So long as you travel towards a goal, you can hold on to a dream; the moment you stop, you face reality.

If the setting sun does not rise? The basis of our well-laid system of seconds, minutes, hours, will shake. Times change; Time does not. It is still as it is - free, unconquerable, and uncontrollable. I feel I am assuming certain things here. But can life sustain without such assumptions? Before putting a foot forward, I need to assume the solidity of the earth below, I need to have faith in it. The world’s volatility would freeze without the assumption. I am surely assuming certain things here, but am I overlooking them? I am not overlooking them, but perhaps they are getting overlooked.

It is better to have a constantly blabbering, quarrelling woman as my companion - but one who submits herself without any desires, any expectations - how can I reconcile this with my self?

I will be leaving this place and you will not be there. My eyes will search the whole place to catch a glimpse of you. But then it is not your fault, I had not informed. But still, I feel there might be certain telepathic signals that will bring you to the station. If not for me, you would at least come to see someone else off. Though from far, I might catch a glimpse of you; a gentle wind will bring your fragrance. I would even peep into the house where you live, hoping to catch a glimpse of you as you get ready to leave. But I would see your closed door and an open window and wave to it. My beggarly wishes that can never materialise.

And then the station. After the last hope is unfulfilled, the train would leave with a final jerk - new stations, new journeys would call this traveller and he would be tempted to sing “Chalat musafir moh liya re pinjrewali muniya”. I had not told you and no divine telepathy existed between us. But then I did not tell you, as I have no right to attach your dreams to mine.

It is said that by walking together distances reduce. But what happens then? We come at crossroads. Here words are meaningless and actions loud. The experimenting with an attitude of searching for support and at the same time lending support is extremely feminine. This attitude encompasses the gamut of existence in a benevolent binding. Feminism is not a creative principle but the entire feminine self is a path towards a goal.

When such an evening as today’s; that joins my inner despair with an external sorrow; ends, I struggle like a wounded animal. The evening lights start diminishing and none of the evening ‘ragas’ enlighten them up. All my inner passions run havoc. But then I have certain ways to restore my sanity - methods of seeking joy. The search is for a point joining oscillations of joy and sorrow with my creative existence. That is what I call faith. At such times, I imagine myself like a lonely bird sitting on the dome of an old dilapidated mosque - trying to reach an undefined goal in the fog of despair. The sweet memories of this unnamed relationship then trickle down from my forehead. They roll down from my forehead to my eyes and then roll down my cheeks, right up to my heart - like rain water falling on the thirsty soil, LIKE A SHEET OF FROST FLAKING OFF LAYER BY LAYER, like moonlight falling on the feet of HIS idol through a decorated church window. Or as Rilke says -

“The leaves are falling, falling as from far as though above were withering farthest gardens.”

I read a poem recently

You destroy my mask - in bits and pieces. You can see through it. Don’t feel bad. I accept it and enthral in it. Somewhere I am searching for my true self. I smell my half-lame body with the half-good one and struggle to convert this into something better. You trouble me at each moment, like any unanswered question troubles me. And I try to search some sane feeling in it.

“I understand what you mean when you say when you talk about cutting out people form your life---I cant help you with whether that’s good or bad; right or wrong” and “people are at their best when they are just ‘themselves’ ” Sentences, accompanied with two tears in my vacant eyes. You said them with an understanding compassion of life in your thought. My Dear, it numbed me and destroyed the mask. How could you so inadvertently pluck that well-guarded beautiful song from my heart and place it on my outstretched palms? Now, I have no secrets from you and I stand naked to the heart - here before you.

I cannot offer you anything. But during my travel, I wish I could once rest in your lap in my small room on the first floor - a small window facing us as you sit in my favourite chair. Your fingers trying to find ways through my hair and with each caress, you will strengthen me to carry the load of the day.

You might sing to me

I might just have given up “Raat dekho kitni hain kaali” but you would still encourage with a “Abhi chand nikal aayega”

I will have but your memories. How do I continue with these? The corner of my heart, this very secluded corner, has been carefully kept so as to allow your feet to touch it and fill it with your fragrance. All the birds lying here have flown off and your feet falling in this corner becomes a diminishing probability. I cannot complain, but I cannot control myself. I cannot refuse my solitude; neither can I wholly accept it. My life has no fence, yet no freedom. Just because I take the sky on my shoulder, I cannot expect the birds too, to sit on it.

Though then, my whole self bows down at your thought process and a thought provoking process; I cannot overlook the physical manifestation. A thing so beautiful that I fail to reason or justify. You are like a flower that protects the honeybee, which sucks off its nectar. But sometimes, I feel you wrong yourself and my admiring respect (or is it respectful admiration?)

A platonic relationship can have a physical desire. Creative dreams are exclusively subtle, like the tender whims of air on water; but their dead bodies are heavier than mountains. I feel you are the physical manifestation of my creative abilities. “Hum hai kavi, kavita ho tum”. In the metaphysical form of poetry, I hold you very near to my heart. I feel my blood cells arranged as pyramids and the crescendo is reached at the highest point of the peak. I can create things and experiences and arrange them aesthetically; but its inclusion in the readable form lends a physical desire of the platonic relation I share with my poetry.

The light required to understand each other is sometimes like a flash of lightning. The lightning strikes for a moment, but everything is clarified in that momentary flash. Can a single embrace lend words to poetry? No. When poetry tries to decorate itself, it peels off the finer skin of embrace and then seeks for that momentary flash. Then the embrace loosens and with it loosens up all the pressures and all the bones so much so that the bones cause friction - deep inside - lending warmth to the poettry.

My life vibrates as I write this and even my eyelids can feel it - from deep within - that same despair. Principles of feeling caught in a mesh of creativity, suffering thus! These principles are stronger than I expect. However, when they reach their goal, they become indifferent to the journey - to the efforts required in finding an outlet through the web of creativity. During this cycle at no point do their cries reach the starting points, when one could probably stop the process.

What else can a person achieve by such strong feelings?

They shout against my wishes and convey to you, “My Love, I might kill you, but I will never trample upon you. Love never makes a man perfect, only the creative man who is always roaming behind perfection, accepts feminine love as the final guarantee of his own perfection. Can you then, my dear, understand what a person suffers living only with a license of creativity?”

Your compassion could enlighten these ideas of mine. I wish for it, and can’t help liking you if you do so!