डायरी के पुराने पन्नों से

A love ballad


While standing on the terrace
When I watch the sky tonight,
I wish to be a star today.
A star, that twinkles
and watches
Thousands of people
Coming and going away.
And suddenly I think,
I would be able to see you then,
Forever.


Laughing, aren't you?
I know I sound crazy
If I tell you that -
Every single day
I sit kneeling down
Beaneath the sky,
Praying for you;
And the stars,
the twinkling stars
Become my guiding force.
"Every dark cloud has a silver lining,"

I hear.
But tell me O' blue sky,
Why doesn't the murky sky inside me
Turn blue?
Why isn't there any silver lining?

After you went,
I haven't seen those eyes
Which would shine with my arrival.
I haven't seen any gloriole face,
Which would brighten up with my name.
Why did you go then?
With a gloomy world left behind?
I have only your memories,
Treasured secretly in a small bag
Beneath my bed,
And your faith
Treasured secretly in my palpitating heart.

How do I forget that day,
The day when time suspended forever,
The day when my heart left its dwelling place
And the mist disappeared
When you promised -
"We will meet here again,
One day, when I become a success".
And I couldn't sleep for nights,
My sleep stolen by my own dreams,
And I stayed awake with the niceness of it.

I remember your eyes often,
Watching me with a secret silence of something.
The memories of the past will fade,
But I will cherish that 'something' forever.

Will you believe,
Many times
When others slept,
I crept away
Down to the darkness of the sitting room,
Because I wanted peace for a while.
I roamed in the lawn in the dark night,
Thinking of that 'something'.
'A thirsty fish in the ocean'.
The spirit of moonlight became my friend then,
Which took me to a calm, yet throbbing world,
Teaching me the value of stillness,
The value of unspoken, inxplicable expressions.
My first tutor, friend of the lonely!

Then I came to know
Why I was always alone.
Maa said,
"You always give away more than you own,
And so you are always a failure".
But Maa,
A man who fails well is better
than the one who succeeds badly.

When I look back to those days
My isolation acquires a certain glow,
With a contentment that I never left you alone.
Do you feel me to be special?
I want you to know that
I will always be there,
Just a call away.
Even when we never meet again.
Never in our lives.
And no,
I will never say good bye.

(17th June, 1995)