nobody is bothered to even hear.
Now, I had a similar but a little different experience. That day I was in Mumbai. I had gone out with a very close friend of mine and her family. While coming back she, her aunt and I were there, trying to stop an auto or a taxi for a long time. And, as now-a-days it is a very usual problem, most of the drivers already had passengers or they were unwilling to go where we wanted to go. Anyway, finally we saw a taxi standing, a Muslim old man’s. When aunt asked him, “Bhaiya, Bandra challenge kya?” (“Brother, will you go to Bandra?”), he very readily agreed in a very sweet way, “Le chalenge, chalo.” (“I will take you, let’s go.”).
The next thing the man did was really admirable. He was smoking a cigarette. When we sat in the taxi he asked us whether we have any problem with his smoking. Aunty said that we did and he instantly threw it away, without a second thought. This sort of manners is not found even in my classmates who hail from so called civilized families. He then said that his Rs. 2.50 was wasted, to which aunty said that he should not have thrown it altogether rather should have extinguished it and kept it for later use. He agreed but what could he have done then.
On the way my friend was showing me different places. She showed me the house where the actress Karishma Kapoor used to live. From this topic the driver started his talk. I have seen drivers trying to talk to their passengers. Some of them really bore you but some other build up quite friendly conversations. He was from among the second type.
He started to talk in Marathi which I can follow a bit but not enough to understand the talk. He was mainly talking to aunty who is really sweet. So this is where the story differs from my experience. Aunty, unlike the unresponsive passengers Iona had, proved to be a very concerned one. She listened to everything attentively and, if needed, gave her opinions too. He showed us the house of another actress, Pooja Bhatt. He expressed his disgust for these film industry people. He said that these people do not know what honour, reputation is; they have no religion except money.
Then the man spoke of himself. His story was not about sorrows, unfulfilled needs and was not showing self-pity or rather he did not narrate it so. It was just about how his life is. He was an official driver for the municipality and had made many trips with the officers. It was just two years since he has retired and finding himself getting bored at home, he started driving again, and again in public service. He has two sons doing their own businesses properly and his daughters are married and settled. He, of course, showed disappointment on one matter i.e. about his pension which, according to the new system, should be almost double the amount that he presently gets, but that amount also he does not get regularly.
I would like to say it again that very unlike the passengers in the Chekov story, this man was really fortunate to have Malavika atya (my friend’s aunty) sitting on his back seat. From whatever I could make out, I felt, she just did not nod at his statements but also participated and made it a balanced conversation. But at the same time she did not lose track of the way.
While I was sitting in the dark shade of the taxi, listening to this half-intelligible tête-à-tête, I recalled this Chekov story which I had read long back. I could not even remember the name of the story let alone the name of the author. But I surely remembered that the background was Russian and then the omni-knowing internet answered my questions. And here is the experience which you can call a little happier version of ‘Misery’.

The Loudest Sound

The Loudest Sound

Science, an indispensable part of our modren world, has invented the unit Decibel to measure a sound. Our wise scientists have even given how loud a sound produces what effect in living organisms. The louder the noise is, the more damaging it is to the body.

But, have you ever heard or even thought of the sound measuring 0 Db? Well, there cannot be practically any surrounding with no sound. But, the thing I mean to refer to is what we call, ‘the silence’. The ‘silence’ I am talking here about can never be 0 Db, because it cannot be measured, for its meaning lies in the thought of a man. So have you ever contemplated how loud the sound named ‘silence’ is?

As the old, wise words go, “Silence speaks louder than words.” The saying is perhaps as old as the human civilisation itself. But, I believe it is getting wiser with time, as man is growing physically busier and mentally lazier with time- no time to think and no time to work on thoughts. Perhaps, that is why we revere another old so much- ‘old is gold’. But, of course, you can always disagree with the last line.

Oh! Usual to my habit, I seem to be going a little off the track. But these thoughts are also produced by silence itself. Silence is surely louder than words. But this applies to the situation when you have something to convey to another heart. I feel that silence is most talkative when you are alone. Silence between two or more people is full of unsaid and silent apprehensions, questions and doubts in each heart. But when it is alone, only yours, independent of any other individual’s silence, it crosses all boundaries. It thinks as freely as it can afford to. And it can afford to think anything on earth, which can be pretty dangerous at times.

Silence makes your thoughts flow, makes your imagination go to unseen places, overcome formidable obstacles, see people who never even existed in any world, experience events which may not even take place ever. Silence is, as we may want to call it, a sort of emptiness. But this so called emptiness expands your world and does not allow you to put any limit to it and fills it with things as wild as an ant ruling the world.

It cannot be called an incident, but the feeling that prompted me to get hold of a pen and a random notebook is this. I was reading about the inscriptions of the Gupta king Samudragupta. There it was described how he was chosen as the heir by his father, how some three or four jealous princes conspired against him and how he, showing his famous valour, defeated them easily in a single battle. I usually have the habit of seeing all the scenes in my mind that I read of. As a student of history I have read a number of such stories, in fact it is one of the commonest occurrences in any dynastic history. But the effect of this scene was a little enhanced because of the silence of the very wet night outside (as it has rained really hard today). So, I could see unseen people, feel the events I could never go through personally and feel as if I was in that era. All these are the outcomes of the emptiness.

At the same time silence can constrict your world and limit it to yourself only. It can take you so deep into yourself that you would just not be able to do anything but get pulled into the whirlpool and wonder, looking at the depth of your own heart and soul. [In fact I am really tempted to coin a much stronger word than ‘wonder’, but I wonder whether I can reach that stage ever.] You would just go on and on unfolding many hidden folders within you and leave yourself in a state where you would just feel, “Am I really that complicated!?” Sometimes perhaps, this silence may show you a wider world within you than it had shown outside you. Silence shouts at its loudest only when you are willing to listen to it. It is your inner self that makes the silence its mouthpiece. Have you ever considered how silence gets heavy on the ears, but, generally, noise does not? Perhaps, this is also an indication for us to realise that the words of silence have a lot of weight. Almost every moment that I spend alone, comes out either with some new revelation or some new confusion about myself.

After my numerous encounters with this silence, I cannot help saying that it is the loudest sound the eardrums of my heart and mind have ever heard. And yet, no damage has been reported; rather many repairs have been successfully done. And, I feel, some of my readers will agree. But, what is this silence? Is it internal or external? In my understanding, it is basically the inner tranquility combined very harmoniously with the outer quietude. If there is too much noise outside, a common person like me will find it hard to realise that the silence is already there, in her heart, waiting to get the recognition it deserves.

There is nothing called ‘absolute silence’. If nothing else, the sound of a tranquil night will surely disturb it. But, believe me, there is nothing better than that disturbance.